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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30717-0.txt b/30717-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..16cf1a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/30717-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7107 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, East Anglia, by J. Ewing Ritchie + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: East Anglia + Personal Recollections and Historical Associations + + +Author: J. Ewing Ritchie + + + +Release Date: December 20, 2009 [eBook #30717] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST ANGLIA*** + + +Transcribed from the 1893 Jarrold & Sons edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + +_PRESS NOTICES OF THE FIRST EDITION_. + + + ‘We cordially recommend Mr. Ritchie’s book to all who wish to pass an + agreeable hour and to learn something of the outward actions and + inner life of their predecessors. It is full of sketches of East + Anglian celebrities, happily touched if lightly limned.’—_East + Anglian Daily Times_. + + ‘A very entertaining and enjoyable book. Local gossip, a wide range + of reading and industrious research, have enabled the author to + enliven his pages with a wide diversity of subjects, specially + attractive to East Anglians, but also of much general + interest.’—_Daily Chronicle_. + + ‘The work is written in a light gossipy style, and by reason both of + it and of the variety of persons introduced is interesting. To a + Suffolk or Norfolk man it is, of course, especially attractive. The + reader will go through these pages without being wearied by + application. They form a pleasant and entertaining contribution to + county literature, and “East Anglia” will, we should think, find its + way to many of the east country bookshelves.’—_Suffolk Chronicle_. + + ‘The book is as readable and attractive a volume of local chronicles + as could be desired. Though all of our readers may not see “eye to + eye” with Mr. Ritchie, in regard to political and theological + questions, they cannot fail to gain much enjoyment from his excellent + delineation of old days in East Anglia.’—_Norwich Mercury_. + + ‘“East Anglia” has the merit of not being a compilation, which is + more than can be said of the great majority of books produced in + these days to satisfy the revived taste for topographical gossip. + Mr. Ritchie is a Suffolk man—the son of a Nonconformist minister of + Wrentham in that county—and he looks back to the old neighbourhood + and the old times with an affection which is likely to communicate + itself to its readers. Altogether we can with confidence recommend + this book not only to East Anglians, but to all readers who have any + affinity for works of its class.’—_Daily News_. + + ‘Mr. Ritchie’s book belongs to a class of which we have none too + many, for when well done they illustrate contemporary history in a + really charming manner. What with their past grandeur, their present + progress, their martyrs, patriots, and authors, there is plenty to + tell concerning Eastern counties: and one who writes with native + enthusiasm is sure to command an audience.’—_Baptist_. + + ‘Mr. Ritchie, known to the numerous readers of the _Christian World_ + as “Christopher Crayon,” has the pen of a ready, racy, refreshing + writer. He never writes a dull line, and never for a moment allows + our interest to flag. In the work before us, which is not his first, + he is, I should think, at his best. The volume is the outcome of + extensive reading, many rambles over the districts described, and of + thoughtful observation. We seem to live and move and have our being + in East Anglia. Its folk-lore, its traditions, its worthies, its + memorable events, are all vividly and charmingly placed before us, + and we close the book sorry that there is no more of it, and + wondering why it is that works of a similar kind have not more + frequently appeared.’—_Northern Pioneer_. + + ‘It has yielded us more gratification than any work that we have read + for a considerable time. The book ought to have a wide circulation + in the Eastern counties, and will not fail to yield profit and + delight wherever it finds its way.’—_Essex Telegraph_. + + ‘Mr. Ritchie has here written a most attractive chapter of + autobiography. He recalls the scenes of his early days, and whatever + was quaint or striking in connection with them, and finds in his + recollections ready pegs on which to hang historical incident and + antiquarian curiosities of many kinds. He passes from point to point + in a delightfully cheerful and contagious mood. Mr. Ritchie’s + reading has been as extensive and careful as his observation is keen + and his temper genial; and his pages, which appeared in _The + Christian World Magazine_, well deserve the honour of book-form, with + the additions he has been able to make to them.’—_British Quarterly + Review_. + + * * * * * + + + + + + EAST ANGLIA. + + + _PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS_ + AND + _HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS_. + + * * * * * + + BY + J. EWING RITCHIE. + + * * * * * + + ‘Behold, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem.’ + + MATTHEW. + + * * * * * + + _SECOND EDITION_, + REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED. + + * * * * * + + LONDON: + JARROLD & SONS, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C. + 1893. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. + + +The chapters of which this little work consists originally appeared in +the _Christian World Magazine_, where they were so fortunate as to +attract favourable notice, and from which they are now reprinted, with a +few slight additions, by permission of the Editor. In bringing out a +second edition, I have incorporated the substance of other articles +originally written for local journals. It is to be hoped, touching as +they do a theme not easily exhausted, but always interesting to East +Anglians, that they may help to sustain that love of one’s county which, +alas! like the love of country, is a matter reckoned to be of little +importance in these cosmopolitan days, but which, nevertheless, has had +not a little share in the formation of that national greatness and glory +in which at all times Englishmen believe. + +One word more. I have retained some strictures on the clergy of East +Anglia, partly because they were true at the time to which I refer, and +partly because it gives me pleasure to own that they are not so now. The +Church of England clergyman of to-day is an immense improvement on that +of my youth. In ability, in devotion to the duties of his calling, in +intelligence, in self-denial, in zeal, he is equal to the clergy of any +other denomination. If he has lost his hold upon Hodge, that, at any +rate, is not his fault. + +CLACTON-ON-SEA, + _January_, 1893. + + + CONTENTS. + CHAPTER I. + + A SUFFOLK VILLAGE. +Distinguished people born there—Its Puritans and 1 +Nonconformists—The country round Covehithe—Southwold—Suffolk +dialect—The Great Eastern Railway + CHAPTER II. + + THE STRICKLANDS. +Reydon Hall—The clergy—Pakefield—Social life in a village 37 + CHAPTER III. + + LOWESTOFT. +Yarmouth bloaters—George Borrow—The town fifty years ago—The 54 +distinguished natives + CHAPTER IV. + + POLITICS AND THEOLOGY. +Homerton academy—W. Johnson Fox, M.P.—Politics in 89 +1830—Anti-Corn Law speeches—Wonderful oratory + CHAPTER V. + + BUNGAY AND ITS PEOPLE. +Bungay Nonconformity—Hannah More—The Childses—The Queen’s 122 +Librarian—Prince Albert + CHAPTER VI. + + A CELEBRATED NORFOLK TOWN. +Great Yarmouth Nonconformists—Intellectual life—Dawson 153 +Turner—Astley Cooper—Hudson Gurney—Mrs. Bendish + CHAPTER VII. + + THE NORFOLK CAPITAL. +Brigg’s Lane—The carrier’s cart—Reform demonstration—The old 185 +dragon—Chairing M.P.’s—Hornbutton Jack—Norwich artists and +literati—Quakers and Nonconformists + CHAPTER VIII. + + THE SUFFOLK CAPITAL. +The Orwell—The Sparrows—Ipswich 226 +notabilities—Gainsborough—Medical men—Nonconformists + CHAPTER IX. + + AN OLD-FASHIONED TOWN. +Woodbridge and the country round—Bernard Barton—Dr. 252 +Lankester—An old Noncon. + CHAPTER X. + + MILTON’S SUFFOLK SCHOOLMASTER. +Stowmarket—The Rev. Thomas Young—Bishop Hall and the 283 +Smectymnian divines—Milton’s mulberry-tree—Suffolk +relationships + CHAPTER XI. + + IN CONSTABLE’S COUNTY. +East Bergholt—The Valley of the Stour—Painting from 311 +nature—East Anglian girls + CHAPTER XII. + + EAST ANGLIAN WORTHIES. +Suffolk cheese—Danes, Saxons, and Normans—Philosophers and 320 +statesmen—Artists and literati + + +CHAPTER I. +A SUFFOLK VILLAGE. + + +Distinguished people born there—Its Puritans and Nonconformists—The +country round Covehithe—Southwold—Suffolk dialect—The Great Eastern +Railway. + +In his published Memoirs, the great Metternich observes that if he had +never been born he never could have loved or hated. Following so +illustrious a precedent, I may observe that if I had not been born in +East Anglia I never could have been an East Anglian. Whether I should +have been wiser or better off had I been born elsewhere, is an +interesting question, which, however, it is to be hoped the public will +forgive me if I decline to discuss on the present occasion. + +In a paper bearing the date of 1667, a Samuel Baker, of Wattisfield Hall, +writes: ‘I was born at a village called Wrentham, which place I cannot +pass by the mention of without saying thus much, that religion has there +flourished longer, and that in much piety; the Gospel and grace of it +have been more powerfully and clearly preached, and more generally +received; the professors of it have been more sound in the matter and +open and steadfast in the profession of it in an hour of temptation, have +manifested a greater oneness amongst themselves and have been more +eminently preserved from enemies without (albeit they dwell where Satan’s +seat is encompassed with his malice and rage), than I think in any +village of the like capacity in England; which I speak as my duty to the +place, but to my particular shame rather than otherwise, that such a dry +and barren plant should spring out of such a soil.’ I resemble this +worthy Mr. Baker in two respects. In the first place, I was born at +Wrentham, though at a considerably later period of time than 1667; and, +secondly, if he was a barren plant—he of whom we read, in Harmer’s +Miscellaneous Works, that ‘he was a gentleman of fortune and education, +very zealous for the Congregational plan of church government and +discipline, and a sufferer in its bonds for a good conscience’—what am I? + +Nor was it only piety that existed in this distant parish. If the reader +turns to the diary of John Evelyn, under the date of 1679, he will find +mention made of a child brought up to London, ‘son of one Mr. Wotton, +formerly amanuensis to Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winton, who both read and +perfectly understood Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic and Syriac, and most of +the modern languages, disputed in divinity, law and all the sciences, was +skilful in history, both ecclesiastical and profane; in a word, so +universally and solidly learned at eleven years of age that he was looked +on as a miracle. Dr. Lloyd, one of the most deep-learned divines of this +nation in all sorts of literature, with Dr. Burnet, who had severely +examined him, came away astonished, and told me they did not believe +there had the like appeared in the world. He had only been instructed by +his father, who being himself a learned person, confessed that his son +knew all that he himself knew. But what was more admirable than his vast +memory was his judgment and invention, he being tried with divers hard +questions which required maturity of thought and experience. He was also +dexterous in chronology, antiquities, mathematics. In sum, an +_intellectus universalis_ beyond all that we reade of Picus Mirandula, +and other precoce witts, and yet withal a very humble child.’ This +prodigy was the son of the Rev. Henry Wotton, minister of Wrentham, +Suffolk. Sir William Skippon, a parishioner, in a letter yet extant, +describes the wonderful achievements of the little fellow when but five +years old. He was admitted at Katherine Hall, Cambridge, some months +before he was ten years old. In after-years he was the friend and +defender of Bentley and the antagonist of Sir William Temple in the great +controversy about ancient and modern learning. He died in 1726, and was +buried at Buxted, in Sussex. It is clear that there was no such +intellectual phenomenon in all London under the Stuarts as that little +Wrentham lad. + +Of that village, when I came into the world, my father was the honoured, +laborious and successful minister. The meeting-house, as it was called, +which stood in the lane leading from the church to the highroad, was a +square red brick building, vastly superior to any of the ancient +meeting-houses round. It stood in an enclosure, one side of which was +devoted to the reception of the farmers’ gigs, which, on a Sunday +afternoon, when the principal service was held, made quite a respectable +show when drawn up in a line. By the side of it was a cottage, in which +lived the woman who kept the place tidy, and her husband, who looked +after the horses as they were unharnessed and put in the stable close by. +The backs of the gigs were sheltered from the road by a hedge of lilacs, +and over the gateway a gigantic elm kept watch and ward. The house in +which we lived was also part of the chapel estate, and, if it was a +little way off, it was, at any rate, adapted to the wants of a family of +quiet habits and simple tastes. On one side of the house was a +water-butt, and I can well remember my first sad experience of the +wickedness of the world when, getting up one morning to look after my +rabbits and other live stock, I found that water-butt had gone, and that +there were thieves in a village so rural and renowned for piety as ours. +I say renowned, and not without reason. Years and years back there was a +pious clergyman of the name of Steffe, who had a son in Dr. Doddridge’s +Academy, at Daventry, and it is a fact that the great Doctor himself, at +some time or other, had been a guest in the village. + +In 1741 the Doctor thus records his East Anglian recollections, in a +letter to his wife: ‘You have great reason to confide in that very kind +Providence which has hitherto watched over us, and has, since the date of +my last, brought us about sixty miles nearer London. From Yarmouth we +went on Friday morning to Wrentham, where good Mrs. Steffe lives, and +from thence to a gentleman’s seat, near Walpole, where I was most +respectfully entertained. As I had twenty miles to ride yesterday +morning, he, though I had never seen him before last Tuesday, brought me +almost half-way in his chaise, to make the journey easier. I reached +Woodbridge before two, and rode better in the cool of the evening, and +had the happiness to be entertained in a very elegant and friendly +family, though perfectly a stranger; and, indeed, I have been escorted +from one place to another in every mile of my journey by one, and +sometimes by two or three, of my brethren in a most respectful and +agreeable manner.’ Dr. Doddridge’s East Anglian recollections seem to +have been uncommonly agreeable, owing quite as much, I must candidly +confess, to the presence of the sisters as of the brethren. Writing to +his wife an account of a little trip on the river, he adds: ‘It was a +very pleasant day, and I concluded it in the company of one of the finest +women I ever beheld, who, though she had seven children grown up to +marriageable years, or very near it, is still herself almost a beauty, +and a person of sense, good breeding, and piety, which might astonish one +who had not the happiness of being intimately acquainted with you.’ What +a sly rogue was Dr. Doddridge! How could any wife be jealous when her +husband finishes off with such a compliment to herself? + +But to return to the good Mrs. Steffe, of whom I am, on my mother’s side, +a descendant. I must add that as there were great men before Agamemnon, +so there were good people in the little village of Wrentham before Mrs. +Steffe appeared upon the scene. The Brewsters, who were an ancient +family, which seems to have culminated under the glorious usurpation of +Oliver Cromwell, were eminently good people in Dr. Doddridge’s +acceptation of the term, and I fancy did much as lords of the manor—and +as inhabitants of Wrentham Hall, a building which had ceased to exist +long before my time—to leaven with their goodness the surrounding lump. +It seems to me that these Brewsters must have been more or less connected +with Brewster the elder—of Robinson’s Church at Leyden, who, we are told, +came of a wealthy and distinguished family—who was well trained at +Cambridge, and, says the historian, ‘thence, being first seasoned with +the seeds of grace and virtue, he went to the Court, and there served +that religious and godly Mr. Davison divers years, when he was Secretary +of State, who found him so discreet and faithful as he trusted him, above +all others that were about him, and only employed him in matters of great +trust and secrecy; he esteemed him rather as a son than a servant, and +for his wisdom and godliness in private, he would converse with him more +like a familiar than a master.’ When evil times came, this Brewster was +living in the big Manor House at Scrooby, and how he and his godly +associates were driven into exile by a foolish King and cruel priests is +known, or ought to be known, to everyone. Of these Wrentham Brewsters, +one served his country in Parliament, or I am very much mistaken. It was +to their credit that they sought out godly men, to whom they might +entrust the cure of souls. In this respect, when I was a lad, their +example certainly had not been followed, and Dissent flourished mainly +because the moral instincts of the villagers and farmers and small +tradesmen were shocked by hearing men on the Sunday reading the Lessons +of the Church, leading the devotions of the people, and preaching +sermons, who on the week-days got drunk and led immoral lives. As to the +right of the State to interfere in matters of religion, as to the danger +to religion itself from the establishment of a State Church, as to the +liberty of unlicensed prophesying, such topics the simple villagers +ignored. All that they felt was that there came to them more of a +quickening of the spiritual life, a fuller realization of God and things +divine, in the meeting-house than in the parish church. They were not +what pious Churchmen so much dread nowadays—Political Dissenters; how +could they be such, having no votes, and never seeing a newspaper from +one year’s end to the other? + +It was to the Brewsters that the village was indebted for the ministry of +the Rev. John Phillip, who married the sister of the pious and learned +Dr. Ames, Professor of the University of Franeker. Calamy tells us that +by means of Dr. Ames, Mr. Phillip had no small furtherance in his +studies, and intimate acquaintance with him increased his inclination to +the Congregational way. Archbishop Abbot, writing to Winwood, 1611, +says: ‘I have written to Sir Horace Vere touching the English preacher at +the Hague. We heard what he was that preceded, and we cannot be less +cognisant what Mr. Ames is, for by a Latin printed book he hath laden the +Church and State of England with a great deal of infamous contumely, so +that if he were amongst us he would be so far from receiving preferment, +that some exemplary punishment would be his reward. His Majesty had been +advertised how this man is entertained and embraced at the Hague, and how +he is a fit person to breed up captains and soldiers there in mutiny and +faction.’ One of Dr. Ames’s works, which got him into trouble, was +entitled ‘A Fresh Suit against Ceremonies,’ a work which we may be sure +would be as distasteful to the Ritualists of our day as it was to the +Ritualists of his own. One of his works, his ‘Medulla Theologiæ,’ I +believe, adorned the walls of the paternal study. There is, belonging to +the Wrentham Congregational Church Library, a volume of tracts, +sixty-seven in number, of six or eight pages each, printed in 1622, +forming a series of theses on theological topics, maintained by different +persons, under the presidency of Dr. Ames; and I believe a son of the +Doctor is buried in Wrentham Churchyard, as I recollect my father, on one +occasion, had an old gravestone done up and relettered, which bore +testimony to the virtues and piety and learning of an Ames. Thus if Mr. +Phillip was chased out of Old England into New England for his +Nonconformity, some of the good old Noncons remained to uphold the lamp +which was one day to cast a sacred light on all quarters of the land. +That some did emigrate with their pastor is probable, since we learn that +there is a town called Wrentham across the Atlantic, said to have +received that name because some of the first settlers came from Wrentham +in England. + +Touching Mr. Phillip, a good deal has been written by the Rev. John +Browne, the painstaking author of ‘The History of Congregationalism in +Suffolk and Norfolk.’ It appears that his arrival in America was not +unexpected, as the Christian people of Dedham had invited him to that +plantation beforehand. He did not, however, accept their invitation, but +being much in request, ‘and called divers ways, could not resolve; but, +at length, upon weighty reasons concerning the public service and +foundations of the college, he was persuaded to attend to the call of +Cambridge;’ and, adds an American writer, ‘he might have been the first +head of that blessed institution.’ On the calling of the Long +Parliament, he and his wife returned to England, and in 1642 we find him +ministering to his old flock. So satisfied were the neighbouring +Independents of his Congregationalism, that when, in 1644, members of Mr. +Bridge’s church residing in Norwich desired to form themselves into a +separate community, they not only consulted with their brethren in +Yarmouth, but with Mr. Phillip also, as the only man then in their +neighbourhood on whose judgment and experience they could rely. In 1643 +Mr. Phillip was appointed one of the members of the Assembly of Divines, +and was recognised by Baillie in his Letters as one of the Independent +men there. The Independents, as we know, sat apart, and were a sad thorn +in the Presbyterians’ side. Five of them, more zealous than the rest, +formally dissented from the decisions of the Assembly, and afraid that +toleration would not be extended to them, appealed to Parliament, ‘as the +most sacred refuge and asylum for mistaken and misjudged innocence.’ Mr. +Phillip’s name, however, I do not find in that list; and possibly he was +too old to be very active in the matter. He lived on till 1660, when he +died at the good old age of seventy-eight. In the later years of his +ministry he was assisted by his nephew, W. Ames, who in 1651 preached a +sermon at St. Paul’s, before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, ‘On the Saint’s +Security against Seducing Sports, or the Anointing from the Holy One.’ +It is to be feared, in our more enlightened age, a good Wrentham +Congregational minister would have little chance of preaching before a +London Lord Mayor. Talent is supposed to exist only in the crowded town, +where men have no time to think of anything but of the art of getting on. + +Other heroic associations—of men who had suffered for the faith, who +feared God rather than man, who preferred the peace of an approving +conscience to the vain honours of the world—also were connected with the +place. I remember being shown a bush in which the conventicle preacher +used to hide himself when the enemy, in the shape of the myrmidons of +Bishop Wren, of Norwich, were at his heels. That furious prelate, as +many of us know, drove upwards of three thousand persons to seek their +bread in a foreign land. Indeed, to such an extent did he carry out his +persecuting system, that the trade and manufactures of the country +materially suffered in consequence. However, in my boyish days I was not +troubled much about such things. Dissent in Wrentham was quite +respectable. If we had lost the Brewster family, whose arms were still +to be seen on the Communion plate, a neighbouring squire attended at the +meeting-house, as it was then the fashion to call our chapel, and so did +the leading grocer and draper of the place, and the village doctor, the +father of six comely daughters; and the display of gigs on a Sunday was +really imposing. Alas! as I grew older I saw that imposing array not a +little shorn of its splendour. The neighbouring baronet, Sir Thomas +Gooch, M.P., added as he could farm to farm, and that a Dissenter was on +no account to have one of his farms was pretty well understood. I fancy +our great landlords have, in many parts of East Anglia, pretty well +exterminated Dissent, to the real injury of the people all around. I +write this advisedly. I dare say the preaching in the meeting-house was +often very miserably poor. The service, I must own, seemed to me often +peculiarly long and unattractive. There was always that long prayer +which was, I fear, to all boys a time of utter weariness; but, +nevertheless, there was a moral and intellectual life in our Dissenting +circle that did not exist elsewhere. It was true we never attended +dinners at the village public-house, nor indulged in card-parties, and +regarded with a horror, which I have come to think unwholesome, the +frivolity of balls or the attractions of a theatre; but we had all the +new books voted into our bookclub, and, as a lad, I can well remember how +I revelled in the back numbers of the _Edinburgh Review_, though even +then I could not but feel the injustice which it did to what it called +the Lake school of poets, and more especially to Coleridge and +Wordsworth. Shakespeare also was almost a sealed book, and perhaps we +had a little too much of religious reading, such as Doddridge’s ‘Rise and +Progress,’ or Baxter’s ‘Saint’s Rest,’ or Alleine’s ‘Call to the +Unconverted,’ or Fleetwood’s ‘Life of Christ’—excellent books in their +way, undoubtedly, but not remarkably attractive to boys redolent of +animal life, who had thriven and grown fat in that rustic village, on +whose vivid senses the world that now is produced far more effect than +the terrors or splendours of the world to come. + +The country round, if flat, was full of interesting associations. At the +back of us—that is, on the sea—was the village of Covehithe, and when a +visitor found his way into the place—an event which happened now and +then—our first excursion with him or her—for plenty of donkeys were to be +had which ladies could ride—was to Covehithe, known to literary men as +the birthplace of John Bale, Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland. In connection +with donkeys, I have this interesting recollection, that one of the old +men of the village told me. At the time of the Bristol riots, he +remembered Sir Charles Wetherall, the occasion of them, as a boy at +Wrentham much given to donkey-riding. In the history of the drama John +Bale takes distinguished rank. He was one of those by whom the drama was +gradually evolved, and all to whom it is a study and delight must +remember him with regard. His play of ‘Kynge John’ is described by Mr. +Collier as occupying an intermediate place between moralities and +historical plays—and it is the only known existing specimen of that +species of composition of so early a date. Bale, who was trained at the +monastery of White Friars, in Norwich, thence went to Jesus College, +Cambridge, and was expelled in consequence of the zeal with which he +exposed the errors of Popery. However, Bale had a friend and protector +in Cromwell, Henry VIII.’s faithful servant. On the death of that +nobleman Bale proceeded to Germany, where he appears to have been well +received and hospitably entertained by Luther and Melancthon, and on the +accession of Edward VI. he returned to England. In Mary’s reign +persecution recommenced, and Bale fled to Frankfort. He again returned +at the commencement of Elizabeth’s reign, and was made prebend of +Canterbury, at which place he died at the age of sixty-three. Covehithe +nowadays is not interesting so much as the birthplace of Bale, as on +account of its ecclesiastical ruins, which are covered with ivy and +venerable in their decay. The church was evidently almost a cathedral, +and surely at one time or other there must have been an enormous +population to worship in such a sanctuary; and yet all you see now is a +public-house just opposite the church, a few cottages, and a farmhouse. +A few steps farther bring you to the low cliff, and there is the sea ever +encroaching on the land in that quarter and swallowing up farmhouse and +farm. Miss Agnes Strickland, who lived at Reydon Hall—a few miles +inland—has thus sung the melancholy fate of Covehithe: + + ‘All roofless now the stately pile, + And rent the arches tall, + Through which with bright departing smile + The western sunbeams fall. + + * * * * * + + ‘Tradition’s voice forgets to tell + Whose ashes sleep below, + And Fancy here unchecked may dwell, + And bid the story flow.’ + +Ah! what was that story? How the question puzzled my young head, as I +walked in the sandy lane that led from my native village! How +insignificant looked the little church built up inside! What had become +of the crowds that at one time must have filled that ancient fane? How +was it that no trace of them remained? They had vanished in the +historical age, and yet no one could tell how or when. Nature was, then, +stronger than man. He was gone, but the stars glittered by night and the +sun shone by day, and the ivy had spread its green mantle over all. Yes! +what was man, with his pomp and glory, but dust and ashes, after all! +How I loved to go to Covehithe and climb its ruins, and dream of the +distant past! + +Here in that eastern point of England it seemed to me there was a good +deal of decay. Sometimes, on a fine summer day, we would take a boat and +sail from the pretty little town of Southwold, about four miles from +Wrentham, to Dunwich, another relic of the past. According to an old +historian, it was a city surrounded with a stone wall having brazen +gates; it had fifty-two churches, chapels, and religious houses; it also +boasted hospitals, a huge palace, a bishop’s seat, a mayor’s mansion, and +a Mint. Beyond it a forest appears to have extended some miles into what +is now the sea. One of our local Suffolk poets, James Bird (I saw him +but once, when I walked into his house, about twelve miles from Wrentham, +having run away from home at the ripe age of ten, and told him I had come +to see him, as he was a poet; and I well remember how then, much to my +chagrin, he gave me plum-pudding for dinner, and sent me to play with his +boys till a cart was found in which the prodigal was compelled to +return), wrote and published a poetical romance, called ‘Dunwich; or, a +Tale of the Splendid City;’ and Agnes Strickland also made it the subject +of her melodious verse, commencing: + + ‘Oft gazing on thy craggy brow, + We muse on glories o’er. + Fair Dunwich! Thou art lonely now, + Renowned and sought no more.’ + +Never has a splendid city more utterly collapsed. After a long ride over +sandy lanes and fields, you come to the edge of a cliff, on which stand a +few houses. There is all that remains of the Dunwich where the first +Bishop of East Anglia taught the Christian faith, and where was born John +Daye, the printer of the works of Parker, Latimer, and Fox, who, in the +reign of Mary, became, as most real men did then, a prisoner and an exile +for the truth. He has also the reputation of being the first in England +who printed in the Saxon character. In the records of type-founding the +name of Daye stands with that of the most illustrious. When the Company +of Stationers obtained their charter from Philip and Mary, he was the +first person admitted to their livery. In 1580 he was master of the +company, to which he bequeathed property at his death. The following is +the inscription which marks the place of his burial in Little Bradley, +Suffolk: + + ‘Here lyes the DAYE that darkness could not blynd, + When Popish fogges had overcast the sunne; + This DAYE the cruel night did leave behind, + To view and show what bloudie actes were donne. + He set a FOX to write how martyrs runne + By death to lyfe, FOX ventured paynes and health. + To give them light Daye spent in print his wealth, + But GOD with gayne returned his wealth agayne, + And gave to him as he gave to the poore. + Two wyfes he had partakers of his payne: + Each wyfe twelve babes, and each of them one more, + Als was the last increaser of his store; + Who, mourning long for being left alone, + Sett up this tombe, herself turned to a stone.’ + +Unlike Covehithe, Dunwich has a history. In the reign of Henry II., a +MS. in the British Museum tells us, the Earl of Leicester came to attack +it. ‘When he came neare and beheld the strength thereof, it was terror +and feare unto him to behold it; and so retired both he and his people.’ +Dunwich aided King John in his wars with the barons, and thus gained the +first charter. In the time of Edward I. it had sixteen fair ships, +twelve barks, four-and-twenty fishing barks, and at that time there were +few seaports in England that could say as much. It served the same King +in his wars with France with eleven ships of war, well furnished with men +and munition. In most of these ships were seventy-two men-at-arms, who +served thirteen weeks at their own cost and charge. Dunwich seems to +have suffered much by the French wars. Four of the eleven ships already +referred to were captured by the French, and in the wars waged by Edward +III. Dunwich lost still more shipping, and as many as 500 men. Perhaps +it might have flourished till this day had if not been for the curse of +war. But the sea also served the town cruelly. That spared nothing—not +the King’s Forest, where there were hawking and hunting—not the homes +where England nursed her hardy sailors—not even the harbour whence the +brave East Anglians sailed away to the wars. In Edward III.’s time, at +one fell swoop, the remorseless sea seems to have swallowed up ‘400 +houses which payde rente to the towne towards the fee-farms, besydes +certain shops and windmills.’ Yet, when I was a lad, this wreck of a +place returned two members to Parliament, and Birmingham, Manchester and +Sheffield not one. Between Covehithe and Dunwich stood, and still +stands, the charming little bathing-place of Southwold. Like them, it +has seen better days, and has suffered from the encroachments of the +ever-restless and ever-hungry sea. It was at Southwold that I first saw +the sea, and I remember naturally asking my father, who showed me the +guns on the gun-hill—pointing seaward—whether that was where the enemies +came from. + +Southwold appears to have initiated an evangelical alliance, which may +yet be witnessed if ever a time comes of reasonable toleration on +religious matters. In many parts of the Continent the same place of +worship is used by different religious bodies. In Brussels I have seen +the Episcopalians, the Germans, the French Protestants, all assembling at +different times in the same building. There was a time when a similar +custom prevailed in Southwold, and that was when Master Sharpen, who had +his abode at Sotterley, preached at Southwold once a month. There were +Independents in the towns in those days, and ‘his indulgence,’ writes a +local historian, ‘favoured the Separatists with the liberty and free use +of the church, where they resorted weekly, or oftener, and every fourth +Sunday both ministers met and celebrated divine service alternately. He +that entered the church first had the precedency of officiating, the +other keeping silence until the congregation received the Benediction +after sermon.’ Most of the people attended all the while. It was before +the year 1680 that these things were done. After that time there came to +the church ‘an orthodox man, who suffered many ills, and those not the +lightest, for his King and for his faith, and he compelled the +Independents not only to leave the church, but the town also. We read +they assembled in a malt-house beyond the bridge, where, being disturbed, +they chose more private places in the town until liberty of conscience +was granted, when they publicly assembled in a fish-house converted to a +place of worship.’ At that time many people in the town were Dissenters; +but it was not till 1748 that they had a church formed. Up to that time +the Southwold Independents were members of the Church at Wrentham, one of +the Articles of Association of the new church being to take the Bible as +their sole guide, and when in difficulties to resort to the neighbouring +pastor for advice and declaration. Such was Independency when it +flourished all over East Anglia. + +A writer in the _Harleian Miscellany_ says that ‘Southwold, of sea-coast +town, is the most beneficial unto his Majesty of all the towns in +England, by reason all their trade is unto Iceland for lings.’ In the +little harbour of Southwold you see nowadays only a few colliers, and I +fear that the place is of little advantage to her Majesty, however +beneficial it may be as a health-resort for some of her Majesty’s +subjects. It is a place, gentle reader, where you can wander undisturbed +at your own sweet will, and can get your cheeks fanned by breezes unknown +in London. The beach, I own, is shingly, and not to be compared with the +sands of Yarmouth and Lowestoft; but, then, you are away from the Cockney +crowds that now infest these places at the bathing season, and you are +quiet—whether you wander on its common, till you come to the Wolsey +Bridge, getting on towards Halesworth, where, if tradition be +trustworthy, Wolsey, as a butcher’s boy, was nearly drowned, and where he +benevolently caused a bridge to be erected for the safety of all future +butcher-boys and others, when he became a distinguished man; or ramble by +the seaside to Walberswick, across the harbour, or on to Easton +Bavent—another decayed village, on the other side. Southwold has its +historical associations. Most of my readers have seen the well-known +picture of Solebay Fight at Greenwich Hospital. Southwold overlooks the +bay on which that fight was won. Here, on the morning of the 28th May, +1672, De Ruyter, with his Dutchmen, sailed right against those wooden +walls which have guarded old England in many a time of danger, and found +to his cost how invincible was British pluck. James, Duke of York—not +then the drivelling idiot who lost his kingdom for a Mass, but James, +manly and high-spirited, with a Prince’s pride and a sailor’s heart—won a +victory that for many a day was a favourite theme with all honest +Englishmen, and especially with the true and stout men who, alarmed by +the roar of cannon, as the sound boomed along the blue waters of that +peaceful bay, stood on the Southwold cliff, wishing that the fog which +intercepted their view might clear off, and that they might welcome as +victors their brethren on the sea. I can remember how, when an old +cannon was dragged up from the depths of the sea, it was supposed to be, +as it might have been, used in that fight, and now is preserved at one of +the look-out houses on the cliff as a souvenir of that glorious struggle. +The details of that fight are matters of history, and I need not dwell on +them. Our literature, also, owes Southwold one of the happiest effusions +of one of the wittiest writers of that age; and in a county history I +remember well a merry song on the Duke’s late glorious success over the +Dutch, in Southwold Bay, which commences with the writer telling— + + ‘One day as I was sitting still + Upon the side of Dunwich Hill, + And looking on the ocean, + By chance I saw De Ruyter’s fleet + With Royal James’s squadron meet; + In sooth it was a noble treat + To see that brave commotion.’ + +The writer vividly paints the scene, and ends as follows: + + ‘Here’s to King Charles, and here’s to James, + And here’s to all the captains’ names, + And here’s to all the Suffolk dames, + And here’s to the house of Stuart.’ + +Well, as to the house of Stuart, the less said the better; but as to the +Suffolk dames, I agree with the poet, that they are all well worthy of +the toast, and it was at a very early period of my existence that I +became aware of that fact. But the course of true love never does run +smooth, and from none—and they were many—with whom I played on the beach +as a boy, or read poetry to at riper years, was it my fate to take one as +wife for better or worse. In the crowded city men have little time to +fall in love. Besides, they see so many fresh faces that impressions are +easily erased. It is otherwise in the quiet retirement of a village +where there is little to disturb the mind—perhaps too little. I can well +remember a striking illustration of this in the person of an old farmer, +who lived about three miles off, and at whose house we—that is, the whole +family—passed what seemed to me a very happy day among the haystacks or +harvest-fields once or twice a year. The old man was proud of his farm, +and of everything connected with it. ‘There, Master James,’ he was wont +to say to me after dinner, ‘you can see three barns all at once!’ and +sure enough, looking in the direction he pointed, there were three barns +plainly visible to the naked eye. Alas! the love of the picturesque had +not been developed in my bucolic friend, and a good barn or two—he was an +old bachelor, and, I suppose, his heart had never been softened by the +love of woman—seemed to him about as beautiful an object as you could +expect or desire. One emotion, that of fear, was, however, I found, +strongly planted in the village breast. The boys of the village, with +whom, now and then, I stole away on a birds’-nesting expedition, would +have it that in a little wood about a mile or two off there were no end +of flying serpents and dragons to be seen; and I can well remember the +awe which fell upon the place when there came a rumour of the doings of +those wretches, Burke and Hare, who were said to have made a living by +murdering victims—by placing pitch plasters on their mouths—and selling +them to the doctors to dissect. At this time a little boy had not come +home at the proper time, and the mother came to our house lamenting. The +good woman was in tears, and refused to be comforted. There had been a +stranger in the village that day; he had seen her boy, he had put a pitch +plaster on his mouth, and no doubt his dead body was then on its way to +Norwich to be sold to the doctor. Unfortunately, it turned out that the +boy was alive and well, and lived to give his poor mother a good deal of +trouble. Another thing, of which I have still a vivid recollection, was +the mischief wrought by Captain Swing. In Kent there had been an +alarming outbreak of the peasantry, ostensibly against the use of +agricultural machinery. They assembled in large bodies, and visited the +farm buildings of the principal landed proprietors, demolishing the +threshing machines then being brought into use. In some instances they +set fire to barns and corn-stacks. These outrages spread throughout the +county, and fears were entertained that they would be repeated in other +agricultural districts. A great meeting of magistrates and landed gentry +was held in Canterbury, the High Sheriff in the chair, when a reward was +offered of £100 for the discovery of the perpetrators of the senseless +mischief, and the Lords of the Treasury offered a further reward of the +same amount for their apprehension; but all was in vain to stop the +growing evil. The agricultural interest was in a very depressed state, +and the number of unemployed labourers so large, that apprehensions were +entertained that the combinations for the destruction of machinery might, +if not at once checked, take dimensions it would be very difficult for +the Government to control. When Parliament opened in 1830, the state of +the agricultural districts had been daily growing more alarming. Rioting +and incendiarism had spread from Kent to Suffolk, Norfolk, Surrey, +Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Huntingdonshire, and +Cambridgeshire, and a great deal of very valuable property had been +destroyed. A mystery enveloped these proceedings that indicated +organization, and it became suspected that they had a political object. +Threatening letters were sent to individuals signed ‘Swing,’ and beacon +fires communicated from one part of the country to the other. With the +object of checking these outrages, night patrols were established, +dragoons were kept in readiness to put down tumultuous meetings, and +magistrates and clergymen and landed gentry were all at their wits’ ends. +Even in our out-of-the-way corner of East Anglia not a little +consternation was felt. We were on the highroad nightly traversed by the +London and Yarmouth Royal Mail, and thus, more or less, we had +communications with the outer world. Just outside of our village was +Benacre Hall, the seat of Sir Thomas Gooch, one of the county members, +and I well remember the boyish awe with which I heard that a mob had set +out from Yarmouth to burn the place down. Whether the mob thought better +of it, or gave up the walk of eighteen miles as one to which they were +not equal, I am not in a position to say. All I know is, that Benacre +Hall, such as it is, remains; but I can never forget the feeling of +terror with which, on those dark and dull winter nights, I looked out of +my bedroom window to watch the lurid light flaring up into the black +clouds around, which told how wicked men were at their mad work, how +fiendish passion had triumphed, how some honest farmer was reduced to +ruin, as he saw the efforts of a life of industry consumed by the +incendiary’s fire. It was long before I ceased to shudder at the name of +‘Swing.’ + +The dialect of the village was, I need not add, East Anglian. The people +said ‘I woll’ for ‘I will’; ‘you warn’t’ for ‘you were not,’ and so on. +A girl was called a ‘mawther,’ a pitcher a ‘gotch,’ a ‘clap on the +costard’ was a knock on the head, a lad was a ‘bor.’ Names of places +especially were made free with. Wangford was ‘Wangfor,’ Covehithe was +‘Cothhigh,’ Southwold was ‘Soul,’ Lowestoft was ‘Lesteff,’ Halesworth was +‘Holser,’ London was ‘Lunun.’ People who lived in the midland counties +were spoken of as living in the shires. The ‘o,’ as in ‘bowls,’ it is +specially difficult for an East Anglian to pronounce. A learned man was +held to be a ‘man of larnin’,’ a thing of which there was not too much in +Suffolk in my young days. A lady in the village sent her son to school, +and great was the maternal pride as she called in my father to hear how +well her son could read Latin, the reading being reading alone, without +the faintest attempt at translation. Sometimes it was hard to get an +answer to a question, as when a Dissenting minister I knew was sent for +to visit a sick man. ‘My good man,’ said he, ‘what induced you to send +for me?’ ‘Hey, what?’ said the invalid. ‘What induced you to send for +me?’ Alas! the question was repeated in vain. At length the wife +interfered: ‘He wants to know what the deuce you sent for him for.’ And +then, and not till then, came an appropriate reply. This story, I +believe, has more than once found its way into _Punch_; but I heard it as +a Suffolk boy years and years before _Punch_ had come into existence. + +One of the prayers familiar to my youth was as follows: + + ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, + Bless the bed that I lie on; + Four corners to my bed, + Four angels at my head; + Two to watch and one to pray, + And one to carry my soul away.’ + +An M.P., who shall be nameless, supplies me with an apt illustration of +East Anglian dialect. It was at the anniversary of a National School, +with the great M.P. in the chair, surrounded by the benevolent ladies and +the select clergy of the district. The subject of examination was +Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on an ass’s colt. ‘Why,’ said the +M.P.—‘why did they strew rushes before the Saviour? can any of you +children tell me?’ Profound silence. The M.P. repeated the question. A +little ragamuffin held up his hand. The M.P. demanded silence as the apt +scholar proceeded with his answer. ‘Why were the rushes strewed?’ said +the M.P. in a condescending tone. I don’t know,’ replied the boy, +‘unless it was to hull the dickey down.’ + +Roars of laughter greeted the reply, as all the East Anglians present +knew that ‘hull’ meant ‘throw,’ and ‘dickey’ is Suffolk for ‘donkey,’ but +some of the Cockney visitors present were for a while quite unable to +enjoy the joke. + +It is to be feared the three R’s were not much patronized in East Anglia, +if it be true that some forty or fifty years ago, in such a respectable +town as Sudbury, it was the fashion for some fifty of the leading +inhabitants to meet in the large bar-parlour of the old White Horse to +hear the leading paper of the eastern counties read out by a scholar and +elocutionist known as John. For the discharge of this important duty he +was paid a pound a year, and provided with as much free liquor as he +liked, and there were people who considered that the Saturday +newspaper-reading did them more good than what they heard at church the +next day. + +In some cases our East Anglian dialect is merely a survival of old +English, as when we say ‘axe’ for ‘ask.’ We find in Chaucer: + + ‘It is but foly and wrong wenging + To axe so outrageous thing.’ + +In his ‘Envious Man,’ Gowing made ‘axeth’ to rhyme with ‘taxeth.’ No +word is more common in Suffolk than ‘fare’; a pony is a ‘hobby’; a thrush +is a ‘mavis’; a chest is a ‘kist’; a shovel is a ‘skuppet’; a chaffinch +is a ‘spink.’ If a man is upset in his mind, he tells us he is ‘wholly +stammed,’ and the Suffolk ‘yow’ is at least as old as Chaucer, who wrote: + + ‘What do you ye do there, quod she, + Come, and if it lyke yow + To daucen daunceth with us now.’ + +An awkward lad is ‘ungain.’ A good deal may be written to show that our +Suffolk dialect is the nearest of all provincial dialects to that of +Chaucer and the Bible, and if anyone has the audacity to contradict me, +why, then, in Suffolk phraseology, I can promise him—‘a good hiding.’ + +I am old enough to remember how placid was the county, how stay-at-home +were the people, what a sensation there was created when anyone went to +London, or any stranger appeared in our midst. From afar we heard of +railways; then we had a railway opened from London to Brentwood; then the +railways spread all over the land, and there were farmers who did think +that they had something to do with the potato disease. The change was +not a pleasant one: the turnpikes were deserted; the inns were void of +customers; no longer did the villagers hasten to see the coach change +horses, and the bugle of the guard was heard no more. For a time the +Eastern Counties Railway had a somewhat dolorous career. It was thought +to be something to be thankful for when the traveller by it reached his +journey’s end in decent time and without an accident. Now the change is +marvellous. The Great Eastern Railway stands in the foremost rank of the +lines terminating in London. It now runs roundly 20,000,000 of train +miles in the course of a year. It carries a larger number of passengers +than any other line. It carries the London working man twelve miles in +and twelve miles out for twopence a day. It is the direct means of +communication with all the North of Europe by its fine steamers from +Harwich. It has yearly an increased number of season-ticket-holders. On +a Whit Monday it gives 125,000 excursionists a happy day in the country +or by the seaside. In 1891 the number of passengers carried was +81,268,661, exclusive of season-ticket-holders. It is conspicuous now +for its punctuality and freedom from accidents. It is, in short, a model +of good management, and it also deserves credit for looking well after +the interests of its employés, of whom there are some 25,000. It +contributes to the Accident Fund, to the Provident Society, to the +Superannuation Fund, and to the Pension Fund, to which the men also +subscribe, in the most liberal manner, and besides has established a +savings bank, which returns the men who place their money in it four per +cent. It is a liberal master. It does its duty to its men, who deserve +well of the public as of the Great Eastern Railway itself; but its main +merit, after all, is that it has been the making of East Anglia. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +THE STRICKLANDS. + + +Reydon Hall—The clergy—Pakefield—Social life in a village. + +As I write I have lying before me a little book called ‘Hugh Latimer; or, +The School-boy’s Friendship,’ by Miss Strickland, author of the ‘Little +Prisoner,’ ‘Charles Grant,’ ‘Prejudice and Principle,’ ‘The Little +Quaker.’ It bears the imprint—‘London: Printed for A. R. Newman and Co., +Leadenhall Street.’ On a blank page inside I find the following: ‘James +Ewing Ritchie, with his friend Susanna’s affectionate regards.’ Susanna +was a sister of Miss Agnes Strickland, the authoress, and was as much a +writer as herself. The Stricklands were a remarkable family, living +about four or five miles from Wrentham, on the road leading from Wangford +to Southwold, at an old-fashioned residence called Reydon Hall. They +had, I fancy, seen better days, and were none the worse for that. The +Stricklands came over with William the Conqueror. One of them was the +first to land, and hence the name. A good deal of blue blood flowed in +their veins. Kate—to my eyes the fairest of the lot—was named Katherine +Parr, to denote that she was a descendant of one of the wives of the +too-much-married Henry VIII., and in the old-fashioned drawing-room of +Reydon Hall I heard not a little—they all talked at once—of what to me +was strange and rare. Mr. Strickland had deceased some years, and the +widow and the daughters kept up what little state they could; and I well +remember the feeling of surprise with which I first entered their +capacious drawing-room—a room the size of which it had never entered into +my head to conceive of. It is to the credit of these Misses Strickland +that they did not vegetate in that old house, but held a fair position in +the world of letters. Miss Strickland herself chiefly resided in town. +Agnes, the next, whose ‘Queens of England’ is still a standard book, was +more frequently at home. The only one of the family who did not write +was Sarah, who married one of the Radical Childses of Bungay, and who not +till after the death of her husband became respectable and atoned for her +sins by marrying a clergyman. Kate, as I have said, the fairest of the +whole, married an officer in the army of the name of Traill, and went out +to Canada, and wrote there a book called ‘The Backwoods of Canada,’ which +was certainly one of the most popular of the four-and-sixpenny volumes +published under the auspices of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful +and Entertaining Knowledge. Our friend was Susanna, who wrote a volume +of poems on Enthusiasm, and who seemed to me, with her dark eyes and +hair, a very enthusiastic personage indeed. The reason of her friendship +with our family was her deeply religious nature, which impelled her to +leave the cold and careless service of the Church—not a little to the +disgust of her aristocratic sisters, who, as of ancient lineage, not a +little haughty, and rank Tories, had but little sympathy with Dissent.. +Susanna was much at our house, and when away scarcely a day passed on +which she did not write some of us a letter or send us a book. Then +there was a brother Tom, a midshipman—a wonderful being to my +inexperienced eyes—who once or twice came to our house seated in the +family donkey-chaise, which seemed to me, somehow or other, not to be an +ordinary donkey-chaise, but something of a far superior character. I +have pleasant recollections of them all, and of the annuals in which they +all wrote, and a good many of which fell to my share. Like her sister, +Susanna married an officer in the army—a Major Moodie—and emigrated to +Canada, where the Stricklands have now a high position, where she had +sons and daughters born to her, and wrote more than one novel which found +acceptance in the English market. The Stricklands gave me quite a +literary turn. When I was a small boy it was really an everyday +occurrence for me to write a book or edit a newspaper, and with about as +much success as is generally achieved by bookmakers and newspaper +editors, whose merit is overlooked by an unthinking public. Let me say +in the Stricklands I found an indulgent audience. On one occasion I +remember reciting some verses of my own composition, commencing, + +‘I sing a song of ancient men, + Of warriors great and bold, +Of Hercules, a famous man, + Who lived in times of old. +He was a man of great renown, + A lion large he slew, +And to his memory games were kept, + Which now I tell to you,’ + +which they got me to repeat in their drawing-room, and which, though I +say it that should not, evinced for a boy a fair acquaintance with +‘Mangnall’s Questions’ and Pinnock’s abridgment of Goldsmith’s ‘History +of Rome.’ Happily, at that time, Niebuhr was unknown, and sceptical +criticism had not begun its deadly work. We had not to go far for truth +then. It was quite unnecessary to seek it—at any rate, so it seemed to +us—at the bottom of a well; there it was right underneath one’s +nose—before one’s very eyes in the printed pages of the printed book. + +Agnes Strickland did all she could to confer reputation on her native +county. The tall, dark, self-possessed lady from Reydon Hall was a lion +everywhere. On one occasion she visited the House of Lords, just after +she had written a violent letter against Lord Campbell, charging him with +plagiarism. Campbell tells us he had a conversation with her, which +speedily turned her into a friend. He adds: ‘I thought Brougham would +have died with envy when I told him the result of my interview, and +Ellenborough, who was sitting by, lifted his hands in admiration. +Brougham had thrown me a note across the table, saying: “So you know your +friend Miss Strickland has come to hear you.”’ Miss Strickland often +visited Alison, the historian, at Possil House. He says of her that she +had strong talents of a masculine rather than feminine +character—indefatigable perseverance, and that ardour in whatever pursuit +she engaged in without which no one could undergo similar fatigue. On +one occasion she was descanting on the noble feeling of Queen Mary, ‘That +may all be very true, Miss Strickland,’ replied the historian; ‘but +unfortunately she had an awkward habit of burning people—she brought 239 +men, women, and children to the stake in a reign which did not extend +beyond a few years!’ ‘Oh yes,’ was her reply, ‘it was terrible, +dreadful, but it was the fault of the age—the temper of the times; Mary +herself was everything that is noble and heroic.’ Such was her feminine +tendency to hero-worship. Another tendency of a feminine character was +her love of talking. ‘She did,’ instances Sir Archibald, ‘not even +require an answer or a sign of mutual intelligence; it was enough if the +one she was addressing simply remained passive. One day when I was laid +up at Possil on my library sofa from a wound in the knee, she was kind +enough to sit with me for two hours, and was really very entertaining, +from the number of anecdotes she remembered of queens in the olden time. +When she left the room she expressed herself kindly to Mrs. Alison as to +the agreeable time she had spent, and the latter said to me on coming in, +“What did you get to say to Miss Strickland all this time? She says you +were so agreeable, and she was two hours here.” “Say!” I replied with +truth; “I assure you I did not say six words to her the whole time.”’ +Agnes was a terrible one to talk—as, indeed, all the Stricklands were. +In Suffolk such accomplished conversationalists were rare. + +It must have been, now I come to think of it, a dismal old house, +suggestive of rats and dampness and mould, that Reydon Hall, with its +scantily furnished rooms and its unused attics and its empty barns and +stables, with a general air of decay all over the place, inside and out. +It had a dark, heavy roof and whitewashed walls, and was externally +anything but a showy place, standing, as it did, a little way from the +road. It must have been a difficulty with the family to keep up the +place, and the style of living was altogether plain; yet there I heard a +good deal of literary life in London, of Thomas Pringle, the poet, and +the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, whose ‘Residence in South +Africa’ is still one of the most interesting books on that quarter of the +world, and of whom Josiah Conder, one of the great men of my smaller +literary world at that time, wrote an appreciative biographical sketch. +Mr. Pringle, let me remind my readers, was the original editor of +_Blackwood’s Magazine_, a magazine which still maintains its reputation +as being the best of its class. Mr. Pringle, I believe, at some time or +other, had visited Wrentham; at any rate, the Stricklands, especially +Susanna, were among his intimate friends, and, from what I heard, I could +well believe, when, at a later period, I visited his grave in Bunhill +Fields, what I found recorded there—that ‘In the walks of British +literature he was known as a man of genius; in the domestic circle he was +loved as an affectionate relative and faithful friend; in the wide sphere +of humanity he was revered as the advocate and protector of the +oppressed,’ who ‘left among the children of the African desert a memorial +of his philanthropy, and bequeathed to his fellow-countrymen an example +of enduring virtue.’ At the home of the Pringles the Stricklands made +many literary acquaintances, such as Alaric Watts, and Mrs. S. C. Hall, +and others of whom I heard them talk. At that time, however, literature +was not, as far as women were concerned, the lucrative profession it has +since become, and I have a dim remembrance of their paintings—for in this +respect the Stricklands, like my own mother, were very accomplished—being +sold at the Soho Bazaar, a practice which helped to maintain them in the +respectability and comfort becoming their position in life. But in +London they never forgot the old home, and wrote so much about it in +their stories, that there was not a flower, or shrub, or tree, or hedge, +or mossy bank redolent in early spring of primroses and violets, to which +they had not given, to my boyish eyes, a glory and a charm. This +reference to painting reminds me of a feature of my young days, not +without interest, in connection with the name of Cunningham—a name at one +time well known in the religious world. + +The reader must be reminded that the reverend gentleman referred to was a +_rara avis_, and that between him and the neighbouring clergy there was +little sympathy—unless the common rallying cry of ‘The Church in Danger!’ +was raised as an electioneering dodge. The clergyman at Wrentham at that +time, who declared himself the appointed vessel of grace for the parish, +I have been led to believe, since I have become older, was by no means a +saint, and his brethren were notorious as evil-livers. Some twenty years +ago one of them had his effects sold off, and his library was viewed with +no little amusement by his parishioners, to many of whom, if popular fame +be an authority, he was more than a spiritual father. The library +contained only one book that could be called theological, and the title +of that wonderfully unique volume was, ‘Die and be Damned; or, An End of +the Methodists.’ All the other books were exclusively sporting, while +the pictures were such as would have been a disgrace to Holywell Street. +It was of him that the clerk said that ‘next Sunday there would be no +Divine sarvice, as maaster was going to Newmarket.’ Once upon a time +after a sermon one of his flock approached him, as he had been preaching +on miracles, to ask him to explain what a miracle really was. The +reverend gentleman gave his rustic inquirer a kick, adding, ‘Did you feel +that?’ + +‘Oh yes, sir; but what of that?’ + +‘Why,’ said the reverend gentleman, ‘if you had not felt it, it would +have been a miracle, that is all.’ Yet that man was as popular as any +parson in the district, perhaps more so, and it was with some indignation +in certain quarters that the people learned that a new Bishop had come to +Norwich, and that the parson had been deprived of his living for immoral +conduct. Of another it is said that, calling on a poor villager, dying +and full of gloomy anticipations as to the future, all he could say was, +‘Don’t be frightened; I dare say you will meet a good many people you +know.’ I have often heard old men talk of the time when they used to +take the parson home in a wheelbarrow—but that was before we had a +Sunday-school, at which I was a regular teacher. The church had a +Sunday-school, but not till after the one in the chapel had existed many +years. Of these ornaments of the Church and foes of Dissent, some had +apparently a sense of shame—one of them, at any rate, committed suicide. + +At Pakefield, some seven miles from Wrentham, and just on the borders of +Lowestoft, then, as now, the most eastern extremity of England, resided +the Rev. Francis Cunningham. He was a clergyman of piety and +philanthropy, rare at that time in that benighted district, and in this +respect he was aided by his wife, a little dark woman whom I well +remember, a sister of the far-famed John Joseph Gurney, of Earlham. It +is with pleasure I quote the following from the Journal of Caroline Fox: +‘A charming story of F. Cunningham coming in to prayers just murmuring +something about the study being on fire, and proceeding to read a long +chapter and make equally long comments thereupon. When the reading was +over, and the fact became public, he observed, “Yes, I saw it was a +little on fire, but I opened the window on leaving the room.”’ Mr. +Cunningham had much to do with establishing a branch of the British and +Foreign Bible Society in Paris in connection with the Buxtons. In this +way, but on a smaller scale, the Cunninghams were equally distinguished, +and one of the things they had established at Pakefield was an infant +school, to which I, in company with my parents—indeed, I may add, the +whole family—was taken, in order, if possible, that our little village +should possess a similar institution. But my principal pilgrimages to +the Pakefield vicarage were in connection with some mission to aid +Oberlin in his grand work amongst the mountains and valleys of +Switzerland. It appeared Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham had visited the good +man, and watched him in his career, and had come back to England to gain +for him, if possible, sympathy and friends. Mrs. Cunningham had taken +drawings of the principal objects of interest, which had been +lithographed, and these lithographs my mother, who in her way was as +great an enthusiast as Susanna Strickland herself, was very anxious to +obtain; the financial position of the family, however, forbade any +thought of purchase. But she had a wonderful gift of painting, and she +painted while we children were learning the Latin grammar, or preparing +our lessons in the Delectus, much to my terror, as I had a habit of +restlessness which, by shaking the table, not only impaired her work, but +drew down upon me not a little of reproach; and with these paintings I +was despatched on foot to Pakefield, where, in return for them, I was +given the famous lithographs, which were to be preserved for many a year +in the spare room we called the parlour—drawing-rooms at that time in +East Anglia were, I think, unknown. What a joy it was to us children +when that parlour had its fire lit, and we found out that company was +coming—partly, I must add, for sensual reasons. We knew that the best +tea-things were to be used, that unusual delicacies were to be placed +upon the table, and I must do my mother the justice to say that she could +cook as well as she could paint; but for other and higher motives, and +not as an occasion of feasting or for the disuse of the economical +pinafore which was always worn to keep our clothes clean, did we rejoice +when we found there was to be tea in the parlour. If young people were +coming, we were sure to dissect puzzles, or play some game which combined +amusement with instruction; and if the party consisted of seniors, as on +the occasion of the Book Club—almost all Dissenting congregations had +their Book Clubs then—it was a pleasure to listen to my father’s talk, +who was a well-read man, and who, being a Scotchman, had inherited his +full share of Scotch wit, which, however, was enlivened with quotations +from ‘Hudibras,’ the only poet, alas! in whom he seemed to take any +particular interest. There, in the parlour, were the fraternal meetings +attended by all the neighbouring Independent ministers, all clad in sober +black, and whose wildest exploits in rollicking debauchery were confined +to a pipe and a glass of home-made wine. Madeira, port and sherry were +unknown in ministers’ houses, though now and then one got a taste of them +at the houses of men better to do, and who, perhaps, had been as far as +London once or twice in their lives. Of these neighbouring ministers, +one of the most celebrated at that time was the Rev. Edward Walford, then +of Yarmouth, who afterwards became tutor of Homerton College, and who, +after the death of a favourite and accomplished daughter—I can still +remember the gracefulness of her person—sank into a state of profound +melancholy, which led him to shut himself from his friends, to give up +all public preaching and tutorial work, and to consider himself as +hopelessly lost. It is a curious fact that he dated his return to reason +and happiness and usefulness after a visit paid him by my father, who +happened to be in town, and who naturally was drawn to see his afflicted +friend, with whom, in the days of auld lang syne, he had smoked many a +pipe and held many an argument respecting Edwards on Freedom of the Will, +and his favourite McKnight. Mrs. Walford, who was aware of my father’s +intended visit, had thoughtfully prepared pipes and tobacco, and placed +them on the table of the room where the interview was to take place. My +father went and smoked his pipe and talked as usual, poor Mr. Walford +sitting sad and dejected, and refusing to be comforted all the while. +When my father had left—owing, I suppose, to the force of old +associations—actually the poor man approached the table, took up a pipe, +filled it with tobacco, and smoked it. From that hour, strange to say, +he recovered, wrote a translation of the Psalms, became a trustee of +Coward’s College, and took charge of a church at Uxbridge. This is ‘a +fac,’ as Artemus Ward would say, and ‘facs’ are stubborn things. Of this +Mr. Walford, the well-known publisher of that name in St. Paul’s +Churchyard was a son, and the firm of Hodder and Stoughton may be said to +carry on his business, though on a larger scale. + +Dressed in rusty black, with hats considerably the worse for wear, with +shoes not ignorant of the cobbler’s art, unconscious of and careless for +the fashions of the world, rarely in London, except on the occasion of +the May Meetings—no one can tell, except those who, like myself, were +admitted behind the scenes, as it were, how these good men lived to keep +alive the traditions of freedom, civil and religious, in districts most +under the sway of the ignorant squire and the equally ignorant parson of +the parish. If there has been a decency and charm about our country life +it is due to them, and them alone. Perhaps, more in the country than in +the crowded city is the pernicious influence felt of sons of Belial, +flushed with insolence and wine. It is difficult to give the reader an +idea of the utter animalism, if I may so term it, of rural life some +fifty years ago. For small wages these Dissenting ministers did a noble +work, in the way of preserving morals, extending education, promoting +religion, and elevating the aim and tone of |the little community in +which they lived, and moved, and had their being. At home the +difficulties of such of them as had large families were immense. The +pocket was light, and too often there was but little in the larder. But +they laboured on through good and bad report, and now they have their +reward. Perhaps one of their failings was that they kept too much the +latter end in view, and were too indifferent to present needs and +requirements. They did not try to make the best of both worlds. I can +never forget a remark addressed to me by all the good men of the class +with whom I was familiar in my childhood as to the need of getting on in +life and earning an honest penny, and becoming independent in a pecuniary +point of view. I was to be a good boy, to love the Lord, to study the +Assembly’s Catechism, to read the Bible, as if outside the village there +was no struggle into which sooner or later I should have to plunge—no +hard battle with the world to fight, no temporal victory to win. + + + + +CHAPTER III +LOWESTOFT. + + +Yarmouth bloaters—George Borrow—The town fifty years ago—The +distinguished natives. + +‘I’m a-thinking you’ll be wanting half a pint of beer by this time, won’t +you?’ + +Such were the first words I heard as I left the hotel where I was a +temporary sojourner about nine o’clock. Of course I turned to look at +the speaker. He wore an oilskin cap, with a great flap hanging over the +back of the neck; his oilskin middle was encased in a thick blue +guernsey; his trousers were hidden in heavy jack-boots, which came up +above his knees; his face was red, and his body was almost as round as +that of a porpoise. When I add that the party addressed was similarly +adorned and was of a similar build, the reader will guess at once that I +was amongst a seafaring community, and let me add that this supposition +is correct. I was, in fact, at Lowestoft, and Lowestoft just now is, +with Yarmouth, the headquarters of the herring fishery. The truth is, as +the poet tells us, ‘Things are not what they seem,’ and that many of the +Yarmouth bloaters which we are in the habit of indulging in at breakfast +in reality come from Lowestoft. + +It is worth going from London at the season of the year when the finest +bloaters are being caught, to realize the peril and the enterprise and +the industry connected with the herring trade, which employs some five +hundred boats, manned by seven to twelve men, who work the business on +the cooperative system, which, when the season is a good one, gives a +handsome remuneration to all concerned, and which drains the country of +young men for miles around. Each boat is furnished with some score of +nets, and each net extends more than thirty-two yards. The boat puts off +according to the tide, and if it gets a good haul, at once returns to the +harbour with its freight; if the catch is indifferent, the boat stays +out; the fish are salted as they are caught, and then the boat, generally +at a distance of about twenty miles from the shore, waits till a +sufficient number have been caught to complete the cargo. When that is +the case, the boat at once makes for Lowestoft, and the fish are unloaded +under a shed in heaps of about half a last (a last is professedly 10,000 +herrings, but really much more). At nine a bell rings and the various +auctioneers commence operations. A crowd is formed, and in a very few +minutes a lot is sold off to traders who are well known, and who pay at +the end of the week. The auctioneer then proceeds to the next group, +which is disposed of in a similar way. Other auctioneers in various +parts of the enormous shed erected for their accommodation do the same, +and then, as more boats arrive, other cargoes are sold, the sailors +bringing a hundred as a sample from the boat. And thus all day long the +work of selling goes on, and as soon as a lot are sold they are packed up +with ice, if fresh, or with more salt, if already salted, and despatched +by train to various quarters of England, where, it is to be presumed, +they meet with a speedy and immediate sale. In this way as many as one +hundred and ninety-eight trucks are sometimes sent off in a single day. +But in London we are familiar with the kipper, the red herring, and the +Yarmouth bloater, and to see how they are prepared for consumption I +leave the market—always wet and fishy and slippery—and make my way to the +extensive premises on the beach belonging to Mr. Thomas Brown—the only +Brown whose name is familiar to the fish-dealer in every market in +England, and the extent of whose business may be best realized by the +reader when I state that Mr. Brown sends off from his factory as many as +forty lasts a week. + +An intelligent foreman, after I have evaded the attack of a formidable +dog which keeps watch and ward over the premises, explains to me the +mystery of the trade. I find myself in the midst of a square. On one +side are a great stack of oak and many casks of old salt. The latter, I +gather, is sold to be used as manure. The former is applied to the fire, +which gently smokes the Yarmouth bloater. On one side, the herrings, as +they are received, are pickled—that is, first washed in fresh water, and +then immersed in great tubs in which the water is mixed with salt. The +next thing is to take them into a room in which several women are engaged +in spitting them—that is, hanging them on rods—and then they are carried +to the apartment where they are hung up, while oak logs are burnt +beneath. In twelve hours they are sufficiently smoked, and then you have +the real Yarmouth bloater. I am glad I have seen the process, as I have +a horrible suspicion that the costermonger manufactures many a Yarmouth +bloater in some filthy Whitechapel slum, the odour of which by no means +tends to improve the flavour of so delicate a fish. + +But we have to discuss the red-herring, not of the artful politician, +anxious to dodge his hearers, but of the breakfast-table. For this +purpose I am taken to a large oven filled with oak sawdust, gathered from +Ipswich, and oak shavings, which are also brought from a distance, +principally from Bass’s Brewery, and, indeed, from all the great works +where oak is used; I see heaps of fire made from these ashes, which give +out much heat, and at the same time much smoke. In a loft above are hung +the herrings, and there they hang twelve days, till they gradually become +of the colour of a guinea, when they are packed up and sent away in +casks, while the bloaters go away in baskets of a hundred, in pots +holding a smaller number, and in barrels in which as many as three +hundred are stowed away. As to the kippered herring, he undergoes quite +a different treatment. Some twenty or thirty women get hold of him, cut +him open, take out his gut and wash him, and then he is hung over an oak +fire and smoked for twelve hours, and thus, saturated with smoke inside +and out, is regarded in many circles as a delicacy to be highly prized. +But he must be got off the premises. Well, if we climb to a loft, we +shall see a good many young women hard at work stripping the rods, on +which he and his fellows have been suspended, and stowing the fish away. +In the autumn especially the peculiar industries connected with the trade +are very considerably exercised. All day long carts come in with the +fish; all day long carts go out with the manufactured articles to the +railway-station; day and night the men and women are at work; in one +quarter the women make and mend the nets, which are then boiled in cutch +and put on board the boats; in another quarter coopers are at work making +boxes and casks and barrels. As to the baskets, the country is ransacked +for them, and as soon as they are filled they take the train and away +they go, to give a flavour to the potato dinner of the poor man, or to +form a tasty adjunct to the dishes under which the breakfast table of his +lord and master groans. In London we get the best—the smaller herrings +go to the North, as the dwellers in those parts will not pay the price +the Londoner does. Great is the joy and rejoicing, as well can be +imagined, at Lowestoft when the herring season comes on. It is true, the +Lowestoft fishers do not have it all to themselves. Yarmouth is a fierce +rival in the race, and, as it has now superior accommodation, many a boat +makes for that far-famed port. Then, the Scotch, when they have done +their fishing, make for the English coast, and manage, as Scotchmen ever +do, to gather a fair share of the spoil. As to the foreigners, they are +not such formidable rivals as sometimes we are apt to believe. The +Frenchman or the Dutchman comes, but that is when he is blown off by a +gale from his own happy hunting-ground, and then we know, all the world +over, the cry is, ‘Any port in a storm.’ + +Oh, these storms! how terrible they are! and how little, as we eat our +Yarmouth bloater of a morning, or spread the bloater-paste as a covering +to the thin slice of bread-and-butter, to tempt the languid appetite—how +little do we who sit at home at ease realize their fury and their power! +As I now write, twenty-one orphans are bewailing the loss of fathers who +went out in a craft during the last gale, and of whom no sign has been +seen, nor ever will. Hour by hour the women, weeping and watching on the +sandy shore, saw one and another familiar boat come, more or less +buffeted, into port. On more than one a hand had been washed away, but +the craft and the rest of the crew were saved somehow. But one boat yet +remained missing, and in vain the survivors were questioned as to what +had become of the _Skimmer of the Sea_. Day by day anxious eyes swept +the distant horizon. Day by day a sadder weight came down on weeping +child and broken-hearted wife; and now all hope is gone, and all felt +that in the fury of the gale the _Skimmer of the Sea_ foundered with all +her hands. Well, as the good old Admiral said, as he and his men were +about to perish, ‘My lads, the way to heaven is as short by sea as by +land.’ But the wounded heart in the agony of its grief is slow to +realize that fact. Sailors ought to be serious men; every halfpenny they +earn is won at the risk of a life. In Lowestoft, I am glad to find, many +of them are. ‘The Salvation Army has done ’em a deal of good,’ says a +decent woman, with whom I happened to scrape an acquaintance at the most +attractive coffee-house I have ever seen—the Coffee Pot at Mutford +Bridge. ‘Not that I holds with the Salvation Army myself, sir, but +they’ve done the men a deal of good, and they don’t spend their wages, as +they used to do, in drink.’ + +Lowestoft, when I was there last, had just lost one of its heroes—I mean +the late Mr. George Borrow—whose ‘Bible in Spain’ was the talk of the +season in religious and worldly circles alike, and whose writings on +Gipsies and Wild Wales and the ‘Bible in Spain’ achieved at one time an +enormous popularity. He lived—I can still remember his tall form—on a +bank a couple of miles out of Lowestoft, sloping down to a large piece of +water known in those parts as Oulton Broad. The tourist, if he looks to +his right just after he has passed Mutford Bridge on the rail from +Lowestoft to Beccles, across the wide sheet of water, which, as I saw it +last, lay calm and blue in the fading glory of an autumnal sun, will +perhaps see a white house at a distance, nestled in among the +fir-trees—that was where George Borrow lived, and where he died, though +he was buried in Brompton Cemetery by the side of his wife. You cannot +make a mistake, for houses are rare in those parts. As his step-daughter +observed to me, the proper way is by water; to get to the house by +land—at least as I did—you walk along the rail for a couple of miles, +then break off across a bit of a swamp, to a little lane that conducts +you to Oulton Church—a very ancient one, which, however, is in a state of +good repair and is noted partly on account of the fact that the steeple +is built in the middle, and partly on account of its containing, so it is +said, the earliest example of a brass to an ecclesiastic which is to be +found in England. A narrow path from the church leads you to Oulton +Hall, which came into the possession of Borrow by marriage, really a very +plain, red-brick, capacious, comfortable-looking old farmhouse, only of a +superior class. Keeping the Hall to the right, you reach a gate, which +opens into a very narrow lane, full of mud in the winter and dust in the +summer. The lane loses itself in the marshland, on the borders of Lake +Lothing—a name supposed to have been derived from a certain Danish +prince, murdered on the spot by a jealous Court retainer; and it is a +fitting place for a murder, as in that lonely district there was no eye +to pity, no ear to hear, no hand to save. Even to-day, as you look away +from the train, there is little sign of life, save the sail of a distant +wherry as it makes sluggishly for Norwich or Beccles, as it goes either +into the Waveney or the Yare; or the gray wing of the heron as it flies +heavily along the marsh; and that is all. Far away, perhaps, rises a +ridge, with a house on it; or a steeple, with a few trees struggling to +yield the barren spot a shelter from the suns of summer or the howling +winds of winter; but all is still life there, and the habitations of men +are few and far between. In the particular lane to which I have +introduced the reader—there are but two—there is a little cottage on your +left, and beyond, under a group of trees, mostly fir, which almost hide +it from view, a home of a rather superior character, in a very +dilapidated condition, with everything around it more or less untidy—that +was where George Borrow lived and worked in his way for many a long day. +The step-daughter and her husband reside there now—very ancient people, +who are to be seen driving about Lowestoft in a little wicker car, drawn +by an amiable and active donkey, an aged dog guarding the cottage during +their temporary absence. The female, an ancient one, who did for the +house, lives in the little cottage which the tourist will have already +observed, and the interior of which presented, when I peeped in, a far +greater idea of comfort than did Oulton Cottage, the residence of the +late George Borrow. The picture one gets is rather a melancholy one. +‘He was a funny-tempered man’—that seems to have been the idea of the few +people around. Latterly he kept no company, and no one came to see him. +All who did call on him, however, tell me that he was well dressed, but +that all the interior of the house was dirty. Well, that was to be +expected of a man who loved to live with the gipsies, and patter to them +in Romany of Egyptian lore, for it could not have been want of means. +Borrow must have made a good deal of money by his books, and I have heard +his landed property estimated at five hundred per year. The house looked +like the residence of a miser who would not lay out a penny in keeping up +appearances or in repairs. It must be remembered, however, that the +grand old man had long become bowed with age; that for some years before +his death he was scarcely able to move himself without help; that the +grasshopper, as it were, had become a burden. In summer time such a +residence, in good repair and well furnished, would be perfectly +charming. The house contains a sitting-room on each side of the +entrance-hall. Behind is the kitchen, and above are four bedrooms and +two attics—none of them large, I own, but at any rate capable of being +made very cosy. On your right, in a little niche in the cliff, is a +small stable. Lower down is a large summer-house, then full of books +(amongst them, I believe, there were a hundred lexicons), where their +learned proprietor loved to write. Farther down the lawn you come to the +lake, where Borrow could enjoy his morning bath without fear of being +disturbed, and where any amount of fish can be got. Just previous to my +last visit to the spot a pike of more than twenty pounds’ weight—I am +afraid to say how many pounds more, lest the reader should think I was +exaggerating—had been caught. For a real angler or sportsman such a +house as that in which George Borrow spent the latter years of his long +life must have been a perfect paradise. The world is utterly away from +you, and, what is better still, in such a spot the world has no chance of +finding you out. Approaching by road, you see no sign of the house till +you are in it, so completely is it hidden in the nook of trees in which +it stands. Only to the water is it open. It would be really beautiful +to live there in the summer, and have a gondola to row into Beccles or +Lowestoft or Bungay when you wanted to be gay. + +One good anecdote I heard of George Borrow the last time I was in the +neighbourhood, which is worth repeating. My informant was an Independent +minister, at that time supplying the pulpit at Lowestoft, and staying at +Oulton Hall, then inhabited by a worthy Dissenting tenant. One night a +meeting of the Bible Society was held at Mutford Bridge, at which the +party from the Hall attended, and where George Borrow was one of the +speakers. After the meeting was over, all the speakers went back to +supper at Oulton Hall, and my friend among them, who, in the course of +the supper, found himself attacked very violently by the clergyman for +holding Calvinistic opinions. Naturally my friend replied that the +clergyman was bound to do the same. ‘How do you make that out?’ ‘Why, +the Articles of your Church are Calvinistic, and to them you have sworn +assent.’ ‘Oh yes, but there is a way of explaining them away.’ ‘How +so?’ said my friend. ‘Oh,’ replied the clergyman, ‘we are not bound to +take the words in their natural sense.’ My friend, an honest, blunt East +Anglian, intimated that he did not understand that way of evading the +difficulty; but he was then a young man, and did not like to continue the +discussion further. However, George Borrow, who had not said a word +hitherto, entered into the discussion, opening fire on the clergyman in a +very unexpected manner, and giving him such a setting down as the +hearers, at any rate, never forgot. All the sophistry about the +non-natural meaning of terms was held up by Borrow to ridicule, even +contempt; and the clergyman was beaten at every point. ‘Never,’ says my +friend, ‘did I hear one man give another such a dressing as on that +occasion.’ It was not always, however, that Borrow thus shone. In the +neighbourhood of Bungay lived a gentleman much given to collect around +him men of literary taste and culture. A lecture was to be given in the +neighbourhood, and all the men of light and leading around were invited. +George Borrow was one of the earliest arrivals, and seated himself before +the fire with a book in his hand, over which he nodded superciliously, as +the host brought up all his guests in succession to be introduced to the +lion of the town. At dinner which followed, which was rather a jovial +one, and at which the bottle went round freely, so loud and general was +the conversation that my friend, a clever lawyer, with remarkably good +ears, was quite unable to catch a sentence from the great author’s lips. +Perhaps Borrow really did say nothing, or next to nothing. It is quite +as likely that he did as not, as I have already informed the reader that +‘he was a funny-tempered man.’ + +‘Catherine Gurney,’ writes Caroline Fox, ‘gave us a note to George +Borrow, so on him we called—a tall, ungainly man, with great physical +strength, quick, penetrating eye, a confident manner, and a disagreeable +tone and pronunciation.’ We gather from the same lady that it was Joseph +John Gurney who recommended George Borrow to the Committee of the Bible +Society. ‘So he stalked up to London, and they gave him a hymn to +translate into the Manchow language, and the same to one of their people +to translate also. When compared they proved to be very different. When +put before their reader, he had the candour to say that Borrow’s was much +the better of the two. On this they sent him to Petersburg to get it +printed, and then gave him business in Portugal.’ + +One thing is clear—that Borrow was a lonely man, and evidently one who +did not hold the resources of civilization in such esteem as Mr. +Gladstone does. He loved Nature and her ways, and people like the +gipsies, who are supposed to be of a similar way of thinking. He +eschewed the hum of cities and the roar of the ‘madding crowd.’ He was +big in body and in mind, and wanted elbow-room; and yet what would he +have been if he had not lived in a city, and come under the stimulative +influence of such men as Edward Taylor, of Norwich? It is idle to +complain of cities, however they sully the air, and deface the land, and +pollute the water, and rear the weak and vicious and the wicked—to remind +us how low and depraved human nature can become when it is cut off from +communion with Nature and Nature’s God. Borrow owed much to cities, and +was best appreciated by the men who dwelt in them. There is often a good +deal of affectation about the love of rural solitude, nor does it often +last long when there is a wife to have a voice in the matter. Yet in +Borrow undoubtedly the feeling was sincere, and of him Wordsworth might +have written— + + ‘As in the eye of Nature he has lived, + So in the eye of Nature let him die.’ + +Lowestoft was a frequent attraction for a youthful ramble—perhaps almost +too far, unless one could manage to get a lift in a little yellow-painted +black-bodied vehicle called a whisky, which was grandfather’s property, +and into the shafts of which could be put any spare quadruped, whether +donkey, or mule, or pony, it mattered little, and which afforded a +considerable relief when a trip as far as Lowestoft was determined on. +At that time there was no harbour, and the town consisted simply of one +High Street, gradually rising towards the north, with a fine space for +boys to play in between the cliff and the sea, called the denes. I can +well remember being taken to view the works of the harbour before the +water was let in, and not a little astonished at what then was to me a +new world of engineering science and skill. In the High Street there was +a little old-fashioned and by no means flourishing Independent Chapel, +where at one time the preacher was the Rev. Mr. Maurice, the father of +the Mr. Maurice to whom many owe a great awakening of spiritual life, and +whose memory they still regard as that of a beloved and honoured teacher. +Mr. Maurice was a Unitarian, I believe, and, when he retired, handed over +the chapel to my father with the remark that it was no use his preaching +there any longer. The preacher in my time was the Rev. George Steffe +Crisp, a kindly, timid, tearful man, always in difficulties with his +people, and who often resorted to Wrentham for advice. Latterly he +retired from the ministry, and kept a shop and school. In this capacity +one day my old friend John Childs, of Bungay, the far-famed printer—of +whom I shall have much to say anon—called on him, when the following +dialogue took place: ‘Good-morning, Mr. Crisp.’ ‘Good-morning, Mr. +Childs.’ ‘Well, how are you getting on?’ ‘Oh, very well; but there is +one thing that troubles me much.’ ‘What is that?’ ‘That I am getting +deaf, and can’t hear my minister.’ ‘Oh,’ was the cynical reply, ‘you +ought to be thankful for your privileges.’ + +Lowestoft is reported to have been a fishing station as early as the time +of the Romans; but the ancient town is supposed to have been long +engulfed by the resistless sea, for there was to be seen till the 25th of +Henry VIII. the remains of an old house upon an inundated spot—left dry +at low water about four furlongs east of the present beach. The town has +been the birthplace of many distinguished men—of Sir Thomas Allen, for +instance, who was steadily attached to the Royal cause, and who after the +Restoration rose high in command, and won many a victory over the Dutch +and the Algerines; of Sir Andrew Leake, who fell in the attack on +Gibraltar; of Rear-Admiral Richard Utbar, also a renowned fighter when +England and Holland were at war. To the same town also belong Admiral +Sir John Ashby, who died in 1693, and his nephew Vice-Admiral James +Mighells. Nor must we fail to do justice to Thomas Nash, a facetious +writer of considerable reputation in the latter part of the sixteenth +century. The most witty of his productions is a satirical pamphlet in +praise of red herrings, intended as a joke upon the great staple of +Yarmouth, and the pretensions of that place to superiority over +Lowestoft. It must be confessed that Nash is chiefly famous as a caustic +pamphleteer and an unscrupulous satirist. For illustration we may point +to his battle with Gabriel Harvey, the friend of Edmund Spenser, who +desired that he might be epitaphed the inventor of the not yet +naturalized English hexameter; and his other battle with Martin Mar +Prelate, or the writer or writers who passed under that name, and who +have acquired a reputation to which poor Nash can lay no claim. His one +conspicuous dramatic effort is ‘Summer’s Last Will and Testament.’ Nash +wrote for bare existence—to use his own words, ‘contending with the cold, +and conversing with scarcity.’ Nash lived in an unpropitious age. A +recent French writer has placed him in the foremost rank of English +writers. Dr. Jusserand, the author referred to, in his accounts of the +English novel in the time of Shakespeare, tells us Nash was the most +successful exponent in England of the picturesque novel. The picturesque +novel is the forerunner of the realistic novel of modern times. It +portrays the life and fortunes of the picaro—the adventurer who tries all +roads to fortune. Spanish in its origin, it developed into a school in +which Defoe and Thackeray distinguished themselves. ‘Nash,’ writes the +French author, ‘mingled serious scenes with his comedy, in order that his +romances might more nearly resemble real life.’ In fact (he writes), +‘Nash does not only possess the merit of learning how to observe the +ridiculous side of human nature, and of portraying in a full light +picturesque figures—now worthy of Teniers and now of Callot—some fat and +greasy, others lean and lank; he possesses a thing very rare with the +picturesque school, the faculty of being moved. He seems to have +foreseen the immense field of study which was to be opened later to the +novelist. A distant ancestor of Fielding, as Lilly and Sidney appear to +us to be distant ancestors of Richardson, he understands that a picture +of active life, reproducing only in the Spanish fashion scenes of comedy, +is incomplete and departs from reality. The greatest jesters, the most +arrogant, the most venturesome, have their days of anguish. No hero has +ever yet remained imprisoned from the cradle to the grave, and no one has +been able to live an irresponsible spectator, and not feel his heart +sometimes beat the quicker, nor bow his head unmoved. Nash caught a +glimpse of this.’ As an illustration, Dr. Jusserand points to his ‘Jack +Wilton’—‘The best specimen of the picturesque tale in English literature +anterior to Defoe.’ In Lowestoft they ought to keep his memory green. + +The writer well remembers the day when Mr., afterwards Sir, Morton Peto, +assembled the inhabitants of Lowestoft in the then dilapidated Town Hall, +and promised that if they would sell their ruined harbour works, and back +him in making a railway, their mackerel and herrings should be delivered +almost alive in Manchester, Liverpool, and London. The inhabitants +believed in the power of the enchanter, and Lowestoft is metamorphosed. +The old town remains upon its beautiful eminence, and memory clings to +the cliffs and to the denes, tenanted only, the one by wild rabbits, the +other by the merry children and the nets of the fishermen. But a new +town has grown up around the harbour—a grand hotel, excellent +lodging-houses, a new church; a great population have upset the romance, +and borne witness to the spirit of enterprise which characterizes this +generation. The new town has spread to Kirkley, has Londonized even +quiet Pakefield, and awakened a sleeping neighbourhood to what men call +life. + +At Lowestoft commence what are known to sailors as the Yarmouth Roads—a +grand stretch of sea protected by the sands, where an armada might anchor +secure; and it was a sight not to be seen now, when gigantic steamers do +all the business of the sea, to watch the hundreds of ships that would +come inside the Roads at certain seasons of the year. There, in the +winter-time—that is, from Lowestoft to Covehithe—I have seen the beach +strewed with wrecks, chiefly of rotten colliers, or ships in the corn +trade; but inside ‘Lowestoft Roads,’ to which they were guided by a +lighthouse on the cliff, they were supposed to be secure. Lowestoft at +that time, with its charming sands, was little known to the gay world, +and depended far more on the fishing than the bathing season. The former +was a busy time, and kept all the country round in a state of excitement. +Many were the men, for instance, who, even as far off as Wrentham, went +herring or mackerel fishing in the big craft, which, drawn up on the +beach when the season was over, seemed to me ships such as never had been +seen by the mariners of Tyre and Sidon; but the chief interest to me were +the vans in which the fish were carried from Lowestoft to London—light +spring-carts with four wheels and two horses, that, after changing horses +at our Spread Eagle, raced like lightning along the turnpike-road, at all +hours, and even on Sundays—a sad grievance to the godly—beating the +Yarmouth mail. + +Now and then, even at that remote period, when railways were not, and +when Lowestoft was no port, nothing but a fishing-station, distinguished +people came to Lowestoft, attracted by its bracing air and exceptional +bathing attractions. I can in this way recollect Sir Edward Parry and M. +Guizot. But there were other personages equally distinguished. One of +these was Mrs. Siddons, with whom an old Dissenting minister—the Rev. S. +Sloper, of Beccles, whom I can well remember—contracted quite an +intimacy. She had already passed the zenith of her celebrity. +‘Providence,’ writes my friend, Mr. Wilton Rix, of Beccles, in his ‘East +Anglian Nonconformity,’ published as far back as 1851, ‘had repeatedly +and recently called her to tread in domestic life the path of sorrow, and +her religious advantages, however few, had taught her that + + ‘“That path alone + Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.” + +‘“Sweet, sometimes,” said she, “are the uses of adversity. It not only +strengthens family affection, but it teaches us all to walk humbly with +God.” It is not surprising that she was disposed to cultivate the +society of those who could blend piety with cheerfulness, and with whom +she might be on friendly terms without ceremony. Such acquaintances she +found in Mr. Sloper’s family. Mrs. Siddons, with unassuming kindness, +contributed to their amusement by specimens of her powerful reading. She +joined willingly in the worship of the family, and maintained the same +invaluable practice at her own lodgings.’ Mr. Rix continues: ‘Just at +that time Mr. Sloper was requested to preach to his own people on an +affecting and mournful occasion, the death of a suicide. Though he +keenly felt the delicacy and difficulty of the task, a sense of duty and +a possibility of usefulness overcame his scruples. He selected for his +text the impressive sentiment of the Apostle, “The sorrow of the world +worketh death.” Mrs. Siddons was one of his auditors. She, who had been +the honoured guest of Royalty, who had been enthroned as the Tragic Muse, +and whose voice had charmed applauding multitudes, was seen in the humble +Dissenting meeting-house at Beccles shedding abundant and unaffected +tears at the plain and faithful exhibition of religious truth. Mr. +Sloper’s preaching was as powerfully recommended to her by the delightful +illustration of Christian principles exhibited in his private character, +as by the intrinsic importance of those principles, and the simple +gravity and penetrating earnestness with which they were announced from +his lips. He afterwards procured for her, at her request, a copy of +Scott’s admirable “Commentary on the Bible,” which he accompanied with a +letter, warmly urging upon her attention the great realities her +profession had so manifest a tendency to exclude from her contemplations. +Mrs. Siddons,’ again I quote Mr. Rix, ‘more than once expressed her +gratitude for the interest Mr. Sloper had evinced in her eternal welfare; +she thanked him in writing for the advice he had given her, adding an +emphatic wish that God might enable her to follow it—a wish which her +pious and amiable correspondent echoed with all the fervour of his heart. +She returned into the glare of popularity, but a hope may easily be +indulged that the pressure of subsequent relative afflictions and of old +age were not permitted to come upon her unaccompanied by the impressions +and consolations of true religion. Her elegant biographer, Mr. Campbell, +draws a veil over the state of her mind during her last hours, which it +would be deeply interesting to penetrate. Would she not then, if reason +were undimmed, reflect upon the faithful counsel she received with +Scott’s Bible as being of infinitely greater value than the applause of +myriads or the fame of ages?’ + +Beccles, where this good Mr. Sloper lived, and where the writer of this +extract was a respectable solicitor—I believe the firm of Rix and Son +still exists—was a small market town about eight miles from Wrentham, +inland. At that time it ranked as the third town in Suffolk. Towards +the west it is skirted by a cliff, once washed by the estuary which +separated the eastern portions of Norfolk and Suffolk. There is every +reason to believe that ages back the mouth of the Yare was an estuary or +arm of the sea, and extended with considerable magnitude for many miles +up the country. The herring fishery was thus a principal source of +emolument to the inhabitants, and in the time of the Conqueror the fee +farm rent of the manor of Beccles to the King was 60,000 herrings, and in +the time of the Confessor 20,000. About 956 the manor and advowson of +Beccles were granted by King Edwy to the monks of Bury, and remained in +their possession until the dissolution of the religious houses under +Henry VIII. + +As I have said, and as I repeat, in these languid days—when the old +creeds have lost their power and the old bottles are bursting with new +wine—the glory of East Anglia was that it was the first to stand up in +the face of priest or king for the truth—or what it held to be such. +Amongst the early martyrs under Mary were three burnt at Beccles—Thomas +Spicer, of Winston, labourer, John Deny, and Edmond Poole. This was in +the year 1556. Their crime in the indictment, drawn up by Dr. Hopton, +Bishop of Norwich, and his Chancellor, Dunning, according to Fox, was: + +‘1. First was articulate against them that they belieued not the Pope of +Rome to bee supreame head immediately in Christ on earth of the +Universall Catholike Church. + +‘2. That they belieued not holie bread and holie water, ashes, palmes, +and all other like ceremonies used in the Church to bee good and laudable +for stirring up the people to devotion. + +‘3. Item that they belieued not afterwards of consecration spoken by the +priest, the very naturall body of Christ, and no other substance of bread +and wine to bee in the Sacrament of the altar. + +‘4. Item that they belieued it to bee idolatry to worship Christ in the +Sacrament of the altar. + +‘5. Item that they tooke bread and wine in remembrance of Christ’s +Passion. + +‘6. Item that they would not followe the crosse in procession nor bee +confessed to a priest. + +‘7. Item that they affirmed no mortal man to have in himself free will +to do good or evill.’ + +It appears that the writ had not come down, nevertheless these brave men +were burnt at the stake. ‘When they came,’ continues Fox, ‘to the +reciting of the creed, Sir John Silliard spake to them, “That is well +said, sirs. I am glad to heare you saie you do belieue the Catholike +Church; that is the best word I heard of you yet.” + +‘To which his sayings Edmond Poole answered, “Though they belieue the +Catholike Church, yet do they not belieue in their Popish Church, which +is no part of Christ’s Catholike Church, and, therefore, no part of their +beliefe.” + +‘When they rose from praier they all went joyfullie to the stake, and, +being bound thereto, and the fire burning about them, they praised God in +such an audible voice that it was wonderful to all those who stood bye +and heard them. Then one Robert Bacon, dwelling in the said Beccles, a +very enemy to God’s truth, and a persecutor of His people, being then +present, within the hearing thereof willed the tormentors to throwe on +faggots to stop the knaues breathes, as he termed them; so hot was his +burning charitie. But these good men, not regarding their malice, +confessed the truth, and yielded their lives to the death for the +testimonie of the same very gloriouslie and joyfullie.’ + +These men were the precursors of that Nonconformity which has made +England the home of the free, and such men abounded in East Anglia. +Under Queen Elizabeth they had as bad a time of it almost as under Queen +Mary. For instance, we find under Dr. Freke, Bishop of Norwich, and in +the reign of glorious Queen Bess, as her admirers term her, Mathew +Hammond, a poor ploughwright, of Hethersett, was condemned as a heretic, +had his ears cut off, and after the lapse of a week was committed, in the +Castle ditch at Norwich, to the more agonizing torment of the flames. +The translation of Dr. Whitgift to the See of Canterbury was the signal +for augmented rigour. He was charged by his imperious mistress to +restore religious uniformity, which she confessed, notwithstanding all +her precautions, ran out of square. One of the first victims to this new +_régime_ was William Fleming, Rector of Beccles. The living of Beccles +at this period was vested in Lady Anne Gresham, the widow of Sir Thomas +Gresham, the founder of the Royal Exchange. Previously to her marriage, +she was the widow of William Rede, merchant, of London and Beccles. +Under James I. and Bishop Wren, men of integrity and conscience fared +worse than under Queen Elizabeth, and naturally the people thus +persecuted formed themselves into a Church. That in Beccles dated from +1652, and in the covenant drawn up on the occasion we find it was +resolved: + +‘1. That we will for ever acknowledge and admit the Lord to be our God +in Jesus Christ, giving up ourselves to Him to be His people. + +‘2. That we will alwaies endevour, through the grace of God assisting +us, to walke in all His waies and ordinances, according to His written +Word, which is the only sufficient rule of good life for every man. +Neither will we suffer ourselves to be polluted by any sinful waies, +either publike or private, but endeavour to abstaine from the very +appearance of evill, giving no offence to the Jew or Gentile, or the +Churches of Christ. + +‘3. That we will humbly and willingly submit ourselves to the government +of Christ in this Church—in the administration of the Word, the seals, +and discipline. + +‘4. That we will in all love approve our communion as brethren by +watching over one another, and as such shall be; counsel, administer, +relieve, assist, and bear with one another, serving one another in love. + +‘5. Lastly, we do not covenant or promise these things in our own, but +in Christ’s strength; neither do we confine ourselves to the words of +this covenant, but shall at all time account it our duty to embrace any +further light or covenant which shall be revealed to us out of God’s +Word.’ + +This covenant, however, was not to prevent in after time censure being +cast on others who, endeavouring to preserve its spirit, were led to +think differently from the majority. For instance, we find in 1656 two +persons, who had been members of the Independent church at Beccles, +received adult baptism, and in so doing were considered to have given +‘offence’ to the church, and were desired to appear and give an account +of their practices. + +At one time there was little of what we know as congregational singing. +In 1657 it was agreed by the Beccles church ‘that they do put in practice +the ordinance of singing in the publick upon the forenoon and afternoon +of the Lord’s daies, and that it be between praier and sermon; and also +it was agreed that the New England translation of the Psalmes be made use +of by the church at their times of breaking of bread, and it was agreed +that the next Lord’s day, seventh night, might be the day to enter upon +the work of singing in publick.’ It is interesting to note that one of +the pastors of the Beccles church was a Mr. Nokes, who had been +trained—where Calamy and many others were trained—at the University of +Utrecht, and that in the same year in which Dr. Watts accepted the +pastoral office, he addressed to Mr. Nokes a poem on ‘Friendship,’ which +is still included in the Doctor’s works. Dissent, when I was a boy, was +considered low. We were contemptuously termed ‘pograms,’ a term of +reproach the origin of which I have never learnt. The landed gentry, the +small squires, the lawyers and the doctors, and the tradespeople who +pandered to their prejudices and fattened on their patronage, were slow +to say a word in favour of a Dissenter. The poor who went to chapel were +excluded from many benefits enjoyed by their fellow-parishioners. It was +the fashion to treat them with scorn, yet I have heard one of the most +excellent and finished gentlemen in the district declare that he heard +better talk in my father’s parlour than he did anywhere else in the +neighbourhood, and I can well believe it, for the Dissenting minister, as +a rule, at that time, was a better read man, and a more studious one, +than the clergyman of the district, in spite of his University education; +and in matters affecting the welfare of the nation, and that came under +the denomination of politics, his views were far more rational than those +of Churchmen in general, and the clergy in particular. We learn from +Milton’s State Papers that the churches of East Anglia petitioned Oliver +Cromwell that the three nations might enjoy the blessings of a godly, +upright magistracy; that they might have Courts of Judicature in their +own country; and that honest men of known fidelity and uprightness might +be authorized to determine trivial matters of debt or difference. +Assuredly the East Anglian saints—the latter term was, and, strange to +say, is still, used as a term of reproach—were wise and right-thinking +men where Church government and public policy were concerned. We love to +read the story of the Pilgrim Fathers. With what rapture Mrs. Hemans +wrote: + + ‘What sought they thus afar? + Bright jewels of the mine? + The wealth of seas? the spoils of war? + They sought a faith’s pure shrine. + + ‘Ay, call it holy ground, + The soil where first they trod; + They left unstained what there they found— + FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD.’ + +But it seems to me that a greater glory was won by, and a greater honour +should be paid to, the men who did not cross the Atlantic; who did not +seek an asylum in a foreign land; who remained at home to suffer—to die, +if need be, to uphold the rights of conscience, and to fight the good +fight of faith. It is not even in our tolerant, and, as we deem it, more +enlightened day, that full justice is done to these men. In what calls +itself good society you meet men and women whose ancestors were +Dissenters, and yet who are ashamed of the fact—a fact of which no one +can be ashamed who feels how in East Anglia, at any rate, the religious +teaching of Dissent purified the life of the people, enlarged their +political views, and helped this great land of ours to sweep into a +better and a younger day. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +POLITICS AND THEOLOGY. + + +Homerton academy—W. Johnson Fox, M.P.—Politics in 1830—Anti-Corn Law +speeches—Wonderful oratory. + +About 1830 there was, if not a good deal of actual light let into such +dark places as our Suffolk village—where it was considered the whole duty +of man, as regards the poor, to attend church and make a bow to their +betters (a rustic ceremony generally performed by pulling the lock of +hair on the forehead with the right hand), and to be grateful for the +wretched station of life in which they were placed—at any rate, a great +shaking among the dry bones. One summer morning an awe fell on the +parish as it ran from one to another that the guard of the Yarmouth and +London Royal Mail had left word with the ostler at the Spread Eagle that +George the Fourth was dead; then a certain dull sound as of cannon firing +afar off had been wafted across the German Ocean, and had given rise to +mysterious speculations on the subject of Continental wars, in which +Suffolk lads might have to ‘’list’ as ‘sogers’; and last of all there +came that grand excitement when—North and South, East and West—the nation +rose as one man to demand political and Parliamentary Reform. It was a +delusion, perhaps, that cry, but it was a glorious one, nevertheless; +that the millennium could be delayed when we had Parliamentary Reform no +one for a moment doubted. The sad but undeniable fact that mostly men +are fools with whom beer is omnipotent had not then entered into men’s +minds, and thus England and Scotland some sixty years ago wore an aspect +of activity and enthusiasm of which the present generation can have no +idea, and which, perhaps, can never occur again. + +Far away in the distant city which the Suffolk villagers called Lunnon, +there was a Suffolk lad, whose relations kept a very little shop just by +us, who was born at Uggeshall—pronounced Ouchell by the common people—on +a very small farm, and who, as Unitarian preacher and newspaper writer, +had been and was doing his best in the good cause; but it was not the +influence of W. Johnson Fox—for it is of him I write—that did much in our +little village to leaven the mass with the leaven of Reform. While quite +a lad the Foxes went to Norwich, where the future preacher and teacher +worked as a weaver boy. In after-years it was often my privilege to meet +Mr. Fox, who had then attained no small share of London distinction, +amongst whose hearers were men, often many of the most distinguished +_literati_ of the day—such as Dickens and Forster—and who was actually to +sit in Parliament as M.P. for Oldham, where, old as he was—and Mr. +Gladstone says, ‘People who wish to succeed in Parliament should enter it +young’—he occupied a most respectable position, all the more creditable +when you remember that Parliament, even at that recent date, was a far +more select and aristocratic assembly than any Parliament of our day, or +of the future, can possibly be. Mr. Fox had been educated at Homerton +Academy—as such places were then termed (college is the word we use +now)—under the good and venerable Dr. Pye-Smith, whose ‘Scripture +Testimony to the Messiah’ was supposed to have given Unitarianism a +deadly blow, but whom I chiefly remember as a very deaf old man, and one +of the first to recognise the fact that the Bible and geology were not +necessarily opposed to each other, and to welcome and proclaim the +truth—at that time received with fear and trembling, if received at +all—that the God of Nature and the God of Revelation were the same. +There was a good deal of free inquiry at Homerton Academy, which, +however, Mr. Fox assured me, gradually subsided into the right amount of +orthodoxy as the time came for the student to exchange his sure and safe +retreat for the fiery ordeal of the deacon and the pew. My father and +Johnson Fox had been fellow-students, and for some time corresponded +together. The correspondence in due time, however, naturally ceased, as +it was chiefly controversial, and nothing can be more irksome than for +two people who have made up their minds, and whom nothing can change, to +be arguing continually, and the friendship between them in some sense +ceased as the one remained firm to, and the other wandered farther and +farther from, the modified Calvinism of the Wrentham Church and pulpit, +where, as in all orthodox pulpits at that time, it was taught that men +were villains by necessity, and fools, as it were, by a Divine thrusting +on; that for some a Saviour had been crucified, that there might be a way +of escape from the wrath of an angry and unforgiving God; whilst for the +vast mass—to whom the name of Christ had never been made known, to whom +the Bible had never been sent—there was an impending doom, the awful +horror of which no tongue could tell, no imagination conceive. But to +the last Mr. Fox—especially if you met him with his old-fashioned hat on +in the street—looked far more of a Puritan divine than of the literary +man, or the chief of the advanced thinkers in Church and State, or an +M.P. At a later time what pleasure it gave me to listen to this +distinguished East Anglian as he appeared at the crowded Anti-Corn Law +meetings held in Covent Garden or Drury Lane! Ungainly in figure, +monotonous in tone, almost without a particle of action, regarded as free +in his religious opinions by the vast majority of his audience, who were, +at that time, prone, even in London, to hold that Orthodoxy, like +Charity, covered a multitude of sins. What an orator he was! How +smoothly the sentences fell from his lips one after the other; with what +happy wit did he expose Protectionist fallacies, or enunciate Free Trade +principles, which up to that time had been held as the special property +of the philosopher, far too subtle to be understood and appreciated by +the mob! With what felicity did he illustrate his weighty theme; with +what clearness did he bring home to the people the wrong and injustice +done to every one of them by the landlord’s attempt to keep up his rent +by a tax on corn; and then with what glowing enthusiasm did they wait and +listen for the climax, which, if studied, and perhaps artificial, seemed +like the ocean wave to grow grander and larger the nearer it came, till +it fell with resistless force on all around. It seems to me like a +dream, all that distant and almost unrecorded past. I see no such +meetings, I hear no such orators now. As Mr. Disraeli said of Lord +Salisbury when he was Lord Robert Cecil, there was a want of finish about +his style, and the remark holds good of the orator of to-day as +contrasted with the platform speaker of the past. It is impossible to +fancy anyone in our sober age attempting, to say nothing of succeeding in +the attempt (my remarks, of course, do not apply to Irish audiences or +Irish orators), to get an audience to rise _en masse_ and swear never to +fold their arms, never to relax their efforts, till their end was gained +and victory won; yet Mr. Fox did so, and long as I live shall I remember +the night when, in response to his impassioned appeal, the whole +house—and it was crowded to the ceiling—rose, ladies in the boxes, decent +City men in the pit, gods in the gallery—to swear never to tire, never to +rest, never to slacken, till the peasant at the plough, the +cotton-spinner in the mill, the collier in the mine, the lone widow +stitching for life far into the early morning in her wretched garret, and +the pauper in his still more wretched cellar, ate their untaxed loaf. As +the ‘Publicola’ of the _Weekly Dispatch_, Mr. Fox laboured to the end of +his life in the good cause of Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform. It is not +right that his memory should remain unrecorded—his life assuredly was an +interesting one. Harriet Martineau writes in her autobiography that ‘his +editorial correspondence with me was unquestionably the reason, and in +great measure the cause, of the greatest intellectual progress I ever +made before the age of thirty.’ + +But it was not from William Johnson Fox that at that time came to our +small village the grain of light that was to leaven the lump around. +Lecturing and oratory, and even public tea-meetings, were things almost +unknown. Now and then a deputation from the London Missionary Society +came to Wrentham, and in this way I remember William Ellis, then a +missionary from Madagascar, and Mr. George Bennett, who, in conjunction +with the Rev. Mr. Tyerman, had been on a tour of inspection to the +islands of the South Seas, and to whose tales of travel rustic audiences +listened with delight. Once upon a time—but that was later—the Religious +Tract Society sent a deputation in the shape of a well-known travelling +secretary, Mr. Jones. This Mr. Jones was inclined to corpulency, and I +can well remember how we all laughed when, on one occasion, the daughter +of a neighbouring minister, having opened the door in reply to his knock, +ran delightedly into her papa’s study to announce the arrival of the +Tract Society! + +A great impression was also made in all parts of the country by the +occasional appearances of the Anti-Slavery Society’s lecturers. In 1831, +as Sir G. Stephen tells us, the younger section of the Anti-Slavery body +resolved to stir up the country by sending lecturers to the villages and +towns of the country. The M.P.’s did not much like it. The idea was +novel to them. ‘Trust to Parliament,’ said they; the outsiders replied, +‘Trust to the people.’ This scheme of agitation, however, was rejected, +and would have fallen to the ground had not a benevolent Quaker of the +name of Cropper come forward. ‘Friend S., what money dost thou want?’ +‘I want £20,000, but I will begin if I can get one.’ ‘Then, I will give +thee £500.’ Joseph Sturge immediately followed with a promise of £250, +and Mr. Wilberforce twenty guineas; and £1,000 was raised, and competent +agents sent out. It proved by no means an easy matter to obtain these +lecturers, for their duty was not confined to lecturing; they had also to +revive drooping anti-slavery societies and to establish new ones. Also +they were to have collections at the end of every lecture. One of them +who came to Wrentham was Captain Pilkington. ‘Pilkington,’ writes Sir +George Stephen, ‘was a pleasing lecturer, and won over many by his +amiable manners; but he wanted power, and resigned in six months.’ We in +Wrentham, however, did not think so, and I can to this day recall the +sensation he created in our rustic minds as he described the horrors of +slavery, and showed us the whip and chains by which those horrors were +caused. To the Dissenting chapel most of these lecturers were indebted +for their audience, and if I ever worked hard as a boy, it was to get +signatures to anti-slavery petitions. Naturally, a Church parson came to +regard all that was attacked by Reformers as a bulwark of the +Establishment, and in our part the Meetingers’ were the sole friends of +the slave. + +As was to be expected, the reading of the village was of the most limited +description. It is true we children jumped for joy as once a month came +the carrier’s cart from Beccles, with the books for the club—the +_Evangelical Magazine_, for all the principal families of the +congregation, and the _Penny Magazine_ and _Chambers’s Journal_—then but +in their infancy—for ourselves; but, apart from that, there was no +reading worth mentioning. That which most astonishes the tourist in +Ireland is the way in which people read the newspapers. In our Suffolk +village the very reverse was the case, partly because there were few +newspapers to read, partly because there were few to read them, and +partly because they were dear to buy. The one paper which we took in was +the _Suffolk Chronicle_, which made its appearance on Saturday morning, +the price of which was sixpence, and which was edited by a sturdy Radical +of the name of King, who to the last held to the belief that to have a +London letter full of literary or critical talk for the Suffolk farmers +was, not to put too fine a point on it, to throw pearls before swine. +And perhaps he was right. I can well remember, when one of my early +poetical contributions appeared in its columns, how a fear was expressed +to me by a farmer’s widow in our parish, lest ‘it had cost me a lot o’ +money’ to have that effort of my muse in print. Mr. Childs, of Bungay, +had many experiences, equally rustic and still more illustrative of the +simplicity of the class. Once upon a time one of them came in a great +state of excitement for a copy of the ‘Life of Mr. General Gazetteer.’ +On another occasion a farmer’s wife came in search of a Testament. She +wanted it directly, and she wanted it of a large type. A specimen was +selected, which met with the worthy woman’s approval. But the question +was, could she have it in half an hour, as she would be away for that +time shopping in the town, and would call for it on her return. She was +told that she could, and great was her astonishment when, on calling on +her return for the Testament, there it was, printed in the particular +type she had selected, ready for her use. + +I have a very strong idea that the calm of the country and the peaceful +occupations of the people had not a very rousing influence upon the +intellect. I may go further, and say that the cares of the farm, when +high farming was unknown, did not much lift at that time the master above +the man. The latter wore a smock-frock, while the former, perhaps, +sported a blue coat with brass buttons, and had rather a better kind of +head-dress, and ambled along on a little steady cob, that knew at which +ale-house to call for the regular allowance, quite as well as his master. +But as regards talk—which was chiefly of bullocks and pigs—well, there +really was no very great difference after all. To such religion was the +mainspring which kept the whole intellect going; and religion was to be +had at the meeting. And I can well remember how strange it seemed to me +that these rough, simple, untutored sons of the soil could speak of it +with enthusiasm, and could pray, at any rate, with astonishing fervour. +Away from the influence of the meeting-house there existed a Bœotian +state of mind, only to be excited by appeals to the senses of the most +palpable character, a state of mind in which faith—the evidence of things +not seen, according to Paul—was quite out of the question; and I regret +to say that, notwithstanding the activity of the last fifty years and the +praiseworthy and laborious efforts of the East Anglian clergy in all +quarters, suitably to rouse and feed the intellect of the East Anglian +peasantry, a good deal yet remains to be done. Only a year or two ago, +riding on an omnibus in a Suffolk village, the driver asked me if people +could go to America by land. ‘Of course not,’ was my reply. ‘Why do you +ask such a question?’ Well, it came out that he had ‘heerd tell how +people got to Americay in ten days; and he did not see how they could do +that unless they went by land, and had good hosses to get ’em there at +that time.’ On my explaining the real state of affairs, he admitted, by +way of apology, that he was not much of a traveller himself. Once he had +been to Colchester; but that was a long time ago. + +But to return to the _Suffolk Chronicle_. It was my duty as a lad, when +it had been duly studied at home, to take it to the next subscriber, and +I fancy by the time the paper had gone its round it was not a little the +worse for wear. But there were other political impulses which tended to +create and feed the sacred flame of civil and religious liberty. In one +corner of the village lived a small shopkeeper, who stored away, among +his pots and pans of treacle and sugar and grocery, a few well-thumbed +copies, done up in dirty brown paper, of the squibs and caricatures +published by Hone, whom I can just remember, a red-faced old gentleman in +black, in the _Patriot_ office, and George Cruikshank, with whom I was to +spend many a merry hour in after-life. This small shopkeeper was one of +the chapel people—a kind of superintendent in the Sunday-school, for +which office he was by no means fitted, but there was no one else to take +the berth, and as the family also dealt with him in many ways, I had +often to repair to his shop. It was then our young eyes were opened as +to the wickedness in high places by the perusal of the ‘Political House +that Jack built,’ and other publications of a similar revolutionary +character. Nothing is sacred to the caricaturist, and half a century ago +bishops and statesmen and lords and kings were very fair subjects for the +exercise of his art. In our day things have changed for the better, +partly as the result of the Radical efforts, of which respectability at +that time stood so much in awe. London newspapers rarely reached so far +as Wrentham. It was the fashion then to look to Ipswich for light and +leading. However, as the cry for reform increased in strength, and the +debates inside the House of Commons and out waxed fiercer, now and then +even a London newspaper found its way into our house, and I can well +remember how our hearts glowed within us as some one of us read, while +father smoked his usual after-dinner pipe, previous to going out to spend +the afternoon visiting his sick and afflicted; and how such names as Earl +Grey, and Lord John Russell, and Lord Brougham—the people then called him +Harry Brougham; it was a pity that he was ever anything else—were +familiar in our mouths as household words. + +In another way also there came to the children in Wrentham the growing +perception of a larger world than that in which we lived, and moved, and +had our being. One of the historic sites of East Anglia is Framlingham, +a small market town, lying a little off the highroad to London, a few +miles from what always seemed to me the very uninteresting village of +Needham Market, though at one time Godwin, the author of ‘Caleb +Williams,’ preached in the chapel there. There is now a public school +for Suffolk boys at Framlingham, and it may yet make a noise in the +world. Framlingham in our time has given London Mr. Jeaffreson, a +successful man of letters, and Sir Henry Thompson, a still more +successful surgeon. In my young days it was chiefly noted for its +castle. The mother of that amiable and excellent lady, Mrs. Trimmer, +also came from Framlingham; and it is to be hoped that the old town may +have had something to do with the formation of the character of a woman +whom now we should sneer at, perhaps, as goody-goody, but who, when +George the Third was King, did much for the education and improvement of +the young. I read in Mrs. Trimmer’s life ‘that her father was a man of +an excellent understanding, and of great piety; and so high was his +reputation for knowledge of divinity, and so exemplary his moral conduct, +that, as an exception to their general rule, which admitted no laymen, he +was chosen member of a clerical club in the town (Ipswich) in which he +resided. From him,’ continues the biographer of the daughter, ‘she +imbibed the purest sentiments of religion and virtue, and learnt betimes +the fundamental principles of Christianity.’ Well, it is hoped Mr. Kirby +did his best for his daughter; but, after all, how much more potent is +the influence of a mother! And hence I may claim for Framlingham a fair +share in the formation of even so burning and shining a light as Mrs. +Trimmer. + +The name Framlingham, say the learned, or did say—for what learned men +say at one time does not always correspond with what they say at +another—is composed of two Saxon words, signifying the habitation of +strangers; and to strangers the place is still rich in interest. In its +church sleeps the unfortunate, but heroic, Earl of Surrey, whose +harmonious verse still delights the students of English literature. Some +say he was born at Framlingham. This is matter of doubt; but there is no +doubt about the fact that he was buried there by his son, the Earl of +Northampton, who erected a handsome monument to his father’s memory. The +monument is an elevated tomb, with the Earl’s arms and those of his lady +in the front in the angles, and with an inscription in the centre. It +has his effigy in armour, with an ermined mantle, his feet leaning +against a lion couchant. On his left is his lady in black, with an +ermined mantle and a coronet. Both have their hands held up as in +prayer. On a projecting plinth in front is the figure of his second son, +the Earl of Northampton, in armour, with a mantle of ermine, kneeling in +prayer. Behind, in a similar plinth, kneeling with a coronet, and in +robes, is his eldest daughter, Jane, Countess of Westmoreland, on the +right; and his third daughter Catherine, the wife of Lord Henry Berkeley +on the left. The monument is kept in order, and painted occasionally, as +directed by the Earl of Northampton, out of the endowment of his hospital +at Greenwich. In repairing the monument in October, 1835, the Rev. +George Attwood, curate of Framlingham, discovered the remains of the Earl +lying embedded in clay, directly under his figure on his tomb. It is +difficult now to find what high treason the chivalrous and poetic and +gallant Earl had been guilty of; but at that time our eighth Henry ruled +the land, and if he wished anyone out of the way, he had not far to go +for witnesses or judge or jury ready to do his wicked and wanton will. +To the shame of England be it said, the Earl of Surrey was beheaded when +he was only thirty years of age. No particulars are preserved of his +deportment in prison or on the scaffold, but from the noble spirit he +evinced at his trial, and from his general character, it cannot be +doubted that he behaved in the last scene of his existence with fortitude +and dignity. On the barbarous injustice to which he was sacrificed +comment is unnecessary; but regret at his early fate is increased by the +circumstance that Henry was in extremities when he ordered his execution, +and that his swollen and enfeebled hands were unequal to the task of +signing his death-warrant. In this respect more fortunate was the father +of Surrey, the Duke of Norfolk, who is buried near the altar of the +church at Framlingham. He also was condemned to death, but in the +meanwhile the King died, and his victim was set free. Not far off is the +tomb of Henry Fitzroy, a natural son of King Henry. He was a friend of +Surrey, and was to have married his sister. The other monuments which +adorn the interior of this magnificent church are a table of black +marble, supported by angels, to the memory of Sir Robert Hitcham, a mural +monument by Roubillac, and others to commemorate virtues and graces, as +embodied in the lives of decent men and women in whom the world has long +ceased to take any interest. + +The venerable castle—here I quote Dr. Dugdale’s ‘British Traveller’—with +its eventful history, imparts the strongest interest to the town of +Framlingham. Tradition refers its origin to the sixth century, and +ascribes it to Redwald, one of the early Saxon monarchs. St. Edmund the +Martyr fled hither in 870, and was besieged by the Danes, who took +Framlingham and held it fifty years. The Norman King gave the castle to +the Bigods. The castle passed through many hands. It was there Queen +Mary took shelter when, after the death of Edward VI., Lady Jane Grey was +called to the throne, and thence she came to London, on the capture of +the former, to take possession of the crown. It was an evil day for +England when she came to Framlingham Castle and beguiled the hearts of +the Suffolk men. Old Fox tells us that when Mary had returned to her +castle at Framlingham there resorted to her ‘the Suffolke men, who, being +alwayes forward in promoting the proceedings of the Gospel, promised her +their aid and help, so that she would not attempt the alteration of the +religion which her brother, King Edward, had before established by laws +and orders publickly enacted, and received by the consent of the whole +realm in his behalf. She afterwards agreed with such promise made unto +them that no innovation should be made of religion, as that no man would +or could then have misdoubted her. “Victorious by the aid of the +Suffolke men,” Queen Mary soon forgot her promise. They of course +remonstrated. It was, methinks,’ adds Fox, ‘an heavie word that she +answered to the Suffolke men afterwards which did make supplication unto +her grace to performe her promise. “For so much,” saith she, “as you +being but members desire to rule your head, you shall one day perceive +the members must obey their head, and not look to rule over the same.”’ +Well, Queen Mary was as good as her word. As Fox adds, ‘What she +performed on her part the thing itself and the whole story of the +persecution doth testifie.’ But the stubborn Suffolk gospellers were not +to be put down, and a remnant had been left in Framlingham, as well as in +other parts of the country. At Framlingham we find a Richard Goltie, +son-in-law of Samuel Ward, of Ipswich, was instituted to the rectory in +1630. In 1650 he refused the engagement to submit to the then existing +Government, and was removed, when Henry Sampson, M.A., a fellow of +Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, was appointed by his college to the vacancy. +He continued there till the Restoration, when Mr. Goltie returned and +took possession of the living, which he continued to hold till his death. +Not being satisfied to conform, Mr. Sampson continued awhile preaching at +Framlingham to those who were attached to his ministry, in private houses +and other buildings, and by his labours laid the foundation of the +Congregational or Independent Church in that town, as appears from a note +in the Church Book belonging to the Dissenters meeting at Woodbridge, in +the Quay Lane. Mr. Sampson collected materials for a history of +Nonconformity, a great part of which is incorporated in Calamy and +Palmer’s works. It was to him that John Fairfax, of Needham Market, +wrote, when he and some other ministers were shut up in Bury Gaol for the +crime of preaching the Gospel. It appears that they had met in the +parish church, at Walsham-le-Willows, where, after the liturgy was read +by the clergyman of the parish, a sermon was preached by a non-licensed +minister. The party were then taken and committed to prison, where they +remained till the next Quarter Sessions, when they were released upon +their recognisances to appear at the next Assizes. Then, it seems, +though not convicted upon any other offence, upon the suggestion of the +justices, to whom they were strangers, they were committed again to +prison, on the plea that _they were persons dangerous to the public +peace_. Thus were Dissenters treated in the good old times. Mr. Sampson +seems to have fared somewhat better. After his removal, he travelled on +the Continent, returned to London, entered himself at the College of +Physicians, and lived and died in good repute. The old congregation +having become Unitarian, a new one was formed, and of this Church a +pillar was Mr. Henry Thompson—a gentleman well known and widely honoured +in his day. This Mr. Thompson had a son, who was sent to Wrentham to be +educated for awhile with myself. An uncle of his, one of the most +amiable of men, lived at Southwold, close by, and I presume it was by his +means that the settlement was effected. Be that as it may, the change +was a welcome one, as it gave me a pleasant companion for nearly five +years of boyish life. I confess my two sisters—one of whom has, alas! +long been in her grave—did all they could in the way of sports and +pastimes to meet my wants and wishes, and act like boys; but the fact is, +though it may be doubted in these days of Women’s Rights, girls are not +boys, nor can they be expected to behave as such. + +I confess the advent of this young Thompson from Framlingham was a great +event in our small family circle. In the first place he came from a +town, and that at once gave him a marked superiority. Then his father +kept a horse and gig, for it was thus young Thompson came to Wrentham, +and all the world over a gig has been a symbol of the respectability dear +to the British heart; and he had been for that time and as an only son +carefully and intelligently trained by one of the family who, in the +person of the late Edward Miall, founder of the _Nonconformist_, and M.P. +for Bradford, was supposed to be the incarnation of what was termed the +dissidence of Dissent. Young Thompson was also what would be called a +genteel youth, and gave me ideas as to wearing straps to my trousers, +oiling my hair, and generally adorning my person, which had never entered +into my unsophisticated head. He also had been to London, and as +Framlingham was some twenty miles nearer the Metropolis—the centre of +intelligence—than Wrentham, the intelligence of a Framlingham lad was of +course expected, _à fortiori_, to be of a stronger character than that of +one born twenty miles farther from the sun of London. There was also a +good deal of talent in the family on the mother’s side. Mrs. Thompson +was a Miss Medley, and Mr. Medley was an artist of great merit, the son +of Mr. Medley, of Liverpool, a leading Baptist minister in his day, and a +writer of hymns still sung in Baptist churches. Mr. Medley was also +active as a Liberal, and was credited by us boys with a personal +acquaintance with no less illustrious an individual than the great +Brougham himself. Once or twice he came to lodge during the summer at +Southwold; naturally he was visited there by his grandson, who would +return well primed with political anecdote to our rustic circle, and was +deemed by me more of an authority than ever. Once or twice, too, I had +the honour of being a visitor, and heard Mr. Medley, a fine old +gentleman, who lived to a very advanced age, talk of art and artists and +other matters quite out of my usual sphere. It is not surprising, then, +that the grandson became in time quite an artist himself, though he is +better known to the world, not so much in that capacity, but as Sir Henry +Thompson, certainly not the least distinguished surgeon of our day. In +Lord Beaconsfield’s last novel, ‘Endymion,’ we have a passing reference +to one Wrentham lad, Sir Charles Wetherell, as ‘the eccentric and too +uncompromising Wetherell.’ Assuredly the fame of another lad, Sir Henry +Thompson, connected with Wrentham, will longer live. + +This reference to Sir Henry Thompson reminds me of his early attempts at +rhyme, which I trust he will forgive me for rescuing from oblivion. Once +upon a time we captured a young cuckoo, and having carefully gorged it +with bread-and-milk, and left it in a nest in an outhouse, which we +devoted mainly to rabbits, the next morning the poor bird was found to be +dead. A prize was offered for the best couplet. Three of us contended. +My sister wrote: + + ‘This lonely sepulchre contains + A little cuckoo’s dead remains.’ + +I wrote: + + ‘To our grief, cuckoo sweet + Is lying underneath our feet.’ + +Thompson took quite a different and, read by the light of his subsequent +career, a far more characteristic view of the case. He took care, as a +medical man, to dwell on the cause which had terminated the career of so +interesting a bird. According to him, + + ‘It had a breast as soft as silk, + And died of eating bread-and-milk.’ + +Assuredly in this case the child was father to the man. + +But the great awakening of the time, that which made the dry bones live, +and fluttered the dove-cotes of Toryism—we never heard the word +Conservative then—was the General Election. At that time we were always +having General Elections. We had one, of course, when George IV. died +and King William reigned in his stead; we had another when the Duke was +out and the Whigs came in; and then we had another when the cry ran +through the land, and reached even the most remote villages of East +Anglia, of ‘The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill!’ Voters +were brought down, or up, as the case might be, from all quarters of the +land. Coaches-full came tearing along, gorgeous with election flags, and +placarded all over with names of rival candidates. Gentlemen of ancient +lineage called to request of the meanest elector the favour of his vote +and influence. It was with pain the Liberals of our little village +resolved to vote against our Benacre neighbour, Sir Thomas Gooch, who had +long represented the county, but of whom the Radicals spoke derisively as +Gaffer Gooch, or the Benacre Bull, and chose in his stead a country +squire known as Robert Newton Shaw, utterly unknown in our quarter of the +county. + +It was rather a trying time for the Wrentham Liberals and Dissenters to +do their duty, for Sir Thomas was a neighbour, and always was a pleasant +gentleman in the parish, and had power to do anyone mischief who went +against him. Our medical man did not vote at all. Our squire actually, +I believe, supported Sir Thomas, and altogether respectable people found +themselves in an extremely awkward position. At Southwold the people +were a little more independent, for Gaffer Gooch rarely illuminated that +little town with his presence; and as my father, with the economy which +is part and parcel of the Scotchman as he leaves his native land, but +which rarely extends to his children, had, by teaching gentlemen’s sons +and other ways, been able to save a little, which little had been devoted +to the purchase of cottage property in Southwold (well do I remember the +difficulty there was in collecting the rents; never, assuredly, were +people so much afflicted or so unfortunate when the time of payment +came), it was for Southwold that he claimed his vote. I, as the son, was +permitted to share in the glories of that eventful day. The election +took place at school-time, and my companion was Henry Thompson. We had +to walk betimes to Frostenden, where Farmer Downing lived, who was that +_rara avis_ a Liberal tenant farmer; but of course he did not vote tenant +farmer, but as a freeholder. It was with alarm that Mrs. Downing saw her +lord and master drive off with us two lads in the gig. There had been +riots at London, riots as near as Ipswich, and why not at Halesworth? A +mile or two after we had started we met, per arrangement, the Southwold +contingent, who joined us with flags flying and a band playing, and all +the pride and pomp and circumstance of war. We rode in a gig, and our +animal was a steady-going mare, and behaved as such; but all had not gigs +or steady-going mares. Some were in carts, some were on horseback, some +in ancient vehicles furbished up for the occasion; and as the band played +and the people shouted, some of the animals felt induced to dance, and +especially was this restlessness on the part of the quadrupeds increased +as we neared Halesworth, in the market-place of which was the +polling-booth, and in the streets of which we out-lying voters riding in +procession made quite a show. Halesworth, or Holser, as it was called, +was distant about nine miles, lying to the left of Yoxford, a village +which its admirers were wont to call the Garden of Suffolk. In 1809 the +Bishop of Norwich wrote from Halesworth: ‘The church in this place is +uncommonly fine, and the ruins of an old castle (formerly the seat of the +Howards) are striking and majestic.’ But when we went there the ruins +were gone—the more is the pity—and the church remained, at that time held +by no less a Liberal than Richard Whately, afterwards Archbishop of +Dublin. I used at times to meet with a country gentleman—a brother of a +noble lord—who after he had spent a fortune merrily, as country gentlemen +did in the good old times, came to live on a small annuity, and, in spite +of his enormous daily consumption of London porter at the leading inn of +the town, managed to reach a good old age. The hon. gentleman and I were +on friendly terms, and sometimes he would talk of Whately, who had often +been at his house. But, alas! he remembered nothing of a man who became +so celebrated in his day except that he would eat after dinner any number +of oranges, and was so fond of active exercise that he would take a +pitchfork and fill his tumbrels with manure, or work just like a labourer +on a farm. Of the Doctor’s aversion to church-bell ringing we have a +curious illustration in a letter which appeared in the _Suffolk +Chronicle_ in 1825: ‘A short time since a wedding took place in the +families of two of the oldest and most respectable inhabitants of the +town, when it was understood that the Rector had, for the first time +since his induction to his living, given permission for the bells to +greet the happy pair. After, however, sounding a merry peal a short hour +and a half, a message was received at the belfry that the Rector thought +they had rung long enough. The tardiness with which this mandate was +obeyed soon brought the rev. gentleman in person to enforce his order, +which was then reluctantly complied with to the great disappointment of +the inhabitants, and mortification of the ringers, several of whom had +come from a considerable distance to assist in the festivities of the +day.’ The Independent chapel was an old-fashioned meeting-house, full of +heavy pillars, which, as they intercepted the view of the preacher, were +favourable to that gentle sleep so peculiarly refreshing on a Sunday +afternoon—especially in hot weather—in the square and commodious family +pew. The minister was an old and venerable-looking divine of the name of +Dennant, who was always writing little poems—I remember the opening lines +of one, + + ‘A while ago when I was nought, + And neither body, soul, nor thought’— + +and whose ‘Soul Prosperity,’ a volume of sober prose, reached a second +edition. His grandson, Mr. J. R. Robinson, now the energetic manager of +the _Daily News_, may be said to have achieved a position in the world of +London of which his simple-hearted and deeply-devotional grandfather +could never have dreamed. As I was the son of a brother minister, Mr. +Dennant’s house was open to myself and Thompson, though we did not go +there on the particular day of which I write. The leading tradesman of +the town was a Liberal, and had at least one pretty daughter, and there +we went. Most of the day, however, we mixed with the mob which crowded +round, while the voters—you may be sure, not all of them sober—were +brought up to vote. The excitement was immense; there was the hourly +publication of the state of the poll—more or less unreliable, but, +nevertheless, exciting; and what a tumult there was as one or other of +the rival candidates drove up to his temporary quarters in a carriage and +pair, or carriage and four, made a short speech, which was cheered by his +friends and howled at derisively by his foes, while the horses were being +changed, and then drove off at a gallop to make the same display and to +undergo the same ordeal elsewhere! To be sure, there was a little rough +play; now and then a rush was made by nobody in particular, and for no +particular reason; or, again, an indiscreet voter—rendered additionally +so by indulgence in beer—gave occasion for offence; but really, beyond a +scrimmage, a hat broken, a coat or two torn or bespattered with mud, a +cockade rudely snatched from the wearer, little harm was done. The +voters knew each other, and had come to vote, and had stayed to see the +fun. For the timid, the infirm, the old, the day was a trying one; but +there was an excitement and a life about the affair one misses now that +the ballot has come into play, and has made the voter less of a man than +ever. Of course the shops were shut up. All who could afford to do so +kept open house, and at every available window were the bright, beaming +faces of the Suffolk fair—oh, they were jolly, those election days of +old! Well, in East Anglia, as elsewhere, spite of the parsons, spite of +the landlords, spite of the slavery of old custom, spite of old +traditions, the freeholders voted Reform, and Reform was won, and +everyone believed that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. In ten years, +I heard people say, there would be no tithes for the farmer to pay, and +welcome was the announcement; for then, as now, the agricultural interest +was depressed, and the farmer was a ruined man. Now one takes but a +languid interest in the word Reform, but then it stirred the hearts of +the people; and how they celebrated their victory, how they hoisted flags +and got up processions and made speeches, and feasted and hurrahed, +’twere tedious to tell. All over the land the people rejoiced with +exceeding joy. Old things, they believed, had passed away—all things had +become new. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +BUNGAY AND ITS PEOPLE. + + +Bungay Nonconformity—Hannah More—The Childses—The Queen’s +Librarian—Prince Albert. + +In the beginning of the present century, a disgraceful attack on +Methodism—by which the writer means Dissent in all its branches—appeared +in what was then the leading critical journal of the age, the _Edinburgh +Review_. ‘The sources,’ said the writer, a clergyman (to his shame be it +recorded) of the Church of England—no less distinguished a divine than +the far-famed Sydney Smith—‘from which we shall derive our extracts are +the Evangelical and Methodistical magazines for the year 1807, works +which are said to be circulated to the amount of 18,000 or 20,000 every +month, and which contain the sentiments of Arminian and Calvinistic +Methodists, and of the Evangelical clergymen of the Church of England. +We shall use the general term of Methodism to designate these three +classes of fanatics, not troubling ourselves to point out the finer +shades and nicer discriminations of lunacy, but treating them as all in +one general conspiracy against common-sense and rational orthodox +Christianity.’ To East Anglia came the reputed worthy Canon for an +illustration of what he termed their policy to have a great change of +ministers. Accordingly, he reprints from the _Evangelical Magazine_ the +following notice of an East Anglian Nonconformist ordination, which, +by-the-bye, in no degree affects the charge unjustly laid at the door of +these ‘fanatics,’ as engaged ‘in one general conspiracy against +common-sense and rational orthodox Christianity.’ ‘Same day the Rev. W. +Haward, from Hoxton Academy, was ordained over the Independent Church at +Rendham, Suffolk; Mr. Pickles, of Walpole, began with prayer and reading; +Mr. Price, of Woodbridge, delivered the introductory discourse, and asked +the questions; Mr. Dennant, of Halesworth, offered the ordinary prayer; +_Mr. Shufflebottom_ [the italics are the Canon’s], of Bungay, gave the +charge from Acts xx. 28; Mr. Vincent, of Deal, the general prayer; and +Mr. Walford, of Yarmouth, preached to the people from Phil. ii. 16.’ As +a lad, I saw a good deal of Bungay, though I never knew the Shufflebottom +whose name seems to have been such a stumbling-block and cause of offence +to the Reverend Canon of St. Paul’s. I say Reverend Canon of St. Paul’s, +because, though the writer had not gained that honour when the review +appeared, it was as Canon he returned to the charge when he sanctioned +the republication of it in his collected works. It was at Bungay that I +had my first painful experience of the utter depravity of the human +heart—a truth of which, perhaps, for a boy, I learned too much from the +pulpit. The river Waveney runs through Bungay, and one day, fishing +there, I lent a redcoat—with whom, like most boys, I was proud to scrape +an acquaintance—my line, he promising to return it when I came back from +dinner. When I did so, alas! the red-coat was gone. + +Nonconformity in Bungay seems to have originated in the days of the Lord +Protector, in the person of Zephaniah Smith, who was the author of: (1) +‘The Dome of Heretiques; or, a discovery of subtle Foxes who were tyed +tayle to tayle, and crept into the Church to do mischief’; (2) ‘The +Malignant’s Plot; or, the Conspiracie of the Wicked against the Just, +laid open in a sermon preached at Eyke, in Suffolk, January 23, 1697. +Preached and published to set forth the grounds why the Wicked lay such +crimes to the charge of God’s people as they are cleare off’; (3) ‘The +Skillful Teacher.’ Beloe says of this Smith that ‘he was a most singular +character, and among the first founders of the sect of the Antinomians.’ +One of the first leaders of this sect is said by Wood to have been John +Eaton, who was a minister and preacher at Wickham Market, in which +situation and capacity Smith succeeded him. This Smith published many +other tracts and sermons, chiefly fanatical and with fantastical titles. +One is described by Wood, and is called ‘Directions for Seekers and +Expectants, or a Guide for Weak Christians in these discontented times.’ +‘I shall not give an extract from these sermons,’ writes Beloe, who is +clearly, like Wood, by no means a sympathetic or appreciative critic, +‘though very curious, but they are not characterized by any peculiarity +of diction, and are chiefly remarkable for the enthusiasm with which the +doctrine of the sect to which the preacher belonged is asserted and +vindicated. The hearers also must have been endowed with an +extraordinary degree of patience, as they are spun out to a great +length.’ Mr. Smith’s ministry at Bungay led to a contention, which +resulted in an appeal to the young Protector, Richard Cromwell. Then we +find Mr. Samuel Malbon silenced by the Act of Uniformity, who is +described as a man mighty in the Scriptures, who became pastor to the +church in Amsterdam. In 1695 we hear of a conventicle in Bungay, with a +preacher with a regularly paid stipend of £40 a year. Till 1700 the +congregation worshipped in a barn; but in that year the old meeting-house +was built, and let to the congregation at £10 per annum. In 1729 it was +made over to the Presbyterians or Independents worshipping there, ‘for +ever.’ The founders of that conventicle seem to have suffered for their +faith; yet the glorious Revolution of 1688 had been achieved, and William +of Orange—who had come from a land which had nobly sheltered the earlier +Nonconformists—was seated on the throne. + +Bungay, till Sydney Smith made it famous, was not much known to the +general public. It was on the borders of the county and out of the way. +The only coach that ran through it, I can remember, was a small one that +ran from Norwich through Beccles and Bungay to Yarmouth; and, if I +remember aright, on alternate days. There was, at any rate, no direct +communication between it and London. Bungay is a well-built market town, +skirted on the east and west by the navigable river Waveney, which +divides it from Norfolk, and was at one time noted for the manufacture of +knitted worsted stockings and Suffolk hempen cloth; but those trades are +now obsolete. The great Roger Bigod—one of the men who really did come +over with the Conqueror—built its castle, the ruins of which yet remain, +on a bold eminence on the river Waveney. ‘The castle,’ writes Dugdale, +‘once the residence and stronghold of the Bigods, and by one of them +conceived to be impregnable, has become the habitation of helpless +poverty, many miserable hovels having been reared against its walls for +the accommodation of the lowest class.’ The form of the castle appears +to have been octangular. The ruins of two round fortal towers and +fortresses of the west and south-west angles are still standing, as also +three sides of the great tower or keep, the walls of which are from 7 to +11 feet thick and from 15 to 17 feet high. In the midst of the ruins, on +what is called the Terrace, is a mineral spring, now disused, and near it +is a vault, or dungeon, of considerable depth. Detached portions of the +wall and their foundations are spread in all directions in the castle +grounds, a ridge of which, about 40 yards long, forms the southern +boundary of a bowling-green which commands delightful prospects. The +mounds of earth raised for the defence of the castle still retain much of +their original character, though considerably reduced in height. One of +them, facing the south, was partly removed in 1840, with the intention of +forming a cattle market. As a boy I often heard of the proud boast of +Hugh Bigod, second Earl, one of King Stephen’s most formidable opponents, +as recorded by Camden: + + ‘Were I in my castle of Bungay, + Upon the river Waveney, + I would not care for the King of Cockeney.’ + +In ancient times the Waveney was a much broader stream than it is now, +and Bungay was called _Le Bon Eye_, or the good island, then being nearly +surrounded by water. Hence the name, in the vulgar dialect, of Bungay. +To ‘go to Bungay to get a new bottom’ was a common saying in Suffolk. + +In 1777 we find Hannah More writing to Garrick from Bungay, which she +describes as ‘a much better town than I expected, very clean and +pleasant.’ ‘You are the favourite bard of Bungay’—at that time the +tragedians of the city of Norwich were staying there—‘and,’ writes +Hannah, who at that time had not become serious and renounced the +gaieties of the great world, ‘the dramatic furore rages terribly among +the people, the more so, I presume, from being allowed to vent itself so +seldom. Everybody goes to the play every night,—that is, every other +night, which is as often as they perform. Visiting, drinking, and even +card-playing, is for this happy month suspended; nay, I question if, like +Lent, it does not stop the celebration of weddings, for I do not believe +there is a damsel in the town who would spare the time to be married +during this rarely-occurring scene of festivity. It must be confessed, +however, the good folks have no bad taste.’ It must be recollected that +Hannah More in reality belongs to East Anglia. She was the daughter of +Jacob More, who was descended from a respectable family at Harleston. He +was a High Churchman, but all his family were Nonconformists. His mother +used to tell young people that they would have known how to value Gospel +privileges had they lived like her, when at midnight pious worshippers +went with stealthy steps through the snow to hear the words of +inspiration delivered by a holy man at her father’s house; while her +father, with a drawn sword, guarded the entrance from violent or profane +intrusion, adding that they boarded the minister and kept his horse for +£10 a year. An unfortunate lawsuit deprived the Mores of their property, +and thus it was that the celebrated Hannah was born at Gloucestershire, +and not in Suffolk or Norfolk. The family mansion was at Wenhaston, not +very far from Wrentham. + +In my young days Bungay owed all its fame and most of its wealth to the +far-famed John Childs, who was one of our first Church Rate martyrs, to +whom is due mainly the destruction of the Bible-printing monopoly, and to +whom the late Edward Miall was much indebted for establishing the +_Nonconformist_ newspaper. For many years it was the habit of Mr. Childs +to celebrate that event by a dinner, at which the wine was good and the +talk was better. Old John Childs, of Bungay, had a cellar of port which +a dean might have envied; and many was the bottle that I cracked with him +as a young man, after a walk from Wrentham to Bungay, a distance of +fourteen miles, to talk with him on things in general, and politics in +particular. He was emphatically a self-made man—a man who would have +made his way anywhere, and a man who had a large acquaintance with the +reformers of his day in all parts of the country. On one occasion the +great Dan O’Connell came to pay him a visit, much to the delight of the +Suffolk Radicals, and to the horror of the Tories. The first great +dinner at which I had the honour of being present, and to which I was +taken by my father, who was a great friend of Mr. Childs, was on the +occasion of the presentation to the latter of a testimonial by a +deputation of distinguished Dissenters from Ipswich in connection with +his incarceration in the county gaol at Ipswich, for having refused to +pay rates for the support of a Church in which he did not believe, and +for the performance of a service in which he took no part. At that time +‘the dear old Church of England,’ while it was compelled to tolerate +Dissent, insisted on Dissent being taxed to the uttermost farthing; and +that it does not do so now, and that it is more popular in consequence, +is due to the firm stand taken by such men as John Childs of Bungay. He +was a great phrenologist. In his garden he had a summer-house, which he +facetiously termed his scullery, where he had some three hundred plaster +casts, many of which he had taken himself of public individuals and +friends and acquaintances. My father was honoured in this way, as also +my eldest sister. Sir Henry Thompson and I escaped that honour, but I +have not forgotten his dark, piercing glance at our heads, when, as boys, +we first came into his presence, and how I trusted that the verdict was +satisfactory. Of course the Childses went to Meeting, but when I knew +Bungay Mr. Shufflebottom had been gathered to his fathers, and the Rev. +John Blaikie, a Scotchman, and therefore always a welcome guest at +Wrentham, reigned in his stead. Mr. Childs had a large and promising +family, few of whom now remain. His daughter was an exceptionally gifted +and glorious creature, as in that early day it seemed to me. She also +died early, leaving but one son, Mr. Crisp, a partner in the well-known +legal firm of Messrs. Ashurst, Morris, and Crisp. It was in the little +box by the window of the London Coffee House—now, alas! no more—where Mr. +Childs, on the occasion of his frequent visits to London, always gathered +around him his friends, that I first made the acquaintance of Mr. +Ashurst, the head of the firm—a self-made man, like Mr. Childs, of +wonderful acuteness and great public spirit. In religion Mr. Ashurst was +far more advanced than the Bungay printer. ‘It is not a thing to reason +about,’ said the latter; and so to the last he remained orthodox, +attended the Bungay Meeting-house, invited the divines of that order to +his house, put in appearance at ordination services, and openings of +chapels, and was to be seen at May Meetings when in town, where +occasionally his criticisms were of a freer order than is usually met +with at such places. + +‘The Bungay Press,’ wrote a correspondent of the _Bookseller_, on the +death of Mr. Charles Childs, who had succeeded his father in the +business, ‘has been long known for its careful and excellent work. +Established some short time before the commencement of the present +century, its founder had, for twenty years, limited its productions to +serial publications and books of a popular and useful character, and in +the year 1823, soon after Mr. John Childs had taken control of the +business, upwards of twenty wooden presses were working, at long hours, +to supply the rapidly-increasing demand for such works as folio Bibles, +universal histories, domestic medicine books, and other publications then +issuing in one and two shilling numbers from the press.’ Originally Mr. +Childs had been in a grocer’s shop at Norwich. There he was met with by +a Mr. Brightley, a printer and publisher, who, originally a schoolmaster +at Beccles, had suggested to young Childs that he had better come and +help him at Bungay than waste his time behind a counter. Fortunately for +them both the young man acceded to the proposal, and travelled all over +England driving tandem, and doing everywhere what we should now call a +roaring trade. Then he married Mr. Brightley’s daughter, and became a +partner in the firm, which was known as that of John and R. Childs, and, +latterly of Childs and Son. ‘Uncle Robert,’ as I used to hear him +called, was little known out of the Bungay circle. He had a nice house, +and lived comfortably, marrying, after a long courtship, the only one of +the Stricklands who was not a writer. Agnes was often a visitor at +Bungay, and not a little shocked at the atrocious after-dinner talk of +the Bungay Radicals. ‘Do you not think,’ said she, in her somewhat +stilted and tragic style of talk, one day, to a literary man who was +seated next her, author of a French dictionary which the Childses were +printing at the time—‘Do you not think it was a cruel and wicked act to +murder the sainted and unfortunate Charles I.?’ ‘Why, ma’am,’ stuttered +the author, while the dinner-party were silent, ‘I’d have p-p-poisoned +him.’ The gifted authoress talked no more that day. Naturally, as a +lad, seeing so much of Bungay, I wished to be a printer, but Mr. Childs +said there was no use in being a printer without plenty of capital, and +so that idea was renounced. + +But to return to Mr. John Childs. About the year 1826, in association +with the late Joseph Ogle Robinson, he projected and commenced the +publication of a series of books known in the trade as the ‘Imperial +Edition of Standard Authors,’ which for many years maintained an +extensive sale, and certainly then met an admitted literary want, +furnishing the student and critical reader, in a cheap and handsome form, +with dictionaries, histories, commentaries, biographies, and +miscellaneous literature of acknowledged value and importance, such as +Burke’s works, Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall,’ Howe’s works, the writings of +Lord Bacon—books which are still in the market, and which, if I may speak +from a pretty wide acquaintance with students’ libraries fifty years ago, +were in great demand at that time. The disadvantage of such a series is +that the books are too big to put in the pocket or to hold in the hand. +But I do not know that that is a great disadvantage to a real student who +takes up a book to master its contents, and not merely to pass away his +time. To study properly a man must be in his study. In that particular +apartment he is bound to have a table, and if you place a book on a table +to read, it matters little the size of the page, or the number of columns +each page contains. Mr. Childs set the fashion of reprinting standard +authors on a good-sized page, with a couple of columns on each page. +That fashion was followed by Mr. W. Smith—a Fleet Street publisher, than +whom a better man never lived—and by Messrs. Chambers; but now it seems +quite to have passed away. On the failure of Mr. Robinson, Mr. Childs’ +valuable reprints were placed in the hands of Westley and Davis, and +subsequently with Ball, Arnold, and Co.; and latterly, I think, the late +Mr. H. G. Bohn reissued them at intervals. As to his part publications, +when Mr. Childs had given up pushing them, he disposed of them all to Mr. +Virtue, of Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, who then secured almost a monopoly +of the part-number trade, and thus made a large fortune. ‘I love books +that come out in numbers,’ says Lord Montford in ‘Endymion,’ ‘as there is +a little suspense, and you cannot deprive yourself of all interest by +glancing at the last part of the last volume.’ And so I suppose in the +same way there will always be a part-number trade, though the reapers in +the field are many, and the harvest is not what it was. + +Active and fiery in body and soul, Mr. John Childs, at a somewhat later +period, with the sympathy and advocacy of Mr. Joseph Hume and other +members of Parliament, and aided to a large extent by Lord Brougham, +succeeded in procuring the appointment of a Committee of the House of +Commons to inquire into the existing King’s Printers’ Patent for printing +Bibles and Acts of Parliament, the period for the renewal of which was +near at hand. The principle upon which the patent was originally granted +appeared to be _correctness secured only by protection_—a fallacy which +the voluminous evidence of the Committee most completely exposed. The +late Alderman Besley, a typefounder, and a great friend of John Childs, +as well as Robert Childs, practical printers, gave conclusive evidence on +this head, and the result was that, although the patent was renewed for +thirty years, instead of sixty as before, the Scriptures were sold to the +public at a greatly reduced price, and the trade in Bibles, though +nominally protected, has ever since been practically free. + +Nor did Mr. Childs’ labours end here. In Scotland the right of printing +Bibles had been granted exclusively to a company of private persons, +Blaire and Bruce, neither of whom had any practical knowledge of the art +of printing, or took any interest in the different editions of the Bible. +The same men also had the supplying all the public revenue offices of +Government with stationery, by which means they enjoyed an annual profit +of more than £6,000 a year. When the Government, in an economical mood, +ordered them to relinquish the latter contract, not only were they +compensated for the loss, but were continued in their vested rights as +regards Bible-printing. In Scotland there was no one to interfere with +their rights. In England patents had been given not only to the firm of +Messrs. Strahan, Eyre and Spottiswoode, but to each of the two +Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. Up to 1821 the Bibles of the +English monopolists came freely into Scotland, but then a prohibition, +supported by decisions in the Court of Sessions and the House of Lords, +was obtained. In 1824 Dr. Adam Thompson, of Coldstream, and three +ministers were summoned to answer for the high crime and misdemeanour of +having, as directors of Bible societies, delivered copies of an edition +of Scriptures which had been printed in England, but which the Scotch +monopolists would not permit to circulate in Scotland. Bible societies +in Scotland had received, in return for their subscription to the London +society, copies of an octavo Bible in large type, to which the Scotch +patentees had no corresponding edition, and which was much prized by the +aged. And it was because Dr. Thompson and others helped to circulate it, +as agents of the London Bible Society, that they were proceeded against. +The Scotch Bible, in consequence of the monopoly, was as badly printed as +the English one. In order to show how monopoly had failed to secure good +work, a gentleman sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury an enormous list +of errors which he had found in the Oxford Nonpareil Bible. In an old +Scotch edition the apostle is made to say, ‘Know ye not that the +righteous shall _not_ inherit the kingdom of God?’ In another edition +‘The four beasts of the Apocalypse’ are ‘_sour_ beasts.’ Dr. Lee, +afterwards Principal of Edinburgh University, felt deeply the injustice +done by the monopoly, and the heavy taxation consequently imposed upon +the British and Foreign Bible Society; but he was a man of the study +rather than of the street. Yet in 1837 the monopoly, powerfully defended +as it was by Sir Robert Inglis, who dreaded cheap editions of the Word of +God, as necessarily incorrect and leading to wickedness and infidelity of +all kinds, fell, and it was to John Childs, of Bungay, that in a great +measure the fall was due, while owing to the repeated labours of Dr. Adam +Thompson and others, we got cheaper Bibles and Testaments on the other +side of the Tweed. + +If you turn to the life of Dr. Adam Thompson, of Coldstream, the man who +had the most publicly to do with the fall of the monopoly, there can be +no doubt on this head. Though specially interested in the English +patents, Mr. Childs was aware that the one for Scotland fell, to be +renewed sooner by twenty years, and he kept dunning Joseph Hume on the +subject, who, Radical Reformer, at that time had his hands pretty full. +Mr. Childs had got so far as to have his Committee, and to get the +evidence printed. What was the next step? Dr. Thompson’s biographer +shall tell us. ‘Mr. Childs had been looking out for a Scottish +Dissenting minister of proved ability, zeal, and influence, who should +feel the immense and urgent importance of the question, and after +mastering the unjust principles and the injurious results of the +monopoly, should testify to these before the Committee, in a weighty and +pointed manner, and effectively bring them also before the ministers and +people of Scotland. He fixed upon Dr. Thompson, and the letter in which +he wrote to the Doctor to prepare for becoming a witness was the +beginning of a ten years’ copious correspondence, the first in a series +of many hundreds of very lengthy letters, in which Mr. Childs, with great +shrewdness, sagacity, and vigour, and with perfect confidence of always +being in the right, acted as universal censor, pronouncing oracularly +upon all ecclesiastical and political men and organs, expressing +unqualified contempt for the House of Lords, and very small satisfaction +with the House of Commons, showing no mercy to Churchmen, and little but +asperity to Dissenters, and denouncing all British journals as base or +blind except the _Nonconformist_.’ Only two of these letters are +published in Dr. Thompson’s biography. I give one, partly because it is +interesting, and partly because it is characteristic. Unfortunately, of +all John Childs’ letters to myself, written in a fine, bold hand, exactly +reproduced by his son and grandson, so that I could never tell one from +the other, I have preserved none. Childs thus wrote to Dr. Thompson, +July 15th, 1839: + + ‘MY DEAR FRIEND, + + ‘You will be happy to know that I went into Newgate this morning with + my friend Ashurst, and heard their pardon read to the Canadians. + They were released this afternoon, and Mr. Parker and Mr. Wixon have + been dining with me, and are gone to a lodging, taken for them by Mr. + A., where they may remain till their departure on Wednesday. I have + just sent to Mr. Tidman to inform him they will worship God and + return thanks in his place to-morrow, if all be well. How + wonderfully God has appeared for these people! My dear friend, when + I first saw them in January all things appeared to be against them, + but all has been overruled for good. + + ‘At the time you left on Monday evening, Lord John was making known + to the House of Commons, in your own words, the plan proposed by + yourself, and adopted by him, to my amazement. Most heartily do I + congratulate you on the termination of the event, so decidedly + honourable to yourself in every way. I do not expect you will + approve of all that I have done, but I felt it to be my duty to + address a letter to the _Pilot_ on the subject, calling attention to + the liberty taken with you, and the manner in which you were + humbugged when in concert with the London societies, and the absolute + triumph of your cause when conducted with single-handed integrity, + intelligence, and energy. If it shall happen that you do not approve + of all I have said, I am sure you ought, because without you, and + with you, if you had left it to the fellows here, Scotland’s + Dissenters would have now appeared the degraded things which, on the + Bible subject, the English Dissenters have appeared in my eyes for + some years past. It is due to you. I was fairly rejoiced when I saw + Lord John’s declaration, because I could see from his answer to Sir + James Graham that he meant the thing should be done. Scotland ought + to have a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving, and as I said to a + friend to whom I wrote in Edinburgh, “You ought to have a + monument—the Thompson monument.” “That, sir,” the guide would say, + “is erected to honour a man by whose honest energy and zeal Scotland + was freed from the most degrading tyranny—that of a monopoly in + printing the Word of God.” The tablet should bear that memorable + sentence of yours on the first day of your examination, “All + monopolies are bad.” Of all monopolies religious monopolies are the + worst, and of all religious monopolies a monopoly of the Word of God + is the most outrageous.’ Alas! I have heard nothing of the Thompson + monument. + +Such a man was John Childs. One more busy in body and brain I never +knew. That he was disposed to be cynical was natural. Most men who see +much of the world, and who do not wear coloured glasses, are so. Take +the history of the Bible monopoly. The work of its abolition was +commenced by John Childs, of Bungay, carried on and completed as far as +Scotland was concerned by Dr. Adam Thompson, while the British public in +its usual silliness awarded £3,000 to Dr. Campbell, on the plea—I quote +the words of the late Dr. Morton Brown, of Cheltenham—that, ‘God gave the +honour very largely to our friend, Dr. Campbell, to smite this bloated +enemy of God and man full in the forehead.’ The bloated enemy, as +regards Scotland, was dead before Dr. Campbell had ever penned a line. +As regards England, I believe it still exists. + +It must have been about 1837 that the name of John Childs, of Bungay, was +made specially notorious by reason of his refusal to pay Church-rates, +and when he had the honour of being the first person imprisoned for their +non-payment. He was proceeded against in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and +as his refusal to pay was solely on conscientious grounds, he did not +contest the matter. The result was, he was sent to Ipswich Gaol for the +non-payment of a rate of 17s. 6d., the animus of the ecclesiastical +authorities being manifested by the endorsement of the writ, ‘Take no +bail.’ It was the first death-blow to Church-rates. The local +excitement it created was intense and unparalleled. In the House of +Commons Sir William Foulkes presented several petitions from Norfolk, and +Mr. Joseph Hume several from Suffolk, on the subject. One entire sitting +of the House of Commons was devoted to the Bungay Martyr, as Sir Robert +Peel ironically termed him. The Bungay Martyr had however, right on his +side. It was found that a blot had been hit, and it had to be removed. + +The excitement produced by putting Mr. Childs into gaol was intense at +that time all over the land. ‘I beg to inform you,’ wrote a Halesworth +Dissenter, Mr. William Lincoln, to the editor of the _Patriot_, at that +time the organ of Dissent, ‘that my highly-esteemed and talented friend, +Mr. John Childs, of Bungay, has just passed through this town, in custody +of a sheriff’s officer, on his way to our county gaol, by virtue of an +attachment, at the suit of Messrs. Bobbet and Scott, churchwardens of +Bungay, for non-payment of 17s. 6d. demanded of him as a Church-rate, and +subsequent refusal to obey a citation for appearance at the Bishop’s +Court.’ Naturally the writer remarked: ‘It will soon be seen whether +proceedings so well in harmony with the days of fire and faggot are to be +tolerated in this advanced period of the nineteenth century.’ When, in +due time, Mr. Childs obtained his release, the event was celebrated at +Bungay in fitting style. I find in a private diary the following note: +‘This day week was a grand day at Bungay. I heard there were not less +than six or seven thousand people there to welcome his return, and the +request of the police, that the greatest order might be observed, was +fully acted up to. Miss C. did not enter Bungay with her father. I +suppose when she found so great a multitude of horsemen, gigs, +pedestrians and banners, they thought it better for the young lady and +the younger children to retire to the close carriages. Mr. C. during his +imprisonment had letters from all parts of the kingdom.’ I remember the +leading Dissenters came to Bungay with a piece of plate, to present to +Mr. Childs, to commemorate his heroism. A dinner was given by Mr. Childs +in connection with the presentation. At that dinner, lad as I was, I was +permitted to be present. I had never seen anything so grand or stately +before; and that was my first interview with John Childs, a dark, +restless, eagle-eyed man, whom I was to know better and love more for +many a long day. I took to Radical writing, and nothing could have +pleased John Childs better. I owed much to his friendship in after-life. + +In 1833 the Church-rate question was originally raised in Bungay, and +many of the Dissenters refused to pay. The local authorities at once +took high ground, and put twelve of the recusants into the Ecclesiastical +Court. They caved in, leaving to John Childs the honour of martyrdom. +At the time of Mr. Childs’ imprisonment he had recently suffered from a +severe surgical operation, and it was believed by his friends impossible +that he could survive the infliction of imprisonment. The Rev. John +Browne writes: ‘A committee very generously formed at Ipswich undertook +the management of his affairs, and when they learned at the end of eleven +days’ imprisonment that he had undergone a most severe attack, indicating +at least the possibility of sudden death, they sent a deputation to the +Court to pay the sum demanded. The Court, however, required, as well as +the money, the usual oath of canonical obedience, and this Mr. Childs +refused to give. He was told by his friends that he would surely die in +prison, but his reply was, ‘That is not my business.’ But it seems so +much had been made of the matter by the newspapers that Mr. Childs was +released without taking the oath. Charles Childs, the son, followed in +his father’s steps. At Bungay the Churchmen seemed to have determined to +make Dissenters as uncomfortable as possible. Actually five years after +they had thrown the father into prison, the churchwardens proceeded +against the son, having been baffled in repeated attempts to distrain +upon his goods, and cited him into the Ecclesiastical Court, where it +took two and a half years to determine whether the sum of three shillings +and fourpence was due. At the end of that time the judge decided it was +not, and the churchwardens had to pay Mr. Childs’ costs as well as their +own, which in the course of time amounted to a very respectable sum. +Charles Childs, who died suddenly a few years since, and who never seemed +to me to have aged a day since I first knew him, was truly a chip of the +old block. He was much in London, as he printed quite as much as his +father for the leading London publishers. An enlightened patriot, he was +in very many cases successful in resisting the obstacles raised from time +to time by party spirit or Church bigotry. On more than one occasion he +conducted a number of his workmen through an illegally-closed path, and +opened it by the destruction of the fences, repeated appeals to the +persistent obstructions having proved unavailing. He was a man of +scholarly and literary attainments, a clever talker, well able to hold +his own, and during the Corn Law and Currency agitation he contributed +one or more articles on these subjects to the _Westminster Review_, then +edited by his friend, the late General Perronet Thompson, a very foremost +figure in Radical circles forty years ago, always trying to get into +Parliament—rarely succeeding in the attempt. ‘How can he expect it,’ +said Mr. Cobden to me one day, ‘when, instead of going to the principal +people to support him, he finds out some small tradesman—some little +tailor or shoemaker—to introduce him?’ Once upon a time the _Times_ +furiously attacked Charles Childs. His reply, which was able and +convincing, was forwarded, but only procured admission in the shape of an +advertisement, for which Mr. Childs had to pay ten pounds. The corner of +East Anglia of which I write rarely produced two better men than the +Childs, father and son. They are gone, but the printing business still +survives, though no longer carried on under the well-known name. By +their noble integrity and public spirit they proved themselves worthy of +a craft to which light and literature and leading owe so much. It is to +such men that England is under lasting obligations, and one of the +indirect benefits of a State Church is that it gives them a grievance, +and a sense of wrong, which compels them to gird up their energies to act +the part of village Hampdens or guiltless Cromwells. All the manhood in +them is aroused and strengthened as they contend for what they deem right +and just, and against force and falsehood. Poets, we are told, by one +himself a poet, + + ‘Are cradled into poetry by wrong; + They learn in suffering what they teach in song.’ + +Nonconformists have cause especially to rejoice in the bigotry and +persecution to which they have been exposed, since it has led them by a +way they knew not, to become the champions of a broader creed and a more +general right than that of which their fathers dreamed. It is easy to +swim with the stream; it requires a strong man to swim against it. Two +hundred years of such swimming had made the Bungay Nonconformists strong, +and gave to the world two such exceptionally sturdy and strengthful men +as John and Charles Childs. I was proud to know them as a boy; in +advancing years I am prouder still to be permitted to bear this humble +testimony to their honest worth. It is because Nonconformity has raised +up such men in all parts of the land, that a higher tone has been given +to our public life, that politics mean something more than a struggle +between the ins and the outs, and that ‘Onward’ is our battle-cry. + +Of the young men more or less coming under the influence of the Childs’s, +perhaps one of the most successful was the late Bernard Bolingbroke +Woodward, Librarian to her Majesty. When I first knew him he was in a +bank at Norwich. Thence he passed to Highbury College, and in due time, +after he had taken his B.A. degree, settled as the Independent minister +at Wortwell, near Harleston, in Norfolk. There he became connected with +John Childs, and, amidst much hard work, edited for the firm a new +edition of ‘Barclay’s Universal English Dictionary.’ In 1860, on the +death of Mr. Glover, who had for many years filled the post of Librarian +to the Queen at Windsor Castle, Mr. Woodward’s name was mentioned to the +Prince, in reply to inquiries for a competent successor. Acting on the +advice of a friend at head-quarters, Mr. Woodward forwarded to Prince +Albert the same printed testimonials which he had sent in when he was a +candidate for the vacant secretaryship of a large and popular society, +and to those alone he owed his appointment to the office of Librarian to +the Queen. An interview took place at Windsor Castle, which was highly +satisfactory; but before the appointment was finally made, Mr. Woodward +informed Her Majesty and the Prince that there was one circumstance which +he had omitted to mention, and which might disqualify him for the post. +‘Pray, what is that disqualification?’ asked the Prince. ‘It is,’ +replied Mr. Woodward, ‘that I have been educated for, and have actually +conducted the services of an Independent congregation in the country.’ +‘And why should that be thought to disqualify you?’ asked the Prince. +‘It does nothing of the sort. If that is all, we are quite satisfied, +and feel perfectly safe in having you for a librarian.’ Am I not +justified in saying that at one time Bungay influences reached far and +near? + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +A CELEBRATED NORFOLK TOWN. + + +Great Yarmouth Nonconformists—Intellectual life—Dawson Turner—Astley +Cooper—Hudson Gurney—Mrs. Bendish. + +When David Copperfield, Dickens tells us, first caught sight of Yarmouth, +it seemed to him to look rather spongy and soppy. As he drew nearer, he +remarks, ‘and saw the whole adjacent prospect, lying like a straight, low +line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound or so might have +improved it, and also that if the land had been a little more separated +from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite so much mixed +up, like toast-and-water, it would have been much nicer.’ He adds: ‘When +we got into the street, which was strange to me, and smelt the fish, and +pitch, and oakum, and tallow, and saw the sailors walking about, and the +carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I had done so +busy a place injustice.’ In this opinion his readers who know Yarmouth +will agree. Brighton and Hastings and Eastbourne might envy Yarmouth its +sandy beach, where you can lead an amphibious life, watching the +fishing-smacks as they come to shore with cargoes often so heavy as to be +sold for manure; watching the merchant-ships and yachts that lie securely +in the Roads, or the long trail of black smoke of Scotch or northern +steamers far away; watching the gulls ever skimming the surface of the +waves; or the children, as they build little forts and dwellings in the +sand to be rudely swept to destruction by the advancing tide. In the +golden light of summer, how blue is the sky, how green the sea, how +yellow the sand, how jolly look the men and handsome the women! What +health and healing are in the air, as it comes laden with ozone from the +North Sea! You have the sea in front and on each side to look at, to +walk by, to splash in, to sail on. The danger is, that you grow too fat, +too ruddy, too hearty, too boisterous. As we all know, Venus was born +out of the sea, and out there on that eastern peninsula, of which +Yarmouth is the pride and ornament, there used to flourish bonny lasses, +as if to show that the connection between the ocean and lovely woman is +as intimate as of yore. Yarmouth and Lowestoft owe a great deal to the +Great Eastern Railway, which has made them places of health-resort from +all parts of England; and truly the pleasure-seeker or the holiday-maker +may go farther and fare worse. + +I was a proud boy when first I set foot in Yarmouth. How I came to go +there I can scarcely remember, but it is to be presumed I accompanied my +father on one of those grand occasions—as far as Nonconformist circles +are concerned—when the brethren met together for godly comfort and +counsel. It is true Wrentham was in Suffolk, and Yarmouth was in +Norfolk, but the Congregational Churches of that quarter had always been +connected by Christian fellowship and sympathy, and hence I was taken to +Yarmouth—at that time far more like a Dutch than an English town—and +wonderful to me was the Quay, with its fine houses on one side and its +long line of ships on the other—something like the far-famed Bompjes of +Rotterdam—and the narrow rows in which the majority of the labouring +classes were accustomed to live. ‘A row,’ wrote Charles Dickens, ‘is a +long, narrow lane or alley, quite straight, or as nearly so as may be, +with houses on each side, both of which you can sometimes touch with the +finger-tips of each hand by stretching out your arms to their full +extent. Many and many a picturesque old bit of domestic architecture is +to be hunted up among the rows. In some there is little more than a +blank wall for the double boundary. In others the houses retreat into +busy square courts, where washing and clear-starching are done, and +wonderful nasturtiums and scarlet-runners are reared from green boxes +filled with that scarce commodity, vegetable mould. Most of these rows +are paved with pebbles from the beach, and to traverse them a peculiar +form of low cart, drawn by a single horse, is employed.’ This to me was +a great novelty, as with waggons and carts I was familiar, but not with a +Yarmouth cart—now, I find, replaced by wheelbarrows. In Amsterdam, at +the present day, you may see many such quaint old rows. But in Amsterdam +you have an evil-smelling air, while in Yarmouth it is ever fresh and +crisp, and redolent, as it were, of the neighbouring sea. The +market-place and the big church were at the back of this congeries of +quays and rows, and the sea and the old pier were at quite a respectable +distance from the town. I fancy the Yarmouth of the London bathers has +now extended down to the sandy beach, and the rough and rude old pier has +given place to one better adapted to the wants and requirements of an +increasingly well-to-do community. Far more Dutch than English was the +Yarmouth of half a century ago, I again say. + +As to the Yarmouth Independent parson, I shall never forget him. He was +a very big man, with great red cheeks that hung over his collar like +blown bladders, and was always on stilts. He preached in a big +meeting-house, now no more, the pillars of which intercepted alike the +view and the sound. One winter evening he was holding forth, in his +usual heavy style, to a few good people—with whom, evidently, all +pleasure was out of the question—who came there, as in duty bound, and +sat like martyrs all the while, and all were as grave as the preacher, +when a wicked boy rushed in and, in a hurried manner, called out, ‘Fire! +fire!’ The effect, I am told, was electrical. For once the good parson +was in a hurry, and moved as quickly and spoke as rapidly as his fellows; +but never had there been so much excitement in his chapel since he had +been its pastor. Once, I remember, he came to town, and dropped in at +the close of a party rather convivially inclined, in the Old London +Coffee House. As the reverend gentleman advanced to greet his friends, a +London lawyer, with all the impudence of his class, muttered, in a +whisper intended to be heard, and which was heard, by everyone, ‘Yarmouth +bloater.’ The good man said nothing, but it was evident he thought all +the more, as the group were more or less tittering over the fitness of +the comparison. The lawyer who made the remark was also the son of a +London minister, and, therefore, might have been expected to have known +better. I fear the Yarmouth minister never forgave him. Well, it only +served him right, as he had a horrible way of making young people very +uncomfortable. ‘Well, Master James,’ said he to me on one occasion, when +all the brethren had come to dine at Wrentham, and when I was admitted, +in conformity with the golden maxim in all well-regulated family circles, +that little children were to be seen and not heard (perhaps in our day +the fault is too much in an opposite direction), ‘can you inform me which +is the more proper form of expression—a pair of new gloves, or a new pair +of gloves?’ Of course I gave the wrong answer, as I blushed up to the +ears at finding myself the smallest personage in the room, publicly +appealed to by the biggest. He meant well, I dare say. His only object +was to draw me out; but the question and the questioner gave me a bad +quarter of an hour, and I never got over the unpleasant sensation of +which he had unconsciously been the originator in my youthful breast. + +At that time Yarmouth people were supposed to be a little superior. They +were well-to-do, and lived in good style, and, as was to be expected, +considering the sanitary advantages of the situation, were in good health +and spirits. They got a good deal of their intellectual character from +Norwich, which at the time set the fashion in such matters. In 1790 two +societies were established in that city for the private and amicable +discussion of miscellaneous questions. One of these, the Tusculan, seems +to have devoted the attention of its members exclusively to political +topics; while the Speculative, although it imposed no restrictions on the +range of inquiry, was of a more philosophical character. William Taylor +was a member of both, and it is difficult to say whether he distinguished +himself most by his ingenuity in debate, by the novelty of the +information which he brought to bear on every point, or by the lively +sallies of imagination with which he at once amused and excited his +hearers. The papers read by himself embraced an infinite variety of +subjects, from the theory of the earth, then unillumined by the +disclosures of modern geologists, to the most elaborate and refined +productions of its rational tenants, and he was seldom at a loss to place +on new ground or in a fresh light the matter of discussion introduced by +others. Writers of every tongue, studied by him with observant +curiosity, stored his retentive memory with materials ready to be applied +on every occasion, moulded by his Promethean talent into the most +animated and alluring forms. As a speaker and converser he was eminently +characterized by a constant flow of brilliant ideas, by a rapid +succession of striking images, and by a never-failing copiousness of +words, often quaint, but always correct. A similar society was formed at +Yarmouth, under the auspices of Dr. Aiken, at which William Taylor also +occasionally attended. The Rev. Thomas Compton has given the following +description of these visits: ‘We were, moreover, sometimes gratified by +the presence of our literary friends from Norwich. I have there +repeatedly listened to the mild and persuasive eloquence of the late Dr. +Enfield. A gentleman, too, still living, who has lately added to his +literary fame by a biographical work of high repute (I scarcely need add +that I allude to Mr. W. Taylor) would sometimes instruct us by his +various and profound knowledge, or amuse us with his ingenious +paradoxes.’ When we recollect how at this time the poetical puerilities +of Bath Easton flourished in the West, we may claim that Norwich and +Yarmouth, if not as favoured by fashion, had at any rate a claim to +intellectual reputation at least quite equal to that city of the _ton_. +Dr. Sayers, whose biography William Taylor had written, and whose +‘Dramatic Sketches of Northern Mythology’ had created a great sensation +at the time, was of Yarmouth extraction. + +The Rev. Mr. Compton writes: ‘In Yarmouth, where I lived at this time, +and where Lord Chedworth was accustomed to pay an annual visit, there was +then a society of gentlemen who met once a fortnight for the purpose of +amicable discussion. Our members—alas! how few remain—were of all +parties and persuasions, and some of them of very distinguished +attainments. A society thus constituted was in those days as pleasant as +it was instructive. The most eager disputation was never found to +endanger the most perfect goodwill, nor did any bitter feuds arise from +this entire freedom of opinion till the prolific period of the French +Revolution. On this subject our controversies became very impassioned. +The present Sir Astley Cooper, then a very young man, was accustomed to +pass his vacations with his most excellent father, Dr. Cooper, a name +ever to be by me beloved and revered. It was the amusement of our young +friend to say things of the most irritating nature, I believe—like Lady +Florence Pemberton in the novel—merely to see who would make the ugliest +face. Thus circumstanced, it was not in my philosophy to be the coolest +of the party.’ We can well imagine the consequences. There was a row, +and the literary society came to grief. As time went on matters became +worse instead of better, and the town was split up into parties—Liberal +or the reverse, Church or Dissent, but all of one mind as regards their +views being correct; and as to the weakness or wickedness of persons who +thought otherwise. The evil of this spirit knew no bounds, and the +demoralizing effect it produced was especially apparent at election +times. When Oldfield wrote his ‘Origin of Parliaments,’ the town, he +tells us, was under the influence of the Earl of Leicester, and was for +many years represented by some of his Lordship’s family. The right of +election was in the burgesses at large, of whom there were at that time +one thousand. The Reform Bill did little to improve the state of +affairs; it led to greater bribery and corruption and intimidation than +ever, and now, as a Parliamentary borough, Yarmouth has ceased to exist. +‘Sugar,’ it seems, was the slang term used for money, and the honest +voters were too eager to get it. Alas! in none of our seaport towns is +the standard of morality very high. Yarmouth, at any rate, is not worse +than Deal. In old days the excitement of a Yarmouth election much +affected our village. It lasted some days. The out-voters were brought +from the uttermost parts of the earth. As there were no railways, +stage-coaches were hired to bring them down from town; and when they +changed horses at Wrentham, quite a crowd would assemble to look at the +flags, and the free and independents on their way to do their duty, +overflowing with enthusiasm and beer. + +Sir Astley Cooper was much connected with Yarmouth in his young days, +when his father was the incumbent of the parish church. Some of his +boyish pranks were peculiar. Here is one of them: ‘Having taken two +pillows from his mother’s bed, he carried them up the spire of Yarmouth +Church, at a time when the wind was blowing from the north-east; and as +soon as he had ascended as high as he could, he ripped them open, and, +shaking out their contents, dispersed them in the air. The feathers were +carried away by the wind, and fell far and wide over the surface of the +market-place, to the great astonishment of a large number of persons +assembled there. The timid looked upon it phenomenon predictive of some +calamity; the inquisitive formed a thousand conjectures; while some, +curious in natural history, actually accounted for it by a gale of wind +in the north blowing wild-fowl feathers from the island of St. Paul’s.’ +On another occasion he got into an old trunk, which the family had agreed +to get rid of as inconvenient in the house. In this case he had to pay +the penalty, when he emerged from the chest in the carpenter’s shop. The +men, who had complained terribly of its weight, were not inclined to +allow young Astley to get off free. One of Astley’s tricks had, however, +a good motive, as it was intended to cure an old woman of her besetting +sin—a tendency to take a drop too much. In order to cure the old woman +of this weakness, he dressed himself as well as he could to represent the +sable form of his satanic majesty. Alas! instead of being surprised, the +old lady was too far-gone for that, and listened with tipsy gravity to +the distinguished visitor’s discourse. In her case it was true, as Burns +wrote: + + ‘Wi’ tipenny we fear nae evil; + Wi’ usquebae we’ll face the deevil.’ + +One of his tricks nearly led to unpleasant consequences. Whilst out +shooting one day, near Yarmouth, he killed an owl—a bird familiarly known +in Yarmouth by the sobriquet of ‘Brother Billy.’ Having arrived at home, +he went up into his mother’s room, with the bird concealed behind his +coat, and, assuming a countenance full of fear and sorrow, exclaimed, +‘Mother, mother, I’ve shot my brother Billy!’ but the alarm and distress +instantly depicted on the distracted countenance of his parent induced +him as quickly as possible to pull the owl from under his coat. This at +once exposed the truth and allayed the apprehensions of his mother’s +mind, but the effects of the shock it caused did not so immediately pass +away. Dr. Cooper determined to punish his son, and he therefore confined +him, according to his usual mode of correction, in his own house. Astley +was, however, but little disposed to remain passive in his imprisonment, +and in the wantonness of his ever-active disposition amused himself by +climbing up the chimney, and having at length reached the summit, +endeavoured, by imitating the well-known tone of the chimney-sweeper, and +calling out as lustily as he could, ‘Sweep, sweep!’ to attract the +attention of the people below. Even on his father the incorrigible lad +seems on more than one occasion to have tried his little game. One day, +while the worthy Doctor was marrying a couple in the church, Master +Astley concealed himself in a turret close by the altar, and, imitating +his father’s voice, repeated in a subdued tone the words of the +marriage-service as the ceremony proceeded, to the consternation of his +father, who said that he had never observed an echo in that place before. +Once or twice the lad’s life was in peril, as when his foot slipped on +the top of the church, and he was unpleasantly suspended for some time +between the rafters of the ceiling and the floor of the chancel. On +another occasion he had a narrow escape from drowning. It seems that on +the Yare are little boats out together very slightly, for the purpose of +carrying a man, his gun, and dog over the shallows of Braydon, in pursuit +of the flights of wild-fowl which at certain seasons haunt these shoals. +When the boat is thus loaded, it only draws two or three inches of water, +and is quite unfit for sea. Young Astley nearly lost his life in +attempting to take one of these boats out to open sea. In this way young +Astley Cooper, from his fearless and enterprising disposition, soon +became a sort of leader of the Yarmouth boys, and at their head, for a +time, seems to have devoted himself to every kind of amusement within his +reach—riding, boating, fishing, and not unfrequently sports of a less +harmless character, such as breaking lamps and windows, ringing the +church bells at all hours, disturbing the people by frequent alterations +of the church clock, so that if any mischief were committed it was sure, +says his admiring biographer, to be set down to him. + +The two men who shed most literary fame on the Yarmouth of my childhood +were Dawson Turner and Hudson Gurney, who in this respect resembled each +other, that they were both bankers and both antiquarians more or less +distinguished. Dawson Turner was a man of middle height and of saturnine +aspect, who had the reputation of being a hard taskmaster to the ladies +of his family, who were quite as intelligent and devoted to literature as +himself. He published a ‘Tour in Normandy’—at that time scarcely anyone +travelled abroad—and much other matter, and perhaps as an +autograph-collector was unrivalled. Most of his books, with his notes, +more or less valuable, are now in the British Museum. Sir Charles Lyell, +when a young man, visited the Turner family in 1817, and gives us a very +high idea of them all. ‘Mr. Turner,’ he says, in a letter to his father, +‘surprises me as much as ever. He wrote twenty-two letters last night +after he had wished us “Good-night.” It kept him up till two o’clock +this morning.’ Again Sir Charles writes: ‘What I see going on every hour +in this family makes me ashamed of the most active day I ever spent at +Midhurst. Mrs. Turner has been etching with her daughters in the parlour +every morning at half-past six.’ Of Hudson Gurney in his youth we get a +flattering portrait in one of the charming ‘Remains of the Late Mrs. +Trench,’ edited by her son, Archbishop of Dublin. Writing from Yarmouth +in 1799, she says: ‘I have been detained here since last Friday, waiting +for a fair wind, and my imprisonment would have been comfortless enough +had it not have been for the attention of Mr. Hudson Gurney, a young man +on whom I had no claims except from a letter of Mr. Sanford’s, who, +without knowing him, or having any connection with him, recommended me to +his care, feeling wretched that I should be unprotected in the first part +of my journey. He has already devoted to me one evening and two +mornings, assisted me in money matters, lent me books, and enlivened my +confinement to a wretched room by his pleasant conversation. Mr. Sanford +having described me as a person travelling about _for her health_, he +says his old assistant in the Bank fancied I was a decrepit elderly lady +who might safely be consigned to his youthful partner. His description +of his surprise thus prepared was conceived in a very good strain of +flattery. He is almost two-and-twenty, understands several languages, +seems to delight in books, and to be uncommonly well informed.’ Little +credit, however, is due to Mr. Hudson Gurney for his politeness in this +case. The lovely and lively widow—she had married Colonel St. George at +the age of eighteen, and the marriage only lasted two or three years, the +Colonel dying of consumption—must have possessed personal and mental +attractions irresistible to a cultivated young man of twenty-two. Had +she been old and ugly, it is to be feared his business engagements would +have prevented the youthful banker devoting much time to her ladyship’s +service. + +Yarmouth is intimately connected with literature and the fine arts. It +was off Yarmouth that Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked; and the testimony +he bears to the character of the people shows how kindly disposed were +the Yarmouth people of his day. ‘We,’ he writes, ‘got all safe on shore, +and walked afterwards on foot to Yarmouth, where, as unfortunate men, we +were used with great humanity, not only by the magistrates of the town, +who assigned us good quarters, but also by particular merchants and +owners of ships, and had money given us, sufficient to carry us either to +London or back to Hull, as we thought fit.’ It was from Yarmouth that +Wordsworth and Coleridge sailed away to Germany, then almost a _terra +incognita_. Leman Blanchard was born at Yarmouth, as well as Sayers, the +first, if not the cleverest, of our English caricaturists. One of the +most brilliant men ever returned to Parliament was Winthrop Mackworth +Praed, M.P. for Yarmouth, whose politics as a boy I detested as much as +in after-years I learned to admire his genius. One of the most fortunate +men of our day, Sir James Paget, the great surgeon, was a Yarmouth lad, +and the See of Chester was filled by an accomplished divine, also a +Yarmouth lad. Southey, when at Yarmouth, where his brother was a student +for some time, was so much struck with the uniqueness of the epitaphs in +the Yarmouth Church, that he took the trouble to copy many of them. One +was as follows: + + ‘We put him out to nurse; + Alas! his life he paid, + But judge not; he was overlaid.’ + +And hence it may be inferred that in Yarmouth the custom of baby-farming +has long flourished. Possibly thence it may have extended itself to +London. Amongst the truly great men who have lived and died in Yarmouth, +honourable mention must be made of Hales, the Norfolk Giant. In times +past soldiers and sailors and royal personages were often to be seen at +Yarmouth. It was at Yarmouth the heroes, returning from many a distant +battle-field, often landed. Nelson on one occasion—that is, after the +affair of Copenhagen—when he landed, at once made his way to the hospital +to see his men. To one of them, who had lost his arm, he said, ‘There, +Jack, you and I are spoiled for fishermen.’ + +A good deal of Puritanism seems to have come into England by way of +Yarmouth. In Queen Elizabeth’s time, 300 Flemings settled there, who had +fled from Popery and Spain in their native land. In Norwich the Dutch +Church remains to this day. Some of them seem to have been the friends +and teachers of the far-famed, and I believe unjustly maligned, Robert +Browne. In Norfolk the seed fell upon good soil. While sacerdotalism +was more or less being developed in the State Church, the Norfolk men +boldly protested against Papal abominations, as they deemed them, and +swore to maintain the gospel of Geneva and Knox. One of the men +imprisoned when Bancroft was Archbishop of Canterbury, for attending a +conventicle, was Thomas Ladd, ‘a merchant of Yarmouth.’ The writ ran: +‘Because that, on the Sabbath days, after the sermons ended, sojourning +in the house of Mr. Jachler, in Yarmouth, who was late preacher in +Yarmouth, joined with him in repeating the substance and heads of the +sermons that day made in the church, at which Thomas Ladd was usually +present.’ In 1624 the penal laws for suppressing Separatists were +strictly enforced in Yarmouth, and one of the teachers of a small society +of Anabaptists was cast into prison, and the Bishop of Norwich wrote a +letter of thanks to the bailiffs for their activity in this matter, which +is preserved to this day. But, nevertheless, people still continued to +worship God according to the dictates of conscience; we find the Earl of +Dorset in his reply to the town of Yarmouth, as to the way in which the +town should be governed, adds: ‘I should want in my care of you if I +should not let you know that his Majesty is not only informed, but +incensed against you for conniving at and tolerating a company of +Brownists among you. I pray you remember there was no seam in the +Saviour’s garment.’ Bridge was the founder of the Yarmouth +Congregational Church, somewhere about the time of the commencement of +the Civil War. The people declared for the Parliament. Colonel Goffe +was one of its representatives in the House of Commons. All along, the +town seems to have been puritanically inclined, and to have been in this +matter more independent than neighbouring towns. At one time they were +so tolerant that the Independents seem to have worshipped in one end of +the church while the regular clergyman performed the service in the +other; but that did not last long, and when the Independents had a place +of worship of their own, they were not a little troubled by Friends and +Papists claiming for themselves the liberty the Independents had sought +and won. In 1655 the peace of the Church was disturbed by Quaker +doctrines. It appears two females, members of the Church, had joined +them, and refused to return. We read: ‘The messenger appointed to visit +May Rouse, brought in an account of her disowning and despising the +Church; she would not come at all unless she had a message from the +Spirit moving her.’ She came, however, a week after (December 11), but +by reason of the cold weather was desired to come in again the next +Tuesday. She did so, and gave in these two reasons why she forsook the +Church: 1. Because the doctrine of the Gospel of Faith was not holden +forth; 2. Because there wanted the right administration of baptism. + +In 1659 the Church at Yarmouth, feeling the times to be full of trouble +and of peril, said: + +‘1. We judge a Parliament to be expedient for the preservation of the +peace of these nations; and withal, we do desire that all due care be +taken that the Parliament be such as may preserve the interests of Christ +and His people in these nations. + +‘2. As touching the magistrates’ power in matters of faith and worship, +we have declared our judgments in our late (Free Savoy) confession, and +though we greatly prize our Christian liberties, yet we profess our utter +dislike and abhorrence of a universal toleration, as being contrary to +the mind of God in His Word. + +‘3. We judge that the taking away of tithes for the maintenance of +ministers until as full a maintenance be equally secured and as legally +settled, tends very much to the destruction of the ministry, and the +preaching of the Gospel in these nations. + +‘4. It is our desire that countenance be not given unto, nor trust +reposed in, the hand of Quakers, they being persons of such principles as +are destructive to the Gospel, and inconsistent with the peace of modern +societies.’ + +In five years the Yarmouth people had a Roland for their Oliver; the King +had got his own again, and he and the Parliament of the day looked upon +the Independents or Presbyterians as mischievous as the Quakers; and as +to tithes, they were quite as much resolved, the only difference being +that King and Parliament insisted on their being paid to Episcopalians +alone. In 1770 Lady Huntingdon writes: ‘Success has crowned our labours +in that wicked place, Yarmouth.’ + +Mrs. Bendish, in whom the Protector was said to have lived again, was +quite a character in Yarmouth society. Bridget Ireton, the granddaughter +of the Protector, married in 1669 Mr. Thomas Bendish, a descendant of Sir +Thomas Bendish, baronet, Ambassador from Charles I. to the Sultan. She +died in 1728, removing, however, in the latter years of her life to +Yarmouth. Her name stands among the members of the church in London of +which Caryl had been pastor, and over which Dr. Watts presided. To her +the latter addressed at any rate one copy of verses to be found in his +collected works. She recollected her grandfather, and standing, when six +years old, between his knees at a State Council, she heard secrets which +neither bribes nor whippings could extract from her. Her grandfather she +held to be a saint in heaven, and only second to the Twelve Apostles. +Asked one day whether she had ever been at Court, her reply was, ‘I have +never been at Court since I was waited upon on the knee.’ Yet she +managed to dispense with a good deal of waiting, and never would suffer a +servant to attend her. God, she said, was a sufficient guard, and she +would have no other. She is described as loquacious and eloquent and +enthusiastic, frequenting the drawing-rooms and assemblies of Yarmouth, +dressed in the richest silks, and with a small black hood on her head. +When she left, which would be at one in the morning, perched on her +old-fashioned saddle, she would trot home, piercing the night air with +her loud, jubilant psalms, in which she described herself as one of the +elect, in a tone more remarkable for strength than sweetness. In the +daytime she would work with her labourers, taking her turn at the +pitchfork or the spade. The old Court dresses of her mother and Mrs. +Cromwell were bequeathed by her to Mrs. Robert Luson, of Yarmouth, and +were shown as recently as 1834, at an exhibition of Court dresses held at +the Somerset Gallery in the Strand. As was to be expected, Mrs. Bendish +was enthusiastic in the cause of the Revolution of 1688, and the printed +sheets relating to it were dropped by her secretly in the streets of +Yarmouth, to prepare the people for the good time coming. Her son was a +friend of Dr. Watts as well as his mother. He died at Yarmouth, +unmarried, in the year 1753, and with him the line of Bendish seems to +have come to an end. Another daughter of Ireton was married to Nathaniel +Carter, who died in 1723, aged 78. His father, John Carter, was +commander-in-chief of the militia of the town in 1654. He subscribed the +Solemn League and Covenant, being then one of the elders of the +Independent congregation. He was also bailiff of the town, and an +intimate friend of Ireton. He died in 1667. On his tombstone we read: + + ‘His course, his fight, his race, + Thus finished, fought, and run, + Death brings him to the place + From whence is no return.’ + +He lived at No. 4, South Quay, and it was there, so it is said, that the +resolve was made that King Charles should die. + +He is gone, but his room still remains unaltered—a large wainscoted upper +chamber, thirty feet long, with three windows looking on to the quay, +with carved and ornamented chimney-piece and ceiling. A great obscurity, +as was to be expected, hangs over the transaction, as even now there are +men who shrink from lifting up a finger against the Lord’s anointed. +Dinner had been ordered at four, but it was not till eleven, that it was +served, and that the die had been cast. The members of the Secret +Council, we are told, ‘after a very short repast, immediately set off by +post—many for London, and some for the quarters of the army.’ Such is +the account given in a letter, written in 1773, by Mr. Mewling Luson, a +well-known resident in Yarmouth, whose father, Mr. William Luson, was +nearly connected the Cromwell family. Nathaniel Carter, the son-in-law +of Ireton, was in the habit of showing the room, and relating the +occurrence connected with it, which happened when he was a boy. Cromwell +was not at that council. He never was in Yarmouth; but that there was +such consultation there is more than probable. Yarmouth was full of +Cromwellites. In the Market Place, now known as the Weavers’ Arms, to +this day is shown the panelled parlour whence Miles Corbet was used to go +forth to worship in that part of the church allotted to the Independents. +Miles Corbet was the son of Sir Thomas Corbet, of Sprouston, who had been +made Recorder of Yarmouth in the first year of Charles, and who was one +of the representatives of the town in the Long Parliament. The son was +an ardent supporter of the policy of Cromwell, and, like him, laboured +that England might be religious and free and great, as she never could be +under any king of the Stuart race; and he met with his reward. ‘See, +young man,’ said an old man to Wilberforce, as he pointed to a figure of +Christ on the cross, ‘see the fate of a Reformer.’ It was so +emphatically with Miles Corbet. Under the date of 1662 there is the +following entry in the church-book: + + ‘1662.—Miles Corbet suffered in London.’ + +He was a member of the church there, and was one of the judges who sat on +the trial of King Charles I. His name stands last on the list of those +who signed the warrant for that monarch’s execution. Corbet fled into +Holland at the Restoration, with Colonels Okey and Barkstead. George +Downing—a name ever infamous—had been Colonel Okey’s chaplain. He became +a Royalist at the Restoration, and was despatched as Envoy Extraordinary +into Holland, where, under a promise of safety, he trepanned the three +persons above named into his power, and sent them over to England to +suffer death for having been members of the Commission for trying King +Charles I. For this service he was created a baronet. The King sent an +order to the Sheriffs of London on April 21, 1662, that Okey’s head and +quarters should have Christian burial, as he had manifested some signs of +contrition; but Barkstead’s head was directed to be placed on the +Traitor’s Gate in the Tower, and Corbet’s head on the bridge, and their +quarters on the City gates. + +Foremost amongst the noted women of the Independent Church must be +mentioned Sarah Martin, of whose life a sketch appeared in the _Edinburgh +Review_ as far back as 1847. A life of her was also published by the +Religious Tract Society. Sarah, who joined the Yarmouth church in 1811, +was born at Caistor. From her nineteenth year she devoted her only day +of rest, the Sabbath, to the task of teaching in a Sunday-school. She +likewise visited the inmates of the workhouse, and read the Scriptures to +the aged and the sick. But the gaol was the scene of her greatest +labours. In 1819, after some difficulty, she obtained admission to it, +and soon seems to have acquired an extraordinary influence over the minds +of the prisoners. She then gave up one day in the week to instruct them +in reading and writing. At length she attended the prison regularly, and +kept an exact account of her proceedings and their results in a book, +which is now preserved in the public library of the town. As there was +no chaplain, she read and preached to the inmates herself, and devised +means of obtaining employment for them. She continued this good work +till the end of her days in 1843, when she died, aged fifty-three. A +handsome window of stained glass, costing upwards of £100, raised by +subscription, has been placed to her memory in the west window of the +north aisle of St. Nicholas Church. But her fame extends beyond local +limits, and is part of the inheritance of the universal Church. It was +in Mr. Walford’s time that Sarah Martin commenced her work. Mr. Walford +tells us, in his Autobiography, that the Church had somewhat degenerated +in his day, that the line of thought was worldly, and not such as became +the Gospel. It is clear that in his time it greatly revived, and, even +as a lad, the intelligence of the congregation seemed to lift me up into +quite a new sphere, so different were the merchants and ship-owners of +Yarmouth from the rustic inhabitants of my native village. In this +respect, if I remember aright, the family of Shelley were particularly +distinguished. One dear old lady, who lived at the Quay, was +emphatically the minister’s friend. She had a nice house of her own and +ample means, and there she welcomed ministers and their wives and +children. It is to be hoped, for the sake of poor parsons, that such +people still live. I know it was a great treat to me to enjoy the +hospitality of the kind-hearted Mrs. Goderham, for whose memory I still +cherish an affectionate regard. To live in one of the best houses on the +Quay, and to lie in my bed and to see through the windows the masts of +the shipping, was indeed to a boy a treat. + +A little while ago I chanced to be at Norwich, when the thought naturally +occurred to me that I would take a run to Yarmouth—a journey quickly made +by the rail. In my case the journey was safely and expeditiously +accomplished, and I hastened once more to revisit the scenes and +associations of my youth. Alas! wherever I went I found changes. A new +generation had arisen that knew not Joseph. The wind was howling down +the Quay; the sand was blown into my mouth, my nose, my ears; I could +scarcely see for the latter, or walk for the former; but, nevertheless, I +made my way to the pier. Only one person was on it, and his back was +turned to me. As he stood at the extreme end, with chest expanded, with +mouth wide open, as if prepared to swallow the raging sea in front and +the Dutch coast farther off, I thought I knew the figure. It was a +reporter from Fleet Street and he was the only man to greet me in the +town I once knew so well. Yes; the Yarmouth of my youth was gone. Then +a reporter from Fleet Street was an individual never dreamt of. And so +the world changes, and we get new men, fresh faces, other minds. The +antiquarian Camden, were he to revisit Yarmouth, would not be a little +astonished at what he would see. He wrote: ‘As soon as the Yare has +passed Claxton, it takes a turn to the south, that it may descend more +gently into the sea, by which means it makes a sort of little tongue or +slip of land, washt on one side by itself, on the other side by the sea. +In this slip, upon an open shore, I saw Yarmouth, a very neat harbour and +town, fortified both by the nature of the place and the contrivance of +art. For, though it be almost surrounded with water, on the west with a +river, over which there is a drawbridge, and on either side with the sea, +except to the north, where it is joined to the continent; yet it is +fenced with strong, stately walls, which, with the river, figure it into +an oblong quadrangle. Besides the towers upon these, there is a mole or +mount, to the east, from whence the great guns command the sea (scarce +half a mile distant) all round. It has but one church, though very large +and with a stately high spire, built near the north gate by Herbert, +Bishop of Norwich.’ In only one respect the Yarmouth of to-day resembles +that of Camden’s time. Then the north wind played the tyrant and plagued +the coast, and it does so still. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +THE NORFOLK CAPITAL. + + +Brigg’s Lane—The carrier’s cart—Reform demonstration—The old +dragon—Chairing M.P.’s—Hornbutton Jack—Norwich artists and +literati—Quakers and Nonconformists. + +Many, many years ago, when wandering in the North of Germany, I came to +an hotel in the Fremden Buch, of which (Englishmen at that time were far +more patriotic and less cosmopolitan than in these degenerate days) an +enthusiastic Englishman had written—and possibly the writing had been +suggested by the hard fare and dirty ways of the place: + + ‘England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.’ + +Underneath, a still more enthusiastic Englishman had written: ‘Faults? +What faults? I know of none, except that Brigg’s Lane, Norwich, wants +widening.’ For the benefit of the reader who may be a stranger to the +locality, let me inform him that Brigg’s Lane leads out of the fine +Market Place, for which the good old city of Norwich is celebrated all +the world over, and that on a recent visit to Norwich I found that the +one fault which could be laid at the door of England had been +removed—that Brigg’s Lane had been widened—that, in fact, it had ceased +to be a lane, and had been elevated into the dignity of a street. + +My first acquaintance with Norwich, when I was a lad of tender years and +of limited experience, was by Brigg’s Lane. I had reached it by means of +a carrier’s cart—the only mode of conveyance between Southwold, Wrentham, +Beccles and Norwich—a carrier’s cart with a hood drawn by three noble +horses, and able to accommodate almost any number of travellers and any +amount of luggage. As the driver was well known to everyone, there was +also a good deal of conversation of a more or less friendly character. +The cart took one day to reach Norwich—which was, and it may be is, the +commercial emporium of all that district—and another day to return. The +beauty of such a conveyance, as compared with the railway travelling of +to-day, was that there was no occasion to be in a flurry if you wanted to +travel by it. Goldsmith—for such was the proprietor and driver’s +name—when he came to a place was in no hurry to leave it. All the +tradesmen in the village had hampers or boxes to return, and it took some +time to collect them; or messages and notes to send, and it took some +time to write them; and at the alehouse there was always a little gossip +to be done while the horses enjoyed their pail of water or mouthful of +hay. Even at the worst there was no fear of being left behind, as by +dint of running and holloaing you might get up with the cart, unless you +were very much behind indeed. But you may be sure that when the day came +that I was to visit the great city of Norwich I was ready for the +carrier’s cart long before the carrier’s cart was ready for me. Why was +it, you ask, that the Norwich journey was undertaken? The answer is not +difficult to give. The Reform agitation at that time had quickened the +entire intellectual and social life of the people. At length had dawned +the age of reason, and had come the rights of man. The victory had been +won all along the line, and was to be celebrated in the most emphatic +manner. We Dissenters rejoiced with exceeding joy; for we looked +forward, as a natural result, to the restoration of that religious +equality in the eye of the law of which we had been unrighteously +deprived, and in consequence of which we had suffered in many ways. We +joined, as a matter of course, in the celebration of the victory which we +and the entire body of Reformers throughout the land had gained; and how +could that be done better than by feeding the entire community on old +English fare washed down by old English ale? And this was done as far as +practicable everywhere. For instance, at Bungay there was a public feast +in the Market Place, and on the town-pump the Messrs. Childs erected a +printing-press, which they kept hard at work all day printing off papers +intended to do honour to the great event their fellow-townsmen were +celebrating in so jovial a manner. In Norwich the demonstration was to +be of a more imposing character, and as an invitation had come to the +heads of the family from an old friend, a minister out of work, and +living more or less comfortably on his property, it seemed good to them +to accept it, and to take me with them, deeming, possibly, that of two +evils it was best to choose the least, and that I should be safer under +their eye at Norwich than with no one to look after me at home. At any +rate, be that as it may, the change was not a little welcome, and much +did I see to wonder at in the old Castle, the new Gaol, the size of the +city, the extent of the Market Place, the smartness of the people, and +the glare of the shops. It well repaid me for the ride of twenty-six +miles and the jolting of the carrier’s cart along the dusty roads. + +As I look into the mirror of the past, I see, alas! but a faded picture +of that wonderful banquet in Norwich to celebrate Reform. There was a +procession with banners and music, which seemed to me endless, as it +toiled along in the dust under the fierce sun of summer, the spectators +cheering all the way. There were speeches, I dare say, though no word of +them remains; but I have a distinct recollection of peeping into the +tents or tent, where the diners were at work, and of receiving from some +one or other of them a bit of plum-pudding prepared for that day, which +seemed to me of unusual excellence. I have a distinct recollection also +of the fireworks in the evening, the first I had ever seen, on the Castle +plain, and of the dense crowd that had turned out to see the sight; but I +can well remember that I enjoyed myself much, and that I was awfully +tired when it was all over. + +Another memory also comes to me in connection with the old Dragon,—not of +Revelation, but of Norwich—a huge green monster, which was usually kept +in St. Andrew’s Hall, and dragged out at the time of city festivities. +Men inside of it carried it along the street, and the sight was terrible +to see, as it had a ferocious head and a villainous tail, and resembled +nothing that is in the heaven above or the earth beneath or the waters +under the earth. I fancy, however, since the schoolmaster has gone +abroad, that kind of dragon has ceased to roar. I think it was at a +Norwich election that I saw it for the first and the only time, and it +followed in the procession formed to chair the Members—the Members being +seated in gorgeous array on chairs, borne on the heads of people, and +every now and then, much to the delight of the mob, though I should +imagine very little to his own, the chair, with the Member in it, was +tossed up into the air, and by this means it was supposed the general +public were able to get a view of their M.P. and to see what manner of +man he was. It was in some such way that I, as a lad, realized, as I +never else should have done, the red face and the pink-silk stockings of +the Hon. Mr. Scarlett, the happy candidate who pretended to enjoy the +fun, as with the best grace possible under the circumstances he smiled on +the ladies in the windows of the street, as he was borne along and bowed +to all. From my recollection of the chairing I saw that time, I am more +inclined to admire the activity of Wilberforce, of whom we read, when +elected for Hull, ‘When the procession reached his mother’s house, he +sprang from the chair, and, presenting himself with surprising quickness +at a projecting window—it was that of the nursery in which his childhood +had been passed—he addressed the populace with such complete effect that +he was afterwards able to decide the election of its successor.’ At +Norwich the Hon. Mr. Scarlett did well in not attempting a similar +display of agility. Perhaps, however, it is quite as well that we have +got rid of the chairing and the humour—Heaven help us!—to which it gave +rise on the part of an English mob. + +There was a delightful flavour of antiquity about the Norwich of that +day—its old fusty chapels and churches, its old bridges and narrow +streets. All the people with whom I came into contact on that festival +seemed to me well stricken in years. It was not so very long since, old +Hornbutton Jack had been seen threading his way along its ancient +streets. With a countenance much resembling the portraits of Erasmus, +with gray hair hanging about his shoulders, with his hat drawn over his +eyes and his hands behind him, as if in deep meditation; John Fransham, +the Norwich metaphysician and mathematician, might well excite the +curiosity of the casual observer, especially when I add that he was +bandy-legged, that he was short of stature, that he wore a green jacket, +a broad hat, large shoes, and short worsted stockings. A Norwich weaver +had helped to make Fransham a philosopher. Wright said Fransham could +discourse well on the nature and fitness of things. He possessed a +purely philosophical spirit and a soul well purified from vulgar errors. +Fransham made himself famous in his day. There is every reason to +believe that he had been for some time tutor to Mr. Windham. He is once +recorded to have spent a day with Dr. Parr. Many of his pupils became +professional men; with one of them, Dr. Leeds, the reader of Foote’s +comedies, if such a one exists, may be acquainted. The tutor and his +pupil, as Johnny Macpherson and Dr. Last, were actually exhibited on the +stage. But to return to Norwich antiquities. I have a dim memory of +some old place where the Dutch and Huguenot refugees were permitted to +meet for worship, and even now I can recognise there the possibility of +another Sir Thomas Browne—unless the Norwich of my boyhood has undergone +the destructive process we love to call improvement—not even disturbed in +his quiet study by the storm of civil war, inditing his thoughts as +follows: ‘That crystal is nothing else but ice strongly congealed; that a +diamond is softened or broken by the blood of a goat; that bays preserve +from the mischief of lightning and thunder; that the horse hath no gall; +that a kingfisher hanged by the bill showeth where the wind lay; that the +flesh of peacocks corrupteth not;’ and so on—questions, it may be, as +pertinent as those learnedly discussed in half-crown magazines at the +present day. + +As a boy, I was chiefly familiar with Norwich crapes and bombazines and +Norwich shawls, which at that time were making quite a sensation in the +fashionable world. It was at a later time that I came to hear of Old +Crome and the Norwich school. Of him writes Mr. Wedmore, that ‘he died +in a substantial square-built house, in what was a good street then, in +the parish of St. George, Colegate, having begun as a workman, and ended +as a bourgeois. He was a simple man, of genial company. To the end of +his life he used to go of an evening to the public-house as to an +informal club. In the privileged bar-parlour, behind the taps and +glasses, he sat with his friends and the shopkeepers, talking of local +things. But it is not to be supposed that because his life was from end +to end a humble one, though prosperous even outwardly after its kind, +Crome was deprived of the companionship most fitted to his genius, the +stimulus that he most needed. The very existence of the Norwich Society +of Artists settles that question. The local men hung on his words; he +knew that he was not only making pictures, but a school. And in the +quietness of a provincial city a coterie had been formed of men bent on +the pursuit of an honest and homely art, and of these he was the chief.’ +Dying, his last words were, ‘Hobbema, oh, Hobbema, how I loved thee!’ In +my young days Mr. John Sell Cotman chiefly represented Norwich, although +in later times he became connected with King’s College, London. A lady +writes to me: ‘I think it was in the summer of 1842 Mr. Cotman came down +to Norwich to visit his son John, who at that time was occupying a house +on St. Bennet’s Road. He visited us at Thorpe several times, and was +unusually well and in good spirits, with sketchbook or folio always in +hand. His father and sisters, too, were then living in a small house at +Thorpe, and from the balcony of their house, which looked over the valley +of the Wensum, he made one of his last interesting sketches, twelve of +which, after his death, the following year, were selected by his sons for +publication.’ + +Evelyn gives us a pleasant picture of Norwich when he went there ‘to see +that famous scholar and physitian, Dr. T. Browne, author of the “Religio +Medici” and “Vulgar Errors,” etc., now lately knighted.’ Evelyn +continues: ‘Next morning I went to see Sir Thomas Browne, with whom I had +corresponded by letter, though I had never seen him before, his whole +house and garden being a Paradise and cabinet of rarities, and that of +the best collection, especially medals, books, plants and natural things. +Amongst other curiosities, Sir Thomas has a collection of all the eggs of +all the foule and birds he could procure; that country, especially the +promonotary of Norfolck, being frequented, as he said, by severall kinds, +which seldom or never go further into the land, as cranes, storkes, +eagles, and a variety of water-foule. He led me to see all the +remarkable places of this ancient citty, being one of the largest and +certainly, after London, one of the noblest of England, for its venerable +cathedrall, number of stately churches, cleannesse of the streetes and +building of flints so exquisitely headed and squared, as I was much +astonished at; but he told me they had lost the art of squaring the +flints, in which at one time they so much excelled, and of which the +churches, best houses, and walls are built.’ Further, Evelyn tells us: +‘The suburbs are large, the prospect sweete with other amenities, not +omitting the flower-gardens, in which all the inhabitants excel. The +fabric of stuffs brings a vast trade to this populous towne.’ + +Long has Norwich rejoiced in clever people. In the life of William +Taylor, one of her most distinguished sons, we have a formidable array of +illustrious Norwich personages, in whom, alas! at the present time the +world takes no interest. Sir James Edward Smith, founder and first +President of the Linnæan Society, ought not to be forgotten. Of Taylor +himself Mackintosh wrote: ‘I can still trace William Taylor by his +Armenian dress, gliding through the crowd in Annual Reviews, Monthly +Magazines, Athenæums, etc., rousing the stupid public by paradox, or +correcting it by useful and seasonable truth. It is true that he does +not speak the Armenian or any other tongue but the Taylorian, but I am so +fond of his vigour and originality, that for his sake I have studied and +learned the language. As the Hebrew is studied by one book, so is the +Taylorian by me for another. He never deigns to write to me, but in +print I doubt whether he has many readers who so much understand, relish, +and tolerate him, for which he ought to reward me by some of his +manuscript esoteries.’ More may be said of William Taylor. It was he +who made Walter Scott a poet. Taylor’s spirited translation of Burger’s +‘Leonore’ with the two well-known lines— + + ‘Tramp, tramp along the land they rode, + Splash, splash along the sea,’ + +opened up to Scott a field in which for a time he won fame and wealth. + +Of Mrs. Taylor, wife of the grandson of the eminent Hebraist, Mackintosh +declared that she was the Madame Roland of Norwich. We owe to her Mrs. +Austen and Lady Duff Gordon. Mr. Reeve, the translator of De +Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy,’ has preserved the memory of his father, Dr. +Henry Reeve, by the republication of his ‘Journal of a Tour on the +Continent.’ Let me also mention that Dr. Caius, the founder of Caius +College, Cambridge, was a Norwich man. + +To Noncons Norwich offers peculiar attractions. We have in Dr. +Williams’s library ‘The Order of the Prophesie in Norwich’; and Robinson, +the leader of the Pilgrim Fathers, had a Norwich charge. Even in a later +day some of the Norwich divines had a godly zeal for freedom, worthy of +Milton himself, and on which the Pilgrim Fathers would have smiled +approval. It is told of Mark Wilks, the brother of Matthew, and the +grandfather of our London Mark Wilks, that when a deputation went from +Norwich during the Thelwall and Horne Tooke trials, when, if the +Castlereagh gang had had their will, there would have been found a short +and easy way with the Dissenters, and came back on the Sunday morning, +entering the place after the service had commenced, that he called out, +‘What’s the news?’ as he saw them enter. ‘Acquitted,’ was the reply. +‘Thank God!’ said the parson, as they all joined in singing + + ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow.’ + +It is a fact that Wilks’s first sermon in the Countess of Huntingdon’s +Chapel at Norwich was from the text, ‘There is a lad here with five +barley loaves and a few small fishes.’ Let me tell another story, this +time in connection with that Old Meeting which has so much to attract the +visitor at Norwich. It had a grand old man, William Youngman, amongst +its supporters; I see him now, with his choleric face, his full fat +figure, his black knee-breeches and silk stockings, his gold-headed cane. +He was an author, a learned man, as well as a Norwich merchant, the very +Aristarchus of Dissent—a kind-hearted, hospitable man withal, if my +boyish experience may be relied on. One Sunday there came to preach in +the Old Meeting a young man named Halley from London, who lived to be +honoured as few of our Dissenting D.D.’s have been. He was young, and he +felt nervous as he looked from the pulpit on the austere critic in his +great square pew just beneath. Well, thought the young preacher, a +sermon on keeping the Sabbath will be safe, and he selected that for his +morning discourse. The service over, up comes the grand old man. ‘The +next time, young man, you preach, preach on something you understand;’ +and, having said so, he bought a pennyworth of apples of a woman in the +street, leaving the young man to digest his remarks as best he could. +Again the service was to be carried on. The young man was in the pulpit, +the grand old man below. There was singing and prayer, but no sermon, +the young man having bolted after opening the service. I like better the +picture of Norwich I get in Sir James Mackintosh’s Life, where Basil +Montague tells us how he and Mackintosh, when travelling the Norfolk +circuit, always hastened to Norwich to spend their evenings in the circle +of which Mrs. Taylor was the attraction and the centre. The wife of a +Norwich tradesman, we see her sitting sewing and talking in the midst of +her family, the companion of philosophers, who compared her to Lucy +Hutchinson, and a model wife. Far away in India Sir James writes to her: +‘I know the value of your letters. They rouse my mind on subjects which +interest us in common—friends, children, literature, and life. Their +moral tone cheers and braces me. I ought to be made permanently happy by +contemplating a mind like yours; which seems more exclusively to derive +its gratifications from its duties than almost any other.’ It was in the +Norwich Octagon that these Taylors worshipped. Their Unitarianism seemed +to have affected them more favourably than it did Harriet Martineau, +whose family also attended there. I remember Edward Taylor, who was the +Gresham Professor of Music. But theologically, I presume, the palm of +excellence in connection with the Octagon is to be awarded to Dr. Taylor, +the great Hebrew scholar. He wrote to old Newton: ‘I have been looking +through my Bible, and can’t find your doctrine of the Atonement.’ ‘Last +night I could not see to get into bed,’ replied old Newton, ‘because I +found I had my extinguisher on the candle. Take off the extinguisher, +and then you will see.’ + +Leaving theology, let us get up on the gray old castle, which is to be +turned into a museum, and look round on the city lying at our feet. +Would you have a finer view? Cross the Yare and walk up the new road +(made by the unemployed one hard winter) to Mousehold Heath, and after +you have done thinking of Kitt’s rebellion—an agrarian one, by-the-bye, +and worth thinking about just at this time—and of the Lollards, who were +burnt just under you, look across to the city in the valley, with its +heights all round, more resembling the Holy City, so travellers say, than +any other city in the world. In the foreground is the cathedral, right +beyond rises the castle on the hill; church spires, warehouses, public +buildings, private dwellings, manufactories, chimneys’ smoke, complete +the landscape fringed by the green of the distant hills. There are a +hundred thousand people there—to be preached to and saved. + +Windham was rather hard on the Norwich of his day. In his diary, in +1798, he records a visit to Norwich, of which city he was the +representative. On October 9 he dined at the Swan—‘dinner, like the +sessions dinner, but ball in the evening distinguished by the presence of +Mrs. Siddons.’ On the 10th he dined at the Bishop’s—‘A party, of, I +suppose, fifty, chiefly clergy. I felt the same enjoyment that I +frequently do at large dinners—they afford, in general, what never fails +to be pleasant—solitude in a crowd.’ On the 11th he writes: ‘Dined with +sheriffs at King’s Head. Robinson, the late sheriff, was there, and much +as he may be below his own opinion of himself, he is more to talk to than +the generality of those who are found on those occasions. I could not +help reflecting on the very low state of talents or understanding in +those who compose the whole, nearly, of the society of Norwich. The +French are surely a more enlightened and polished people.’ Perhaps +Windham would have fared better had he dined with some of the leading +Dissenters. Few of the clergy of East Anglia at that time would have +been fitting company for the friend of Johnson and Burke. In Norwich, +Mr. Windham often managed to make himself unpopular. For instance, +towards the end of the session of 1788, Mr. Windham called the attention +of Government to a requisition from France, which was then suffering the +greatest distress from a scarcity of grain. The object of this +requisition was to be supplied with 20,000 sacks of flour from this +country. So small a boon ought, he thought, to be granted from motives +of humanity; but a Committee of the House of Commons having decided +against it, the Ministers, though they professed themselves disposed to +afford the relief sought for, could not, after such a decision, undertake +to grant it upon their own responsibility. The leading part which Mr. +Windham took in favour of this requisition occasioned, amongst some of +his constituents at Norwich, considerable clamour. He allayed the storm +by a private letter addressed to those citizens of Norwich who were most +likely to be affected by a rise in the price of provisions; but the fact +that Norwich should thus have backed up the inhuman policy of refusing +food to France showed how strong at that time was the force of passion, +and how hard it is to break down hereditary animosity. As a further +illustration of manners and habits of the East Anglian clergy, let me +mention that when, in 1778, Windham made the speech which pointed him out +to be a man of marked ability in connection with the call made on the +country for carrying on the American War, one of the Canons of the +cathedral, and a great supporter of the war, exclaimed: ‘D—n him! I +could cut his tongue out!’ + +In my young days, in serious circles, there was no name dearer than that +of Joseph Gurney—a fine-looking man with a musical voice, always ready to +aid with money, or in other ways, all that was right and good, or what +seemed to him such. In the ‘Memorials of a Quaker Lady’ he is described +thus: ‘He sat on the end seat of the first cross-form, and both preached +and supplicated. I was very much struck with him. His fine person, his +beautiful dark, glossy hair, his intelligent, benign, and truly amiable +countenance, made a deep impression upon me. And as he noticed me most +kindly, as I was introduced to him by Elizabeth Fry, as the little girl +his sister Priscilla wanted to bring to England, I felt myself greatly +honoured.’ The Gurneys have an ancient lineage, and had their home in +Gourney, in Upper Normandy. One of them, of course, fought in the ranks +of the winners at the battle of Hastings. Another was a crusader. +Another had done good service at Acre, as a follower of Richard of the +Lion Heart. When the main line came to an end, one branch settled in +Norfolk. Gurney’s Bank at Norwich was one of the institutions of the +city, and was as famous in my day as at a later time was the great house +of Overend and Gurney, which, when it fell, created a panic in financial +circles all the world over. + +At Earlham, the home of the Gurneys, we learn how much may be done by a +family, and how widespread its influence for good or evil may become. +Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton certainly stands foremost, not alone amongst the +East Anglians, but the philanthropists of later years. At the age of +sixteen young Buxton went to Earlham as a guest. His biographer writes: +‘They received him as one of themselves, early appreciating his masterly, +though still uncultivated mind; while, on his side, their cordial and +encouraging welcome seemed to draw out all his latent powers. He at once +joined with them in reading and study, and from this visit may be dated a +remarkable change in the whole tone of his character; he received a +stimulus not merely in the acquisition of knowledge, but in the formation +of studious habits and intellectual tastes. Nor could the same influence +fail of extending to the refinement of his disposition and manners.’ At +that time Norwich—the Buxtons being witnesses—was distinguished for good +society, and Earlham was celebrated for its hospitality. Mr. Gurney, the +father, belonged to the Society of Friends, but his family was not +brought up with any strict regard to its peculiarities. He put little +restraint on their domestic amusements, and music and dancing were among +their favourite recreations. The third daughter, Mrs. Fry, had, indeed, +united herself more closely with the Society of Friends; but her example +had not then been followed by any of her brothers and sisters. ‘I know,’ +wrote Sir Thomas, in later years, ‘no blessing of a temporal nature—and +it is not only temporal—for which I ought to render so many thanks as my +connection with the Earlham family. It has given a colour to my life. +Its influence was most positive, and pregnant with good at that critical +period between school and manhood. They were eager to improve; I caught +the infection. I was resolved to please them, and in the college at +Dublin, at a distance from all my friends and all control, their +influence and the desire to please them kept me hard at my books, and +sweetened the task they gave. The distinctions I gained at college +(little valuable as distinctions, but valuable because habits of +industry, perseverance and resolution were necessary to attain +them)—these boyish distinctions were exclusively the result of the +animating passion in my mind to carry back to them the prizes which they +prompted and enabled me to win.’ + +Wilberforce, when he was staying at Lowestoft in 1816, wrote: ‘I am still +full of Earlham and its excellent inhabitants. One of our great +astronomers stated it as probable there may be stars whose light has been +travelling to us from the Creation, and has not yet reached our little +planet. In the Earlham family a new constellation has broken in upon us, +for which you must invent a name, as you are fond of star-gazing, and if +it indicates a little monstrosity (as they are apt to give the collection +of stars the names of strange creatures—dragons, bears, etc.), the +various stars of which the Earlham assemblage is made,’ continues +Wilberforce, ‘will include also much to be respected and loved.’ At that +time Mrs. Opie was one of the Norwich stars. Caroline Fox, who went to +dine with her described her as in great force and really jolly. ‘She is +enthusiastic about Father Mathew, reads Dickens voraciously, takes to +Carlyle, but thinks his appearance rather against him—talks much and with +great spirit of people, but never ill-naturedly.’ + +‘Norwich,’ as described by Camden, ‘on account of its wealth, +populousness, neatness of buildings, beautiful churches, with the number +of them—for it has a matter of fifty parishes—as also the industry of its +citizens, loyalty to their Prince, is to be reckoned among the most +considerable cities in Britain. It was fortified with walls that have a +great many turrets and eleven gates.’ Camden, quoting one writer after +another, adds the eulogy of Andrew Johnston, a Scotchman, as follows: + + ‘A town whose stately piles and happy seat + Her citizens and strangers both delight; + Whose tedious siege and plunder made her bear + In Norman battles an unhappy share, + And feel the sad effects of dreadful war. + These storms o’erblown, now blest with constant peace, + She saw her riches and her trade increase. + State here by wealth, by beauty yet undone, + How blest if vain excess be yet unknown! + So fully is she from herself supplied + That England while she stands can never want a head.’ + +From Norwich went Robinson to help to build up in Amsterdam that Church +of the Pilgrim Fathers which was to be in its turn the mother of a great +Republic such as the world had never seen. He has been styled the Father +of Modern Congregationalism; be that as it may, when he bade farewell in +that quaint old harbour, Delfhaven—which looks as if not a brick or a +building had been touched since—he was doing a work from which neither +himself nor those who stood with him could ever have expected such +wonderful results. That emigration to Holland in Wren’s time was a great +loss of money and men to England, and was an indication of Nonconformist +strength which wise Churchmen would have conciliated rather than driven +to extremities. ‘In sooth it was,’ wrote Heylin, ‘that the people in +many great trading towns which were near the sea, having long been +discharged of the bond of ceremonies, no sooner came to hear the least +noise of a conformity, but they began to spurn against it; and when they +found that all their striving was in vain, that they had lost the comfort +of their lecturers and that their ministers began to shrink at the very +name of a visitation, it was no hard matter for those ministers and +lecturers to persuade them to remove their dwellings and transport their +trades.’ ‘The sun of heaven,’ say they, ‘doth shine as comfortably in +other places; the Sun of Righteousness much brighter.’ ‘Better to go and +dwell in Goshen, find it where we can, than tarry in the midst of such an +Egyptian darkness as is now falling on the land.’ One of the preachers +who gave that advice and acted in accordance with it was William Bridge, +M.A. Against him Wren was so furious that he fled to Holland and settled +down as one of the pastors of the church at Rotterdam. In 1643 we find +him pastor of the church at Norwich and Yarmouth, and one of the Assembly +of Divines. In 1644 the church was separated—a part meeting at Yarmouth +and a part at Norwich. This was done on the advice of Mr. John Phillip, +of Wrentham—a godly minister of great influence in his denomination in +his day. + +As was to be expected, I was taken to the Old Meeting House at Norwich, +where many learned men had preached, and where many men almost as learned +listened. The gigantic pews, in which a small family might have lived, +filled me with amazement. And equally appalling to me was the +respectability of the people, of a very different class from that of our +Wrentham chapel. Close by was the Octagon Chapel, where the Unitarians +worshipped, equally impressive in its respectability. But what struck me +most was the new and fashionable Baptist chapel of St. Mary’s, where the +venerable and learned Kinghorn preached—a great Hebrew scholar and the +champion of strict communion—against Robert Hall, and other degenerate +Baptists, who were ready to admit to the Lord’s Table any Christians, +whether properly baptized—that is, by immersion when adults—or merely +sprinkled as infants. Up to this day I confound the worthy man with John +the Baptist, probably because he looked so lank and long and lean. He +was a man of singularly precise habits, so much so that I heard of an old +lady who always regulated her cooking by his daily walk, putting the +dumplings into the pot to boil when he went, and taking them out when he +returned. I could write much about him, but _cui bono_? who cares about +a dead Baptist lion? Not even the Baptists themselves. On going into +their library in Castle Street the other day, to look at Kinghorn’s life, +I found no one had taken the trouble to cut the pages. In the front +gallery of St. Mary’s, Mr. Brewer, the Norwich schoolmaster, had sittings +for the boys of his school, including his own sons, who, at King’s +College and elsewhere, have done much to illustrate our national history +and literature. If I remember aright, one of the congregation was a +jolly-looking old gentleman who, as Uncle Jerry, laid the foundation of a +mustard manufactory, which has placed one of the present M.P.’s for +Norwich at the head of a business of unrivalled extent. When Mr. +Kinghorn died, his place was taken by Mr. Brock, better known as Dr. +Brock, of Bloomsbury Chapel, London. Under Mr. Brock’s preaching the +reputation of St. Mary’s Chapel was increased rather than diminished. As +a young man himself at that time, he was peculiarly attractive to the +young, and the singing was very different from the rustic psalmody of my +native village, in spite of the fact that we had a bass-viol at all +times, and on highly-favoured occasions such an array of flutes and +clarionets as really astonished the natives and delighted me. + +But to return to the Old Meeting. Calamy writes of one of the Norwich +ministers, of the name of Cromwell, that ‘he enjoyed but one peaceable +day after his settlement, being on the second forced out of his +meeting-house, the licenses being called in, and then for nine years +together he was never without trouble. Sometimes he was pursued with +indictments at sessions, at assizes, and then with citations of the +ecclesiastical courts; and at other times feigned letters, rhymes or +libels were dropped in the streets or church and fathered upon him, so +that he was forced to make his house his prison. At length that was +broken open, and he absconded into the houses of his friends, till he +contracted his old disease’ a second time. It is said that he was +invited on one occasion to dine with Bishop Reynolds, when several young +clergy were present. When Mr. Cromwell retired, the Bishop rose and +attended him, and then a general laugh ensued. On his return his +lordship rebuked his guests for their unmannerly conduct, and told them +that Mr. Cromwell had more solid divinity in his little finger than all +of them had in their bodies. It must be remembered that, like most of +the early Independent ministers, Mr. Cromwell had a University training; +and even in my young days the respect shown to a learned ministry kept up +not a little of the high standard which had been laid down by the fathers +and founders of Dissent. In these more degenerate days it is to be +questioned whether as much can be said. The Old Meeting House at Norwich +was finished as far back as 1643. The only pastor of the church who was +not an author was the Rev. Dr. Scott, who died in 1767. In the Octagon +Chapel the preachers had been still more distinguished. One of them was +the Rev. Dr. Taylor, author of the famous Hebrew Concordance, which was +published in two volumes folio, and was the labour of fourteen years. He +left Norwich to become tutor at the newly-erected Academy at Warrington; +but his son, Mr. Edward Taylor, the Gresham Professor of Music, was often +a visitor at Wrentham, where he had a little property, which he valued, +as it gave him a vote. Another of the preachers at the Octagon was the +Rev. R. Alderson, who afterwards became Recorder of Norwich. The Mr. +Edward Taylor of whom I have just written was baptized by him. One day, +being under examination as a witness in court, Alderson questioned him as +to his age. ‘Why,’ said Taylor, a little nettled, ‘you ought to know, +for you baptized me.’ ‘I baptized you!’ exclaimed Alderson. ‘What do +you mean?’ The Recorder never liked to be reminded of his having been a +preacher. The Marchioness of Salisbury is of this family. Perhaps, of +these Unitarian preachers, one of the most distinguished was Dr. William +Enfield, whose ‘Speaker’ was one of the books placed in the hands of +ingenuous youth, and whose ‘History of Philosophy’ was one of the works +to be studied in their riper years. Norwich, indeed, was full of learned +men. Its aged Bishop, Bathurst, was the one voter for Reform, much to +the delight of William IV., who said that he was a fine fellow, and +deserved to be the helmsman of the Church in the rough sea she would soon +have to steer through. His one offence in the eyes of George III. was +that he voted against the King—that is, in favour of justice to the +Catholics. With such a Bishop a Reformer, no wonder that all Norwich +went wild with joy when the battle of Reform was fought and won. Bishop +Stanley, who succeeded, was also in his way a great Liberal, and invited +Jenny Lind to stay with him at the palace. I often used to see him at +Exeter Hall, where his activity as a speaker afforded a remarkable +contrast to the quieter style of his more celebrated son. + +Accidentally looking into the life of Bishop Bathurst, I find printed in +the Appendix some interesting conversations at Earlham, where Joseph John +Gurney lived. On one occasion, when Dr. Chalmers was staying there, +Joseph John Gurney writes: ‘W. Y. breakfasted with us, and with his usual +strong sense and talent called forth the energies of Chalmers’ mind. +They conversed on the subject of special Providence, and of the unseen +yet unceasing superintendence of the Creator of all the events which +occur in this lower world. Said W. Y.: “Mr. Barbauld, the husband of the +authoress, was once a resident in my house. He was a man of low opinions +in religion, and denied the agency of an unseen spirit on the mind of +man.” I remarked that when the mind was determined to a certain right +action by a combination of circumstances productive of the adequate +motives, and meeting from various quarters precisely at the right point +for the purpose in view, this was in itself a sufficient evidence of an +especial Providence, and might be regarded as the instrumentality through +which the Holy Spirit acts. Mr. Barbauld admitted the justice of this +argument.’ Again I read: ‘W. Y. supported the doctrine that nature is +governed through the means of general laws—laws which broadly and +obviously mark the wisdom and benevolence of God.’ One extract more: ‘W. +Y. expressed his admiration of the masterly manner in which Dr. Chalmers, +in his “Bridgewater Treatise,” has fixed on the atheist a moral +obligation to inquire into the truth of religion; but, said he, might not +the disciples of Irving, by the same rule, oblige us to an inquiry into +the supposed evidences of their favourite doctrine that Christ is about +to appear and to reign personally on earth? Might not even the Mahometan +suppose in the Christian a similar necessity as it relates to the +pretensions of the false prophet?’ If Joseph Gurney sent for W. Y. to +converse with Dr. Chalmers as a genial spirit, surely the name of one so +honourable and of one so friendly both to my father and myself should not +be omitted. W. Y. loved a joke. He was very stout, and wore tight black +knee breeches with shoes and silk stockings. I remember how he made me +laugh one day as he described what happened to his knee-breeches as he +stooped to tie up his shoes ere attending a place of worship. To cut a +long story short, I may add W. Youngman did not go to church that day. +Originally I think he was a dyer. + +Harriet Martineau, as all the world knows, was born at Norwich. In her +somewhat ill-natured autobiography she writes: ‘Norwich, which has now no +social claims to superiority at all, was in my childhood a rival of +Lichfield itself, in the time of the Sewards, for literary pretensions +and the vulgarity of pedantry. William Taylor was then at his best, when +there was something like fulfilment of his early promise, when his +exemplary filial duty was a fine spectacle to the whole city, and before +the vice which destroyed him had coarsened his morale and destroyed his +intellect. During the war it was a great distinction to know anything of +German literature, and in Mr. Taylor’s case it proved a ruinous +distinction. He was completely spoiled by the flatteries of shallow men, +pedantic women, and conceited lads.’ Yet this man was the friend of +Southey and opened up a new world to the English intellect, and perhaps +in days to come will have a more enduring reputation than Harriet +Martineau herself. The lady does not err on the side of good nature in +her criticism. All she can say of Dr. Sayers is: ‘I always heard of him +as a genuine scholar, and I have no doubt he was superior to his +neighbours in modesty and manners. Dr. Enfield, a feeble and superficial +man of letters, was gone also from the literary supper-table before my +time. There was Sir James Smith, the botanist, made much of and really +not pedantic and vulgar like the rest, but weak and irritable. There was +Dr. Alderson, Mrs. Opie’s father, solemn and sententious and eccentric in +manner, but not an able man in any way;’ and thus the leading lights of +Norwich are contemptuously dismissed. ‘The great days of the Gurneys +were not come yet. The remarkable family from which issued Mrs. Fry and +Priscilla and Joseph John Gurney were then a set of dashing young people, +dressed in gay riding habits and scarlet boots, as Mrs. Fry told us +afterwards, and riding about the country to balls and gaieties of all +sorts. Accomplished and charming young ladies they were; and we children +used to overhear some whispered gossip about the effects of their charms +on heart-stricken young men; but their final characteristics were not yet +apparent.’ + +It is to a Norwich man that we owe the publication of Hansard’s +Parliamentary Debates. Luke Hansard, to whom they owe their name, was +born in Norwich, 1725, was trained as a printer, went to London with but +a guinea in his pocket, was employed by Hughes, the printer of the House +of Commons, succeeded to the business and became widely known for his +despatch and accuracy in printing Parliamentary papers and debates. He +died in 1828, but the business was continued by his family, and to refer +to Hansard became the invariable custom when an M.P. was to be condemned +out of his own mouth—as Hansard was supposed never to err. Recently +Hansard has been carried on by a company, but the old name still remains. + +Dr. Stoughton has in vain, in a number of the _Congregationalist_, +attempted to record the memory of a man well known and much honoured in +his day—the Rev. John Alexander, of Norwich. The portrait is a failure. +It gives us no idea of the man with his rosy face, his curly black hair, +his merry, twinkling eye, his joyous laugh, when mirth befitted the +occasion, or his tender sympathy where pain and sorrow and distress had +to be endured. Mr. Alexander’s jubilee was celebrated in St. Andrew’s +Hall in 1867, when the Mayor and a crowd of citizens did him honour, and +a sum of money for the purchase of an annuity was presented, thus +obviating the necessity of doing to him as on one occasion he in his +humorous way suggested should be done with old ministers when past +work—that they should be shot. In 1817 Mr. Alexander had come to Norwich +to preach in the old Whitfield Tabernacle in place of Mr. Hooper, one of +the tutors at Hoxton Academy. When I went to Norwich he had built a fine +chapel in Prince’s Street, and amongst the hearers was Mr. Tillet, then +in a lawyer’s office, a young man famous for his speeches at the +Mechanics’ Institute and in connection with a literary venture, the +_Norwich Magazine_, not destined to set the Thames on fire; latterly an +M.P. for Norwich and proprietor and editor, I believe, of one of the most +popular of East Anglian journals, the _Norfolk News_. It was in Prince’s +Street Chapel I first learned to realize how influential was the +Nonconformist public, of which I frankly admit in our little village, +with Churchmen all round, I had but a limited idea. It seemed to me that +we were rather a puny folk, but at Norwich, with its chapels and pastors +and people, I saw another sight. There was the Rev. John Alexander, with +an overflowing audience on the Sunday and an active vitality all the +week, now dining at the palace with the Bishop or breakfasting at Earlham +with the Gurneys, now meeting on terms of equality the literati of the +place (at that time Mrs. Opie was still living near the castle, and Mr. +Wilkins was writing his life of the far-famed Norwich doctor, the learned +and ingenious author of the ‘Religio Medici’), now visiting the afflicted +and the destitute, now carrying consolation to the home of the mourner. +John Alexander was a man to whom East Anglian Nonconformity owes much. +In the old city there was a good deal of young intelligence, and a good +deal of it amongst the Noncons. Dr. Sexton was one of the Old Meeting +House congregation, as was Lucy Brightwell, a lady not unknown to the +present generation of readers. To a certain extent a Noncon. is bound to +be more or less intelligent. He finds a great State Establishment of +religion wherever he goes. It enjoys the favour of the Court. It is +patronized by the aristocracy. It enlists among its supporters all who +wish to rise in the world or to make a figure in society. By means of +the endowed schools of the land, it offers to the young, even of the +humblest birth, a chance of winning a prize. Conform, it says, and you +may be rich and respectable. It was said of a late Bishop of Winchester +that he would forgive a man anything so long as he were but a good +Churchman, and even now one meets in society with people who regard a +Dissenter as little better than a heathen or a publican. A man who can +thus voluntarily place himself at a disadvantage, to a certain extent, +must have exercised his intellect and be ready to give a reason for the +faith that is in him. Naturally, men are of the religion of the country +in which they are born—Roman Catholics in Italy, Mahometans in Turkey, +Buddhists in the East. It requires more power and strength of mind and +decision of character to dissent from the Church of the State than to +support it. ‘How was it,’ asked Dr. Storrar, Chairman of the Convocation +of the University of London, the other day, ‘that the lads educated at +Mill Hill Grammar School had done so well at Cambridge and Oxford?’ The +reply, said the Doctor, was—I don’t give his words, merely the idea—to be +found in the fact that a couple of centuries ago there were men of strong +intellect and tender consciences who refused to renounce their opinions +at the command of a despotic power. They had been succeeded by their +sons with the same quickness of intellect and conscience. Generations +one after another had come and gone, and the children of these old +Nonconformists thus came to the school with an hereditary intelligence, +destined to win in the gladiatorship of the school, the college, or the +world. + +Let me now give an anecdote of Dr. Bathurst, the Lord Bishop of Norwich, +too good to be lost. It is told by Sir Charles Leman, who described him +in 1839 as gradually converting his enemies into friends by his uniform +straightforwardness and enlarged Christian principle. One of his clergy, +who had been writing most abusively in newspapers, had on one occasion +some favour to solicit, which he did with natural hesitation. The Bishop +promised all in his power and in the kindest manner, and when the +clergyman was about to leave the room he suddenly turned with, ‘My lord, +I must say, however, I much regret the part I have taken against you; I +see I was quite in the wrong, and I beg your forgiveness.’ This was +readily accorded. ‘But how was it,’ the clergyman continued, ‘you did +not turn your back on me? I quite expected it.’ ‘Why, you forget that I +profess myself a Christian,’ was the reply. + +Of a later Bishop—Stanley—whom I can well remember, a dark, energetic +little man, making a speech at Exeter Hall, we hear a little in Caroline +Fox’s memories of old friends. In 1848 she writes: ‘Dined very +pleasantly at the palace; the Bishop was all animation and good humour, +but too unsettled to leave any memorable impression. I like Mrs. Stanley +much—a shrewd, sensible, observing woman. She told me much about her +Bishop, how very trying his position was on first settling at Norwich; +for his predecessor was an amiable, indolent old man, who let things take +their course, and a very bad course too, all which the present man has to +correct as way opens, and continually sacrifice popularity to a sense of +right.’ + +The following anecdote of Miss Fox and her friends calling at a cottage +in the neighbourhood of Norwich is too good to be lost. ‘A young woman,’ +she writes, ‘told us that her father was nearly converted, and that a +little more teaching would complete the business,’ adding, ‘He quite +believes that he is lost, which is, of course, a great consolation to the +old man.’ That story is racy of the soil. It is in that way the East +Anglian peasantry who have any religion at all talk; they have no hope of +a man who does not feel that he is lost. Well, there are many ways to +heaven, and that must comfort some of us who still believe that man was +made in the image of his Maker, a little lower than the angels, crowned +with glory and honour, and not destined to an eternity of misery for the +sins of a day. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +THE SUFFOLK CAPITAL. + + +The Orwell—The Sparrows—Ipswich notabilities—Gainsborough—Medical +men—Nonconformists. + +Those who imagine Suffolk to be a flat and uninteresting county, with no +charms for the eye and no associations worth speaking of, are much +mistaken. There are few lovelier rivers in England than the Orwell, on +which Ipswich stands, up which river the fiery Danes used to sail to +plunder all the country round, and on the banks of which Gainsborough +learned to love Nature and draw her in all her charms. The town itself +stands in a valley, but it has gradually crept up the hills on each side, +so that almost everywhere you have a pleasing prospect and breathe a +bracing air. A few miles, or, rather, a short walk, brings you to +Henley, which has the reputation of being the highest land in Suffolk, +and on the other side there is a railway that connects Ipswich with +Felixstowe, just as the Crystal Palace is connected with the City. +Ipswich may claim to be the most prosperous and enterprising of all the +Suffolk towns. It goes with the times. Its citizens are active and +pushing men of business, and have enlightened ideas as well. They are +also Liberal in politics and practical in religion, and are never behind +in coming forward when there is a chance of benefiting themselves or +their fellow-creatures. And yet Ipswich has a history as long as the +dullest cathedral town. It was a place of note during the existence of +the Saxon Heptarchy. Twice it had the honour of publicly entertaining +King John; and there is a tradition that in the curious and +beautifully-ornamented house in the Butter Market—formerly the residence +of Mr. Sparrow, the Ipswich coroner, whose old family portraits, +including one of the Jameses, presented to an ancestor of the family, +filled me not a little with youthful wonder—Charles II. was secreted by +one of the Sparrows of that day, when he came to hide in Ipswich after +the battle of Worcester. ‘The house is now a shop,’ but, observes Mr. +Glyde, a far-famed local historian, ‘a concealed room in the upper story +of the house, which was discovered during some alterations in 1801, is +well adapted for such a purpose.’ And, at any rate, the gay and +graceless monarch, in search of a hiding-place, might have gone farther +and fared worse. Be that as it may, Ipswich can rejoice in the fact that +it was the birthplace of Cardinal Wolsey; and that he was one of the +first educational reformers of the day must be admitted, at any rate, in +Ipswich, of which, possibly, he would have made a second Cambridge. +Alas! of his efforts in that direction, the only outward and visible sign +is the old gateway in what is called College Street, which remains to +this day. Ipswich fared well in the Elizabethan days, when her Gracious +Majesty condescended to visit the place. Sir Christopher Hatton, the +dancing Lord Chancellor, who led the brawls, when + + ‘The seals and maces danced before him,’ + +lived in a house near the Church of St. Mary-le-Tower. Sir Edward Coke +resided in a village not far off, and in 1597 the M.P. for Ipswich was no +other than the great Lord Bacon, who by birth and breeding was +emphatically a Suffolk man. From Windham’s diary, it appears that at +Ipswich that distinguished statesman experienced a new sensation. In +1789 he writes: ‘Left Ipswich not till near twelve. Saw Humphries there, +and was for the first time entertained with some sparring; felt much +amused with the whole of the business.’ + +In the early part of the present century Miss Berry, on returning from +one of her Continental trips, paid Ipswich a visit, having landed at +Southwold. ‘Appearance of Ipswich very pretty in descending towards it,’ +is the entry in her diary. About the same time Bishop Bathurst made his +visitation tour, and he writes to one of his lady correspondents: ‘You +will be glad that, during the three weeks I passed in Suffolk, I did not +meet a single unpleasant man, nor experience a single unpleasant +accident.’ With the name of the Suffolk hero Captain Broke, of the +_Shannon_. (I can well remember the Shannon coach—which ran from Yoxford +to London—the only day-coach we had at that time), Ipswich is inseparably +connected. He was born at Broke Hall, just by, and there spent the later +years of his life. Another of our naval heroes, Admiral Vernon, the +victor of Porto Bello, resided in the same vicinity. At one time there +seems to have been an attempt to connect Ipswich with the Iron Duke. In +the memoir of Admiral Broke we have more than one reference to the Duke’s +shooting in that neighbourhood, and actually it appears that, unknown to +himself, he was nominated as a candidate to the office of High Steward. +Ipswich, however, preferred a neighbour, in the shape of Sir Robert +Harland. At a later day the office was filled by Mr. Charles Austin, the +distinguished writer on Jurisprudence. + +One of the celebrated noblemen who lived in Ipswich was Lord Chedworth. +He wore top-boots, and wore them till they were not fit to be seen. When +new boots were sent home he was accustomed to set them on one side, and +get his manservant to wear them a short time to prepare them for his own +feet. Sometimes the man would tell his lordship that he thought the +boots were ready, but his lordship would generally reply, ‘Never mind, +William; wear them another week.’ While at Ipswich his lordship was +frequently consulted, owing to his legal attainments and well-known +generous disposition, by tradesmen and people in indigent circumstances. +The applicants were ushered into the library, where, surrounded by books, +they found his lordship. The chairs and furniture of the room, like his +lordship’s clothes, had not merely seen their best days, but were +comparatively worthless, and the old red cloak which invariably enveloped +his shoulders made him look more like a gipsy boy than a peer of the +realm. His lordship’s legacies to Ipswich ladies and others, especially +of the theatrical profession, were of the most liberal character. + +Ipswich in its old days had its share of witches. One of the most +notorious of them was Mother Hatheland, who in due course was tried, +condemned and executed. From her confession in 1645 it appears ‘the said +Mother Hatheland hath been a professor of religion, a constant hearer of +the Word for these many years, yet a witch, as she confessed, for the +space of nearly twenty years. The devil came to her first between +sleeping and waking, and spake to her in a hollow voice, telling her that +if she would serve him she would want nothing. After often solicitations +she consented to him. Then he stroke his claw (as she confessed) into +her hands, and with her blood wrote the covenant.’ Now, as the writer +gravely remarks, the subtlety of Satan is to be observed in that he did +not press her to deny God and Christ, as he did others, because she was a +professor, and he might have lost all his hold by pressing her too far. +Satan appears to have provided her with three imps, in the shape of two +little dogs and a mole. + +As the home of Gainsborough Ipswich has enduring claims on the English +nation and on lovers of art and artists everywhere. That must have been +a Suffolk man who passed the following criticism on Gainsborough’s +celebrated picture of ‘Girl and Pigs,’ of which Sir Joshua Reynolds +became the purchaser at one hundred guineas, though the artist asked but +sixty: ‘They be deadly like pigs; but who ever saw pigs feeding together, +but one on ’em had a foot in the trough?’ Gainsborough had an +enthusiastic attachment to music. It was the favourite amusement of his +leisure hours, and his love for it induced him to give one or two +concerts to his most intimate acquaintances whilst living in Ipswich. He +was a member of a musical club, and painted some of the portraits of his +brother members in his picture of a choir. Once upon a time, +Gainsborough was examined as a witness on a trial respecting the +originality of a picture. The barrister on the other side said: ‘I +observe you lay great stress on a painter’s eye; what do you mean by that +expression?’ ‘A painter’s eye,’ replied Gainsborough, ‘is to him what +the lawyer’s eye is to you.’ As a boy at the Grammar School of his +native town, it is to be feared he loved to play truant. One day he went +out to his usual sketching haunts to enjoy the nature which he loved +heartily, previously presenting to his uncle, who was master of the +school, the usual slip of paper, ‘Give Tom a holiday,’ in which his +father’s handwriting was so exactly imitated that not the slightest +suspicion of the forgery ever entered the mind of the master. Alas! +however, the crime was detected, and his terrified parent exclaimed in +despair, ‘Tom will one day be hanged.’ When, however, he was informed +how the truant schoolboy had employed his truant hours, and the boy’s +sketches were laid before him, forgetful of the consequences of forgeries +in a commercial society, he declared, with all the pride of a father, +‘Tom will be a genius,’ and he was right. + +Worthy Mr. Pickwick seems to have known Ipswich about the same time as +myself. ‘In the main street of Ipswich,’ wrote the biographer of that +distinguished individual, ‘on the left-hand side of the way, a short +distance after you have passed through the open space fronting the Town +Hall, stands an inn known far and wide by the appellation of the Great +White Horse, rendered the more conspicuous by a stone statue of some +rapacious animal, with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an +insane carthorse, which is elevated above the principal door. The Great +White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood in the same degree as a prize +ox, a county paper chronicled turnip, or unwieldy pig, for its enormous +size. Never were such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such clusters +of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens for eating +or sleeping in, beneath any one roof as are collected together between +the four walls of the Great White Horse of Ipswich.’ This was the great +hotel of the Ipswich of my youth. As regards hotels, Ipswich has not +improved, but in every other way it has much advanced. One of the old +inns has been turned into a fine public hall, admirably adapted for +concerts and public meetings. The new Town Hall, Corn Exchange, and +Post-office are a credit to the town. The same may be said of the new +Museum and the Grammar School and the Working Men’s College and that +health resort, the Arboretum; while by means of the new dock ships of +fifteen hundred tons burden can load and unload. Nowadays everybody says +Ipswich is a rising town, and what everyone says must be right. The +Ipswich people, at any rate, have firmly got that idea into their heads. +Its fathers and founders built the streets narrow, evidently little +anticipating for Ipswich the future it has since achieved. The Ipswich +of to-day is laid out on quite a different scale. It has a tram road +service evidently much in excess of the present population, and as you +wander in the suburbs you come to a sign-post bearing the name of a +street in which not even the enterprise of the speculative builder has +been able at present to plant a single dwelling. When Ipswich has +climbed up its surrounding hills, and taken up all the building sites at +present in the market, it will be a goodly and gallant town, almost +fitted to invite the temporary residence of holiday-making Londoners who +are fond of the water. At all times it is a pretty sail to Harwich and +thence to Felixstowe, that quiet watering-place, a seaside residence that +has still a pleasant flavour of rusticity about it, with a fine crisp +sea-sand floor for a promenade. + +When I was a boy Ipswich was resorted to by Londoners in the summer-time. +As an illustration, I give the case of Mr. Ewen, one of the deacons of +the Weigh House Chapel, when the Rev. John Clayton was the pastor. In +his memories of the Clayton family, the Rev. Dr. Aveling writes of Mr. +Ewen, that ‘he was so sensitively conscientious in the discharge of his +official duties at the Weigh House, that he was never absent from town on +the days when the Lord’s Supper was administered, and when he was +expected to assist in the administration of the elements. His London +residence was in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, but having a house and property in +the town of Ipswich, he passed his summer months there. Yet so intent +was he upon duly filling his place in the sanctuary of God, that he +regularly travelled by post-chaise once in every month, and returned in +the same manner, that he might be present, together with his pastor and +the brethren, at the table of the Lord. The length and the expense of +the journey (and travelling was not then what it is now) did not deter +him from what he at least deemed to be a matter of Christian obligation.’ +Dr. Aveling is quite right when he tells us travelling is not what it +was. It took almost a day to go from Ipswich to London when I was a boy, +and now the journey is done by means of the Great Eastern Railway in +about an hour and a half. It seems marvellous to one who, like myself, +remembers well the past, to leave Liverpool Street at 5.0 p.m. precisely, +and to find one’s self landed safe and well in Ipswich soon after +half-past six. The present generation can have no conception of +travelling in England in the olden time. + +There were some wonderful old Radicals in Ipswich, though it was, and is, +the county town of the most landlord-ridden district in England. Some of +them got the great Dan O’Connell to pay the town a visit, and some of +them nobly stood by old John Childs when he became famous all the world +over as the Church-rate martyr. The lawyers and the doctors were mostly +Tories, but the tradesmen and the merchants were not a little leavened +with the leaven of Dissent. Mr. Hammond was, however, a Liberal surgeon, +and as such flourished. His Whig principles, writes Mr. Glyde, brought +him many patients, and his skill and sound qualities retained them. Dr. +Garrord, the well-known London practitioner, was an apprentice of Mr. +Hammond’s; and this reminds me that among the Ipswich men who have risen +is Mr. Sprigg, the Premier of Cape Colony when Sir Bartle Frere was at +the head of affairs there. The father of Mr. Sprigg was the respected +pastor of a Baptist chapel in the town. The only Ipswich minister whom I +can remember was the Rev. Mr. Notcutt, who preached in the leading +Independent chapel, now pulled down to make way for a much more +attractive building. All I can recollect about him is, that once, when a +lad, I fainted away when he was preaching. No sermon ever affected me so +since; and that effect was due, it must be confessed, not to the +preacher, who seemed to me rather aged and asthmatic, but to the heat of +the place, in consequence of the crowd attracted to the meeting-house on +some special occasion. + +But to return to the doctors. Of one of them, who was famed for his love +of bleeding his patients, not metaphorically, but in the old-fashioned +way, with the lancet, it is recorded that on the occasion of his taking a +holiday two of his patients died. Lamenting the fact to a friend, the +following epigram was the result: + + ‘B--- kills two patients while from home away— + A clever fellow this same B---, I wot; + If absent thus his patients he can slay, + How he must kill them when he’s on the spot!’ + +Perhaps one of the noted physicians of my boyhood was Mr. Stebbing. ‘He +was once,’ writes Mr. Glyde, ‘called in to see one of the Ipswich +Dissenting ministers, who had taken life very easily, and had grown +corpulent. After examining the patient and hearing his statement as to +bodily state, he replied: “You’ve no particular ailment; mind and keep +your eyes longer open, and your mouth longer shut, and you will do very +well in a short time.”’ On another occasion a raw and very poor-looking +young fellow called upon him for advice. The doctor told him to go home +and eat more pudding, adding, ‘That’s all you want; physic is a very good +thing for one to live by, but a precious bad thing for you to take.’ One +of the Ipswich characters of my boyhood, of whom Mr. Glyde has preserved +an anecdote, was old Tuxford, the veterinary surgeon. He used to declare +that he never took more than one meal a day—a breakfast; but when asked +of what that consisted, he said, ‘A pound of beefsteak, seven eggs, three +cups of tea, and a quartern of rum.’ It may also be mentioned that +before Mrs. Garrett Anderson was born, Ipswich had a lady physician in +the person of Miss Stebbing, daughter of the doctor to whom I have +already referred. ‘She was,’ says one who knew her well, ‘a woman of +general education, with more than ordinary tact and discernment, combined +with the true womanly power of analyzing and observing. She had good +physical powers, and, like her worthy father, was somewhat pungent in her +remarks and eccentric in her habits. She entered the ranks as a medical +practitioner during her father’s life. The benefit of his advice so +aided her perceptive powers as to make her quite an expert in various +ways, and she continued to practise long after his decease, occasionally +attending males as well as females. Her knowledge of midwifery caused a +large number of ladies to engage her services. + +Of the Radicals of Ipswich, the only one with whom I came into contact +was Mr. John King, the proprietor and editor of what was then, at any +rate, a far-famed journal—the _Suffolk Chronicle_. Astronomy was his +hobby, and he had ideas on the subject which, unfortunately, I failed to +catch. He had built himself an observatory, if I remember aright, at his +residence on Rose Hill, where he would sweep the heavens nightly, to see +what could be seen. He was a Radical of the old type, a tall, dark, +bilious-looking man, a little hard and dry, perhaps, who seemed to think +that it was no use to throw pearls before swine, and to serve up for the +chaw-bacons a too rich intellectual treat, and his policy was a +successful one. Priest-ridden as Suffolk was, the _Suffolk Chronicle_ +was the leading paper of the county, and had a large circulation, and, +let me add, did good service in its day. Now I find Ipswich rejoices in +a well-conducted daily journal, the _East Anglian Times_, which I hear, +and am glad to hear, is a fine property, and I see all the leading towns +in Suffolk have a paper to themselves, even if they can’t get up a decent +paragraph of local news—and some of them I know, from my experiences of +Suffolk life, are quite unequal to that—once a week. The plan is to have +some sheets already printed in London, at some great establishment, +whence perhaps a hundred little towns are supplied, and then the local +news and advertisements are added on, and Little Pedlington has its +_Observer_, and Eatanswill its _Gazette_. When I was a boy, such a thing +was out of the question, as to each paper a fourpenny-halfpenny stamp was +attached. As the stamps had to be paid for in advance, and as, besides, +there was an eighteen-penny duty on every advertisement, it was not quite +such an easy matter to run a paper then as it has since become. I fancy +the old-established journals suffered much by the change, which +completely revolutionized the newspaper trade; at any rate, so far as the +country was concerned. In this connection, let me add that it was to an +Ipswich journalist we owe the establishment of penny readings on anything +like a large and successful scale. They were originated by Mr. Sully, at +that time the proprietor and editor of the _Ipswich __Express_, a paper +intended to steer between the ferocious Toryism of the _Ipswich Journal_, +and the equally ferocious Radicalism of the _Suffolk Chronicle_. As was +to be expected, the attempt did not succeed. As in love and in war, so +in politics and theology, moderation is a thing hateful to gods and men. +The electioneering annals of Ipswich can testify to that fact. I have a +dim recollection of an election petition which ended in Sir Fitzroy +Kelly’s admitting that he had stated what was not true, but he did it as +a lawyer, not as a gentleman, and in sending one of the finest old +gentlemen I ever knew to gaol, because he would not tell what he knew of +the matter. There was not much half-and-half work in the Ipswich +politics of my young days. + +When people fight fiercely in politics, it is natural to expect an equal +earnestness in religious matters. It was so emphatically with respect to +the Ipswich of the past. ‘The Reformed religion, after those fiery days +of persecution,’ writes John Quick, ‘was now revived, and flourished +again in the country, under the auspicious name of our English Deborah, +Queen Elizabeth; and Ipswich, the capital town of Suffolk, was not more +famous for its spacious sheds, large and beautiful buildings, rich and +great trade, and honourable merchants, both at home and abroad, than it +was for its learned and godly ministers and its religious intolerants.’ +Of the godly ministers, one of the most famous was Samuel Ward, who was +buried in St. Mary-le-Tower Church. In 1666 he preached a sermon at St. +Paul’s Cross. But he meddled with politics. For instance, in 1621 he +published a caricature picture, entitled ‘Spayne and Rome Defeated.’ It +is thus described: The Pope and his Council are represented in the centre +of the piece, and beneath, on one side the Armada, and on the other the +Gunpowder Treason. Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, complained of it as +insulting to his master. Ward was placed in custody. Being +Puritanically inclined, he was, in addition, prosecuted in the Consistory +Court of Norwich by Bishop Harsnet for Nonconformity. Ten years later, +when 600 persons were contemplating a removal from Ipswich to New +England—as a place where they could worship God without fear of priest or +king—the blame was cast by Laud on Ward. Rushworth informs us that the +charges laid against him were that he preached against the common bowing +at the name of Jesus and against the King’s ‘Book of Sports,’ and further +said that the Church of England was ready to ring changes in England, and +that the Gospel stood on tiptoe as ready to be gone; and for this he was +removed from his lectureship and sent to gaol. John Ward, his brother, +Rector of St. Clement’s, was a member of the Assembly of Divines, and was +called to preach two sermons before the House of Commons, for which he +received the thanks of the House. At that time we find a reference to +Ipswich as a place which ‘the Lord hath long made famous and happy as a +valley of Gospel vision.’ Such places, alas! seem to have been commoner +formerly than they are now. + +One of the Congregational churches of Ipswich, at any rate, has very +interesting historical associations. ‘Salem Chapel,’ writes the Rev. +John Browne, in his ‘History of Congregationalism in Suffolk and +Norfolk,’ ‘stands in St. George’s Lane, opposite the place where St. +George’s Chapel formerly stood, where Bilney was apprehended when +preaching in favour of the Reformation, and where he so enraged the monks +that they twice plucked him out of the pulpit.’ The last time I was at +Ipswich I saw bricklayers at work at the old Presbyterian church in St. +Nicholas Street, which it would be a pity to see modernized, being such a +fine illustration of the old-fashioned Dissenting Meeting-house, before +it became the fashion to have a taste and to build Gothic chapels in +which it is difficult to see or hear, and the only advantage of which is +that they are an exact copy of the steeple-houses against which at one +time Nonconformist England waged remorseless war. One of the pastors of +this congregation removed to Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds, where he succeeded +Dr. Priestley; another was the author of a ‘History and Description of +Derbyshire’; while one of the supplies was the Rev. Robert Alderson, +afterwards of the Octagon Chapel, Norwich, who ultimately became a lawyer +and Recorder of Norwich. Perhaps one of the most singular scenes +connected with Dissenting chapels in Ipswich was that which took place in +the old chapel in Tackard, now Tacket, Street. In 1766 the minister +there was the Rev. Mr. Edwards, who, it appears, was sent for to the gaol +to see two men who had been found guilty of house-breaking, and who, +according to the law as it then stood, were to be hung. Mr. Edwards did +so, and stayed with them two hours. As the result of this visit they +were brought to a penitent state of mind. They had heard that Mr. +Edwards had prepared a sermon for them and desired them to attend. This +was a mistake, but notwithstanding they obtained permission to go to the +chapel, where Mr. Edwards was conducting a church meeting. A report of +the purpose got abroad, and many persons came to the meeting, upon which +it was thought most proper that the church business should be laid aside, +and that Mr. Edwards should go into the pulpit. This he did, and after +singing and prayer the prisoners came in with their shackles and fetters +on. Mr. Edwards, in describing the scene, says: + +‘Many were moved at the sight. As for myself, I was obliged for some +time to stop to give vent to tears. When I recovered I gave out part of +a hymn suitable to the occasion, then prayed. The subject of discourse +was, “This is a faithful saying,” and the poor prisoners shed abundance +of tears while I was explaining the several parts of the text, and +especially when I turned and addressed myself immediately to them. The +house was thronged, and I suppose not a dry eye in the whole +place—nothing but weeping and sorrow; and the floods of tears which +gushed from the eyes of the two prisoners were very melting.’ + +The good man continues: ‘When we had concluded I went and spoke some +encouraging words by way of supporting them under their sorrow. They +then desired I should see them in the evening, which I did, and called +upon Mr. Blindle on the way; the old gentleman went along with me to the +prison, and was one who prayed with them with much fervour and +enlargement of heart. We spent nearly two hours with them, and a crowd +of people were present.’ On another occasion we find an American Indian +preaching in the pulpit—a novelty in 1767. He came over with a Dr. +Whitaker, of Norwich, in America, to collect money for the education and +conversion of Indians, and at Tackard Street the people raised the very +respectable sum of £80 for the purpose. In 1561 Queen Elizabeth paid +Ipswich a visit. At that time the place was a little too Protestant for +her. Strype writes: ‘Here Her Majesty took a great dislike to the +impudent behaviour of most of the ministers and readers, there being many +weak ones among them, and little or no order observed in the public +service, and few or none wearing the surplice, and the Bishop of Norwich +was thought remiss, and that he winked at schismatics. But more +particularly she was offended with the clergy’s marriage, and that in +cathedrals and colleges there were so many wives and children and widows +seen, which, she said, was contrary to the intent of the founders, and so +much tending to the interruption of the studies of those who were placed +there. Therefore she issued an order to all dignitaries, dated August 9, +at Ipswich, to forbid all women to the lodgings of cathedrals or +colleges, and that upon pain of losing their ecclesiastical promotion.’ +From this it is clear that when Elizabeth was Queen there was little +chance of the Women’s Rights Question finding a favourable hearing. The +Queen was succeeded by monarchs after her own heart. In 1636 Prynne +published his ‘Newes from Ipswich,’ ‘discovering certain late detestable +practices of some domineering Lordly Prelates to undermine the +established doctrine and discipline of our Church, extirpate all orthodox +sincere preachers and preaching of God’s Word, usher in popery, idolatry +and superstition.’ For this publication Prynne was sentenced to be fined +£5,000 to the King, to lose the remainder of his ears, to be branded on +both cheeks, and to be perpetually imprisoned in Carnarvon Castle. At +that time the Ipswich people were far too Liberal for the powers +existing. Ipswich news nowadays is little calculated to displease +anyone, and governments and kings are less prone to take offence at the +exercise of free thought and free speech. + +Ipswich people make their way. Miss Reeve—who wrote the ‘Old English +Baron,’ a popular tale years ago—was the daughter of the Rev. William +Reeve of St. Nicholas Church. Another Ipswich lady, Mrs. Keeley, who +lives on in her grand old age, was certainly one of the most popular +performers of her day. + +Two hundred years ago, no city man was better known than Thomas Firmin, +who was born at Ipswich, described in his biography as ‘a very large and +populous town in the county of Suffolk,’ in 1632. He was of Puritan +parentage, and bound apprentice in the city of London, and then began +business as a linen-draper on the modest capital of £100. In a little +while he married and was enabled to dispense a generous hospitality, +seeking all opportunities of becoming acquainted with persons of worth, +whether foreigners or his fellow-countrymen. Amongst his special friends +were Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, and Archbishop Tillotson, at that time +the afternoon lecturer at St. Lawrence’s. During the time of the plague +he managed to secure work for the London poor, and after the fire he +erected a warehouse on the banks of the Thames, where coal and corn were +sold at cost price. In 1676 he built a great factory in Little Britain, +for the employment of the needy and industrious in the linen manufacture; +he also relieved poor debtors in prison. The great work of his later +years was in connection with the Blue Coat School. He was also one of +the Governors of St. Thomas’s Hospital, which he did much to rescue from +the wretched condition in which he found it. When the French refugees, +in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, were driven over +to this country, Firmin exerted himself powerfully on their behalf, and +sent some of them to Ipswich to engage in manufacturing there. He also +had a good deal to do with Ireland, when, as now, the country was torn by +contending factions. At a large expense he also educated many boys and +set them up in trade. He was also one of the first of the avowed and +ardent friends and advocates of a free thought, of which there were few +supporters in England at that day—even among the countrymen of Milton and +John Locke. Unitarians were rare in the days when Firmin proclaimed +himself one. Altogether he was one of the best men of his age, and well +deserved to be buried in Christchurch, Newgate, among the Bluecoat School +boys, to whom he had ever been such a friend, and to have the memorial +pillar erected in his honour by Lady Clayton in Marden Park, Surrey. It +is to be hoped that the memorial remains, though, alas! the noble mansion +at one time inhabited by Wilberforce, and where the great +philanthropist’s celebrated son, the Bishop of Oxford was born, and where +I have spent more than one pleasant day when Sir John Puleston lived +there, has been since burnt down. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +AN OLD-FASHIONED TOWN. + + +Woodbridge and the country round—Bernard Barton—Dr. Lankester—An old +Noncon. + +The traveller as he leaves the English coast for Antwerp or Rotterdam or +the northern ports of Germany, may remember that the last glimpse of his +native land is the light from Orford Ness, which is a guiding star to the +mariner as he ploughs his weary way along the deep. Of that part of +Suffolk little is known to the community at large. When I was a boy it +was looked upon as an _ultima Thule_, where the people were in a +primitive state of civilization; where shops and towns and newspapers and +good roads were unknown; where traditions of smuggling yet remained. Few +ever went into that region, and those who did, when they returned, did +not bring back with them encouraging reports. Barren sandy moors, along +which the bitter east wind perpetually blew, fatal alike to vegetation +and human life, were the chief characteristics of a district the natives +of which were not rich, at any rate as regards this world’s goods. +Orford, like Dunwich, was once a place of some importance. ‘A large and +populous town with a castle of reddish stone,’ writes Camden, but in his +time a victim of the sea’s ingratitude; ‘which withdraws itself little by +little, and begins to envy it the advantages of a harbour.’ In the time +of Henry I., writes Ralph de Coggeshall, when Bartholomew de Glanville +was Governor of its castle, some fishermen there caught a wild man in +their nets. ‘All the parts of his body resembled those of a man. He had +hair on his head, a long-peaked beard, and about the breast was exceeding +hairy and rough. But at length he made his escape into the sea, and was +never seen more,’ which was a pity, as undoubtedly he was the ‘missing +link.’ Besides, as Camden remarks, the fact was a confirmation of what +the common people of his time remarked. ‘Whatever is produced in any +part of nature is in the sea,’ and shows ‘that not all is fabulous what +Pliny has written about the Triton on the coasts of Portugal, and the sea +man in the Straits of Gibraltar.’ Nor is that the only wonder connected +with the district. Close by is Aldborough, where the poet Crabbe learned +to become, as Byron calls him, + + ‘Nature’s sternest painter, but the best;’ + +and as Camden writes, ‘Hard by, when in the year 1555 all the corn +throughout England was choakt in the ear by unseasonable weather, the +inhabitants tell you that in the beginning of autumn there grew peas +miraculously among the rocks, and that they relieved the dearth in those +parts. But the more thinking people affirm that pulse cast upon the +shore by shipwreck used to grow there now and then, and so quite exclude +the miracle.’ At the present the crag-beds are the most interesting +feature to the visitor, especially if he be of a geological turn. These +are so rich in fossil shells that you may find some of the latter in +almost every house in Ipswich. The Coralline Crag is the oldest bed; but +this formation does not occur in an undisturbed state, except in +Sudbourne Park and about Orford. A drive thither from Ipswich, through +Woodbridge, conveys the traveller through some of the loveliest scenery +in Suffolk, and the numerous exposures of Coralline Crag in Sudbourne +Park, which is about two miles from Orford, will amply repay the +traveller, on account of the number of fossils which he can there obtain, +and the ease with which he can extract them. In this neighbourhood live +the far-famed Garrett family, one of whom, as Mrs. Dr. Anderson, is well +known in London society, as is also her sister, Mrs. Fawcett, the wife of +the late popular M.P. for Hackney. Close by is Leiston Abbey, originally +one of Black Canons, consisting of several subterranean chapels, various +offices and a church, which appears to have been a handsome structure, +faced with flint and freestone. The interior was plain and undecorated, +yet massive. A large extent of the neighbouring fields was enclosed with +walls, which have been demolished, as was to be expected, for the sake of +the materials. We hear much of the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee. On +her eastern coast England has her dead cities. Dunwich, of which I have +already spoken, is one. Orford, now known solely by its lighthouse, is +another; Blythburgh, in the church of which is the tomb of Anna, King of +the East Angles, who was slain in 654, is a third. Like Tyre and Sidon, +these places had their merchant princes, who lived delicately, and whose +ships traded far and near. It is said incorrectly of Love, that it + + ‘At sight of human ties + Spreads its soft wings and in a moment flies.’ + +The remark is truer of commerce, which is a law to itself, and which +defies Acts of Parliament and royal patronage. Hence it is the east +coast of Suffolk is so rich in melancholy remains of ancient cities, now +given over to decay. In my young days the chief town of this district +was Woodbridge. Manufactories were then unknown. The steam-engine had +not then been utilized for the everyday use of man, and farmers, +peasants, coal and corn merchants, solely inhabited the district, and in +Woodbridge especially the latter rose and flourished for a time. + +How it was, I know not, but nevertheless such was the fact, that the +Ipswich of my youthful days seemed to have little, if any, literary +associations connected with it. The celebrated Mr. Fulcher published his +‘Ladies’ Pocket-book’ at Sudbury, which had a great reputation in its +day, and for which very distinguished people used to write. It was, in +fact, more of an annual than a pocket-book, and was patronized +accordingly. Then there was James Bird, living at Yoxford, ‘the garden +of Suffolk,’ as it was called. Woodbridge had a still higher reputation. +James Bird kept a shop, and was supposed to be a Unitarian; but Bernard +Barton was in a bank, and, besides, he was a Quaker, and Quakers all the +world over are, or were, famous for their goodness and their wealth. The +fame of the Quaker-poet conferred quite a literary reputation on the +district, and the more so as no one at that time associated Quakerism +with literary faculty in any way. Now and then, it is true, the +Stricklands talked of a charming young Quaker, who indeed once or twice +called at our house to see Susanna when she was staying there; but Allan +Ransome—for it is to him I refer—did not pursue literature or poetry to +any great extent, and instead preferred to develop the manufacture of +agricultural implements—a manufacture which, carried on under the same +name, is now one of the chief industries of the busy and thriving town of +Ipswich, and employs quite a thousand men. Woodbridge then bore away the +palm from the county capital, as the home of literature and poetry and +romance. As a town, it is more prettily situated than are most East +Anglian villages and towns. The principal thoroughfare, as you rode +through it by one of the Yarmouth coaches, that connected it at that time +with the Metropolis, was long and narrow. If you turned off to the right +you came to the Market-place, where were the leading shops. On your left +you reached the Quay and the river, where a few coasters were employed, +chiefly in the coal and corn trade. In our time Woodbridge has done its +duty to the State. Dr. Edwin Lankester the well-known coroner for +Middlesex, came from Melton, close by, the High Street of which gradually +terminates in the Woodbridge thoroughfare; and the lately deceased Lord +Hatherley, one of England’s most celebrated lawyers, was educated in that +district, and took his wife from the same happy land. The body of the +late Lord Hatherley, the great Whig Lord Chancellor, we were told the +other day, was interred in the family vault of Great Bearings, Suffolk. +His mother was a Woodbridge lady, a Miss Page. Lord Hatherley’s father +was the far-famed Liberal Alderman, Sir Matthew Wood, for many years M.P. +for the City of London, and Queen Caroline’s trusted friend and +counsellor. Lord Hatherley married, in 1830, Charlotte, the only +daughter of the late Major Edward Moore, of Great Bealings, Suffolk, but +was left a widower in 1878. He devoted much time to religious work, so +long as he had the strength to undertake it. He was the author of a work +entitled ‘The Continuity of Scripture, as declared by the Testimony of +Our Lord and the Evangelists and the Apostles’, which has passed through +three or four editions. He was created an Hon. D.C.L. of Oxford in 1851, +was an Hon. Student of Christ Church, Oxford, a Governor of the +Charterhouse, and a member of the Fishmongers’ Company, of which his +father had at one time been Prime Warden. Major Moore himself was a +great authority on Suffolk literature and antiquities, and published more +than one book—now very scarce—on the interesting theme. + +As to Dr. Lankester, all Woodbridge was scandalized when it was announced +that he was articled to a medical man. ‘What, make a doctor of him!’ +said the local gossips at the time. ‘They had much better make a butcher +of him.’ And not a little were the good people astonished when he came +to town, and was signally successful as a medical lecturer, and as an +advocate of the sanitary principles which in our day have come to be +recognised as essential to the welfare of the State. Dr. Lankester was +in great request as a writer on medical subjects in a popular manner, and +did undoubtedly much good in his day. A good many genteel people lived +in the neighbourhood of Woodbridge, and it had a society to which it can +lay no claim at the present time. Edward Fitzgerald, the friend of +Thackeray and Carlyle, himself an author of no mean repute, lived close +by. + +That genteel people should have pitched their tents in or around +Woodbridge is not much to be wondered at, as the neighbourhood was +certainly attractive and convenient at the same time. The scenery around +is as interesting as any that could be found, at any rate, in that part +of England. The drive from Tuddenham to Woodbridge, says Mr. Taylor, in +his ‘Ipswich Handbook,’ is perhaps unequalled in Suffolk. On the road +you pass through the villages of Little and Great Bealings, and if you +are on the look-out for spots which an artist would love to study, you +may make a very short detour to Playford. The churches, both of Little +and of Great Bealings, are very ancient, and well deserve a visit; but +the Woodbridge Road itself passes through some very pretty scenery. +Rushmere Heath, in the early summer time, when the gorse is in bloom, is +one mass of yellow, in the cleared spaces of which may usually be seen a +gipsy encampment. The gibbet once stood on this heath, and in former +times it seems to have been the place where executions usually took +place. It was here that in 1783 a woman, named Bedingfield, was burnt +for murdering her husband. In the early part of this century, when there +were many alarms as to a French invasion, and it was the firm belief of +the old ladies that one fine morning Bony would land upon our shores, and +carry them all away captive, many were the reviews of soldiers held there +by the Duke of Cambridge—whose house has been pointed out to me at +Woodbridge—and the Duke of Kent. At that time it was the fashion to +exercise the volunteers on a Sunday, a practice which would not be +sanctioned in our more religious age. It is a beautiful ride through +Kesgrave. Dense plantations abound on both sides, and in May the chorus +of nightingales is described as something wonderful. In the word +‘Kesgrave’ we have an allusion to the barrows or tumuli to be seen on +Kesgrave Heath. There are several of these erections remaining to this +day, and perhaps tradition is warranted in speaking of the spot as the +site whereon the Danes and Saxons met in deadly fight. It is certain +that the former frequently came up the Deben and the Orwell. At +Martlesham you see a creek, richly wooded on both sides, which flows up +from the River Deben. It is a striking object at high water, but by no +means so striking as the sign of the village public-house—the head of a +huge wooden lion painted with the brightest of reds. It was originally +the figure-head of a Dutch man-of-war, one of the fleet defeated at the +famous battle of Sole Bay. Be that as it may, no sign is better known +than that of Martlesham Red Lion. ‘As red as Martlesham Lion’ is still a +common figure of speech throughout East Suffolk, and I am glad to see +that in the beautiful East Anglian etchings of Mr. Edwards, a Suffolk +lawyer, who turned artist, Martlesham Red Lion has justice done to it at +last. + +Woodbridge, which the guide-book in 1844 described as a thriving town and +port—I question whether it is thriving now—is situated on the western +bank of the Deben, about nine miles above the mouth of the river, and +about eight miles to the north of Ipswich. In Domesday Book the place is +called Udebridge, of which its present name is no doubt a corruption. +Mr. William White, whom I have already quoted, says: ‘Fifty years ago +only one daily coach and a weekly waggon passed through the town to and +from London; but more than twelve conveyances (coaches, omnibuses and +carriers’ waggons) now pass daily between the hours of six in the morning +and twelve at noon, and persons may travel from Woodbridge to London in a +few hours for ten shillings, instead of paying three times that amount, +and being thirteen hours on the road, as was formerly the case.’ The +railway has now rendered it possible for people to travel at a quicker +speed and at a cheaper rate. In London we have a Woodbridge Street, in +the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell Green, which points to a connection +between the poorer part of the City and the picturesque Suffolk town on +the banks of the Deben, and this gives me occasion to speak of Thomas +Seckford, Esq., one of the masters of the Court of Requests, and Surveyor +of the Court of Wards and Liveries in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He +was not less distinguished in the profession of the law than in the other +polite accomplishments of the age in which he lived, and to his patronage +of his servant, Christopher Saxton, the public were indebted for the +first set of county maps, which were engraved by his encouragement and at +his request. He represented Ipswich in three Parliaments, and died +without issue in 1588, aged seventy-two. In Woodbridge his name is +perpetuated by a handsome pile of buildings known as the Seckford +Almshouses and Schools, to which the property in Clerkenwell is devoted. +At the time of his decease that property produced about £112 a year; in +1768 it was said to be of the yearly value of £563. In 1826 an Act of +Parliament was obtained to enable the governors of the almshouses to +grant building and other leases, to take down many of the old buildings, +to erect new premises, and repair and alter old ones, and to lay out new +streets on the charity estate in Clerkenwell, and, in consequence, we +find in 1830 the estate producing a rental of more than £3,000 a year. +In 1844 the yearly rental had risen to £4,000. Since then it has much +increased, and all this is devoted to the benefit of the Woodbridge poor. + +In 1806 Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet, came to live at Woodbridge. +When fourteen years old he was apprenticed to Mr. Samuel Jessup, a +shopkeeper in Halstead, Essex. ‘There I stood,’ he writes, ‘for eight +years behind the counter of the corner shop at the top of Halstead Hill, +kept to this day (November 9, 1828) by my old master and still worthy +uncle, S. Jessup.’ In Woodbridge he married a niece of his old master, +and went into partnership with her brother as corn and coal merchant. +But she died in giving birth to the Lucy Barton whose name still, unless +I am mistaken, adorns our literature. Bernard gave up business and +retired into the bank of the Messrs. Alexander, where he continued for +forty years, working within two days of his death. He had always been +fond of books, and was one of the most active members of a Woodbridge +Book Club, and had been in the habit of writing and sending to his +friends occasional copies of verse. In 1812 he published his first +volume, called ‘Metrical Effusions,’ and began a correspondence with +Southey. A complimentary copy of verses which he had addressed to the +author of the ‘Queen’s Wake,’ just then come into notice, brought him +long and vehement letters from the Ettrick—letters full of thanks to +Barton and praises of himself, and a tragedy ‘that will astonish the +world ten times more than the “Queen’s Wake,”’ to which justice could not +be done in Edinburgh, and which Bernard Barton was to try to get +represented in London. In 1825 one of Bernard’s volumes of poems had run +into a fifth edition, and of another George IV. had accepted the +dedication. Thus prompted to exertion, he worked too hard; banking all +day and writing poetry all night were too much for him. Lamb, however, +cheered up the dyspeptic poet. ‘You are too much apprehensive about your +complaint,’ he wrote. ‘I know many that are always writing of it and +live on to a good old age. I knew a merry fellow—you partly know him, +too—who, when his medical adviser told him he had drunk all _that part_, +congratulated himself, now his liver was gone, that he should be the +longest liver of the two.’ Southey wrote in a soberer vein. ‘My friend, +go to bed early; and if you eat suppers, read afterwards, but never +compose, that you may lie down with a quiet intellect. There is an +intellectual as well as a religious peace of mind, and without the former +be assured there can be no health for a poet.’ + +At times Bernard Barton seems to have been troubled about money matters. +On one occasion he appears to have made up his mind to have done with +banking and devote himself to literature. ‘Keep to your bank,’ wrote +Lamb, ‘and the bank will keep you. Trust not to the public: you may +hang, starve, drown yourself, for anything that worthy personage cares. +I bless every star that Providence, not seeing good to make me +independent, has seen it next good to settle me on the stable foundation +of Leadenhall. Sit down, good B. B., in the banking office. What! is +there not from six to eleven p.m. six days in the week? and is there not +all Sunday?’ Fortunately for B. B., friends came to his rescue. A few +members of his Society, including some of the wealthier of his own +family, raised among them £1,200 for his benefit. The scheme originated +with Joseph John Gurney, of Norwich, and in 1824 when the money was +collected, it was felt that £1,200 was a great deal for a poet to +receive. Bernard Barton’s daughter married a Suffolk gentleman, +well-to-do in the world, but the lady and gentleman had not congenial +minds, and parted almost as soon as the honeymoon was over. + +B. B. was a great correspondent. As a banker’s clerk, necessarily his +journeys were few and far between. Once or twice he visited Charles +Lamb. He once also met Southey at Thomas Clarkson’s, at Playford Hall, +perhaps the most picturesque old house in East Anglia, where the latter +resided, and of which I have a distinct recollection, as, on the terrace +before the moat with which it was surrounded, I once saw the venerable +philanthropist and his grandchildren. Now and then B. B. also visited +the Rev. Mr. Mitford at Benhall, a village between Woodbridge and +Saxmundham, who was then engaged in editing the Aldine edition of the +English Poets. But B. B.’s correspondents were numerous. Poor, +unfortunate L. E. L. sent him girlish letters. Mrs. Hemans was also a +correspondent, as were the Howitts and Mrs. Opie and Dr. Drake, of +Hadley, whose literary disquisitions are now, alas! forgotten; and poor +Charles Lloyd, whose father wrote of his son’s many books ‘that it is +easier to write them than to gain numerous readers.’ Dr. Bowring and +Josiah Conder were also on writing terms with the Quaker poet. His +excursions, his daughter tells us, rarely extended beyond a few miles +round Woodbridge, to the vale of Dedham, Constable’s birthplace and +painting-room; or to the neighbouring seacoast, including Aldborough, +doubly dear to him from its association with the memory and poetry of +Crabbe. Once upon a time he dined with Sir Robert Peel, when he had the +pleasure of meeting Airy, the late Astronomer Royal, whom he had known as +a lad at Playford. The dinner with Sir Robert Peel ended satisfactorily, +as it resulted in the bestowal by the Queen on the poet of a pension of +£100 a year. He was now beyond the fear of being tempted to commit +forgery, and being hung in consequence—a possibility, which was the +occasion of one of Lamb’s wittiest letters. The gentle Elia made merry +over the chance of a Quaker poet being hung. + +Amiable and liberal as was Bernard Barton, he could and did strike hard +when occasion required. In East Anglia, when I was a lad, there was a +great deal of intolerance—almost as much as exists in society circles at +the present day—and that is saying a great deal. Churchmen, in their +ignorance, were ready to put down Dissent in every way, and occasionally, +by their absurdity, they roused the righteous ire of the Quaker poet. +One of them, for instance, had said at a public meeting: ‘This was the +opinion he had formed of Dissenters, that they were wolves in sheep’s +clothing.’ Whereupon B. B. wrote: + + ‘Wolves in sheep’s clothing! bitter words and big; + But who applies them? first the speaker scan; + A suckling Tory! an apostate Whig! + Indeed a very silly, weak young man! + + ‘What such an one may either think or say, + With sober people matters not one pin; + In _their_ opinion his own senseless bray + Proves _him_ the ASS WRAPT IN A LION’S SKIN!’ + +Better is the following address to a certain Dr. E.: + + ‘A bullying, brawling, champion of the Church, + Vain as a parrot screaming on her perch; + And like that parrot screaming out by rote, + The same stale, flat, unprofitable note; + Still interrupting all debate + With one eternal cry of “Church and State!” + With all the High Tory’s ignorance increased, + By all the arrogance that makes the priest; + One who declares upon his solemn word + The Voluntary system is absurd; + He well may say so, for ’twere hard to tell + Who would support him did not law compel.’ + +A prophet, it is said, is not honoured in his own country. Bernard +Barton was happily the rare exception that proves the rule. I remember +being at the launching of a vessel, bought and owned by a Woodbridge man, +called the _Bernard Barton_; it was the first time I had ever seen a ship +launched, and I was interested accordingly. The ultimate fate of the +craft is unknown to history. On one occasion she was reported in the +shipping list amongst the arrivals at some far-off port as the _Barney +Burton_. Such is fame! + +Of his local reputation Bernard was not a little proud. His little town +was vain of him. It was something to go into the bank and get a cheque +cashed by the poet. The other evening I went to the house of a +Woodbridge man who has done well in London, and lives in one of the few +grand old houses which yet adorn Stoke Newington Green—just a stone’s +throw from where Samuel Rogers dwelt—and there in the drawing-room were +Bernard Barton’s own chair and cabinet preserved with as much pious care +as if he had been a Shakespeare or a Milton. Bernard Barton made no +secret of his vocation, and when the time had come that he had delivered +himself of a new poem, it was his habit to call on one or other of his +friends and discuss the matter over a bottle of port—port befitting the +occasion; no modern liquor of that name— + + ‘Not such as that + You set before chance comers, + But such whose father grape grew fat + On Lusitanian summers.’ + +And then there was a good deal of talk, as was to be expected, on things +in general, for B. B. loved his joke and was full of anecdote—anecdote, +perhaps, not always of the most refined character. But what could you +expect at such happy times from a man brimful of human nature, who had to +pose all life under the double weight of decorum imposed on him, in the +first place as a Quaker, and in the second place as a banker’s clerk? + +Bernard Barton, as I recollect him, was somewhat of a dear old man—short +in person, red in face, with dark brown hair. He was, as I have said, a +clerk in a bank, but his poetry had elevated him, somehow, to the rank of +a provincial lion, and at certain houses, where the dinner was good and +the wine was ditto, he ever was a welcome guest. I dined with him at the +house of a friend in Woodbridge, and it seemed to me that he cared more +for good feeding and a glass of wine and a pinch of snuff than the sacred +Nine. Of course at that time I had not been educated up to the fitting +state of mind with which the philosopher of our day proceeds to the +performance of the mysteries of dinner. Dining had at that time not been +elevated to the rank of a science, to the study of which the most acute +intellects devote their highest energies; nor had flowers then been +invoked to lend an additional grace to the dining-table. Besides, +dinners such as Mr. Black gives at Brighton, scientific dinners, such as +those feasts with which Sir Henry Thompson regales his friends, were +unknown. Nevertheless, now and then we managed to dine comfortably off +roast beef or lamb, a slice of boiled or roast fowl, a bit of +plum-pudding or fruit tart, a crust of bread and cheese, with—tell it not +in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askalon—sherry and Madeira at +dinner, and a few glasses of fine old fruity port after. Some +Shakespearian quotations—unknown to me then, for Shakespeare was little +quoted in purely evangelical circles, either in Church or Dissent—a +reference to Sir Walter Scott’s earlier German translations, formed about +the sum and substance of the conversation which took place between the +poet and my host; all the rest was principally social gossip and an +exchange of pleasantries between the poet and his friend, whom he +addressed familiarly as ‘mine ancient.’ It was a great treat to me, of +course, to dine with Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet. Once upon a time a +Quaker minister had come to Woodbridge on a preaching tour, and all the +Quakers, male and female, small and great, rich and poor, were ranged +before him. When Bernard Barton was announced, the good old man said, +‘Barton—Barton—that’s a name I don’t recollect.’ The bearer of the name +replied it would be strange if he did, seeing that they had never met +before. Suddenly looking up, the minister exclaimed, ‘Art thou the +versifying man?’ Unlike the venerable stranger, I had no need to ask the +question, as in my mother’s album there was more than one letter from the +genial B. B. + +I can well recall the room in which I dined with the poet. My host had +come into a handsome fortune by marrying a wealthy widow—one of the +possibilities of a Dissenting minister’s situation—and he had retired +from the ministry to cultivate literature and literary men. As I think +of that room and that dinner, I am reminded of the wonderful contrast +effected within the last age. At that time the dinner-table presented a +far less picturesque appearance than it does now. We had always pudding +before meat; the latter was solid, and in the shape of a joint. Nor was +it handed round by servants, but carved by the host or his lady. Silver +forks were unknown, and electro-plate had not then been invented. +Vegetables, also, were deficient as regards quantity and quality compared +with the supply at a respectable dinner nowadays. In manners the change +is equally remarkable. It was said of a nobleman, a personal friend of +George III., and a model gentleman of his day, that he had made the tour +of Europe without ever touching the back of his travelling carriage. +That includes an idea of self-denial utterly unknown to all the young +people of to-day. The study now is how to make our houses more +comfortable, and to furnish them most luxuriously. Then, perhaps, there +was but one sofa in the house, and that was repellent rather than +attractive. Easy-chairs were few and far between. Lounging of any kind +was out of the question. In the drawing-room, the furniture was of the +same uncomfortable description, and there were none of the modern +appliances which exist to make ladies and gentlemen happy. Couches, +antimacassars, photographs, were unknown. One picture invariably to be +seen was a painting of a favourite steed, with the owner looking at it in +a state of intense admiration; and a few family portraits might be +ostentatiously displayed. As to pianos, there never was but one in the +house; and a billiard-table would have been considered as the last refuge +of human depravity. In sitting-rooms and bedrooms and passages there was +a great deficiency of carpets and of oilcloth. But furniture was +furniture then, and could stand a good deal of wear and tear; while as to +the spare bed in the best room, with its enormous four posts and its +gigantic funereal canopy and its heavy curtains, through which no breath +of fresh air could penetrate, all I can say is that people slept in it +and survived the operation—so wonderfully does nature adapt itself to +circumstances the most adverse. + +This reference to Bernard Barton reminds me of a portrait he has left in +one of his pleasant letters of a Suffolk yeoman, a class of whose virtues +I can testify from personal experience. ‘He was a hearty old yeoman of +eighty-six, and had occupied the farm in which he lived and died about +fifty-five years. Social, hospitable, friendly, a liberal master to his +labourers, a kind neighbour, and a right merry companion within the +limits of becoming mirth. In politics a stanch Whig, in his theological +creed as sturdy a Dissenter; yet with no more party spirit in him than a +child. He and I belonged to the same book-club for about forty years. +. . . Not that he greatly cared about books or was deeply read in them, but +he loved to meet his neighbours and get them round him on any occasion or +no occasion at all. As a fine specimen of the true English yeoman, I +have met with few to equal, if any to surpass him, and he looked the +character as well as he acted it, till within a few years, when the +strong man was bowed by bodily infirmity. About twenty-six years ago, in +his dress costume of a blue coat and yellow buckskins, a finer sample of +John Bullism you would rarely see. It was the whole study of his long +life to make the few who revolved round him in his little orbit as happy +as he seemed to be himself. Yet I was gravely queried when I happened to +say that his children had asked me to write a few lines to his memory, +whether I could do this in keeping with the general tone of my poetry—the +speaker doubted if he was a decidedly pious character! He had at times +in his altitude been known to vociferate a song, of which the chorus was +certainly not teetotalism: + + ‘“Sing old Rose, and burn the bellows, + Drink and drive dull care away.”’ + +Bernard Barton goes on to describe the deceased yeoman as a diligent +attendant at the meeting-house, a frequent and serious reader of the +Bible, and the head of an orderly and well-regulated house. He is +described as knowing Dr. Watts’ hymns almost by heart, and as singing +them on Sunday at meeting with equal fervour and unction. Bernard Barton +feared in 1847—the date of his epistle—the breed of such men was dying +out. It is to be feared in East Anglia the race is quite extinct. In +our meeting-house at Wrentham, when I was a lad, there were several such. +I am afraid there is not one there now. The sons and daughters have left +the old rustic houses, and gone out into the world. They have become +respectable, and go to church, and have lost a good deal of the vigour +and independence of their forefathers. In all the East Anglian +meeting-houses fifty years ago such men abounded. Of a Sunday, with +their blue coats and kerseymere knee-breeches, and jolly red laces, they +looked more like country squires than common farmers. They drove up to +the meeting-house yard with very superior gigs and cattle. In their +houses creature comforts of all known kinds were to be found. Tea—a +hearty meal, not of mere bread-and-butter, but of ham and cake as +well—was served up in the parlour, with a glass or two of real +home-brewed ale, amber-coloured, of a quality now unknown, and which was +wonderfully refreshing after a long walk or drive. Then, if it were +summer, there was a stroll in the big garden, well planted with +fruit-trees and strawberry-beds, and adorned with flowers—old-fashioned, +perhaps, but rich, nevertheless, in colour and perfume. In one corner +there was sure to be an arbour, all covered with honeysuckle, such as +Izaak Walton himself would have approved; and there, while the seniors +over their long pipes discussed politics and theology, and corn and +cattle, the younger ones would make their first feeble efforts, all +unconsciously, perhaps, to conjugate the verb ‘to love.’ Outside the +church organizations these old yeomen lived and died. There was a +flavour of the world about them. They would dine at market ordinaries, +and perhaps would stop an hour in the long room of the public-house, +where they put up their horses, to smoke a pipe and take a drop of +brandy-and-water for the good of the landlord. Now and then—sometimes to +the sorrow of their wives, who were often church-members—they would join, +as I have indicated, in a song of an objectionable character when +severely criticised. Perhaps their parson would be much exercised on +their behalf; but surely the noble spirit of humanity in these old +yeomen, at any rate, was as worthy of admiration as the Puritanic faith +of the past—or as the honest doubt of the present age. If I mistake not, +the fine old yeoman to whom Bernard Barton referred lived not far from +Seckford Hall. + +Woodbridge has some claim to consideration from the Nonconformist point +of view. In 1648 a schoolmistress, Elizabeth Warren, published a +pamphlet, ‘The Old and Good Way Vindicated, in a Treatise, wherein Divers +Errours, both in Judgment and Practice incident to these Declining Days, +are Unmasked for the Caution of humble Christians.’ From the same town +also there issued ‘The Preacher Sent: a Vindication of the Liberty of +Public Preaching by Some Men not Ordained.’ The author of this book, or +one of the authors of it, was the Rev. Frederick Woodall, the first +pastor of the Free Church—‘a man of learning, ability, and piety, a +strict Independent, zealous for the fifth monarchy, and a considerable +sufferer after his ejectment.’ He had, we are told, to contend with a +tedious embarrassment, through the persecuting spirit that for many years +prevailed, and considerably cramped the success of his ministry. +Woodbridge is one of the churches which Mr. Harmer refers to in his +‘Miscellaneous Works,’ as being rigidly Congregationalist, and which +conducted its affairs rather according to the heads of Savoy Confession +than the heads of Agreement. When I was a boy the pastor was a Mr. +Pinchback, who seems to have been a worthy successor of godly men, +equally attractive and successful. He had previously settled at Ware. +It is recorded of the good divine that on one occasion he had to leave +his wife at the point of death, as it seemed, to go to chapel. In the +course of the service he mentioned the fact of her illness, and announced +in consequence that he would preach her funeral sermon on the following +Sunday. But when the following Sunday came the lady was better, and +lived for many years to assist her husband in his godly work. In the +rural districts the Baptists flourished immensely. + +At Grundisburgh there preached for many years to a large congregation a +worthy man of the name of Collins, who was one of the leading lights of +the body which rejoiced in a John Foreman and a Brother Wells. People +who live in London cannot have forgotten Jemmy Wells, of the Surrey +Tabernacle, and his grotesque and telling anecdotes. One can scarcely +imagine how people could ever believe the things Wells used to say as to +the Lord’s dealings with him; but they did, and his funeral—in South +London, at any rate—was almost as numerously attended as that of Arthur, +Duke of Wellington. I expect high-and-dry Baptists have been not a +little troublesome in their day, and in East Anglia they were more +numerous than in London. It may be that they have helped to weaken +Dissent in that part of the world. Men of independent intellect must +have been not a little shocked by that unctuous familiarity with God and +the devil which is the characteristic of that class. On a Sunday morning +Jemmy Wells, as his admirers called him, would describe in the most +graphic manner what the devil had said to him in the course of the week; +and on one memorable occasion, at any rate, described with much force the +shame he felt at having to tell the gentleman in black that his people’s +memories, unfortunately, were somewhat remiss in the matter of pew-rents. +Brother Collins avoided such flights, but he was an attractive preacher +to all the country round, nevertheless. Truly such a one was needed in +that district. At Rendham, a village near Saxmundham, lived a godly +minister of the Church of England. In 1844, speaking to a friend of the +writer, he said that when he came into the county, between thirty and +forty years before, there was only one other clergyman and himself +between Ipswich and Great Yarmouth who preached the Gospel, and that +sometimes the squire of the parish would hold up his watch to him to bid +him close his sermon. In some places where he went to preach he had to +have a body-guard to prevent his being mobbed and pelted with rotten eggs +on account of his evangelical principles. + + + + +CHAPTER X. +MILTON’S SUFFOLK SCHOOLMASTER. + + +Stowmarket—The Rev. Thomas Young—Bishop Hall and the Smectymnian +divines—Milton’s mulberry-tree—Suffolk relationships. + +‘My father destined me,’ writes John Milton, in his ‘Defensio Secunda,’ +‘while yet a little boy, for the study of humane letters, which I served +with such eagerness that, from the twelfth year of my age, I scarcely +ever went from my lessons to bed before midnight, which, indeed, was the +first cause of injury to my eyes, to whose natural weakness there were +also added frequent headaches; all which not retarding my natural +impetuosity in learning, he caused me to be instructed both at the +Grammar School and under other masters at home.’ Of the latter, the best +known was the Rev. Thomas Young, the Puritan minister, of Stowmarket, +Suffolk. + +It is generally claimed for Young that he was an East Anglian. Professor +Masson has, however, settled the question that he was a Scotchman, of the +University of Aberdeen. Be that as it may, like most Scotchmen, he made +his way to England, and was employed by Mr. Milton, the scrivener of +Bread Street, to teach his gifted son. As he seems to have been married +at the time, it is not probable that he resided with his pupil, but only +visited him daily. Never had master a better pupil, or one who rewarded +him more richly by the splendour of his subsequent career. The poet, +writing to him a few years after he ceased to be his pupil, speaks of +‘the incredible and singular gratitude he owed him on account of the +services he had done him,’ and calls God to witness that he reverenced +him as his father. In a Latin elegy, after implying that Young was +dearer to him than Socrates to Alcibiades, or than the great Stagyrite to +his generous pupil, Alexander, he goes on to say: ‘First, under his +guidance, I explored the recesses of the Muses, and beheld the sacred +green spots of the cleft summit of Parnassus and quaffed the Pierian +cups, and, Clio favouring me, thrice sprinkled my joyful mouth with +Castalian wine;’ from which it is clear that Young had done his duty to +his pupil, and that the latter ever regarded him with an affection as +beautiful as rare. Never did a Rugby lad write of Arnold as Milton of +Thomas Young. How long the latter’s preceptorship lasted cannot be +determined with precision. ‘It certainly closed,’ writes Professor +Masson, in that truly awful biography of his, ‘when Young left England at +the age of thirty-five, and became pastor of the congregation of British +merchants settled at Hamburg.’ + +As one of the leaders of the Presbyterian party, Dr. Thomas Young became +Vicar of Stowmarket in due time. He was one of the Smectymnian divines. +As it is not every schoolboy who knows what the term means, let me +explain who they were. Two or three hundred years ago people were much +more controversial than they are now, and very fierce was the battle on +the subject of the relative claims, from a Scriptural point of view, of +Prelacy or Presbytery. One of the most distinguished champions of the +former was Dr. Hall, Bishop of Norwich—a simple, godly, learned man, who +deserves to be held in remembrance, if only for the way in which he got +married. ‘Being now settled,’ he writes, ‘in that sweet and civil county +of Suffolk, the uncouth solitariness of my life, and the extreme +incommodity of that single housekeeping, drew my thoughts, after two +years, to condescend to the necessity of a married state, which God no +less strangely provided for me; for walking from the church on Monday, in +the Whitsun week, with a grave and reverend minister, I saw a comely and +modest gentlewoman standing at the door of that house where we were +invited to a wedding-dinner, and inquiring of that worthy friend whether +he knew her, “Yes,” quoth he, “I know her well, and have bespoken her for +your wife.” When I further demanded an account of that answer, he told +me she was the daughter of a gentleman whom he much respected—Mr. George +Whinniff, of Brettenham; that out of an opinion he had of the fitness of +that match for me he had already treated with her father about it, whom +he found very apt to entertain it. Advising me not to neglect the +opportunity, and not concealing the just praises of the modesty, piety, +good disposition, and other virtues that were lodged in that seemly +presence, I listened to the motion as sent from God, and at last, upon +due prosecution, happily prevailed, enjoying the comfortable society of +that meet-help for the space of forty-nine years.’ A young clergyman so +good and amiable ought to have fared better as regards the days in which +his lot was passed. Hall should have lived in some theological Arcadia. +As it was, he had to fight much and suffer much. In those distracted +times he was all for peace. When the storm was brewing in Church and +State, which for a time swept away Bishop and King, he published—but, +alas! in vain—his ‘Via Media.’ ‘I see,’ he wrote, ‘every man to rank +himself unto a side, and to draw in the quarrel he affecteth. I see no +man either holding or joining their hands for peace.’ Bishop Hall was +the most celebrated writer of his time in defence of the Church of +England. Archbishop Laud got him to write on ‘The Divine Right of +Episcopacy,’ nor could he have well placed the subject in abler hands. +This was followed, after Laud had fallen, with ‘An Humble Remonstrance to +the High Court of Parliament,’ in which treatise he vindicated the +antiquity of liturgies and Episcopacy with admirable skill, meekness, and +simplicity, yet with such strength of argument that five Presbyterian +divines clubbed their wits together to frame an answer. These +Presbyterian ministers were—Stephen Marshal, then lecturer at St. +Margaret’s, whom Baillie terms the best of the preachers in England; +Edmund Calamy, who had long been a celebrated East Anglian preacher, +first at Swaffham, then at Bury St. Edmunds, who, as we all know, refused +a bishopric when offered him, and whom, therefore, at any rate, his +adversaries must allow to have been sincere; Thomas Young, Matthew +Newcomen, and William Spurstow. To this reply was given the name of +Smectymnuus—a startling word, as Calamy calls it, made up of the initial +letters of these names. This work, which was published in 1641, gave, +says Dr. M’Crie, the first serious blow to Prelacy. It was composed in a +style superior to that of the Puritans in general, and was, by the +confession of the learned Bishop Wilkins, a capital work against +Episcopacy. Dr. Kippis says, ‘This piece is certainly written with great +fierceness and asperity of language,’ and quotes, as evidence, some +strong things said against the practice of the prelates. But Neal, who +has given a long account of the work, states that, if the rest of the +clergy had been of the same temper and spirit with Bishop Hall, the +controversy between him and the Smectymnian divines might have been +compromised. + +Stowmarket, as I have said, had the honour of being placed under the +pastoral care of one of these Smectymnian divines. He came there in +March, 1628, on the presentation of Mr. John Howe, a gentleman then +residing in the town, and a man of wealth, whose ancestors had been great +cloth-manufacturers in that place and neighbourhood. Since the time of +Edward III. the cloth manufacture had been very active in Suffolk, and it +is little to the credit of its merchants that we find them, in 1522, +petitioning for the repeal of a royal law which inflicted a penalty +against those who sold cloth which, when wetted, shrunk up, on the plea +that, as such goods were made for a foreign market, the home-consumer was +not injured. Stowmarket, when I was a lad, had reached its climax in a +pecuniary sense. In the early part of the present century it was spoken +of as a rising town. Situated as it was in the centre of the county, it +was a convenient mart for barley, and great quantities of malt were made. +Its other manufactures were sacking, ropes, and twine. Its tanneries +were of a more recent date, as also its manufactory of gun-cotton, +connected with which at one time there was an explosion of a most fatal +and disastrous character. In 1763 it was connected with Ipswich by means +of a canal, which was a great source of prosperity to the town. Up to +the time of the great Reform Bill, it was the great place for county +meetings, and for the nomination of the county representatives. In our +day it has a population of 4,052. When I was a lad it was one of the +first towns to welcome the Plymouth Brethren into Suffolk, and they are +there still. The Independent Chapel for awhile suffered much from them. +The pastor was a very worthy but somewhat dry preacher. His favourite +quotation in the pulpit, when he would describe the attacks of the enemy +of God and man, was + + ‘He worries whom he can’t devour + With a malicious joy.’ + +Suffolk had its great lawyers as well as Norfolk. The first to head the +list is Ranulph de Glanville, a man of great parts, deep learning, for +the times, eminent alike for his legal abilities and energetic mind. He +was said, by one account, to have been born at Stowmarket. It is certain +he founded Leiston Abbey, near Aldborough, and Bentley Priory. As Chief +Justice under Henry II. he naturally was no favourite with Richard I., +who deprived him of his office and made use of his wealth. He lived, +however, to accompany Richard to the Holy Land, and died at the siege of +Acre. His treatise on our laws is one of the earliest on record. It +must be remembered also that Godwin, the author of ‘Political Justice,’ +and ‘Caleb Williams,’ a novel still read—the husband of one gifted woman, +and the father of another—was at one time an Independent minister at +Stowmarket. + +But to return to Dr. Young. He, like Mr. Newcomen, had become an East +Anglian, and Smectymnuus may therefore more or less be said to have an +East Anglian original. As the living of Stowmarket was at that time +worth £300 a year, and as £300 a year then was quite equal to £600 a year +now, Dr. Young must have been in comfortable circumstances while at +Stowmarket. A likeness of him is hung up, or was preserved, in +Stowmarket Vicarage. ‘It,’ wrote an old observer, ‘possesses the solemn, +faded yellowness of a man much given to austere meditation, yet there is +sufficient energy in the eye and mouth to show, as he is preaching in +Geneva gown and bands, that he is a man who could write and think, and +speak with great vigour.’ One of Milton’s biographers terms him, +contemptuously, a Puritan who cut his hair short. The Rev. Mr. +Hollingsworth writes that it is an error to suppose that Young remained +long as chaplain to merchants abroad. ‘He must have remained generally +in constant residence, because we possess his signature to the vestry +accounts, in a curious quarto book, which contains the annual accounts of +Stow upland Parish for eighty-four years. At the parish meetings, and at +the audit of each year’s accounts Vicar Young presided, with some +exceptions, from the year 1629 to 1655, and his autograph is attached to +each page.’ As an author, Dr. Young had distinguished himself before he +appeared as one of the Smectymnians. In 1639, while the Stuarts and the +Bishops were doing all they could to break down the sanctity of the +Sabbath, and to make it a day of vulgar revelry and rustic sport, Dr. +Young published a thin quarto in Latin, entitled ‘Dies Dominica,’ +containing a history of the institution of the Sabbath, and its +vindication from all common and profane uses. There is no place of +publication named, the signature is feigned, ‘Theophilus Philo Kunaces +Loncardiensis,’ and in the copy reserved at Stowmarket is added, in +characters by no means unlike that of the handwriting of the Vicar +himself, ‘Dr. Thos. Young, of Jesus.’ The tractate is described as a +very elaborate and learned compilation from the Fathers upon the sanctity +of the Sabbath. A spirit of laborious and determined energy pervades it, +nor is it unworthy the abilities and erudition of the author. The work +was written at Stowmarket, and may have been published in Ipswich. Its +paper and type are coarse; the name of the author was concealed, because +at that time a man who reverenced the Sabbath had a good chance of being +brought before the Star Chamber, and of being roughly treated by +Archbishop Laud, as an enemy to Church and State. About ten years +before, Dr. Young had heard how, for writing his plea against Prelacy, +Dr. Alexander Leighton had been cast into Newgate, dragged before the +Star Chamber, where he was sentenced to have his ears cut off, to have +his nose slit, to be branded in the face, to stand in the pillory, to be +whipped at the post, to pay a fine of £10,000, and to suffer perpetual +imprisonment. Dr. Young might well shrink from exposing himself to +similar torture. But Dr. Young had other warnings, and much nearer home. + +Dr. Young, like most of the men of that time, persecuted witches. These +latter were supposed to have existed in great numbers, and a roving +commission for their discovery was given to one Matthew Hopkins, of +Manningtree, in Essex, to find them out in the eastern counties and +execute the law upon them. It was a brutal business, and Hopkins +followed it for three or four years. He proceeded from town to town and +opened his courts. Stowmarket was one of the places he visited. The +Puritans are said to have hung sixty witches in Suffolk, but the Puritans +were not alone responsible. It is a fact that, up to fifty years ago two +supposed witches lived in Stowmarket. + +Dr. Young escaped the Star Chamber, but, like most good men who would be +free at that time he had to fly his native land for awhile. Milton +refers to this exile in his Latin elegy: + + ‘Meantime alone + Thou dwellest, and helpless on a soil unknown, + Poor, and receiving from a foreign hand + The aid denied thee in thy native land.’ + +It seems from this that the living at Stowmarket was under sequestration. +A little while after Young is back in Stowmarket, and Milton thus +describes his daily life—a personal experience of the poet’s, not a +flight of fancy: + + ‘Now, entering, thou shalt haply seated see + Besides his spouse, his infants on his knee; + Or, turning page by page with studious look + Some bulky paper or God’s holy Book.’ + +Good times came to Dr. Young. The seed he had sown bore fruit. For +awhile England had woke up to attack the Stuart doctrine of royal +prerogative in Church and State. The men of Suffolk had been the +foremost in the fight, and in 1643 we find the Doctor in Duke’s Place, +London. A sermon was preached by him before the House of Commons, and +printed by order of the House. A Stowmarket Rector speaks of it +naturally as a very prolix, learned, somewhat dull and heavy effort to +encourage them to persevere in their civil war against the King; but he +has the grace to add: ‘There is much less of faction in it than many +others, and it is rather the production of a contemplative than of an +active partisan.’ ‘One of his examples,’ writes Mr. Hollingsworth, ‘is +from 2 Sam. xiii. 28, where the command of Absalom was to kill Amnon: +“Could the command of a _mortal man_ infuse that courage and valour into +the hearts _of his servants_ as to make them adventure upon a _desperate_ +design? And shall not the command of the _Almighty God_ raise up the +hearts of His people employed by Him in any work to which _He_ calls +them, raise up their hearts in following at His command!”’ The Doctor +had not cleared himself of all the errors of his times. He urged on his +hearers, by the example of the Emperors, the necessity of maintaining the +doctrine of the Trinity uncorrupt, by the aid of the civil power. He +urged, however, on them personal holiness, in order that the reformation +of the Church might be more easily accomplished. The two legislative +enactments he wished them to pass were to confer a power upon the +Presbyterian clergy to exclude men from the Sacrament, and enforce a +better observance of the Sabbath-day. The sermon is scarce, but is bound +up with others in the Library at Cambridge, preached at the monthly fasts +before the House of Commons. + +In the library of the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, where assuredly +the portrait of the Stowmarket Rector should find a place, there is a +copy of this sermon, which was preached at the last solemn fast. +February 28, 1643, with the notice that ‘It is this day ordered by the +Commoners’ House of Parliament that Sir John Trevor and Mr. Rous do from +this House give thanks to Mr. Young for the great paines hee tooke in the +sermon hee preached that day at the intreaty of the said House of Commons +at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, it being the day of publike humiliation, +and to desire him to print this sermon;’ which accordingly was done, +under the title of ‘Hope’s Encouragement.’ The motto on the outside was: +‘Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, and +entereth into that which is within the veil.’ The sermon was printed in +London for Ralph Smith, at the sign of the Bible, in Cornhill, near the +Royal Exchange. In his sermon the preacher took for his text: ‘Be of +good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that wait upon +the Lord.’ The three propositions established are: First, that God’s +people are taught by the Lord in all their troubles to wait patiently on +Him. The second is that such as wait patiently upon the Lord must rouse +themselves with strength and courage to further wait upon Him; and that, +thirdly, when God’s people wait upon Him, He will increase their courage. +The preacher quotes the Hebrew and Augustine, and reasons in a most +undeniable manner in support of his propositions; but above all things he +is practical. ‘The work you are now called on to do,’ he says to the +M.P.’s, ‘is a work of great concernment. It is the purging of the Lord’s +floor. As it hath reference both to the Church and the Commonwealth, a +work sure enough to be encountered with great opposition. Yet I must say +it is a work with the managing whereof God hath not so honoured others +which have gone before you in your places, but hath reserved it to make +you the instruments of His glory in advancing it, and that doth much add +unto your honour. Was it an honour to the Tyrians that they were counted +amongst the builders of the Temple when Hiram sent to Solomon things +necessary for that work? How, then, hath God honoured you, reserving to +you the care of re-edifying His Church (the throne of the living God) and +the repairing of the shattered Commonwealth, so far borne down before He +raised you to support it, that succeeding ages may with honour to your +names, say, “This was the Reforming Parliament,” a work which God, by His +blessing on your unwearied pains, hath much furthered already, whilst He, +by you, hath removed the rubbish that might hinder the raising up of that +godly structure appointed and prescribed by the Lord in His Word.’ They +were to stick to the truth, contended the preacher, quoting the edict of +the Emperor Justinian in the Arian controversy, and the reply of Basil +the Great to the Emperor’s deputy: ‘That none trained up in Holy +Scriptures would suffer one syllable of Divine truth to be betrayed; but +were ready, if it be required, to suffer any death in the defence +thereof.’ People, he maintained, are ever carried on by the example of +their governors. ‘How,’ he asks, ‘was the Eastern Empire polluted with +execrable Arianism, whilst yet the Western continued in the truth? The +historians give the reason of it. Constantine, an Arian, ruled in the +East when at the same time Constans and Constantius, sons to Constantine +the Great, treading in the steps of their pious father, adhered to the +truth professed by him, and so did as far ennoble the Western Empire with +the truth as the other did defile the Eastern with his countenancing of +error and heresy.’ The preacher here asks his hearers to make no laws +against religion and piety, and ‘recall such as have been made in time of +ignorance against the same, and study to uphold and maintain such +profitable and wholesome laws as have been formerly enacted for God and +His people. Improve what was well begun by others before you, and not +perfected by them.’ Under this latter head he dwelt on the possible +abuse of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and the irreligious +profanation of the Lord’s Day. + +In 1643 the Earl of Manchester ejected many of the Royalist clergymen +from their livings who were scandalous ministers. Dr. Sterne having been +deprived of the mastership of Jesus College, Cambridge, the Stowmarket +Vicar was placed there in his stead. He held the situation till 1654, +when, on his refusal of the engagement, Government deprived him of his +office. At the time the sermon was preached Dr. Young was one of the +far-famed Assembly of Divines which met in Henry VII.’s chapel in +accordance with the Solemn League and Covenant, which proposed three +grand objects: ‘To endeavour the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy +superstition, heresy, and profaneness; to endeavour the preservation of +the reformed religion in Scotland and the reformation of religion in the +kingdoms of England and Ireland in doctrine, worship, discipline, and +government according to the Word of God and the example of the best +Reformed Church; and to endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the +three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in +religion—confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for +worship and catechizing; that we and our posterity after us may as +brethren live in faith and love, and that the Lord may delight to dwell +in the midst of us.’ A clause was inserted to the effect that it was +English prelacy which they contemned; and thus modified, after all due +solemnities, and with their right hands lifted to heaven, was the Solemn +League and Covenant sworn to by the English Parliament and by the +Assembly of Divines in St. Margaret’s Church, September 25, 1643. It +was, writes a Presbyterian divine, too much the creature of the Long +Parliament who convoked the meeting, selected the members of Assembly, +nominated its president, prescribed its bye-laws, and kept a firm hold +and a vigilant eye on all their proceedings. Still, with all these +drawbacks, it must be admitted that Parliament could hardly have made a +selection of more pious, learned, and conscientious men. The Assembly +consisted of men nominated by the members for each county sending in +suitable names. The two divines appointed for Suffolk were Mr. Thomas +Young, of Stowmarket, and Mr. John Phillips, of Rentall. The Vicar, it +is said, sometimes acted as chairman, but this, as Mr. Hollingsworth +remarks, is doubtful. + +Mr. Young’s claim to fame rests on something greater than his sermon, or +his position in the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, or his mastership +of Jesus College. He was, as we have said, Milton’s schoolmaster. The +poet tells us: + + ‘’Tis education forms the common mind; + Just as a twig is bent the tree’s inclined.’ + +If so, much of Milton’s piety and lofty principle and massive learning +must have come to him from the Stowmarket Vicar. In our day there is +little chance of a young scholar becoming imbued with Miltonian ideas on +the subject of civil and religious liberty. That sublime genius which +was to sing in immortal verse of + + ‘Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit + Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste + Brought death into the world, and all our woe,’ + +must have owed much to Dr. Young—a debt which the poet acknowledged, as +we have already seen, in no niggardly way. Amongst Milton’s Latin +letters is the following, which has been translated by Professor Masson +thus: ‘Although I had resolved with myself, most excellent preceptor, to +send you a certain small epistle composed in metrical numbers, yet I did +not consider that I had done enough unless I also wrote something in +prose: for, truly, the singular and boundless gratitude of my mind which +your deserts justly claim from me was not to be expressed in that cramped +mode of speech, straitened by fixed feet and syllables, but in a free +oration—nay, rather, if it were possible, in an Asiatic exuberance of +words. To express sufficiently how much I owe you, were a work far +greater than my strength, even if I should call into play all those +commonplaces of argument which Aristotle or that dialectician of Paris +(Ramus) has collected, or even if I should exhaust all the fountains of +oratory. You complain as justly that my letters have been to you very +few and very short; but I, on the other hand, do not so much grieve that +I have been remiss in a duty so pleasant and so enviable, as I rejoice, +and all but exult, at having such a place in your friendship, as that you +should care to ask for frequent letters from me. That I should never +have written to you for over more than three years, I pray you will not +misconceive, but, in accordance with your wonderful indulgence and +candour, put the more charitable construction on it; for I call God to +witness how much, as a father, I regard you, with what singular devotion +I have always followed you in thought, and how I feared to trouble you +with my writings. In sooth, I make it my first care, that since there is +nothing else to commend my letters, that their rarity may commend them. +Next, as out of that most vehement desire after you which I feel, I +always fancy you with me, and speak to you, and beheld you as if you were +present, and so, as always happens in love, soothe my grief by a certain +vain imagination of your presence, it is, in truth, my fear, as soon as I +meditate sending you a letter, that it should suddenly come into my mind +by what an interval of earth you are distant from me, and so the grief of +your absence, already nearly lulled, should grow fresh and break up my +sweet dream. The Hebrew Bible, your truly most acceptable gift, I have +already received. These lines I have written in London, in the midst of +town distractions, not, as usual, surrounded by books; if, therefore, +anything in this epistle should please you less than might be, and +disappoint your expectations, it will be made up for by another more +elaborate one as soon as I have returned to the haunts of the Muses.’ + +When the above letter was written, Milton had become a Cambridge student, +where he was to experience a new kind of tutor. Milton could not get on +with Chappell as he did with Young. The tie between the Stowmarket Vicar +and the poet was of a much more cordial character. + +Again the poet appears to have forwarded the following letter to the +Stowmarket Vicarage. It is to be feared that few such precious epistles +find their way there now. Milton writes to the Doctor: ‘On looking at +your letter, most excellent preceptor, this alone struck me as +superfluous, that you excused your slowness in writing; for though +nothing could come to me more desirable than your letters, how could I or +ought I to hope that you should have so much leisure from serious and +more sacred affairs, especially as that is a matter entirely of kindness, +and not at all of duty? That, however, I should suspect that you had +forgotten me, your so many recent kindnesses to me would by no means +allow. I do not see how you could dismiss out of your memory one laden +with so great benefits by you. Having been invited by you to your part +of the country, as soon as spring has a little advanced I will gladly +come to enjoy the delights of the year, and not less of your +conversation, and will then withdraw myself from the din of town to your +Stoa of the Iceni, as to that most celebrated porch of Zeno or the +Tusculan Villa of Cicero, where you with moderate means, but regal +spirit, like some Serranus or Curius, placidly reign in your little farm, +and contemning fortune, hold as it were a triumph over riches, ambition, +pomp, luxury, and whatever the herd of man admire and are amazed by. But +as you have deprecated the blame of slowness, you will also, I hope, +pardon me the fault of haste; for having put off this letter, I preferred +writing little, and that rather in a slovenly manner, to not writing at +all. Farewell, much-to-be respected Sir.’ + +The question is, Did Milton carry out this intention, and pay Stowmarket +a visit? Professor Masson thinks he may have been there in the memorable +summer and autumn of 1630. The Rev. Mr. Hollingsworth, the Stowmarket +historian argues that it is not unlikely that several, if not many, +visits, extending over a period of thirty years, while the tutor held the +living, were made by the poet to the place. Tradition has constantly +associated his name with the mulberry-trees of the Vicarage, which he +planted, but of these only one remains. ‘This venerable relic of the +past,’ continues the Vicar, ‘is much decayed, and is still in vigorous +bearing. Its girth, before it breaks into branches, is ten feet, and I +have had in one season as much as ten gallons from the pure juices of its +fruits, which yields a highly flavoured and brilliant-coloured wine.’ It +stands a few yards distant from the oldest part of the house, and +opposite the windows of an upstair double room, which was formerly the +sitting-parlour of the Vicar, and where, it is to be believed, the poet +and his friend had many a talk of the way to advance religion and liberty +in the land, to remove hirelings out of the Church, and to abolish the +Bishops. There too, perhaps, might have come to the guest visions of +‘Paradise Lost.’ In his first work Milton throws out something like a +hint of the great poem which he was in time to write. ‘Then, amidst,’ to +quote his own sonorous language, ‘the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, +_someone_ may, perhaps, be heard offering in high strains, in new and +lofty measures, to sing and celebrate Thy Divine mercies and marvellous +judgments in this land throughout all ages.’ We can easily believe how, +in the Stowmarket Vicarage, the plan of the poet may have been talked +over, and the heart of the poet encouraged to the work. Regarding Young +as Milton did, we may be sure that he would have been only too glad to +listen to his suggestions and adopt his advice. There must have been a +good deal of plain living and high thinking at the Stowmarket Vicarage +when Milton came there as an occasional guest. This is the more probable +as Milton’s earliest publications were in support of the views of +Smectymnian divines. His friendship for Young probably led him into the +field of controversy, for he owns that he was not disposed to this manner +of writing ‘wherein, knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial +power of nature to another task, I have the use, as I may account, but of +my left hand.’ It is a fact that Milton was thus drawn into the +controversy, and what more natural than that he should have been induced +to do so by the Stowmarket Vicar in the Stowmarket Vicarage? The poet’s +family were familiar with that part of Suffolk, and his brother, Sir +Christopher, who was a stanch Royalist and barrister, lived at Ipswich, +but twelve miles off. He went to see Milton, and Milton might have +visited Ipswich and Stowmarket at the same time. Be that as it may, +tradition and probability alike justify the belief that Milton came to +Stowmarket, and that he went away all the wiser and better, all the +stronger to do good work for man and God, for his age and all succeeding +ages. Young, as it may be inferred, was held in high honour by his +friends. He was spoken of by two neighbouring ejected Rectors as the +reverend, learned, orthodox, prudent, and holy Dr. Young. When he died, +an epitaph was inscribed with some care by a friendly hand, and an +unwilling admission is made of the opposition he had encountered. It is +now illegible, and some of its lines appear to have been carefully +erased—by some High Church chisel, probably. But the following copy was +made when the epitaph was fresh and legible: + + ‘Here is committed to earth’s trust + Wise, pious, spotlesse, learned dust, + Who living more adorned the place + Than the place him. Such was God’s grace.’ + +Is the verse of this epitaph from Milton’s pen or not? Mr. Hollingsworth +writes: ‘The probability is quite in favour that the pupil should write +the last memorial of one whom he so highly honoured and loved as his old +master. Nor is the verse itself, with the exception of the last line, +unlike the character of Milton’s poetry, and this last may have been +mutilated and rendered inharmonious by the action of the stone-cutter, +who also confused the death of the father and son.’ It is pleasant to +think, not only that Milton now and then came to the Stowmarket Vicarage, +but that in the church itself there is a slight record of his poetical +fame. Let me add, as a further illustration of the connection of the +great poet with the county of Suffolk, that I am informed one of the +family of the Meadowses, of Witnesham, was for a time one of his +secretaries. + +Young died, aged sixty-eight, in the year 1655, when Milton was fully +embarked in public life, when he could spare but little time; but we may +be sure that he would be the last at that time of life to forget all that +he owed to his tutor Young. Wife and son had predeceased the Vicar. It +seems as if there was no one left but the poet to record on the marble in +the middle aisle, in front of the present reading-desk, the virtues of a +character which had long exercised so beneficial an influence on his own, +and which he had loved so well. Milton’s regret for the loss of such a +guide, philosopher, and friend must have been lasting and sincere. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +IN CONSTABLE’S COUNTY. + + +East Bergholt—The Valley of the Stour—Painting from nature—East Anglian +girls. + +Charles Kingsley was wont to glorify the teaching of the hills, and to +maintain that the man of the mountain is more imaginative and poetical +than the man of the plain. There are many Scotch people, mostly those +born in the Highlands, who tell us much the same. If the theory be +true—and I am not aware that it is—the exceptions are striking and many. +Lincolnshire is rather a flat country, but it gave us (I can never bring +myself to call him Lord) Alfred Tennyson. Many of our greatest poets and +artists were cockneys; and Constable, that sweet painter of cornfields +and shady lanes and quiet rivers, used to say that the scenes of his +boyhood made him a painter. I was one autumn in Constable’s county, and +I do not wonder at it. It is a wonderful district. I trod all the +while, it seemed to me, on enchanted ground: in the gilded mist of +autumn, with its river and its marsh lands, where the cows lazily fed—or +got under the pollards to be out of the way of the flies—where laughing +children swarmed along the hedges in pursuit of the ripe blackberry, +where every cottage front was a thing of beauty, with its ivy creeping up +the roof or over the wall; while the little garden was a mass of flowers. +We expected to see the old gods and goddesses again to participate in the +joyousness of an ancient mirth. + +Nor was it altogether a flat land, sacred to fat cattle and wheat and +turnips. All round me were the elements of romance. At one end of the +Vale of Dedham is a hill whence you may look all along the valley +(Constable has made it the subject of one of his pictures) as far as +Harwich; and as I lingered by the Stour—the river which divides Essex and +Suffolk—East Bergholt, clothed with woods and crowned with a church, in +which there is a stained-glass window put up in honour of Constable, and +a baptismal font, the gift of Constable’s brother, unfolded to my +wondering eye all her rural charms. There are people who love to climb +hills; I hate to do so. It is all vanity and vexation of spirit; when +you get to the top of one hill the chances are all you see is another +hill, to the top of which you will have to climb. Give me a country +lane, with its luxuriant hedges, its shady trees, its flowers, its +richness of greensward, its pigs and poultry and farmyard; there is +poetry in such nooks and corners of the earth, as Burns and Bloomfield +and Gerald Massey found. No wonder the place made Constable an artist, +and an artist whose name will not speedily pass away. My dear sir or +madam, the next time you are on your way from London to Ipswich, don’t +rush along at express speed; get out at Ardleigh, make your way to the +Vale of Dedham, then walk along the Stour, and cross it by a couple of +rustic bridges, and you are at East Bergholt, in Suffolk, where Constable +was born, and if you do so you will bless me evermore. Then, if you +like, rejoin the train at Manningtree, and resume your journey. Few East +Anglians even are aware of the wealth of beauty in that quiet corner. +‘The beauty of the surrounding scenery,’ writes Constable’s biographer, +‘its gentle declivities, its luxuriant meadows, flats sprinkled with +flocks and herds, its well-cultivated Uplands, its woods and rivers, with +mansions scattered, and churches, farms, and picturesque cottages—all +impart to this spot an amenity and elegance hardly anywhere else to be +found.’ + +The Constables have been long in the district. The grandfather was a +farmer at a village close by. The father, who was well-to-do, purchased +a water-mill at Dedham and two windmills at East Bergholt, where he +lived. The great artist, his son John, was born in the last century, and +was educated at Lavenham and the Dedham Grammar School, and when the lad +had reached sixteen or seventeen became addicted to painting, his studio +being in the house of a Mr. John Dunthorne, a painter and glazier, with +whom he remained on terms of the greatest intimacy for many years. The +father would fain have made the son a farmer. He preferred to be a +miller, and in his young days was known in the district as the handsome +miller. His windmills, when he took to painting, were wonderful, and +well deserved the criticism of his brother, who used to say, ‘When I look +at a windmill painted by John, I see that it will go round, which is not +always the case with those of other artists,’ for the simple reason that +John knew what he was about, which the others did not. Again, his +industrial career helped him in another way. A miller learns to study +the clouds, and Constable’s clouds were exceptionally life-like and real. +The handsome young miller soon acquired artistic friends, one of them +being Sir George Beaumont, the guide, philosopher, and friend of most of +the geniuses of that time. Said another to him, ‘Do not trouble yourself +about inventing figures for a landscape; you cannot remain an hour in a +spot without the appearance of some living thing, that will in all +probability better accord with the scene and the time of day than any +invention of your own.’ After a visit to his artist friends in London, +he resumed his mill life, and in 1779 he finally commenced his artistic +career, and painted all the country round. His studies were chiefly +Dedham, East Bergholt, the Valley of the Stour, and the neighbouring +village of Stratford. At Stoke Nayland he painted an altar-piece for the +church. There is also another altar-piece in a neighbouring church, but +his altar-pieces are not known or treasured like his other works. + +Cooper tells a good story of Constable. One day Stodart, the sculptor, +met Fuseli starting forth with an old umbrella. ‘Why do you carry the +umbrella?’ asked the sculptor. ‘I am going to see Constable,’ was the +reply, ‘and he is always painting rain.’ One can only remark that, if +Constable was always painting rain, he always did it well. + +Another good story was told Redgrave by Lee. ‘I hear you sell all your +pictures,’ said Constable to the younger landscape-painter. ‘Why, yes,’ +said Lee; ‘I’m pretty fortunate. Don’t you sell yours?’ ‘No,’ said +Constable, ‘I don’t sell any of my pictures, and I’ll tell you why: when +I paint a _bad_ picture I don’t like to part with it, and when I paint a +_good_ one I like to keep it.’ It is well known that one year when +Constable was on the Council of the Royal Academy, one of his own +pictures was passed by mistake before the judges. ‘Cross it,’ said one. +‘It won’t do,’ said another. ‘Pass on,’ said a third. And the carpenter +was just about to chalk it with a cross, when he read the name of ‘John +Constable.’ Of course there were lame apologies, and the picture was +taken from the condemned heap and placed with the works of his brother +Academicians. But after work was over Constable took the picture under +his arm, and, despite the remonstrance of his brother colleagues, marched +off with it, saving: ‘I can’t think of its being hung after it has been +fairly turned out. The work so condemned was the ‘Stream bordered in +with Willows,’ now in the South Kensington Museum. Leslie once remarked +to Redgrave that he would give any work he had painted for it, so warmly +did he admire it. + +‘Constable is the best landscape-painter we have,’ wrote Frith to his +mother in 1835. ‘He is a very merry fellow, and very rich. He told us +an anecdote of a man who came to look at his pictures; he was a gardener. +One day he called him into his painting-room to look at his pictures, +when the man made the usual vulgar remarks, such as, “Did you do all +this, sir?” “Yes.” “What, all this?” “Yes.” “What, frame and all?” +At last he came to an empty frame that was hung against the wall without +any picture in it, when he said to Constable, “But you don’t call this +picture quite finished, do you, sir?” Constable said that quite sickened +him, and he never let any ignoramuses ever see his pictures again, or +frames either.’ + +Constable’s great merits, writes Mr. Frith, were first recognised in +France, with the result upon French landscape art that is felt at the +present time. His advice to Frith was: ‘Never do anything without nature +before you if it be possible to have it. See those weeds and the dock +leaves? They are to come into the foreground of this picture. I know +dock leaves pretty well, but I should not attempt to introduce them into +a picture without having them before me.’ + +Constable died very suddenly in 1837. His fame, now that he is dead, is +greater than when he was alive. His work abides in all its strength. + +There is little in East Bergholt to remind one of Constable, where his +reputation remains as that of a genial and kindly-hearted man; but the +landscape in all its essential features remains the same. The house in +which he was born was pulled down in 1841, which is a great pity, as it +is described as a large and handsome mansion. But I never saw a small +village with so many attractive residences, though why anybody should +live in any of them I could not, for the life of me, understand. Yet +there they were, quite a street of them, all in beautiful order, as if +they were the residences of wealthy citizens in the suburbs of a busy +town. They ought to have been filled with handsome girls, as Charles +Kingsley tells us East Anglia is famed for the beauty of its women; all I +can say, however, is that I saw none of them, or any sign of life +anywhere, beyond the inevitable tradesmen’s carts. Independently of +Constable, East Bergholt claims to be worth a pilgrimage for its rustic +beauty, which, however, becomes tame and common as you get away from it. +The church is old, and has a history—of little consequence, however, to +anyone now. One of its rectors was burned at Ipswich in Queen Mary’s +reign. His name, Samuel, ought to be preserved by a Church which, till +lately, had few martyrs of its own. East Bergholt has also a +Congregational and Primitive Methodist chapel, and a colony of +Benedictine nuns, driven away from France by the great Revolution. We +are a hospitable people, and we are proud to be so, but have we not just +at this time too many refugee nuns and monks in our midst? + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +EAST ANGLIAN WORTHIES. + + +Suffolk cheese—Danes, Saxons, and Normans—Philosophers and +statesmen—Artists and literati. + +Abbo Floriacencis, who flourished in the year A.D. 910, describes East +Anglia as ‘very noble, and particularly because of its being watered on +all sides. On the south and east it is encompassed by the ocean, on the +north by the moisture of large and wet fens which, arising almost in the +heart of the island, because of the evenness of the ground for a hundred +miles and more, descend in great rivers into the sea. On the west the +province is joyned to the rest of the island, and, therefore, may be +entered (by land); but lest it should be harassed by the frequent +incursions of the enemy it is fortifyed with an earthen rampire like a +high wall, and with a ditch. The inner parts of it is a pretty rich +soil, made exceeding pleasant by gardens and groves, rendered agreeable +by its convenience for hunting, famous for pasturage, and abounding with +sheep and all sorts of cattle. I do not insist upon its rivers full of +fish, considering that a tongue as it were of the sea itself licks it on +one side, and on the other side the large fens make a prodigious number +of lakes two or three miles over. These fens accommodate great numbers +of monks with their desired retirement and solitude, with which, being +enclosed, they have no occasion for the privacy of a wilderness.’ Before +the monks came the place was held by the Iceni—a stout and valiant +people, as Tacitus describes them. In the time of the Heptarchy, King +Uffa was their lord and master. In later times Suffolk, when explored by +Camden, was celebrated for its cheeses, which, to the great advantage of +the inhabitants, were bought up through all England, nay, in Germany +also, with France and Spain, as Pantaleon Medicus has told us, who +scruples not to set them against those of Placentia both in colour and +taste. To the Norfolk people, it must be admitted, Camden gives the +palm. The goodness of the soil of that country, he argues, ‘may be +gathered from hence, that the inhabitants are of a bright, clear +complexion, not to mention their sharpness of wit and admirable quickness +in the study of our common law. So that it is at present, and always has +been, reputed the common nursery of lawyers, and even amongst the common +people you shall meet with a great many who (as one expresses it), if +they have no just quarrel, are able to raise it out of the very quirks +and niceties of the law.’ In our time it is rather the fashion to run +down the East Anglians, yet that they have done their duty to their +country no one can deny. ‘They say we are Norfolk fules,’ said a waiter +at a Norfolk hotel, to me, a little while ago; ‘but I ain’t ashamed of my +county, for all that.’ Why should he be, the reader naturally asks? + +The Saxons of East Anglia gave the name of England to this land of ours; +but before this time East Anglia had attained, by means of its sons and +daughters, to fame far and near. If we may believe Gildas, a Christian +church was planted in England in the time of Nero. Claudia, to whom Paul +refers in Philippians and Timothy, was a British lady of great wit and +greater beauty, celebrated by the poet Martial. She may have been +converted by Paul, argued the Rev. Mr. Hollingsworth, a local historian, +Rural Dean and Rector of Stowmarket; nor is it at all improbable, he +adds, ‘that Claudia, the British beauty, may have been an Iceni, or East +Anglian lady, as her brilliant complexion, for which so many in these +counties are celebrated, had caused a vivid feeling of sensation and +curiosity and envy even among the haughty dames of the imperial city of +Rome.’ The Romans were glad to make terms with the Iceni till the +unfortunate Boadicea perished in the revolt which she had so rashly +raised. The Saxons came after the Romans, and took possession of the +land. Saxon proprietors compelled the people, whose lives they spared, +to till the very lands on which their fathers had lived under the Roman +Government or their own chiefs. Pagan worship was reintroduced; but when +Sigberht, the son of Redwald, King of East Anglia, reigned, he sent to +France for Christian ministers, and one of them, Felix, a Burgundian, +landed at Felixstowe, and there commenced his Christian labours. Felix +was held in high repute by the Bishops in other parts of the kingdom. +His opinions were quoted and revered. The diocese was large, and the +fourth Bishop divided it into two parts, the second Bishop being planted +at North Elmham, in Norfolk. In 955 the see was again united, when +Erfastus, the twenty-second Bishop, removed to Thetford. A little while +after the Bishop’s residence was removed to Norwich, and there it has +ever since remained; but the land was not long permitted to remain in +peace. In 870 a large party of Danes marched from Lincolnshire into +Suffolk, defeated King Edmund, near Hoxne, and, as he would not become an +idolater, shot him to death with arrows. Bury St. Edmunds still +preserves the name and fame of one of the most illustrious of our +Anglo-Saxon martyrs. King Alfred, with a policy worthy of his sagacity, +made Guthrum, the Danish governor of Suffolk, a Christian, and continued +him in his rule. The Danes in East Anglia were then an immense army, and +thus at once they were turned from foes into friends. Guthrum was +baptized, and it is to be hoped was all the better for it. At any rate, +he returned to Suffolk and divided many of the estates which had been +held by Saxon proprietors killed in war. He died in peace, and had a +fitting funeral at Hadleigh. The children of those Danish soldiers were +dangerous friends, and too frequently betrayed the Saxons. Blood is +thicker than water, and as each succeeding band of Danish adventurers +landed on our eastern coast, they were welcomed by such followers of +Guthrum as had settled in Suffolk as friends and allies. Nevertheless, +the Danes found the conquest of the island impossible. Divine +Providence, Mr. Hollingsworth tells us, did not suffer the Saxon race to +be vanquished by those who were connected with them by blood. +Nevertheless, the struggle was long and severe. The two races were +equally matched in courage, but the Saxon surpassed his foe in that +stern, unyielding endurance which enabled him to resist every defeat and +prepare again for the contest. The whole surface of the country became +studded with entrenchments, moats, and mounds, within whose line the +harassed Saxon defended his property and all he valued in his home. +History begins, as far as England is practically concerned, with the +Norman Conquest. It was then the Norsemen, blue-eyed, fair-haired, the +finest blood in Europe, planted themselves in Norfolk and Suffolk, and +brought with them feudalism and civilization. It was in 787 that, +according to the Saxon Chronicle, they first reached England; but it was +not till William the Conqueror made the land his own that they settled as +English lords, and divided between them the land in which their rapacious +forefathers had won many a precious treasure. + + ‘The red gold and the white silver + He covets as a leech does blood,’ + +wrote an old poet of the Norseman. + +Let us take, as an illustration of the county, a Norfolk family. In +Westminster Abbey there is monument to Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, who was +buried in the ruined chancel of the little church at Overstrand, near +Northrepps, ‘a droll, irregular, unconventional-looking place,’ as +Caroline Fox calls it, where he loved at all times to live, and where he +retired to die. The family from which Sir Thomas descended resided, +about the middle of the sixteenth century, at Sudbury, in Suffolk. It +was while at Earlham that he made his début as a public speaker at one of +the earlier meetings of the Norfolk Bible Society. In the winter of 1817 +he went over to France with some of the Gurneys and the Rev. Francis +Cunningham, who was anxious to establish a Bible Society in Paris. He +was also anxious to inquire into the way in which the gaols at Antwerp +and Ghent were conducted. On his return he examined minutely into the +state of the London gaols, and, to use his own expression, his inquiries +developed a system of folly and wickedness which surpassed belief. In +the following year he published a work entitled ‘An Inquiry whether Crime +be Produced or Prevented by our Present System of Penal Discipline,’ +which ran through six editions, and tended powerfully to create a proper +public feeling on the subject. In 1819 we find him in Parliament +seconding Sir James Mackintosh in his efforts to promote a reform of our +criminal law—then the most sanguinary in Europe. One of his earliest +efforts was to get the House to abolish the burning of widows in India; +and in 1821 he received from Wilberforce the command to relieve him of a +responsibility too heavy for his advancing years and infirmities—the care +of the slave: a holy enterprise for which Mr. Buxton had been qualifying +himself by careful thought and study, and which he was spared to carry to +a successful end. At first he resided at Cromer Hall, an old seat of the +Windham family, which no longer exists, having been pulled down and +replaced by a modern residence. It was situated about a quarter of a +mile from the sea, but sheltered from the north winds by closely +surrounding hills and woods, and with its old buttresses, gables, and +porches clothed with roses and jessamine, and its famed lawn, where the +pheasants came down to feed, had a peculiar character of picturesque +simplicity. The interior corresponded with its external appearance, and +had little of the regularity of modern building. One attic chamber was +walled up, with no entrance save through the window: and at different +times large pits were discovered under the floor or in the thick +walls—used, it was supposed, in old times by the smugglers of the coast. +There is much picturesque scenery around Cromer, and large parties were +often made up for excursions to Sherringham—one of the most beautiful +spots in all the eastern counties, to the wooded dells of Felbrigg and +Runton, or to the rough heath ground by the beach beacon. One who was a +frequent guest at Cromer Hall wrote: ‘I wish I could describe the +impression made upon me by the extraordinary power of interesting and +stimulating others which was possessed by Sir Fowell Buxton some thirty +years ago. In my own case it was like having powers of thinking, powers +of feeling, and, above all, the love of true poetry suddenly aroused +within me, which, though I had possessed them before, had been till then +unused. From Locke “On the Human Understanding,” to “William of +Deloraine, good at need,” _he_ woke up in me the sleeping principle of +taste, and, in giving me such objects of pursuit, has added immeasurably +to the happiness of my life.’ On a Sunday afternoon, we are told, his +large dining-hall was filled with a miscellaneous audience of fishermen +and neighbours, as well as of his own household, to whom he would read +the Bible, commenting on it at the same time. Very simple and beautiful +seems to us that far-away Norfolk life; except that his hospitalities +were more bounded by want of room, his life at Northrepps was much the +same as it had been at Cromer Hall. It is one of the pleasures of my +life that I have heard Sir Thomas speak. In modern England the influence +of the Buxton family and name is yet a power. + +Having already alluded to the Windhams and Felbrigg, it remains to say +that the last of that illustrious line died in 1810. Felbrigg was +purchased by the Windhams as far back as 1461. The public life of +Windham, the statesman, may be considered as having commenced in 1783, +when he undertook the office of Principal Secretary to Lord Northington, +who was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The great Marquis of +Lansdowne, when he was last at Felbrigg, in 1861, said Mr. Windham had +the best Parliamentary address of any man he had ever seen, which was +enhanced by the grace of his person and the dignity of his manners. +Still more glowing was the testimony borne to Mr. Windham by Earl Grey +when he heard of his death. A mere glance at his diary is sufficient to +convince us that Windham, when in London, mixed with the first men and +women of his time. The late Lord Chief Justice Scarlett, on being asked +by his son-in-law to name the very best speech he had heard during his +life, and that which he thought most worthy of study, answered, without +hesitation, ‘Windham’s speech on the Law of Evidence.’ In a conversation +with Lord Palmerston, Pitt observed of Windham: ‘Nothing can be so +well-meaning or eloquent as he is. His speeches are the finest +productions possible of warm imagination and fancy.’ In 1800 we read in +the Malmesbury Diaries that old George III. had meant Windham to be his +First Minister. As a friend of Burke and Johnson, Windham’s name will +not easily fade away. It is to him we owe the most pathetic account of +the closing hours of the Monarch of Bolt Court. + +Sir Cloudesley Shovel may well claim to be one of Norfolk’s heroes. Born +in an obscure village, an apprentice to a shoemaker, he obtained rank and +fame as one of Queen Anne’s most honoured Admirals. It is denied that he +was in very humble circumstances, and it is a fact that his original +letters were so well worded as to indicate that he had received a fair +education. At any rate, he went to sea at ten years old with his friend +Sir John Hadough; and although not a cabin-boy in the modern acceptation +of that term, he undertook his captain’s errands, swimming on one +occasion through the enemy’s fire with some despatches for a distant +ship, carrying the papers in his mouth, displaying a courage worthy of +admiration. He distinguished himself in the Battle of Bantry Bay. As an +enemy of France and Spain, he triumphed in many a fierce fight. +Returning home flushed with victory, his ship and all on board were lost +on the Scilly Isles in an October gale. Some uncertainty hangs over his +last moments. It is asserted that he swam to shore alive, and that he +was put to death for the sake of his ring of emeralds and diamonds. An +ancient woman is stated to have confessed as much. For the honour of +human nature, we would fain believe the story to be untrue. A still +greater Norfolk hero was Lord Nelson, who is buried in St. Paul’s +Cathedral. ‘My principle,’ said Nelson, on one occasion, ‘is to assist +in driving the French to the devil, and in restoring peace and happiness +to mankind.’ Whether he succeeded as regards the former we are not in a +position to state; but peace and happiness, alas! are still far from +being the common property of mankind. The rectory house at Burnham +Thorpe, where Nelson was born, exists no longer. Sir Cloudesley Shovel +lived in a castellated stone house in the small agricultural village of +Cockthorpe, originally fortified as a defence against the incursions of +smugglers. A room in this house, entered by a doorway arched over with +stone, is shown, which is still called by the villagers Sir Cloudesley’s +drawing-room. + +A chapter might be written about the Norfolk Cokes. Sir Edward Coke, the +great lawyer, was buried at Tittleshale, in Norfolk. The well-known +Coke, the distinguished agriculturist, inhabited that splendid Holkham, +the fame of which exists in our day. It was begun by Lord Leicester in +1734, and finished by his Countess in 1764. Blomefield, the well-known +Norfolk historian, speaks of it as a noble, stately, and sumptuous +palace. Lord Coke and Lord Burlington were men of similar tastes and +pursuits, and were diligent students of classical and Italian art. The +Holkham Library still contains treasures rich and rare. Many of the +latter formed part of the library of Sir Edward Coke; the title-page of +the first edition of the ‘Novum Organum,’ published in 1620, bears the +design of a ship passing through the Pillars of Hercules into an +undulating sea. The Holkham copy is adorned by the inscription, ‘Ex dono +auctoris.’ + +Above the ship, in the handwriting of Coke, is the couplet: + + ‘It deserveth not to be read in schools, + But to be freighted in the ship of fools.’ + +Thomas Shadwell, the Poet Laureate and historiographer of William III., +was a Norfolk man. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. It is said by +Noble that he was an honest man. Of course he was. Chalmers accuses him +of indecent conversation, or Lord Rochester would not have said that he +had more wit and humour than any other poet. I am afraid he confers +little honour on his native county. ‘Others,’ wrote Dryden in one of his +satires, + + ‘To some faint meaning make pretence, + But Shadwell never deviates into sense.’ + +Sir Robert Walpole, who saved England from wooden shoes and slavery, was +of a Norfolk family, yet flourishing; as are the Townshends, to whom we +owe the introduction of the turnip. Norfolk also can boast of Sir Thomas +Gresham and Sir Francis Walsingham. In Norfolk was born that ‘great +oracle of law, patron of the Church, and glory of England,’ as Camden +calls him, Sir Henry Spelman. At Bickling, in the same county, was born +that ill-starred Anne Boleyn, of whom it is written that + + ‘Love could teach a monarch to be wise, + And Gospel light first beamed from Boleyn’s eyes.’ + +In the same neighbourhood, also, was born John Baconthorpe, the resolute +doctor, of whom Pantias Pansa has written: ‘This one resolute doctor has +furnished the Christian religion with armour against the Jews stronger +than that of Vulcan.’ Pansa was a Norfolk man, and so was the great +botanist Sir W. Hooker. + +Who has not heard of Lynn, in Norfolk, where, when Eugene Aram was the +usher, + + ‘Four-and-twenty happy boys + Came bounding out of school’? + +It was in that old town Fanny Burney, the friend of Mrs. Thrale and Dr. +Johnson, the author of novels like ‘Evelina,’ which people even read +nowadays, was born on the 13th of June, 1752. She grew up low of +stature, of a brown complexion. One of her friends called her the dove, +which she thought was from the colour of her eyes—a greenish-gray; her +last editor thinks it must have been from their kind expression. She was +very short-sighted, like her father. In her portrait, taken at the age +of thirty, merriment seems latent behind a demure look. At any rate, her +countenance was what might be called a speaking one. ‘Poor Fanny!’ said +her father, ‘her face tells what she thinks, whether she will or no. I +long to see her honest face once more.’ ‘Poor Fanny’ lived to a good old +age, and her gossiping diary is a mine of wealth as regards the Royal +Family, and Johnson, and Mrs. Thrale, and the cleverest men and women of +her time. + +Thomas Bilney, one of our Protestant martyrs, was a Norfolk man. It was +a Norfolk knight, Sir Thomas Erpingham, who gave signal for the archers +at Agincourt. Shakespeare refers to him in his ‘King Henry V.’ as +follows: + + ‘KING.—Good-morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham; + A good soft pillow for that good white head + Were better than a churlish turf of France. + + ‘ERP.—Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me better, + Since I may say, now lie I like a king.’ + +Many East Anglians helped to win the battle of Agincourt. The Earl of +Kimberley still bears Agincourt on his shield. + +Let us now pass over into Suffolk. It is worth asking how Suffolk came +to earn the nickname of Silly Suffolk. ‘Silly,’ say the learned, is +derived from the German _selig_, meaning ‘holy or blessed,’ and is said +to have been applied to Suffolk on account of the number of beautiful +churches it contains; Suffolk, at any rate, is silly no longer. In the +present day it shows to advantage, if we may judge by the enterprise and +public spirit of such a town as Ipswich, for instance. Not long since, +as I landed on the docks at Hamburg, I had the pleasure of seeing some +dozen or more steam ploughs and agricultural implements waiting to be +transported into the interior. The ploughs and implements bore +well-known Suffolk names, such as Garrett and Sons or Ransomes, Sims and +Jefferies, and were open manifestations of Suffolk skill and energy, and +ability to hold its own against all comers. Amongst the women of the +present generation, where are to be met the superiors of Mrs. Garrett +Anderson or of Mrs. Fawcett, widow of the distinguished statesman, and +mother of a sweet girl-graduate who has beaten all the men at her +University? I was the other day at Haverhill, where Mr. D. Gurteen still +lives to enjoy, at the ripe old age of eighty-three, the fruits of an +energy on his part which has raised Haverhill from a village of paupers +into a flourishing community, whose manufactures are to be met with all +over the land. One day, as I was walking along Gray’s Inn Road, a fine, +well-built man stopped me to ask me if I remembered him. When he +mentioned his name I did directly. He was of the poorest of the poor in +his home at Wrentham. He had done well in London. ‘You know, sir,’ he +said, ‘how poor our family was. Well, I had enough of poverty, and I +made up my mind to come to London and be either a man or a mouse.’ + +In the London of to-day the heads of some of our greatest establishments +are Suffolk men. We all know the stately pile in Holborn, once +Meekings’, now Wallis’s, where all the world and his wife go to buy. Mr. +Wallis hails from Stowmarket, and the man who fits up London shops in the +most tasty style, Mr. Sage, of Gray’s Inn Road, was a Suffolk carpenter, +who, when out of work, with his last guinea got some cards printed, one +of which got him a job, which ultimately led on to fame and fortune. + +No, Suffolk has long ceased to be silly. It must have deserved the title +in the days which I can remember when a Conservative M.P., amidst +enthusiastic cheering, at Ipswich, intimated that it was quite as well +the sun and moon were placed high up in the heavens, else + + ‘Some reforming ass + Would soon propose to pluck them down + And light the world with gas.’ + +One of the oddest, most attractive, and most original women of the last +century was Elizabeth Simpson, a Suffolk girl, who ran away from her +home, where she was never taught anything, at the age of sixteen, to make +her fortune, and to win fame. In both cases she succeeded, though not so +soon as she could have wished. Failing to touch the hard heart of the +manager of the Norwich Theatre, a Welshman of the name of Griffiths, she +packed up her things in a bandbox, and, good-looking and audacious, +landed herself on the Holborn pavement. ‘By the time you receive this,’ +she wrote to her mother, ‘I shall leave Standingfield perhaps for ever. +You are surprised, but be not uneasy; believe the step I have undertaken +is indiscreet, but by no means criminal, unless I sin by not acquainting +you with it. I now endure every pang, am not lost to every feeling, on +thus quitting the tenderest and best of parents, I would say most +beloved, too, but cannot prove my affection, yet time may. To that I +must submit my hope of retaining your regard. The censures of the world +I despise, as the most worthy incur the reproaches of that. Should I +ever think you will wish to hear from me I will write.’ A pretty, +unprotected, unknown girl of sixteen, in London, had, we can well +believe, no easy time of it. Strangers followed her in the street, +people insulted her in the theatre, suspicious landladies looked her up. +Happily, a brother-in-law met her in a penniless state and took her home. +Unhappily, at his house she met Inchbald, an indifferent and badly-paid +actor. They were immediately married, and the girl rejoiced to think +that she was an actress, and about to realize the ambition of her youth. +It was no small part which the Suffolk girl felt herself qualified to +fill. On the 4th of September, 1772, she made her début as Cordelia to +her husband’s Lear. In 1821 Mrs. Inchbald, famed for her ‘simple story,’ +which took the town by storm, was buried in Kensington Churchyard. But +before she got there she had to endure much. At that time theatrical +performers were much worse paid than they are now, when, as Mr. Irving +tells us, any decent-looking young man, with a good suit of clothes, can +command his five or six pounds a week. Mrs. Inchbald and her husband had +to drink of the cup of poverty, and its consequent degradation, to the +dregs. On one occasion they took it into their heads to go to France, +believing that they could make money—he by painting, she by writing. The +scheme, as was to be expected, did not answer, and they were landed on +their return somewhere near Brighton, in the September of 1776, literally +without a crust of bread. On one occasion it was stated that they dined +off raw turnips, stolen from a field as they wandered past. Next year, +however, the world began to mend so far as they were concerned. + +At Manchester they met the Siddonses and J. P. Kemble, and one result of +that meeting was peace and prosperity. At this time also the lady’s +husband died, and that was no great loss, as the lady was far too +independent for a wife. Yet, if the great Kemble had proposed to her, as +she used to tell Fanny Kemble, she would have jumped at him. To the last +her habits of life were most penurious. She spent nothing on dress, she +was indifferent in the matter of eating and drinking, and when she was +making as much as from £500 to £900 by a new play, in order to save a +trifle she would sit in the depth of winter without a fire. Only fancy +any of our later lady-novelists thus ascetic and self-denying. The idea +is absurd. She was to the last what Godwin described her, a mixture of +lady and milkmaid. And yet the lady had ambition. She had an idea that +she might be Lady Bunbury. However, she marred her chance, at the same +time missing a rich Mr. Glover, who offered a marriage settlement of £500 +a year. Mrs. Inchbald, however, well knew how to take care of herself. +No one better. She had learned the art in rather a hard school, and, +besides, she knew how to take care of her poor relations. None of her +sisters seem to have done well, and she had to aid them all. + +Sudbury was the birthplace of that William Enfield, whose ‘Speaker’ was +the terror and delight of more than one generation of England’s ingenuous +youth. Lord Chancellor Thurlow, of the rugged eyebrows and the savage +look, and fellow-clerk with the poet Cowper, was born at Ashfield, an +obscure village not far off. Robert Bloomfield, who wrote the ‘Farmer’s +Boy,’ came from Honington, where his mother kept a village school, and +where he became a shoemaker. Capel Loft, an amiable gentleman of +literary sympathies and pursuits, and Bloomfield’s warmest friend, +resided at Troston Hall, in the immediate neighbourhood of Honington. At +one time there was no writer better known than John Lydgate, called the +Monk of Bury, born at the village of Lydgate, in 1380. ‘His language,’ +writes a learned critic, ‘is much less obsolete than Chaucer’s, and a +great deal more harmonious.’ Stephen Gardener, Bishop of Winchester, and +an enemy to the Reformation, was born at Bury. At Trinity St. Martin +lived Thomas Cavendish, the second Englishman who sailed round the globe. +Admiral Broke, memorable for his capture of the _Chesapeake_, when we +were at war with America, was born at Nacton. The great non-juring +Archbishop Sancroft was born at Fressingfield, where he retired to die, +and where he is buried under a handsome monument. The great scholar, +Robert Grossetête, Bishop of Lincoln, was born at Stradbrook. Of him +Roger Bacon wrote that he was the only man living who was in possession +of all the sciences. Wycliff, on innumerable occasions, refers to him +with respect. Arthur Young, the celebrated agriculturist, some of whose +sentences are preserved as golden ones—especially that which says, ‘Give +a man the secure possession of a rock, and he will make a garden of +it’—and whose valuable works, I am glad to see, are republished, was born +and lived near Bury St. Edmunds. Echard, the historian, was born at +Barsham, in 1671. Porson was a Norfolk lad. + +Sir Thomas Hanmer was one of the most independent men that ever sat for +the county of Suffolk. Mr. Glyde, of Ipswich, terms him the Gladstone of +his age. Pope appears to stigmatize him as a Trimmer, + + ‘Courtiers and patrols in two ranks divide; + Through both he passed, and bowed from side to side.’ + +His garden at Mildenhall was celebrated for the quality of its grapes, +and Sir Thomas used to send every year hampers filled with these grapes, +and carried on men’s shoulders, to London for the Queen. That stubborn +Radical and Freethinker, Tom Paine, was born at Thetford. Sir John +Suckling, a Suffolk poet, has written, at any rate, one verse never +excelled: + + ‘Her feet beneath her petticoat, + Like little mice, stole in and out, + As if they feared the light. + But oh, she dances such a way, + No sun upon an Easter day + Is half so fine a sight.’ + +England has in all parts of the world sons and daughters who have +deserved well of the State, and not a few of them are East Anglians by +birth and breeding. May their fame be cherished and their examples +followed by their successors in that calm, quiet, Eastern land—far from +the madding crowd—where the roar and rush of our modern life are almost +unknown—where farmers weep and wail but look jolly nevertheless! + + * * * * * + + THE END. + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST ANGLIA*** + + +******* This file should be named 30717-0.txt or 30717-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/7/1/30717 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Ewing Ritchie</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 30%; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, East Anglia, by J. Ewing Ritchie + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: East Anglia + Personal Recollections and Historical Associations + + +Author: J. Ewing Ritchie + + + +Release Date: December 20, 2009 [eBook #30717] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST ANGLIA*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1893 Jarrold & Sons edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h2><i>PRESS NOTICES OF THE FIRST EDITION</i>.</h2> +<blockquote><p>‘We cordially recommend Mr. Ritchie’s +book to all who wish to pass an agreeable hour and to learn +something of the outward actions and inner life of their +predecessors. It is full of sketches of East Anglian +celebrities, happily touched if lightly +limned.’—<i>East Anglian Daily Times</i>.</p> +<p>‘A very entertaining and enjoyable book. Local +gossip, a wide range of reading and industrious research, have +enabled the author to enliven his pages with a wide diversity of +subjects, specially attractive to East Anglians, but also of much +general interest.’—<i>Daily Chronicle</i>.</p> +<p>‘The work is written in a light gossipy style, and by +reason both of it and of the variety of persons introduced is +interesting. To a Suffolk or Norfolk man it is, of course, +especially attractive. The reader will go through these +pages without being wearied by application. They form a +pleasant and entertaining contribution to county literature, and +“East Anglia” will, we should think, find its way to +many of the east country bookshelves.’—<i>Suffolk +Chronicle</i>.</p> +<p>‘The book is as readable and attractive a volume of +local chronicles as could be desired. Though all of our +readers may not see “eye to eye” with Mr. Ritchie, in +regard to political and theological questions, they cannot fail +to gain much enjoyment from his excellent delineation of old days +in East Anglia.’—<i>Norwich Mercury</i>.</p> +<p>‘“East Anglia” has the merit of not being a +compilation, which is more than can be said of the great majority +of books produced in these days to satisfy the revived taste for +topographical gossip. Mr. Ritchie is a Suffolk +man—the son of a Nonconformist minister of Wrentham in that +county—and he looks back to the old neighbourhood and the +old times with an affection which is likely to communicate itself +to its readers. Altogether we can with confidence recommend +this book not only to East Anglians, but to all readers who have +any affinity for works of its class.’—<i>Daily +News</i>.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Ritchie’s book belongs to a class of which we +have none too many, for when well done they illustrate +contemporary history in a really charming manner. What with +their past grandeur, their present progress, their martyrs, +patriots, and authors, there is plenty to tell concerning Eastern +counties: and one who writes with native enthusiasm is sure to +command an audience.’—<i>Baptist</i>.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Ritchie, known to the numerous readers of the +<i>Christian World</i> as “Christopher Crayon,” has +the pen of a ready, racy, refreshing writer. He never +writes a dull line, and never for a moment allows our interest to +flag. In the work before us, which is not his first, he is, +I should think, at his best. The volume is the outcome of +extensive reading, many rambles over the districts described, and +of thoughtful observation. We seem to live and move and +have our being in East Anglia. Its folk-lore, its +traditions, its worthies, its memorable events, are all vividly +and charmingly placed before us, and we close the book sorry that +there is no more of it, and wondering why it is that works of a +similar kind have not more frequently +appeared.’—<i>Northern Pioneer</i>.</p> +<p>‘It has yielded us more gratification than any work that +we have read for a considerable time. The book ought to +have a wide circulation in the Eastern counties, and will not +fail to yield profit and delight wherever it finds its +way.’—<i>Essex Telegraph</i>.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Ritchie has here written a most attractive chapter +of autobiography. He recalls the scenes of his early days, +and whatever was quaint or striking in connection with them, and +finds in his recollections ready pegs on which to hang historical +incident and antiquarian curiosities of many kinds. He +passes from point to point in a delightfully cheerful and +contagious mood. Mr. Ritchie’s reading has been as +extensive and careful as his observation is keen and his temper +genial; and his pages, which appeared in <i>The Christian World +Magazine</i>, well deserve the honour of book-form, with the +additions he has been able to make to +them.’—<i>British Quarterly Review</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h1>EAST ANGLIA.</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">and</span><br /> +<i>HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS</i>.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +J. EWING RITCHIE.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<blockquote><p>‘Behold, there came wise men from the East +to Jerusalem.’</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">Matthew</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>SECOND EDITION</i>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">revised</span>, <span +class="smcap">corrected</span>, <span class="smcap">and +enlarged</span>.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON:<br /> +JARROLD & SONS, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C.<br /> +1893.</p> +<h2><!-- page v--><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +v</span>PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.</h2> +<p>The chapters of which this little work consists originally +appeared in the <i>Christian World Magazine</i>, where they were +so fortunate as to attract favourable notice, and from which they +are now reprinted, with a few slight additions, by permission of +the Editor. In bringing out a second edition, I have +incorporated the substance of other articles originally written +for local journals. It is to be hoped, touching as they do +a theme not easily exhausted, but always interesting to East +Anglians, that they may help to sustain that love of one’s +county which, alas! like the love of country, is a matter +reckoned to be of little importance in these cosmopolitan days, +but which, nevertheless, has had not a little share in the +formation of that national greatness and glory in which at all +times Englishmen believe.</p> +<p><!-- page vi--><a name="pagevi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vi</span>One word more. I have retained some strictures on +the clergy of East Anglia, partly because they were true at the +time to which I refer, and partly because it gives me pleasure to +own that they are not so now. The Church of England +clergyman of to-day is an immense improvement on that of my +youth. In ability, in devotion to the duties of his +calling, in intelligence, in self-denial, in zeal, he is equal to +the clergy of any other denomination. If he has lost his +hold upon Hodge, that, at any rate, is not his fault.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Clacton-on-Sea</span>,<br /> + + +<i>January</i>, 1893.</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><!-- page vii--><a +name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vii</span>CONTENTS.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER I.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">a suffolk +village</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Distinguished people born there—Its Puritans and +Nonconformists—The country round +Covehithe—Southwold—Suffolk dialect—The Great +Eastern Railway</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER II.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">the +stricklands</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Reydon Hall—The clergy—Pakefield—Social +life in a village</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page37">37</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER III.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">lowestoft</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Yarmouth bloaters—George Borrow—The town fifty +years ago—The distinguished natives</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page54">54</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IV.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">politics and +theology</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Homerton academy—W. Johnson Fox, M.P.—Politics +in 1830—Anti-Corn Law speeches—Wonderful oratory</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page89">89</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER V.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">bungay and its +people</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Bungay Nonconformity—Hannah More—The +Childses—The Queen’s Librarian—Prince +Albert</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page122">122</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><!-- page viii--><a +name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. viii</span>CHAPTER +VI.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">a celebrated +norfolk town</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Great Yarmouth Nonconformists—Intellectual +life—Dawson Turner—Astley Cooper—Hudson +Gurney—Mrs. Bendish</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page153">153</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VII.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">the norfolk +capital</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Brigg’s Lane—The carrier’s +cart—Reform demonstration—The old +dragon—Chairing M.P.’s—Hornbutton +Jack—Norwich artists and literati—Quakers and +Nonconformists</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page185">185</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VIII.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">the suffolk +capital</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Orwell—The Sparrows—Ipswich +notabilities—Gainsborough—Medical +men—Nonconformists</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page226">226</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IX.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">an +old-fashioned town</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Woodbridge and the country round—Bernard +Barton—Dr. Lankester—An old Noncon.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page252">252</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER X.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">milton’s +suffolk schoolmaster</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Stowmarket—The Rev. Thomas Young—Bishop Hall +and the Smectymnian divines—Milton’s +mulberry-tree—Suffolk relationships</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page283">283</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XI.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">in +constable’s county</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>East Bergholt—The Valley of the Stour—Painting +from nature—East Anglian girls</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page311">311</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XII.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">east anglian +worthies</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Suffolk cheese—Danes, Saxons, and +Normans—Philosophers and statesmen—Artists and +literati</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page320">320</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><!-- page 1--><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>CHAPTER I.<br /> +<span class="smcap">a suffolk village</span>.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Distinguished people born there—Its +Puritans and Nonconformists—The country round +Covehithe—Southwold—Suffolk dialect—The Great +Eastern Railway.</p> +<p>In his published Memoirs, the great Metternich observes that +if he had never been born he never could have loved or +hated. Following so illustrious a precedent, I may observe +that if I had not been born in East Anglia I never could have +been an East Anglian. Whether I should have been wiser or +better off had I been born elsewhere, is an interesting question, +which, however, it is to be hoped the public will forgive me if I +decline to discuss on the present occasion.</p> +<p>In a paper bearing the date of 1667, a Samuel Baker, of +Wattisfield Hall, writes: ‘I was born at <!-- page 2--><a +name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>a village +called Wrentham, which place I cannot pass by the mention of +without saying thus much, that religion has there flourished +longer, and that in much piety; the Gospel and grace of it have +been more powerfully and clearly preached, and more generally +received; the professors of it have been more sound in the matter +and open and steadfast in the profession of it in an hour of +temptation, have manifested a greater oneness amongst themselves +and have been more eminently preserved from enemies without +(albeit they dwell where Satan’s seat is encompassed with +his malice and rage), than I think in any village of the like +capacity in England; which I speak as my duty to the place, but +to my particular shame rather than otherwise, that such a dry and +barren plant should spring out of such a soil.’ I +resemble this worthy Mr. Baker in two respects. In the +first place, I was born at Wrentham, though at a considerably +later period of time than 1667; and, secondly, if he was a barren +plant—he of whom we read, in Harmer’s Miscellaneous +Works, that ‘he was a gentleman of fortune and education, +very zealous for the Congregational plan of church government and +discipline, and a sufferer in its bonds for a good +conscience’—what am I?</p> +<p><!-- page 3--><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>Nor was it only piety that existed in this distant +parish. If the reader turns to the diary of John Evelyn, +under the date of 1679, he will find mention made of a child +brought up to London, ‘son of one Mr. Wotton, formerly +amanuensis to Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winton, who both read and +perfectly understood Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic and Syriac, and +most of the modern languages, disputed in divinity, law and all +the sciences, was skilful in history, both ecclesiastical and +profane; in a word, so universally and solidly learned at eleven +years of age that he was looked on as a miracle. Dr. Lloyd, +one of the most deep-learned divines of this nation in all sorts +of literature, with Dr. Burnet, who had severely examined him, +came away astonished, and told me they did not believe there had +the like appeared in the world. He had only been instructed +by his father, who being himself a learned person, confessed that +his son knew all that he himself knew. But what was more +admirable than his vast memory was his judgment and invention, he +being tried with divers hard questions which required maturity of +thought and experience. He was also dexterous in +chronology, antiquities, mathematics. In sum, an +<i>intellectus universalis</i> beyond all that we <!-- page +4--><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>reade of +Picus Mirandula, and other precoce witts, and yet withal a very +humble child.’ This prodigy was the son of the Rev. +Henry Wotton, minister of Wrentham, Suffolk. Sir William +Skippon, a parishioner, in a letter yet extant, describes the +wonderful achievements of the little fellow when but five years +old. He was admitted at Katherine Hall, Cambridge, some +months before he was ten years old. In after-years he was +the friend and defender of Bentley and the antagonist of Sir +William Temple in the great controversy about ancient and modern +learning. He died in 1726, and was buried at Buxted, in +Sussex. It is clear that there was no such intellectual +phenomenon in all London under the Stuarts as that little +Wrentham lad.</p> +<p>Of that village, when I came into the world, my father was the +honoured, laborious and successful minister. The +meeting-house, as it was called, which stood in the lane leading +from the church to the highroad, was a square red brick building, +vastly superior to any of the ancient meeting-houses round. +It stood in an enclosure, one side of which was devoted to the +reception of the farmers’ gigs, which, on a Sunday +afternoon, when the principal service was held, made quite a +respectable show when drawn up in a line. By <!-- page +5--><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>the side +of it was a cottage, in which lived the woman who kept the place +tidy, and her husband, who looked after the horses as they were +unharnessed and put in the stable close by. The backs of +the gigs were sheltered from the road by a hedge of lilacs, and +over the gateway a gigantic elm kept watch and ward. The +house in which we lived was also part of the chapel estate, and, +if it was a little way off, it was, at any rate, adapted to the +wants of a family of quiet habits and simple tastes. On one +side of the house was a water-butt, and I can well remember my +first sad experience of the wickedness of the world when, getting +up one morning to look after my rabbits and other live stock, I +found that water-butt had gone, and that there were thieves in a +village so rural and renowned for piety as ours. I say +renowned, and not without reason. Years and years back +there was a pious clergyman of the name of Steffe, who had a son +in Dr. Doddridge’s Academy, at Daventry, and it is a fact +that the great Doctor himself, at some time or other, had been a +guest in the village.</p> +<p>In 1741 the Doctor thus records his East Anglian +recollections, in a letter to his wife: ‘You have great +reason to confide in that very kind Providence which has hitherto +watched over <!-- page 6--><a name="page6"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 6</span>us, and has, since the date of my +last, brought us about sixty miles nearer London. From +Yarmouth we went on Friday morning to Wrentham, where good Mrs. +Steffe lives, and from thence to a gentleman’s seat, near +Walpole, where I was most respectfully entertained. As I +had twenty miles to ride yesterday morning, he, though I had +never seen him before last Tuesday, brought me almost half-way in +his chaise, to make the journey easier. I reached +Woodbridge before two, and rode better in the cool of the +evening, and had the happiness to be entertained in a very +elegant and friendly family, though perfectly a stranger; and, +indeed, I have been escorted from one place to another in every +mile of my journey by one, and sometimes by two or three, of my +brethren in a most respectful and agreeable manner.’ +Dr. Doddridge’s East Anglian recollections seem to have +been uncommonly agreeable, owing quite as much, I must candidly +confess, to the presence of the sisters as of the brethren. +Writing to his wife an account of a little trip on the river, he +adds: ‘It was a very pleasant day, and I concluded it in +the company of one of the finest women I ever beheld, who, though +she had seven children grown up to marriageable years, or very +near it, is <!-- page 7--><a name="page7"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 7</span>still herself almost a beauty, and a +person of sense, good breeding, and piety, which might astonish +one who had not the happiness of being intimately acquainted with +you.’ What a sly rogue was Dr. Doddridge! How +could any wife be jealous when her husband finishes off with such +a compliment to herself?</p> +<p>But to return to the good Mrs. Steffe, of whom I am, on my +mother’s side, a descendant. I must add that as there +were great men before Agamemnon, so there were good people in the +little village of Wrentham before Mrs. Steffe appeared upon the +scene. The Brewsters, who were an ancient family, which +seems to have culminated under the glorious usurpation of Oliver +Cromwell, were eminently good people in Dr. Doddridge’s +acceptation of the term, and I fancy did much as lords of the +manor—and as inhabitants of Wrentham Hall, a building which +had ceased to exist long before my time—to leaven with +their goodness the surrounding lump. It seems to me that +these Brewsters must have been more or less connected with +Brewster the elder—of Robinson’s Church at Leyden, +who, we are told, came of a wealthy and distinguished +family—who was well trained at Cambridge, and, says the +historian, ‘thence, being first seasoned with <!-- page +8--><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>the +seeds of grace and virtue, he went to the Court, and there served +that religious and godly Mr. Davison divers years, when he was +Secretary of State, who found him so discreet and faithful as he +trusted him, above all others that were about him, and only +employed him in matters of great trust and secrecy; he esteemed +him rather as a son than a servant, and for his wisdom and +godliness in private, he would converse with him more like a +familiar than a master.’ When evil times came, this +Brewster was living in the big Manor House at Scrooby, and how he +and his godly associates were driven into exile by a foolish King +and cruel priests is known, or ought to be known, to +everyone. Of these Wrentham Brewsters, one served his +country in Parliament, or I am very much mistaken. It was +to their credit that they sought out godly men, to whom they +might entrust the cure of souls. In this respect, when I +was a lad, their example certainly had not been followed, and +Dissent flourished mainly because the moral instincts of the +villagers and farmers and small tradesmen were shocked by hearing +men on the Sunday reading the Lessons of the Church, leading the +devotions of the people, and preaching sermons, who on the +week-days got drunk and led immoral <!-- page 9--><a +name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>lives. As +to the right of the State to interfere in matters of religion, as +to the danger to religion itself from the establishment of a +State Church, as to the liberty of unlicensed prophesying, such +topics the simple villagers ignored. All that they felt was +that there came to them more of a quickening of the spiritual +life, a fuller realization of God and things divine, in the +meeting-house than in the parish church. They were not what +pious Churchmen so much dread nowadays—Political +Dissenters; how could they be such, having no votes, and never +seeing a newspaper from one year’s end to the other?</p> +<p>It was to the Brewsters that the village was indebted for the +ministry of the Rev. John Phillip, who married the sister of the +pious and learned Dr. Ames, Professor of the University of +Franeker. Calamy tells us that by means of Dr. Ames, Mr. +Phillip had no small furtherance in his studies, and intimate +acquaintance with him increased his inclination to the +Congregational way. Archbishop Abbot, writing to Winwood, +1611, says: ‘I have written to Sir Horace Vere touching the +English preacher at the Hague. We heard what he was that +preceded, and we cannot be less cognisant what Mr. Ames is, for +by a Latin printed book he hath laden the Church and State of +England with <!-- page 10--><a name="page10"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 10</span>a great deal of infamous contumely, +so that if he were amongst us he would be so far from receiving +preferment, that some exemplary punishment would be his +reward. His Majesty had been advertised how this man is +entertained and embraced at the Hague, and how he is a fit person +to breed up captains and soldiers there in mutiny and +faction.’ One of Dr. Ames’s works, which got +him into trouble, was entitled ‘A Fresh Suit against +Ceremonies,’ a work which we may be sure would be as +distasteful to the Ritualists of our day as it was to the +Ritualists of his own. One of his works, his ‘Medulla +Theologiæ,’ I believe, adorned the walls of the +paternal study. There is, belonging to the Wrentham +Congregational Church Library, a volume of tracts, sixty-seven in +number, of six or eight pages each, printed in 1622, forming a +series of theses on theological topics, maintained by different +persons, under the presidency of Dr. Ames; and I believe a son of +the Doctor is buried in Wrentham Churchyard, as I recollect my +father, on one occasion, had an old gravestone done up and +relettered, which bore testimony to the virtues and piety and +learning of an Ames. Thus if Mr. Phillip was chased out of +Old England into New England for his Nonconformity, some of the +good <!-- page 11--><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +11</span>old Noncons remained to uphold the lamp which was one +day to cast a sacred light on all quarters of the land. +That some did emigrate with their pastor is probable, since we +learn that there is a town called Wrentham across the Atlantic, +said to have received that name because some of the first +settlers came from Wrentham in England.</p> +<p>Touching Mr. Phillip, a good deal has been written by the Rev. +John Browne, the painstaking author of ‘The History of +Congregationalism in Suffolk and Norfolk.’ It appears +that his arrival in America was not unexpected, as the Christian +people of Dedham had invited him to that plantation +beforehand. He did not, however, accept their invitation, +but being much in request, ‘and called divers ways, could +not resolve; but, at length, upon weighty reasons concerning the +public service and foundations of the college, he was persuaded +to attend to the call of Cambridge;’ and, adds an American +writer, ‘he might have been the first head of that blessed +institution.’ On the calling of the Long Parliament, +he and his wife returned to England, and in 1642 we find him +ministering to his old flock. So satisfied were the +neighbouring Independents of his Congregationalism, that when, in +1644, members of Mr. <!-- page 12--><a name="page12"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 12</span>Bridge’s church residing in +Norwich desired to form themselves into a separate community, +they not only consulted with their brethren in Yarmouth, but with +Mr. Phillip also, as the only man then in their neighbourhood on +whose judgment and experience they could rely. In 1643 Mr. +Phillip was appointed one of the members of the Assembly of +Divines, and was recognised by Baillie in his Letters as one of +the Independent men there. The Independents, as we know, +sat apart, and were a sad thorn in the Presbyterians’ +side. Five of them, more zealous than the rest, formally +dissented from the decisions of the Assembly, and afraid that +toleration would not be extended to them, appealed to Parliament, +‘as the most sacred refuge and asylum for mistaken and +misjudged innocence.’ Mr. Phillip’s name, +however, I do not find in that list; and possibly he was too old +to be very active in the matter. He lived on till 1660, +when he died at the good old age of seventy-eight. In the +later years of his ministry he was assisted by his nephew, W. +Ames, who in 1651 preached a sermon at St. Paul’s, before +the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, ‘On the Saint’s Security +against Seducing Sports, or the Anointing from the Holy +One.’ It is to be feared, in our <!-- page 13--><a +name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>more +enlightened age, a good Wrentham Congregational minister would +have little chance of preaching before a London Lord Mayor. +Talent is supposed to exist only in the crowded town, where men +have no time to think of anything but of the art of getting +on.</p> +<p>Other heroic associations—of men who had suffered for +the faith, who feared God rather than man, who preferred the +peace of an approving conscience to the vain honours of the +world—also were connected with the place. I remember +being shown a bush in which the conventicle preacher used to hide +himself when the enemy, in the shape of the myrmidons of Bishop +Wren, of Norwich, were at his heels. That furious prelate, +as many of us know, drove upwards of three thousand persons to +seek their bread in a foreign land. Indeed, to such an +extent did he carry out his persecuting system, that the trade +and manufactures of the country materially suffered in +consequence. However, in my boyish days I was not troubled +much about such things. Dissent in Wrentham was quite +respectable. If we had lost the Brewster family, whose arms +were still to be seen on the Communion plate, a neighbouring +squire attended at the meeting-house, as it was <!-- page 14--><a +name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>then the +fashion to call our chapel, and so did the leading grocer and +draper of the place, and the village doctor, the father of six +comely daughters; and the display of gigs on a Sunday was really +imposing. Alas! as I grew older I saw that imposing array +not a little shorn of its splendour. The neighbouring +baronet, Sir Thomas Gooch, M.P., added as he could farm to farm, +and that a Dissenter was on no account to have one of his farms +was pretty well understood. I fancy our great landlords +have, in many parts of East Anglia, pretty well exterminated +Dissent, to the real injury of the people all around. I +write this advisedly. I dare say the preaching in the +meeting-house was often very miserably poor. The service, I +must own, seemed to me often peculiarly long and +unattractive. There was always that long prayer which was, +I fear, to all boys a time of utter weariness; but, nevertheless, +there was a moral and intellectual life in our Dissenting circle +that did not exist elsewhere. It was true we never attended +dinners at the village public-house, nor indulged in +card-parties, and regarded with a horror, which I have come to +think unwholesome, the frivolity of balls or the attractions of a +theatre; but we had all the new books voted into our bookclub, +<!-- page 15--><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +15</span>and, as a lad, I can well remember how I revelled in the +back numbers of the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, though even then I +could not but feel the injustice which it did to what it called +the Lake school of poets, and more especially to Coleridge and +Wordsworth. Shakespeare also was almost a sealed book, and +perhaps we had a little too much of religious reading, such as +Doddridge’s ‘Rise and Progress,’ or +Baxter’s ‘Saint’s Rest,’ or +Alleine’s ‘Call to the Unconverted,’ or +Fleetwood’s ‘Life of Christ’—excellent +books in their way, undoubtedly, but not remarkably attractive to +boys redolent of animal life, who had thriven and grown fat in +that rustic village, on whose vivid senses the world that now is +produced far more effect than the terrors or splendours of the +world to come.</p> +<p>The country round, if flat, was full of interesting +associations. At the back of us—that is, on the +sea—was the village of Covehithe, and when a visitor found +his way into the place—an event which happened now and +then—our first excursion with him or her—for plenty +of donkeys were to be had which ladies could ride—was to +Covehithe, known to literary men as the birthplace of John Bale, +Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland. In connection with donkeys, I +have this interesting recollection, <!-- page 16--><a +name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>that one of +the old men of the village told me. At the time of the +Bristol riots, he remembered Sir Charles Wetherall, the occasion +of them, as a boy at Wrentham much given to donkey-riding. +In the history of the drama John Bale takes distinguished +rank. He was one of those by whom the drama was gradually +evolved, and all to whom it is a study and delight must remember +him with regard. His play of ‘Kynge John’ is +described by Mr. Collier as occupying an intermediate place +between moralities and historical plays—and it is the only +known existing specimen of that species of composition of so +early a date. Bale, who was trained at the monastery of +White Friars, in Norwich, thence went to Jesus College, +Cambridge, and was expelled in consequence of the zeal with which +he exposed the errors of Popery. However, Bale had a friend +and protector in Cromwell, Henry VIII.’s faithful +servant. On the death of that nobleman Bale proceeded to +Germany, where he appears to have been well received and +hospitably entertained by Luther and Melancthon, and on the +accession of Edward VI. he returned to England. In +Mary’s reign persecution recommenced, and Bale fled to +Frankfort. He again returned at the commencement of +Elizabeth’s reign, and <!-- page 17--><a +name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>was made +prebend of Canterbury, at which place he died at the age of +sixty-three. Covehithe nowadays is not interesting so much +as the birthplace of Bale, as on account of its ecclesiastical +ruins, which are covered with ivy and venerable in their +decay. The church was evidently almost a cathedral, and +surely at one time or other there must have been an enormous +population to worship in such a sanctuary; and yet all you see +now is a public-house just opposite the church, a few cottages, +and a farmhouse. A few steps farther bring you to the low +cliff, and there is the sea ever encroaching on the land in that +quarter and swallowing up farmhouse and farm. Miss Agnes +Strickland, who lived at Reydon Hall—a few miles +inland—has thus sung the melancholy fate of Covehithe:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘All roofless now the stately pile,<br /> + And rent the arches tall,<br /> +Through which with bright departing smile<br /> + The western sunbeams fall.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>‘Tradition’s voice forgets to tell<br /> + Whose ashes sleep below,<br /> +And Fancy here unchecked may dwell,<br /> + And bid the story flow.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Ah! what was that story? How the question puzzled my +young head, as I walked in the sandy <!-- page 18--><a +name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>lane that led +from my native village! How insignificant looked the little +church built up inside! What had become of the crowds that +at one time must have filled that ancient fane? How was it +that no trace of them remained? They had vanished in the +historical age, and yet no one could tell how or when. +Nature was, then, stronger than man. He was gone, but the +stars glittered by night and the sun shone by day, and the ivy +had spread its green mantle over all. Yes! what was man, +with his pomp and glory, but dust and ashes, after all! How +I loved to go to Covehithe and climb its ruins, and dream of the +distant past!</p> +<p>Here in that eastern point of England it seemed to me there +was a good deal of decay. Sometimes, on a fine summer day, +we would take a boat and sail from the pretty little town of +Southwold, about four miles from Wrentham, to Dunwich, another +relic of the past. According to an old historian, it was a +city surrounded with a stone wall having brazen gates; it had +fifty-two churches, chapels, and religious houses; it also +boasted hospitals, a huge palace, a bishop’s seat, a +mayor’s mansion, and a Mint. Beyond it a forest +appears to have extended some miles into what is now the +sea. <!-- page 19--><a name="page19"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 19</span>One of our local Suffolk poets, James +Bird (I saw him but once, when I walked into his house, about +twelve miles from Wrentham, having run away from home at the ripe +age of ten, and told him I had come to see him, as he was a poet; +and I well remember how then, much to my chagrin, he gave me +plum-pudding for dinner, and sent me to play with his boys till a +cart was found in which the prodigal was compelled to return), +wrote and published a poetical romance, called ‘Dunwich; +or, a Tale of the Splendid City;’ and Agnes Strickland also +made it the subject of her melodious verse, commencing:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Oft gazing on thy craggy brow,<br /> + We muse on glories o’er.<br /> +Fair Dunwich! Thou art lonely now,<br /> + Renowned and sought no more.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Never has a splendid city more utterly collapsed. After +a long ride over sandy lanes and fields, you come to the edge of +a cliff, on which stand a few houses. There is all that +remains of the Dunwich where the first Bishop of East Anglia +taught the Christian faith, and where was born John Daye, the +printer of the works of Parker, Latimer, and Fox, who, in the +reign of Mary, became, as most real men did then, a prisoner and +an exile for the <!-- page 20--><a name="page20"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 20</span>truth. He has also the +reputation of being the first in England who printed in the Saxon +character. In the records of type-founding the name of Daye +stands with that of the most illustrious. When the Company +of Stationers obtained their charter from Philip and Mary, he was +the first person admitted to their livery. In 1580 he was +master of the company, to which he bequeathed property at his +death. The following is the inscription which marks the +place of his burial in Little Bradley, Suffolk:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Here lyes the <span +class="smcap">Daye</span> that darkness could not blynd,<br /> + When Popish fogges had overcast the sunne;<br /> +This <span class="smcap">Daye</span> the cruel night did leave +behind,<br /> + To view and show what bloudie actes were donne.<br +/> + He set a <span class="smcap">Fox</span> to write how +martyrs runne<br /> + By death to lyfe, <span class="smcap">Fox</span> +ventured paynes and health.<br /> + To give them light Daye spent in print his +wealth,<br /> +But <span class="smcap">God</span> with gayne returned his wealth +agayne,<br /> + And gave to him as he gave to the poore.<br /> +Two wyfes he had partakers of his payne:<br /> + Each wyfe twelve babes, and each of them one +more,<br /> + Als was the last increaser of his store;<br /> +Who, mourning long for being left alone,<br /> +Sett up this tombe, herself turned to a stone.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Unlike Covehithe, Dunwich has a history. In the reign of +Henry II., a MS. in the British Museum tells us, the Earl of +Leicester came to attack it. ‘When he came neare and +beheld the <!-- page 21--><a name="page21"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 21</span>strength thereof, it was terror and +feare unto him to behold it; and so retired both he and his +people.’ Dunwich aided King John in his wars with the +barons, and thus gained the first charter. In the time of +Edward I. it had sixteen fair ships, twelve barks, +four-and-twenty fishing barks, and at that time there were few +seaports in England that could say as much. It served the +same King in his wars with France with eleven ships of war, well +furnished with men and munition. In most of these ships +were seventy-two men-at-arms, who served thirteen weeks at their +own cost and charge. Dunwich seems to have suffered much by +the French wars. Four of the eleven ships already referred +to were captured by the French, and in the wars waged by Edward +III. Dunwich lost still more shipping, and as many as 500 +men. Perhaps it might have flourished till this day had if +not been for the curse of war. But the sea also served the +town cruelly. That spared nothing—not the +King’s Forest, where there were hawking and +hunting—not the homes where England nursed her hardy +sailors—not even the harbour whence the brave East Anglians +sailed away to the wars. In Edward III.’s time, at +one fell swoop, the remorseless sea seems to have swallowed up +‘400 houses <!-- page 22--><a name="page22"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 22</span>which payde rente to the towne +towards the fee-farms, besydes certain shops and +windmills.’ Yet, when I was a lad, this wreck of a +place returned two members to Parliament, and Birmingham, +Manchester and Sheffield not one. Between Covehithe and +Dunwich stood, and still stands, the charming little +bathing-place of Southwold. Like them, it has seen better +days, and has suffered from the encroachments of the +ever-restless and ever-hungry sea. It was at Southwold that +I first saw the sea, and I remember naturally asking my father, +who showed me the guns on the gun-hill—pointing +seaward—whether that was where the enemies came from.</p> +<p>Southwold appears to have initiated an evangelical alliance, +which may yet be witnessed if ever a time comes of reasonable +toleration on religious matters. In many parts of the +Continent the same place of worship is used by different +religious bodies. In Brussels I have seen the +Episcopalians, the Germans, the French Protestants, all +assembling at different times in the same building. There +was a time when a similar custom prevailed in Southwold, and that +was when Master Sharpen, who had his abode at Sotterley, preached +at Southwold once a month. There were Independents in the +towns in <!-- page 23--><a name="page23"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 23</span>those days, and ‘his +indulgence,’ writes a local historian, ‘favoured the +Separatists with the liberty and free use of the church, where +they resorted weekly, or oftener, and every fourth Sunday both +ministers met and celebrated divine service alternately. He +that entered the church first had the precedency of officiating, +the other keeping silence until the congregation received the +Benediction after sermon.’ Most of the people +attended all the while. It was before the year 1680 that +these things were done. After that time there came to the +church ‘an orthodox man, who suffered many ills, and those +not the lightest, for his King and for his faith, and he +compelled the Independents not only to leave the church, but the +town also. We read they assembled in a malt-house beyond +the bridge, where, being disturbed, they chose more private +places in the town until liberty of conscience was granted, when +they publicly assembled in a fish-house converted to a place of +worship.’ At that time many people in the town were +Dissenters; but it was not till 1748 that they had a church +formed. Up to that time the Southwold Independents were +members of the Church at Wrentham, one of the Articles of +Association of the new church being to take the Bible as their +sole <!-- page 24--><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +24</span>guide, and when in difficulties to resort to the +neighbouring pastor for advice and declaration. Such was +Independency when it flourished all over East Anglia.</p> +<p>A writer in the <i>Harleian Miscellany</i> says that +‘Southwold, of sea-coast town, is the most beneficial unto +his Majesty of all the towns in England, by reason all their +trade is unto Iceland for lings.’ In the little +harbour of Southwold you see nowadays only a few colliers, and I +fear that the place is of little advantage to her Majesty, +however beneficial it may be as a health-resort for some of her +Majesty’s subjects. It is a place, gentle reader, +where you can wander undisturbed at your own sweet will, and can +get your cheeks fanned by breezes unknown in London. The +beach, I own, is shingly, and not to be compared with the sands +of Yarmouth and Lowestoft; but, then, you are away from the +Cockney crowds that now infest these places at the bathing +season, and you are quiet—whether you wander on its common, +till you come to the Wolsey Bridge, getting on towards +Halesworth, where, if tradition be trustworthy, Wolsey, as a +butcher’s boy, was nearly drowned, and where he +benevolently caused a bridge to be erected for the safety of all +future butcher-boys and others, <!-- page 25--><a +name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>when he +became a distinguished man; or ramble by the seaside to +Walberswick, across the harbour, or on to Easton +Bavent—another decayed village, on the other side. +Southwold has its historical associations. Most of my +readers have seen the well-known picture of Solebay Fight at +Greenwich Hospital. Southwold overlooks the bay on which +that fight was won. Here, on the morning of the 28th May, +1672, De Ruyter, with his Dutchmen, sailed right against those +wooden walls which have guarded old England in many a time of +danger, and found to his cost how invincible was British +pluck. James, Duke of York—not then the drivelling +idiot who lost his kingdom for a Mass, but James, manly and +high-spirited, with a Prince’s pride and a sailor’s +heart—won a victory that for many a day was a favourite +theme with all honest Englishmen, and especially with the true +and stout men who, alarmed by the roar of cannon, as the sound +boomed along the blue waters of that peaceful bay, stood on the +Southwold cliff, wishing that the fog which intercepted their +view might clear off, and that they might welcome as victors +their brethren on the sea. I can remember how, when an old +cannon was dragged up from the depths of the sea, it was supposed +to be, as <!-- page 26--><a name="page26"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 26</span>it might have been, used in that +fight, and now is preserved at one of the look-out houses on the +cliff as a souvenir of that glorious struggle. The details +of that fight are matters of history, and I need not dwell on +them. Our literature, also, owes Southwold one of the +happiest effusions of one of the wittiest writers of that age; +and in a county history I remember well a merry song on the +Duke’s late glorious success over the Dutch, in Southwold +Bay, which commences with the writer telling—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘One day as I was sitting still<br /> +Upon the side of Dunwich Hill,<br /> + And looking on the ocean,<br /> +By chance I saw De Ruyter’s fleet<br /> +With Royal James’s squadron meet;<br /> +In sooth it was a noble treat<br /> + To see that brave commotion.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The writer vividly paints the scene, and ends as follows:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Here’s to King Charles, and +here’s to James,<br /> +And here’s to all the captains’ names,<br /> +And here’s to all the Suffolk dames,<br /> + And here’s to the house of Stuart.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Well, as to the house of Stuart, the less said the better; but +as to the Suffolk dames, I agree with the poet, that they are all +well worthy of the toast, and it was at a very early period of my +existence <!-- page 27--><a name="page27"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 27</span>that I became aware of that +fact. But the course of true love never does run smooth, +and from none—and they were many—with whom I played +on the beach as a boy, or read poetry to at riper years, was it +my fate to take one as wife for better or worse. In the +crowded city men have little time to fall in love. Besides, +they see so many fresh faces that impressions are easily +erased. It is otherwise in the quiet retirement of a +village where there is little to disturb the mind—perhaps +too little. I can well remember a striking illustration of +this in the person of an old farmer, who lived about three miles +off, and at whose house we—that is, the whole +family—passed what seemed to me a very happy day among the +haystacks or harvest-fields once or twice a year. The old +man was proud of his farm, and of everything connected with +it. ‘There, Master James,’ he was wont to say +to me after dinner, ‘you can see three barns all at +once!’ and sure enough, looking in the direction he +pointed, there were three barns plainly visible to the naked +eye. Alas! the love of the picturesque had not been +developed in my bucolic friend, and a good barn or two—he +was an old bachelor, and, I suppose, his heart had never been +softened by the love of woman—seemed to him <!-- page +28--><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>about +as beautiful an object as you could expect or desire. One +emotion, that of fear, was, however, I found, strongly planted in +the village breast. The boys of the village, with whom, now +and then, I stole away on a birds’-nesting expedition, +would have it that in a little wood about a mile or two off there +were no end of flying serpents and dragons to be seen; and I can +well remember the awe which fell upon the place when there came a +rumour of the doings of those wretches, Burke and Hare, who were +said to have made a living by murdering victims—by placing +pitch plasters on their mouths—and selling them to the +doctors to dissect. At this time a little boy had not come +home at the proper time, and the mother came to our house +lamenting. The good woman was in tears, and refused to be +comforted. There had been a stranger in the village that +day; he had seen her boy, he had put a pitch plaster on his +mouth, and no doubt his dead body was then on its way to Norwich +to be sold to the doctor. Unfortunately, it turned out that +the boy was alive and well, and lived to give his poor mother a +good deal of trouble. Another thing, of which I have still +a vivid recollection, was the mischief wrought by Captain +Swing. In Kent there had been an <!-- page 29--><a +name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>alarming +outbreak of the peasantry, ostensibly against the use of +agricultural machinery. They assembled in large bodies, and +visited the farm buildings of the principal landed proprietors, +demolishing the threshing machines then being brought into +use. In some instances they set fire to barns and +corn-stacks. These outrages spread throughout the county, +and fears were entertained that they would be repeated in other +agricultural districts. A great meeting of magistrates and +landed gentry was held in Canterbury, the High Sheriff in the +chair, when a reward was offered of £100 for the discovery +of the perpetrators of the senseless mischief, and the Lords of +the Treasury offered a further reward of the same amount for +their apprehension; but all was in vain to stop the growing +evil. The agricultural interest was in a very depressed +state, and the number of unemployed labourers so large, that +apprehensions were entertained that the combinations for the +destruction of machinery might, if not at once checked, take +dimensions it would be very difficult for the Government to +control. When Parliament opened in 1830, the state of the +agricultural districts had been daily growing more +alarming. Rioting and incendiarism had spread from Kent to +Suffolk, <!-- page 30--><a name="page30"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 30</span>Norfolk, Surrey, Hampshire, +Wiltshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Huntingdonshire, and +Cambridgeshire, and a great deal of very valuable property had +been destroyed. A mystery enveloped these proceedings that +indicated organization, and it became suspected that they had a +political object. Threatening letters were sent to +individuals signed ‘Swing,’ and beacon fires +communicated from one part of the country to the other. +With the object of checking these outrages, night patrols were +established, dragoons were kept in readiness to put down +tumultuous meetings, and magistrates and clergymen and landed +gentry were all at their wits’ ends. Even in our +out-of-the-way corner of East Anglia not a little consternation +was felt. We were on the highroad nightly traversed by the +London and Yarmouth Royal Mail, and thus, more or less, we had +communications with the outer world. Just outside of our +village was Benacre Hall, the seat of Sir Thomas Gooch, one of +the county members, and I well remember the boyish awe with which +I heard that a mob had set out from Yarmouth to burn the place +down. Whether the mob thought better of it, or gave up the +walk of eighteen miles as one to which they were not equal, I am +not in a position to say. All <!-- page 31--><a +name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>I know is, +that Benacre Hall, such as it is, remains; but I can never forget +the feeling of terror with which, on those dark and dull winter +nights, I looked out of my bedroom window to watch the lurid +light flaring up into the black clouds around, which told how +wicked men were at their mad work, how fiendish passion had +triumphed, how some honest farmer was reduced to ruin, as he saw +the efforts of a life of industry consumed by the +incendiary’s fire. It was long before I ceased to +shudder at the name of ‘Swing.’</p> +<p>The dialect of the village was, I need not add, East +Anglian. The people said ‘I woll’ for ‘I +will’; ‘you warn’t’ for ‘you were +not,’ and so on. A girl was called a +‘mawther,’ a pitcher a ‘gotch,’ a +‘clap on the costard’ was a knock on the head, a lad +was a ‘bor.’ Names of places especially were +made free with. Wangford was ‘Wangfor,’ +Covehithe was ‘Cothhigh,’ Southwold was +‘Soul,’ Lowestoft was ‘Lesteff,’ +Halesworth was ‘Holser,’ London was +‘Lunun.’ People who lived in the midland +counties were spoken of as living in the shires. The +‘o,’ as in ‘bowls,’ it is specially +difficult for an East Anglian to pronounce. A learned man +was held to be a ‘man of larnin’,’ a thing of +which there was not too much in Suffolk in my <!-- page 32--><a +name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>young +days. A lady in the village sent her son to school, and +great was the maternal pride as she called in my father to hear +how well her son could read Latin, the reading being reading +alone, without the faintest attempt at translation. +Sometimes it was hard to get an answer to a question, as when a +Dissenting minister I knew was sent for to visit a sick +man. ‘My good man,’ said he, ‘what +induced you to send for me?’ ‘Hey, what?’ +said the invalid. ‘What induced you to send for +me?’ Alas! the question was repeated in vain. +At length the wife interfered: ‘He wants to know what the +deuce you sent for him for.’ And then, and not till +then, came an appropriate reply. This story, I believe, has +more than once found its way into <i>Punch</i>; but I heard it as +a Suffolk boy years and years before <i>Punch</i> had come into +existence.</p> +<p>One of the prayers familiar to my youth was as follows:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,<br /> +Bless the bed that I lie on;<br /> +Four corners to my bed,<br /> +Four angels at my head;<br /> +Two to watch and one to pray,<br /> +And one to carry my soul away.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>An M.P., who shall be nameless, supplies me with an apt +illustration of East Anglian dialect. It <!-- page 33--><a +name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>was at the +anniversary of a National School, with the great M.P. in the +chair, surrounded by the benevolent ladies and the select clergy +of the district. The subject of examination was +Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on an ass’s colt. +‘Why,’ said the M.P.—‘why did they strew +rushes before the Saviour? can any of you children tell +me?’ Profound silence. The M.P. repeated the +question. A little ragamuffin held up his hand. The +M.P. demanded silence as the apt scholar proceeded with his +answer. ‘Why were the rushes strewed?’ said the +M.P. in a condescending tone. I don’t know,’ +replied the boy, ‘unless it was to hull the dickey +down.’</p> +<p>Roars of laughter greeted the reply, as all the East Anglians +present knew that ‘hull’ meant ‘throw,’ +and ‘dickey’ is Suffolk for ‘donkey,’ but +some of the Cockney visitors present were for a while quite +unable to enjoy the joke.</p> +<p>It is to be feared the three R’s were not much +patronized in East Anglia, if it be true that some forty or fifty +years ago, in such a respectable town as Sudbury, it was the +fashion for some fifty of the leading inhabitants to meet in the +large bar-parlour of the old White Horse to hear the leading +paper of the eastern counties read out by a scholar and <!-- page +34--><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +34</span>elocutionist known as John. For the discharge of +this important duty he was paid a pound a year, and provided with +as much free liquor as he liked, and there were people who +considered that the Saturday newspaper-reading did them more good +than what they heard at church the next day.</p> +<p>In some cases our East Anglian dialect is merely a survival of +old English, as when we say ‘axe’ for +‘ask.’ We find in Chaucer:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘It is but foly and wrong wenging<br /> +To axe so outrageous thing.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In his ‘Envious Man,’ Gowing made +‘axeth’ to rhyme with ‘taxeth.’ No +word is more common in Suffolk than ‘fare’; a pony is +a ‘hobby’; a thrush is a ‘mavis’; a chest +is a ‘kist’; a shovel is a ‘skuppet’; a +chaffinch is a ‘spink.’ If a man is upset in +his mind, he tells us he is ‘wholly stammed,’ and the +Suffolk ‘yow’ is at least as old as Chaucer, who +wrote:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘What do you ye do there, quod she,<br /> +Come, and if it lyke yow<br /> +To daucen daunceth with us now.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>An awkward lad is ‘ungain.’ A good deal may +be written to show that our Suffolk dialect is the nearest of all +provincial dialects to that of Chaucer and the Bible, and if +anyone has the audacity to <!-- page 35--><a +name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>contradict +me, why, then, in Suffolk phraseology, I can promise +him—‘a good hiding.’</p> +<p>I am old enough to remember how placid was the county, how +stay-at-home were the people, what a sensation there was created +when anyone went to London, or any stranger appeared in our +midst. From afar we heard of railways; then we had a +railway opened from London to Brentwood; then the railways spread +all over the land, and there were farmers who did think that they +had something to do with the potato disease. The change was +not a pleasant one: the turnpikes were deserted; the inns were +void of customers; no longer did the villagers hasten to see the +coach change horses, and the bugle of the guard was heard no +more. For a time the Eastern Counties Railway had a +somewhat dolorous career. It was thought to be something to +be thankful for when the traveller by it reached his +journey’s end in decent time and without an accident. +Now the change is marvellous. The Great Eastern Railway +stands in the foremost rank of the lines terminating in +London. It now runs roundly 20,000,000 of train miles in +the course of a year. It carries a larger number of +passengers than any other line. It carries the London +working man <!-- page 36--><a name="page36"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 36</span>twelve miles in and twelve miles out +for twopence a day. It is the direct means of communication +with all the North of Europe by its fine steamers from +Harwich. It has yearly an increased number of +season-ticket-holders. On a Whit Monday it gives 125,000 +excursionists a happy day in the country or by the seaside. +In 1891 the number of passengers carried was 81,268,661, +exclusive of season-ticket-holders. It is conspicuous now +for its punctuality and freedom from accidents. It is, in +short, a model of good management, and it also deserves credit +for looking well after the interests of its employés, of +whom there are some 25,000. It contributes to the Accident +Fund, to the Provident Society, to the Superannuation Fund, and +to the Pension Fund, to which the men also subscribe, in the most +liberal manner, and besides has established a savings bank, which +returns the men who place their money in it four per cent. +It is a liberal master. It does its duty to its men, who +deserve well of the public as of the Great Eastern Railway +itself; but its main merit, after all, is that it has been the +making of East Anglia.</p> +<h2><!-- page 37--><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +37</span>CHAPTER II.<br /> +<span class="smcap">the stricklands</span>.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Reydon Hall—The +clergy—Pakefield—Social life in a village.</p> +<p>As I write I have lying before me a little book called +‘Hugh Latimer; or, The School-boy’s +Friendship,’ by Miss Strickland, author of the +‘Little Prisoner,’ ‘Charles Grant,’ +‘Prejudice and Principle,’ ‘The Little +Quaker.’ It bears the imprint—‘London: +Printed for A. R. Newman and Co., Leadenhall Street.’ +On a blank page inside I find the following: ‘James Ewing +Ritchie, with his friend Susanna’s affectionate +regards.’ Susanna was a sister of Miss Agnes +Strickland, the authoress, and was as much a writer as +herself. The Stricklands were a remarkable family, living +about four or five miles from Wrentham, on the road leading from +Wangford to Southwold, at an old-fashioned residence called +Reydon Hall. They had, I fancy, seen better days, and were +none the worse for that. The Stricklands came over <!-- +page 38--><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>with William the Conqueror. One of them was the +first to land, and hence the name. A good deal of blue +blood flowed in their veins. Kate—to my eyes the +fairest of the lot—was named Katherine Parr, to denote that +she was a descendant of one of the wives of the too-much-married +Henry VIII., and in the old-fashioned drawing-room of Reydon Hall +I heard not a little—they all talked at once—of what +to me was strange and rare. Mr. Strickland had deceased +some years, and the widow and the daughters kept up what little +state they could; and I well remember the feeling of surprise +with which I first entered their capacious drawing-room—a +room the size of which it had never entered into my head to +conceive of. It is to the credit of these Misses Strickland +that they did not vegetate in that old house, but held a fair +position in the world of letters. Miss Strickland herself +chiefly resided in town. Agnes, the next, whose +‘Queens of England’ is still a standard book, was +more frequently at home. The only one of the family who did +not write was Sarah, who married one of the Radical Childses of +Bungay, and who not till after the death of her husband became +respectable and atoned for her sins by marrying a +clergyman. <!-- page 39--><a name="page39"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 39</span>Kate, as I have said, the fairest of +the whole, married an officer in the army of the name of Traill, +and went out to Canada, and wrote there a book called ‘The +Backwoods of Canada,’ which was certainly one of the most +popular of the four-and-sixpenny volumes published under the +auspices of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful and +Entertaining Knowledge. Our friend was Susanna, who wrote a +volume of poems on Enthusiasm, and who seemed to me, with her +dark eyes and hair, a very enthusiastic personage indeed. +The reason of her friendship with our family was her deeply +religious nature, which impelled her to leave the cold and +careless service of the Church—not a little to the disgust +of her aristocratic sisters, who, as of ancient lineage, not a +little haughty, and rank Tories, had but little sympathy with +Dissent.. Susanna was much at our house, and when away +scarcely a day passed on which she did not write some of us a +letter or send us a book. Then there was a brother Tom, a +midshipman—a wonderful being to my inexperienced +eyes—who once or twice came to our house seated in the +family donkey-chaise, which seemed to me, somehow or other, not +to be an ordinary donkey-chaise, but something of a far superior +character. I have <!-- page 40--><a name="page40"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 40</span>pleasant recollections of them all, +and of the annuals in which they all wrote, and a good many of +which fell to my share. Like her sister, Susanna married an +officer in the army—a Major Moodie—and emigrated to +Canada, where the Stricklands have now a high position, where she +had sons and daughters born to her, and wrote more than one novel +which found acceptance in the English market. The +Stricklands gave me quite a literary turn. When I was a +small boy it was really an everyday occurrence for me to write a +book or edit a newspaper, and with about as much success as is +generally achieved by bookmakers and newspaper editors, whose +merit is overlooked by an unthinking public. Let me say in +the Stricklands I found an indulgent audience. On one +occasion I remember reciting some verses of my own composition, +commencing,</p> +<p class="gutsumm">‘I sing a song of ancient men,<br /> + Of warriors great and bold,<br /> +Of Hercules, a famous man,<br /> + Who lived in times of old.<br /> +He was a man of great renown,<br /> + A lion large he slew,<br /> +And to his memory games were kept,<br /> + Which now I tell to you,’</p> +<p>which they got me to repeat in their drawing-room, <!-- page +41--><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>and +which, though I say it that should not, evinced for a boy a fair +acquaintance with ‘Mangnall’s Questions’ and +Pinnock’s abridgment of Goldsmith’s ‘History of +Rome.’ Happily, at that time, Niebuhr was unknown, +and sceptical criticism had not begun its deadly work. We +had not to go far for truth then. It was quite unnecessary +to seek it—at any rate, so it seemed to us—at the +bottom of a well; there it was right underneath one’s +nose—before one’s very eyes in the printed pages of +the printed book.</p> +<p>Agnes Strickland did all she could to confer reputation on her +native county. The tall, dark, self-possessed lady from +Reydon Hall was a lion everywhere. On one occasion she +visited the House of Lords, just after she had written a violent +letter against Lord Campbell, charging him with plagiarism. +Campbell tells us he had a conversation with her, which speedily +turned her into a friend. He adds: ‘I thought +Brougham would have died with envy when I told him the result of +my interview, and Ellenborough, who was sitting by, lifted his +hands in admiration. Brougham had thrown me a note across +the table, saying: “So you know your friend Miss Strickland +has come to hear you.”’ Miss Strickland often +<!-- page 42--><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +42</span>visited Alison, the historian, at Possil House. He +says of her that she had strong talents of a masculine rather +than feminine character—indefatigable perseverance, and +that ardour in whatever pursuit she engaged in without which no +one could undergo similar fatigue. On one occasion she was +descanting on the noble feeling of Queen Mary, ‘That may +all be very true, Miss Strickland,’ replied the historian; +‘but unfortunately she had an awkward habit of burning +people—she brought 239 men, women, and children to the +stake in a reign which did not extend beyond a few +years!’ ‘Oh yes,’ was her reply, +‘it was terrible, dreadful, but it was the fault of the +age—the temper of the times; Mary herself was everything +that is noble and heroic.’ Such was her feminine +tendency to hero-worship. Another tendency of a feminine +character was her love of talking. ‘She did,’ +instances Sir Archibald, ‘not even require an answer or a +sign of mutual intelligence; it was enough if the one she was +addressing simply remained passive. One day when I was laid +up at Possil on my library sofa from a wound in the knee, she was +kind enough to sit with me for two hours, and was really very +entertaining, from the number of anecdotes she remembered of +queens in <!-- page 43--><a name="page43"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 43</span>the olden time. When she left +the room she expressed herself kindly to Mrs. Alison as to the +agreeable time she had spent, and the latter said to me on coming +in, “What did you get to say to Miss Strickland all this +time? She says you were so agreeable, and she was two hours +here.” “Say!” I replied with truth; +“I assure you I did not say six words to her the whole +time.”’ Agnes was a terrible one to +talk—as, indeed, all the Stricklands were. In Suffolk +such accomplished conversationalists were rare.</p> +<p>It must have been, now I come to think of it, a dismal old +house, suggestive of rats and dampness and mould, that Reydon +Hall, with its scantily furnished rooms and its unused attics and +its empty barns and stables, with a general air of decay all over +the place, inside and out. It had a dark, heavy roof and +whitewashed walls, and was externally anything but a showy place, +standing, as it did, a little way from the road. It must +have been a difficulty with the family to keep up the place, and +the style of living was altogether plain; yet there I heard a +good deal of literary life in London, of Thomas Pringle, the +poet, and the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, whose +‘Residence in South Africa’ is still one of the <!-- +page 44--><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +44</span>most interesting books on that quarter of the world, and +of whom Josiah Conder, one of the great men of my smaller +literary world at that time, wrote an appreciative biographical +sketch. Mr. Pringle, let me remind my readers, was the +original editor of <i>Blackwood’s Magazine</i>, a magazine +which still maintains its reputation as being the best of its +class. Mr. Pringle, I believe, at some time or other, had +visited Wrentham; at any rate, the Stricklands, especially +Susanna, were among his intimate friends, and, from what I heard, +I could well believe, when, at a later period, I visited his +grave in Bunhill Fields, what I found recorded there—that +‘In the walks of British literature he was known as a man +of genius; in the domestic circle he was loved as an affectionate +relative and faithful friend; in the wide sphere of humanity he +was revered as the advocate and protector of the +oppressed,’ who ‘left among the children of the +African desert a memorial of his philanthropy, and bequeathed to +his fellow-countrymen an example of enduring virtue.’ +At the home of the Pringles the Stricklands made many literary +acquaintances, such as Alaric Watts, and Mrs. S. C. Hall, and +others of whom I heard them talk. At that time, however, +literature was not, as far as women were <!-- page 45--><a +name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>concerned, +the lucrative profession it has since become, and I have a dim +remembrance of their paintings—for in this respect the +Stricklands, like my own mother, were very +accomplished—being sold at the Soho Bazaar, a practice +which helped to maintain them in the respectability and comfort +becoming their position in life. But in London they never +forgot the old home, and wrote so much about it in their stories, +that there was not a flower, or shrub, or tree, or hedge, or +mossy bank redolent in early spring of primroses and violets, to +which they had not given, to my boyish eyes, a glory and a +charm. This reference to painting reminds me of a feature +of my young days, not without interest, in connection with the +name of Cunningham—a name at one time well known in the +religious world.</p> +<p>The reader must be reminded that the reverend gentleman +referred to was a <i>rara avis</i>, and that between him and the +neighbouring clergy there was little sympathy—unless the +common rallying cry of ‘The Church in Danger!’ was +raised as an electioneering dodge. The clergyman at +Wrentham at that time, who declared himself the appointed vessel +of grace for the parish, I have been led to believe, since I have +become older, was by no <!-- page 46--><a name="page46"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 46</span>means a saint, and his brethren were +notorious as evil-livers. Some twenty years ago one of them +had his effects sold off, and his library was viewed with no +little amusement by his parishioners, to many of whom, if popular +fame be an authority, he was more than a spiritual father. +The library contained only one book that could be called +theological, and the title of that wonderfully unique volume was, +‘Die and be Damned; or, An End of the +Methodists.’ All the other books were exclusively +sporting, while the pictures were such as would have been a +disgrace to Holywell Street. It was of him that the clerk +said that ‘next Sunday there would be no Divine sarvice, as +maaster was going to Newmarket.’ Once upon a time +after a sermon one of his flock approached him, as he had been +preaching on miracles, to ask him to explain what a miracle +really was. The reverend gentleman gave his rustic inquirer +a kick, adding, ‘Did you feel that?’</p> +<p>‘Oh yes, sir; but what of that?’</p> +<p>‘Why,’ said the reverend gentleman, ‘if you +had not felt it, it would have been a miracle, that is +all.’ Yet that man was as popular as any parson in +the district, perhaps more so, and it was with some indignation +in certain quarters that the people <!-- page 47--><a +name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>learned that +a new Bishop had come to Norwich, and that the parson had been +deprived of his living for immoral conduct. Of another it +is said that, calling on a poor villager, dying and full of +gloomy anticipations as to the future, all he could say was, +‘Don’t be frightened; I dare say you will meet a good +many people you know.’ I have often heard old men +talk of the time when they used to take the parson home in a +wheelbarrow—but that was before we had a Sunday-school, at +which I was a regular teacher. The church had a +Sunday-school, but not till after the one in the chapel had +existed many years. Of these ornaments of the Church and +foes of Dissent, some had apparently a sense of shame—one +of them, at any rate, committed suicide.</p> +<p>At Pakefield, some seven miles from Wrentham, and just on the +borders of Lowestoft, then, as now, the most eastern extremity of +England, resided the Rev. Francis Cunningham. He was a +clergyman of piety and philanthropy, rare at that time in that +benighted district, and in this respect he was aided by his wife, +a little dark woman whom I well remember, a sister of the +far-famed John Joseph Gurney, of Earlham. It is with +pleasure I quote the following from the Journal of Caroline <!-- +page 48--><a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +48</span>Fox: ‘A charming story of F. Cunningham coming in +to prayers just murmuring something about the study being on +fire, and proceeding to read a long chapter and make equally long +comments thereupon. When the reading was over, and the fact +became public, he observed, “Yes, I saw it was a little on +fire, but I opened the window on leaving the +room.”’ Mr. Cunningham had much to do with +establishing a branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society in +Paris in connection with the Buxtons. In this way, but on a +smaller scale, the Cunninghams were equally distinguished, and +one of the things they had established at Pakefield was an infant +school, to which I, in company with my parents—indeed, I +may add, the whole family—was taken, in order, if possible, +that our little village should possess a similar +institution. But my principal pilgrimages to the Pakefield +vicarage were in connection with some mission to aid Oberlin in +his grand work amongst the mountains and valleys of +Switzerland. It appeared Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham had +visited the good man, and watched him in his career, and had come +back to England to gain for him, if possible, sympathy and +friends. Mrs. Cunningham had taken drawings of the +principal objects of <!-- page 49--><a name="page49"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 49</span>interest, which had been +lithographed, and these lithographs my mother, who in her way was +as great an enthusiast as Susanna Strickland herself, was very +anxious to obtain; the financial position of the family, however, +forbade any thought of purchase. But she had a wonderful +gift of painting, and she painted while we children were learning +the Latin grammar, or preparing our lessons in the Delectus, much +to my terror, as I had a habit of restlessness which, by shaking +the table, not only impaired her work, but drew down upon me not +a little of reproach; and with these paintings I was despatched +on foot to Pakefield, where, in return for them, I was given the +famous lithographs, which were to be preserved for many a year in +the spare room we called the parlour—drawing-rooms at that +time in East Anglia were, I think, unknown. What a joy it +was to us children when that parlour had its fire lit, and we +found out that company was coming—partly, I must add, for +sensual reasons. We knew that the best tea-things were to +be used, that unusual delicacies were to be placed upon the +table, and I must do my mother the justice to say that she could +cook as well as she could paint; but for other and higher +motives, and not as an occasion <!-- page 50--><a +name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>of feasting +or for the disuse of the economical pinafore which was always +worn to keep our clothes clean, did we rejoice when we found +there was to be tea in the parlour. If young people were +coming, we were sure to dissect puzzles, or play some game which +combined amusement with instruction; and if the party consisted +of seniors, as on the occasion of the Book Club—almost all +Dissenting congregations had their Book Clubs then—it was a +pleasure to listen to my father’s talk, who was a well-read +man, and who, being a Scotchman, had inherited his full share of +Scotch wit, which, however, was enlivened with quotations from +‘Hudibras,’ the only poet, alas! in whom he seemed to +take any particular interest. There, in the parlour, were +the fraternal meetings attended by all the neighbouring +Independent ministers, all clad in sober black, and whose wildest +exploits in rollicking debauchery were confined to a pipe and a +glass of home-made wine. Madeira, port and sherry were +unknown in ministers’ houses, though now and then one got a +taste of them at the houses of men better to do, and who, +perhaps, had been as far as London once or twice in their +lives. Of these neighbouring ministers, one of the most +celebrated at that time was the Rev. Edward <!-- page 51--><a +name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>Walford, then +of Yarmouth, who afterwards became tutor of Homerton College, and +who, after the death of a favourite and accomplished +daughter—I can still remember the gracefulness of her +person—sank into a state of profound melancholy, which led +him to shut himself from his friends, to give up all public +preaching and tutorial work, and to consider himself as +hopelessly lost. It is a curious fact that he dated his +return to reason and happiness and usefulness after a visit paid +him by my father, who happened to be in town, and who naturally +was drawn to see his afflicted friend, with whom, in the days of +auld lang syne, he had smoked many a pipe and held many an +argument respecting Edwards on Freedom of the Will, and his +favourite McKnight. Mrs. Walford, who was aware of my +father’s intended visit, had thoughtfully prepared pipes +and tobacco, and placed them on the table of the room where the +interview was to take place. My father went and smoked his +pipe and talked as usual, poor Mr. Walford sitting sad and +dejected, and refusing to be comforted all the while. When +my father had left—owing, I suppose, to the force of old +associations—actually the poor man approached the table, +took up a pipe, filled it with tobacco, and smoked <!-- page +52--><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +52</span>it. From that hour, strange to say, he recovered, +wrote a translation of the Psalms, became a trustee of +Coward’s College, and took charge of a church at +Uxbridge. This is ‘a fac,’ as Artemus Ward +would say, and ‘facs’ are stubborn things. Of +this Mr. Walford, the well-known publisher of that name in St. +Paul’s Churchyard was a son, and the firm of Hodder and +Stoughton may be said to carry on his business, though on a +larger scale.</p> +<p>Dressed in rusty black, with hats considerably the worse for +wear, with shoes not ignorant of the cobbler’s art, +unconscious of and careless for the fashions of the world, rarely +in London, except on the occasion of the May Meetings—no +one can tell, except those who, like myself, were admitted behind +the scenes, as it were, how these good men lived to keep alive +the traditions of freedom, civil and religious, in districts most +under the sway of the ignorant squire and the equally ignorant +parson of the parish. If there has been a decency and charm +about our country life it is due to them, and them alone. +Perhaps, more in the country than in the crowded city is the +pernicious influence felt of sons of Belial, flushed with +insolence and wine. It is difficult to give the reader an +idea of the utter animalism, if I may so term it, of <!-- page +53--><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>rural +life some fifty years ago. For small wages these Dissenting +ministers did a noble work, in the way of preserving morals, +extending education, promoting religion, and elevating the aim +and tone of |the little community in which they lived, and moved, +and had their being. At home the difficulties of such of +them as had large families were immense. The pocket was +light, and too often there was but little in the larder. +But they laboured on through good and bad report, and now they +have their reward. Perhaps one of their failings was that +they kept too much the latter end in view, and were too +indifferent to present needs and requirements. They did not +try to make the best of both worlds. I can never forget a +remark addressed to me by all the good men of the class with whom +I was familiar in my childhood as to the need of getting on in +life and earning an honest penny, and becoming independent in a +pecuniary point of view. I was to be a good boy, to love +the Lord, to study the Assembly’s Catechism, to read the +Bible, as if outside the village there was no struggle into which +sooner or later I should have to plunge—no hard battle with +the world to fight, no temporal victory to win.</p> +<h2><!-- page 54--><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +54</span>CHAPTER III<br /> +<span class="smcap">lowestoft</span>.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Yarmouth bloaters—George +Borrow—The town fifty years ago—The distinguished +natives.</p> +<p>‘I’m a-thinking you’ll be wanting half a +pint of beer by this time, won’t you?’</p> +<p>Such were the first words I heard as I left the hotel where I +was a temporary sojourner about nine o’clock. Of +course I turned to look at the speaker. He wore an oilskin +cap, with a great flap hanging over the back of the neck; his +oilskin middle was encased in a thick blue guernsey; his trousers +were hidden in heavy jack-boots, which came up above his knees; +his face was red, and his body was almost as round as that of a +porpoise. When I add that the party addressed was similarly +adorned and was of a similar build, the reader will guess at once +that I was amongst a seafaring community, and let me add that +this supposition is correct. I was, in fact, at Lowestoft, +and Lowestoft just now <!-- page 55--><a name="page55"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 55</span>is, with Yarmouth, the headquarters +of the herring fishery. The truth is, as the poet tells us, +‘Things are not what they seem,’ and that many of the +Yarmouth bloaters which we are in the habit of indulging in at +breakfast in reality come from Lowestoft.</p> +<p>It is worth going from London at the season of the year when +the finest bloaters are being caught, to realize the peril and +the enterprise and the industry connected with the herring trade, +which employs some five hundred boats, manned by seven to twelve +men, who work the business on the cooperative system, which, when +the season is a good one, gives a handsome remuneration to all +concerned, and which drains the country of young men for miles +around. Each boat is furnished with some score of nets, and +each net extends more than thirty-two yards. The boat puts +off according to the tide, and if it gets a good haul, at once +returns to the harbour with its freight; if the catch is +indifferent, the boat stays out; the fish are salted as they are +caught, and then the boat, generally at a distance of about +twenty miles from the shore, waits till a sufficient number have +been caught to complete the cargo. When that is the case, +the boat at once makes for Lowestoft, and the fish are unloaded +<!-- page 56--><a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +56</span>under a shed in heaps of about half a last (a last is +professedly 10,000 herrings, but really much more). At nine +a bell rings and the various auctioneers commence +operations. A crowd is formed, and in a very few minutes a +lot is sold off to traders who are well known, and who pay at the +end of the week. The auctioneer then proceeds to the next +group, which is disposed of in a similar way. Other +auctioneers in various parts of the enormous shed erected for +their accommodation do the same, and then, as more boats arrive, +other cargoes are sold, the sailors bringing a hundred as a +sample from the boat. And thus all day long the work of +selling goes on, and as soon as a lot are sold they are packed up +with ice, if fresh, or with more salt, if already salted, and +despatched by train to various quarters of England, where, it is +to be presumed, they meet with a speedy and immediate sale. +In this way as many as one hundred and ninety-eight trucks are +sometimes sent off in a single day. But in London we are +familiar with the kipper, the red herring, and the Yarmouth +bloater, and to see how they are prepared for consumption I leave +the market—always wet and fishy and slippery—and make +my way to the extensive premises on the <!-- page 57--><a +name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>beach +belonging to Mr. Thomas Brown—the only Brown whose name is +familiar to the fish-dealer in every market in England, and the +extent of whose business may be best realized by the reader when +I state that Mr. Brown sends off from his factory as many as +forty lasts a week.</p> +<p>An intelligent foreman, after I have evaded the attack of a +formidable dog which keeps watch and ward over the premises, +explains to me the mystery of the trade. I find myself in +the midst of a square. On one side are a great stack of oak +and many casks of old salt. The latter, I gather, is sold +to be used as manure. The former is applied to the fire, +which gently smokes the Yarmouth bloater. On one side, the +herrings, as they are received, are pickled—that is, first +washed in fresh water, and then immersed in great tubs in which +the water is mixed with salt. The next thing is to take +them into a room in which several women are engaged in spitting +them—that is, hanging them on rods—and then they are +carried to the apartment where they are hung up, while oak logs +are burnt beneath. In twelve hours they are sufficiently +smoked, and then you have the real Yarmouth bloater. I am +glad I have seen the process, as I have a horrible suspicion that +the <!-- page 58--><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +58</span>costermonger manufactures many a Yarmouth bloater in +some filthy Whitechapel slum, the odour of which by no means +tends to improve the flavour of so delicate a fish.</p> +<p>But we have to discuss the red-herring, not of the artful +politician, anxious to dodge his hearers, but of the +breakfast-table. For this purpose I am taken to a large +oven filled with oak sawdust, gathered from Ipswich, and oak +shavings, which are also brought from a distance, principally +from Bass’s Brewery, and, indeed, from all the great works +where oak is used; I see heaps of fire made from these ashes, +which give out much heat, and at the same time much smoke. +In a loft above are hung the herrings, and there they hang twelve +days, till they gradually become of the colour of a guinea, when +they are packed up and sent away in casks, while the bloaters go +away in baskets of a hundred, in pots holding a smaller number, +and in barrels in which as many as three hundred are stowed +away. As to the kippered herring, he undergoes quite a +different treatment. Some twenty or thirty women get hold +of him, cut him open, take out his gut and wash him, and then he +is hung over an oak fire and smoked for twelve hours, and thus, +saturated with smoke inside and out, is regarded in <!-- page +59--><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>many +circles as a delicacy to be highly prized. But he must be +got off the premises. Well, if we climb to a loft, we shall +see a good many young women hard at work stripping the rods, on +which he and his fellows have been suspended, and stowing the +fish away. In the autumn especially the peculiar industries +connected with the trade are very considerably exercised. +All day long carts come in with the fish; all day long carts go +out with the manufactured articles to the railway-station; day +and night the men and women are at work; in one quarter the women +make and mend the nets, which are then boiled in cutch and put on +board the boats; in another quarter coopers are at work making +boxes and casks and barrels. As to the baskets, the country +is ransacked for them, and as soon as they are filled they take +the train and away they go, to give a flavour to the potato +dinner of the poor man, or to form a tasty adjunct to the dishes +under which the breakfast table of his lord and master +groans. In London we get the best—the smaller +herrings go to the North, as the dwellers in those parts will not +pay the price the Londoner does. Great is the joy and +rejoicing, as well can be imagined, at Lowestoft when the herring +season comes on. It is true, the Lowestoft <!-- page +60--><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +60</span>fishers do not have it all to themselves. Yarmouth +is a fierce rival in the race, and, as it has now superior +accommodation, many a boat makes for that far-famed port. +Then, the Scotch, when they have done their fishing, make for the +English coast, and manage, as Scotchmen ever do, to gather a fair +share of the spoil. As to the foreigners, they are not such +formidable rivals as sometimes we are apt to believe. The +Frenchman or the Dutchman comes, but that is when he is blown off +by a gale from his own happy hunting-ground, and then we know, +all the world over, the cry is, ‘Any port in a +storm.’</p> +<p>Oh, these storms! how terrible they are! and how little, as we +eat our Yarmouth bloater of a morning, or spread the +bloater-paste as a covering to the thin slice of +bread-and-butter, to tempt the languid appetite—how little +do we who sit at home at ease realize their fury and their +power! As I now write, twenty-one orphans are bewailing the +loss of fathers who went out in a craft during the last gale, and +of whom no sign has been seen, nor ever will. Hour by hour +the women, weeping and watching on the sandy shore, saw one and +another familiar boat come, more or less buffeted, into +port. On more than one a hand had been washed away, <!-- +page 61--><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +61</span>but the craft and the rest of the crew were saved +somehow. But one boat yet remained missing, and in vain the +survivors were questioned as to what had become of the <i>Skimmer +of the Sea</i>. Day by day anxious eyes swept the distant +horizon. Day by day a sadder weight came down on weeping +child and broken-hearted wife; and now all hope is gone, and all +felt that in the fury of the gale the <i>Skimmer of the Sea</i> +foundered with all her hands. Well, as the good old Admiral +said, as he and his men were about to perish, ‘My lads, the +way to heaven is as short by sea as by land.’ But the +wounded heart in the agony of its grief is slow to realize that +fact. Sailors ought to be serious men; every halfpenny they +earn is won at the risk of a life. In Lowestoft, I am glad +to find, many of them are. ‘The Salvation Army has +done ’em a deal of good,’ says a decent woman, with +whom I happened to scrape an acquaintance at the most attractive +coffee-house I have ever seen—the Coffee Pot at Mutford +Bridge. ‘Not that I holds with the Salvation Army +myself, sir, but they’ve done the men a deal of good, and +they don’t spend their wages, as they used to do, in +drink.’</p> +<p>Lowestoft, when I was there last, had just lost <!-- page +62--><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 62</span>one +of its heroes—I mean the late Mr. George Borrow—whose +‘Bible in Spain’ was the talk of the season in +religious and worldly circles alike, and whose writings on +Gipsies and Wild Wales and the ‘Bible in Spain’ +achieved at one time an enormous popularity. He +lived—I can still remember his tall form—on a bank a +couple of miles out of Lowestoft, sloping down to a large piece +of water known in those parts as Oulton Broad. The tourist, +if he looks to his right just after he has passed Mutford Bridge +on the rail from Lowestoft to Beccles, across the wide sheet of +water, which, as I saw it last, lay calm and blue in the fading +glory of an autumnal sun, will perhaps see a white house at a +distance, nestled in among the fir-trees—that was where +George Borrow lived, and where he died, though he was buried in +Brompton Cemetery by the side of his wife. You cannot make +a mistake, for houses are rare in those parts. As his +step-daughter observed to me, the proper way is by water; to get +to the house by land—at least as I did—you walk along +the rail for a couple of miles, then break off across a bit of a +swamp, to a little lane that conducts you to Oulton +Church—a very ancient one, which, however, is in a state of +good repair and is noted partly on account of the <!-- page +63--><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>fact +that the steeple is built in the middle, and partly on account of +its containing, so it is said, the earliest example of a brass to +an ecclesiastic which is to be found in England. A narrow +path from the church leads you to Oulton Hall, which came into +the possession of Borrow by marriage, really a very plain, +red-brick, capacious, comfortable-looking old farmhouse, only of +a superior class. Keeping the Hall to the right, you reach +a gate, which opens into a very narrow lane, full of mud in the +winter and dust in the summer. The lane loses itself in the +marshland, on the borders of Lake Lothing—a name supposed +to have been derived from a certain Danish prince, murdered on +the spot by a jealous Court retainer; and it is a fitting place +for a murder, as in that lonely district there was no eye to +pity, no ear to hear, no hand to save. Even to-day, as you +look away from the train, there is little sign of life, save the +sail of a distant wherry as it makes sluggishly for Norwich or +Beccles, as it goes either into the Waveney or the Yare; or the +gray wing of the heron as it flies heavily along the marsh; and +that is all. Far away, perhaps, rises a ridge, with a house +on it; or a steeple, with a few trees struggling to yield the +barren spot a shelter from the suns of summer <!-- page 64--><a +name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>or the +howling winds of winter; but all is still life there, and the +habitations of men are few and far between. In the +particular lane to which I have introduced the reader—there +are but two—there is a little cottage on your left, and +beyond, under a group of trees, mostly fir, which almost hide it +from view, a home of a rather superior character, in a very +dilapidated condition, with everything around it more or less +untidy—that was where George Borrow lived and worked in his +way for many a long day. The step-daughter and her husband +reside there now—very ancient people, who are to be seen +driving about Lowestoft in a little wicker car, drawn by an +amiable and active donkey, an aged dog guarding the cottage +during their temporary absence. The female, an ancient one, +who did for the house, lives in the little cottage which the +tourist will have already observed, and the interior of which +presented, when I peeped in, a far greater idea of comfort than +did Oulton Cottage, the residence of the late George +Borrow. The picture one gets is rather a melancholy +one. ‘He was a funny-tempered man’—that +seems to have been the idea of the few people around. +Latterly he kept no company, and no one came to see him. +All who did call on him, however, tell <!-- page 65--><a +name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>me that he +was well dressed, but that all the interior of the house was +dirty. Well, that was to be expected of a man who loved to +live with the gipsies, and patter to them in Romany of Egyptian +lore, for it could not have been want of means. Borrow must +have made a good deal of money by his books, and I have heard his +landed property estimated at five hundred per year. The +house looked like the residence of a miser who would not lay out +a penny in keeping up appearances or in repairs. It must be +remembered, however, that the grand old man had long become bowed +with age; that for some years before his death he was scarcely +able to move himself without help; that the grasshopper, as it +were, had become a burden. In summer time such a residence, +in good repair and well furnished, would be perfectly +charming. The house contains a sitting-room on each side of +the entrance-hall. Behind is the kitchen, and above are +four bedrooms and two attics—none of them large, I own, but +at any rate capable of being made very cosy. On your right, +in a little niche in the cliff, is a small stable. Lower +down is a large summer-house, then full of books (amongst them, I +believe, there were a hundred lexicons), where their learned +proprietor loved to write. <!-- page 66--><a +name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>Farther down +the lawn you come to the lake, where Borrow could enjoy his +morning bath without fear of being disturbed, and where any +amount of fish can be got. Just previous to my last visit +to the spot a pike of more than twenty pounds’ +weight—I am afraid to say how many pounds more, lest the +reader should think I was exaggerating—had been +caught. For a real angler or sportsman such a house as that +in which George Borrow spent the latter years of his long life +must have been a perfect paradise. The world is utterly +away from you, and, what is better still, in such a spot the +world has no chance of finding you out. Approaching by +road, you see no sign of the house till you are in it, so +completely is it hidden in the nook of trees in which it +stands. Only to the water is it open. It would be +really beautiful to live there in the summer, and have a gondola +to row into Beccles or Lowestoft or Bungay when you wanted to be +gay.</p> +<p>One good anecdote I heard of George Borrow the last time I was +in the neighbourhood, which is worth repeating. My +informant was an Independent minister, at that time supplying the +pulpit at Lowestoft, and staying at Oulton Hall, then inhabited +by a worthy Dissenting tenant. One <!-- page 67--><a +name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>night a +meeting of the Bible Society was held at Mutford Bridge, at which +the party from the Hall attended, and where George Borrow was one +of the speakers. After the meeting was over, all the +speakers went back to supper at Oulton Hall, and my friend among +them, who, in the course of the supper, found himself attacked +very violently by the clergyman for holding Calvinistic +opinions. Naturally my friend replied that the clergyman +was bound to do the same. ‘How do you make that +out?’ ‘Why, the Articles of your Church are +Calvinistic, and to them you have sworn assent.’ +‘Oh yes, but there is a way of explaining them +away.’ ‘How so?’ said my friend. +‘Oh,’ replied the clergyman, ‘we are not bound +to take the words in their natural sense.’ My friend, +an honest, blunt East Anglian, intimated that he did not +understand that way of evading the difficulty; but he was then a +young man, and did not like to continue the discussion +further. However, George Borrow, who had not said a word +hitherto, entered into the discussion, opening fire on the +clergyman in a very unexpected manner, and giving him such a +setting down as the hearers, at any rate, never forgot. All +the sophistry about the non-natural meaning of terms was held up +by <!-- page 68--><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +68</span>Borrow to ridicule, even contempt; and the clergyman was +beaten at every point. ‘Never,’ says my friend, +‘did I hear one man give another such a dressing as on that +occasion.’ It was not always, however, that Borrow +thus shone. In the neighbourhood of Bungay lived a +gentleman much given to collect around him men of literary taste +and culture. A lecture was to be given in the +neighbourhood, and all the men of light and leading around were +invited. George Borrow was one of the earliest arrivals, +and seated himself before the fire with a book in his hand, over +which he nodded superciliously, as the host brought up all his +guests in succession to be introduced to the lion of the +town. At dinner which followed, which was rather a jovial +one, and at which the bottle went round freely, so loud and +general was the conversation that my friend, a clever lawyer, +with remarkably good ears, was quite unable to catch a sentence +from the great author’s lips. Perhaps Borrow really +did say nothing, or next to nothing. It is quite as likely +that he did as not, as I have already informed the reader that +‘he was a funny-tempered man.’</p> +<p>‘Catherine Gurney,’ writes Caroline Fox, +‘gave us a note to George Borrow, so on him we +called—<!-- page 69--><a name="page69"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 69</span>a tall, ungainly man, with great +physical strength, quick, penetrating eye, a confident manner, +and a disagreeable tone and pronunciation.’ We gather +from the same lady that it was Joseph John Gurney who recommended +George Borrow to the Committee of the Bible Society. +‘So he stalked up to London, and they gave him a hymn to +translate into the Manchow language, and the same to one of their +people to translate also. When compared they proved to be +very different. When put before their reader, he had the +candour to say that Borrow’s was much the better of the +two. On this they sent him to Petersburg to get it printed, +and then gave him business in Portugal.’</p> +<p>One thing is clear—that Borrow was a lonely man, and +evidently one who did not hold the resources of civilization in +such esteem as Mr. Gladstone does. He loved Nature and her +ways, and people like the gipsies, who are supposed to be of a +similar way of thinking. He eschewed the hum of cities and +the roar of the ‘madding crowd.’ He was big in +body and in mind, and wanted elbow-room; and yet what would he +have been if he had not lived in a city, and come under the +stimulative influence of such men as Edward Taylor, of <!-- page +70--><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +70</span>Norwich? It is idle to complain of cities, however +they sully the air, and deface the land, and pollute the water, +and rear the weak and vicious and the wicked—to remind us +how low and depraved human nature can become when it is cut off +from communion with Nature and Nature’s God. Borrow +owed much to cities, and was best appreciated by the men who +dwelt in them. There is often a good deal of affectation +about the love of rural solitude, nor does it often last long +when there is a wife to have a voice in the matter. Yet in +Borrow undoubtedly the feeling was sincere, and of him Wordsworth +might have written—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘As in the eye of Nature he has lived,<br /> +So in the eye of Nature let him die.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Lowestoft was a frequent attraction for a youthful +ramble—perhaps almost too far, unless one could manage to +get a lift in a little yellow-painted black-bodied vehicle called +a whisky, which was grandfather’s property, and into the +shafts of which could be put any spare quadruped, whether donkey, +or mule, or pony, it mattered little, and which afforded a +considerable relief when a trip as far as Lowestoft was +determined on. At that time there was no harbour, and the +town consisted simply of one High Street, gradually rising +towards the north, <!-- page 71--><a name="page71"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 71</span>with a fine space for boys to play in +between the cliff and the sea, called the denes. I can well +remember being taken to view the works of the harbour before the +water was let in, and not a little astonished at what then was to +me a new world of engineering science and skill. In the +High Street there was a little old-fashioned and by no means +flourishing Independent Chapel, where at one time the preacher +was the Rev. Mr. Maurice, the father of the Mr. Maurice to whom +many owe a great awakening of spiritual life, and whose memory +they still regard as that of a beloved and honoured +teacher. Mr. Maurice was a Unitarian, I believe, and, when +he retired, handed over the chapel to my father with the remark +that it was no use his preaching there any longer. The +preacher in my time was the Rev. George Steffe Crisp, a kindly, +timid, tearful man, always in difficulties with his people, and +who often resorted to Wrentham for advice. Latterly he +retired from the ministry, and kept a shop and school. In +this capacity one day my old friend John Childs, of Bungay, the +far-famed printer—of whom I shall have much to say +anon—called on him, when the following dialogue took place: +‘Good-morning, Mr. Crisp.’ ‘Good-morning, +Mr. Childs.’ ‘Well, how <!-- page 72--><a +name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>are you +getting on?’ ‘Oh, very well; but there is one +thing that troubles me much.’ ‘What is +that?’ ‘That I am getting deaf, and can’t +hear my minister.’ ‘Oh,’ was the cynical +reply, ‘you ought to be thankful for your +privileges.’</p> +<p>Lowestoft is reported to have been a fishing station as early +as the time of the Romans; but the ancient town is supposed to +have been long engulfed by the resistless sea, for there was to +be seen till the 25th of Henry VIII. the remains of an old house +upon an inundated spot—left dry at low water about four +furlongs east of the present beach. The town has been the +birthplace of many distinguished men—of Sir Thomas Allen, +for instance, who was steadily attached to the Royal cause, and +who after the Restoration rose high in command, and won many a +victory over the Dutch and the Algerines; of Sir Andrew Leake, +who fell in the attack on Gibraltar; of Rear-Admiral Richard +Utbar, also a renowned fighter when England and Holland were at +war. To the same town also belong Admiral Sir John Ashby, +who died in 1693, and his nephew Vice-Admiral James +Mighells. Nor must we fail to do justice to Thomas Nash, a +facetious writer of considerable reputation in the latter part of +the sixteenth <!-- page 73--><a name="page73"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 73</span>century. The most witty of his +productions is a satirical pamphlet in praise of red herrings, +intended as a joke upon the great staple of Yarmouth, and the +pretensions of that place to superiority over Lowestoft. It +must be confessed that Nash is chiefly famous as a caustic +pamphleteer and an unscrupulous satirist. For illustration +we may point to his battle with Gabriel Harvey, the friend of +Edmund Spenser, who desired that he might be epitaphed the +inventor of the not yet naturalized English hexameter; and his +other battle with Martin Mar Prelate, or the writer or writers +who passed under that name, and who have acquired a reputation to +which poor Nash can lay no claim. His one conspicuous +dramatic effort is ‘Summer’s Last Will and +Testament.’ Nash wrote for bare existence—to +use his own words, ‘contending with the cold, and +conversing with scarcity.’ Nash lived in an +unpropitious age. A recent French writer has placed him in +the foremost rank of English writers. Dr. Jusserand, the +author referred to, in his accounts of the English novel in the +time of Shakespeare, tells us Nash was the most successful +exponent in England of the picturesque novel. The +picturesque novel is the forerunner of the realistic novel of +modern <!-- page 74--><a name="page74"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 74</span>times. It portrays the life and +fortunes of the picaro—the adventurer who tries all roads +to fortune. Spanish in its origin, it developed into a +school in which Defoe and Thackeray distinguished +themselves. ‘Nash,’ writes the French author, +‘mingled serious scenes with his comedy, in order that his +romances might more nearly resemble real life.’ In +fact (he writes), ‘Nash does not only possess the merit of +learning how to observe the ridiculous side of human nature, and +of portraying in a full light picturesque figures—now +worthy of Teniers and now of Callot—some fat and greasy, +others lean and lank; he possesses a thing very rare with the +picturesque school, the faculty of being moved. He seems to +have foreseen the immense field of study which was to be opened +later to the novelist. A distant ancestor of Fielding, as +Lilly and Sidney appear to us to be distant ancestors of +Richardson, he understands that a picture of active life, +reproducing only in the Spanish fashion scenes of comedy, is +incomplete and departs from reality. The greatest jesters, +the most arrogant, the most venturesome, have their days of +anguish. No hero has ever yet remained imprisoned from the +cradle to the grave, and no one has been able to live an +irresponsible spectator, <!-- page 75--><a +name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>and not feel +his heart sometimes beat the quicker, nor bow his head +unmoved. Nash caught a glimpse of this.’ As an +illustration, Dr. Jusserand points to his ‘Jack +Wilton’—‘The best specimen of the picturesque +tale in English literature anterior to Defoe.’ In +Lowestoft they ought to keep his memory green.</p> +<p>The writer well remembers the day when Mr., afterwards Sir, +Morton Peto, assembled the inhabitants of Lowestoft in the then +dilapidated Town Hall, and promised that if they would sell their +ruined harbour works, and back him in making a railway, their +mackerel and herrings should be delivered almost alive in +Manchester, Liverpool, and London. The inhabitants believed +in the power of the enchanter, and Lowestoft is +metamorphosed. The old town remains upon its beautiful +eminence, and memory clings to the cliffs and to the denes, +tenanted only, the one by wild rabbits, the other by the merry +children and the nets of the fishermen. But a new town has +grown up around the harbour—a grand hotel, excellent +lodging-houses, a new church; a great population have upset the +romance, and borne witness to the spirit of enterprise which +characterizes this generation. The new town has spread to +Kirkley, has Londonized even <!-- page 76--><a +name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>quiet +Pakefield, and awakened a sleeping neighbourhood to what men call +life.</p> +<p>At Lowestoft commence what are known to sailors as the +Yarmouth Roads—a grand stretch of sea protected by the +sands, where an armada might anchor secure; and it was a sight +not to be seen now, when gigantic steamers do all the business of +the sea, to watch the hundreds of ships that would come inside +the Roads at certain seasons of the year. There, in the +winter-time—that is, from Lowestoft to Covehithe—I +have seen the beach strewed with wrecks, chiefly of rotten +colliers, or ships in the corn trade; but inside ‘Lowestoft +Roads,’ to which they were guided by a lighthouse on the +cliff, they were supposed to be secure. Lowestoft at that +time, with its charming sands, was little known to the gay world, +and depended far more on the fishing than the bathing +season. The former was a busy time, and kept all the +country round in a state of excitement. Many were the men, +for instance, who, even as far off as Wrentham, went herring or +mackerel fishing in the big craft, which, drawn up on the beach +when the season was over, seemed to me ships such as never had +been seen by the mariners of Tyre and Sidon; but the chief +interest to me were the vans <!-- page 77--><a +name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>in which the +fish were carried from Lowestoft to London—light +spring-carts with four wheels and two horses, that, after +changing horses at our Spread Eagle, raced like lightning along +the turnpike-road, at all hours, and even on Sundays—a sad +grievance to the godly—beating the Yarmouth mail.</p> +<p>Now and then, even at that remote period, when railways were +not, and when Lowestoft was no port, nothing but a +fishing-station, distinguished people came to Lowestoft, +attracted by its bracing air and exceptional bathing +attractions. I can in this way recollect Sir Edward Parry +and M. Guizot. But there were other personages equally +distinguished. One of these was Mrs. Siddons, with whom an +old Dissenting minister—the Rev. S. Sloper, of Beccles, +whom I can well remember—contracted quite an +intimacy. She had already passed the zenith of her +celebrity. ‘Providence,’ writes my friend, Mr. +Wilton Rix, of Beccles, in his ‘East Anglian +Nonconformity,’ published as far back as 1851, ‘had +repeatedly and recently called her to tread in domestic life the +path of sorrow, and her religious advantages, however few, had +taught her that</p> + +<blockquote><p> ‘“That +path alone<br /> +Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 78--><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +78</span>‘“Sweet, sometimes,” said she, +“are the uses of adversity. It not only strengthens +family affection, but it teaches us all to walk humbly with +God.” It is not surprising that she was disposed to +cultivate the society of those who could blend piety with +cheerfulness, and with whom she might be on friendly terms +without ceremony. Such acquaintances she found in Mr. +Sloper’s family. Mrs. Siddons, with unassuming +kindness, contributed to their amusement by specimens of her +powerful reading. She joined willingly in the worship of +the family, and maintained the same invaluable practice at her +own lodgings.’ Mr. Rix continues: ‘Just at that +time Mr. Sloper was requested to preach to his own people on an +affecting and mournful occasion, the death of a suicide. +Though he keenly felt the delicacy and difficulty of the task, a +sense of duty and a possibility of usefulness overcame his +scruples. He selected for his text the impressive sentiment +of the Apostle, “The sorrow of the world worketh +death.” Mrs. Siddons was one of his auditors. +She, who had been the honoured guest of Royalty, who had been +enthroned as the Tragic Muse, and whose voice had charmed +applauding multitudes, was seen in the humble Dissenting +meeting-house at Beccles shedding abundant and unaffected tears +at <!-- page 79--><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +79</span>the plain and faithful exhibition of religious +truth. Mr. Sloper’s preaching was as powerfully +recommended to her by the delightful illustration of Christian +principles exhibited in his private character, as by the +intrinsic importance of those principles, and the simple gravity +and penetrating earnestness with which they were announced from +his lips. He afterwards procured for her, at her request, a +copy of Scott’s admirable “Commentary on the +Bible,” which he accompanied with a letter, warmly urging +upon her attention the great realities her profession had so +manifest a tendency to exclude from her contemplations. +Mrs. Siddons,’ again I quote Mr. Rix, ‘more than once +expressed her gratitude for the interest Mr. Sloper had evinced +in her eternal welfare; she thanked him in writing for the advice +he had given her, adding an emphatic wish that God might enable +her to follow it—a wish which her pious and amiable +correspondent echoed with all the fervour of his heart. She +returned into the glare of popularity, but a hope may easily be +indulged that the pressure of subsequent relative afflictions and +of old age were not permitted to come upon her unaccompanied by +the impressions and consolations of true religion. Her +elegant biographer, Mr. Campbell, draws a veil <!-- page 80--><a +name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>over the +state of her mind during her last hours, which it would be deeply +interesting to penetrate. Would she not then, if reason +were undimmed, reflect upon the faithful counsel she received +with Scott’s Bible as being of infinitely greater value +than the applause of myriads or the fame of ages?’</p> +<p>Beccles, where this good Mr. Sloper lived, and where the +writer of this extract was a respectable solicitor—I +believe the firm of Rix and Son still exists—was a small +market town about eight miles from Wrentham, inland. At +that time it ranked as the third town in Suffolk. Towards +the west it is skirted by a cliff, once washed by the estuary +which separated the eastern portions of Norfolk and +Suffolk. There is every reason to believe that ages back +the mouth of the Yare was an estuary or arm of the sea, and +extended with considerable magnitude for many miles up the +country. The herring fishery was thus a principal source of +emolument to the inhabitants, and in the time of the Conqueror +the fee farm rent of the manor of Beccles to the King was 60,000 +herrings, and in the time of the Confessor 20,000. About +956 the manor and advowson of Beccles were granted by King Edwy +to the monks of Bury, and remained in <!-- page 81--><a +name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>their +possession until the dissolution of the religious houses under +Henry VIII.</p> +<p>As I have said, and as I repeat, in these languid +days—when the old creeds have lost their power and the old +bottles are bursting with new wine—the glory of East Anglia +was that it was the first to stand up in the face of priest or +king for the truth—or what it held to be such. +Amongst the early martyrs under Mary were three burnt at +Beccles—Thomas Spicer, of Winston, labourer, John Deny, and +Edmond Poole. This was in the year 1556. Their crime +in the indictment, drawn up by Dr. Hopton, Bishop of Norwich, and +his Chancellor, Dunning, according to Fox, was:</p> +<p>‘1. First was articulate against them that they +belieued not the Pope of Rome to bee supreame head immediately in +Christ on earth of the Universall Catholike Church.</p> +<p>‘2. That they belieued not holie bread and holie +water, ashes, palmes, and all other like ceremonies used in the +Church to bee good and laudable for stirring up the people to +devotion.</p> +<p>‘3. Item that they belieued not afterwards of +consecration spoken by the priest, the very naturall body of +Christ, and no other substance of bread and wine to bee in the +Sacrament of the altar.</p> +<p><!-- page 82--><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +82</span>‘4. Item that they belieued it to bee +idolatry to worship Christ in the Sacrament of the altar.</p> +<p>‘5. Item that they tooke bread and wine in +remembrance of Christ’s Passion.</p> +<p>‘6. Item that they would not followe the crosse in +procession nor bee confessed to a priest.</p> +<p>‘7. Item that they affirmed no mortal man to have +in himself free will to do good or evill.’</p> +<p>It appears that the writ had not come down, nevertheless these +brave men were burnt at the stake. ‘When they +came,’ continues Fox, ‘to the reciting of the creed, +Sir John Silliard spake to them, “That is well said, +sirs. I am glad to heare you saie you do belieue the +Catholike Church; that is the best word I heard of you +yet.”</p> +<p>‘To which his sayings Edmond Poole answered, +“Though they belieue the Catholike Church, yet do they not +belieue in their Popish Church, which is no part of +Christ’s Catholike Church, and, therefore, no part of their +beliefe.”</p> +<p>‘When they rose from praier they all went joyfullie to +the stake, and, being bound thereto, and the fire burning about +them, they praised God in such an audible voice that it was +wonderful to all those who stood bye and heard them. Then +one Robert Bacon, dwelling in the said Beccles, a <!-- page +83--><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>very +enemy to God’s truth, and a persecutor of His people, being +then present, within the hearing thereof willed the tormentors to +throwe on faggots to stop the knaues breathes, as he termed them; +so hot was his burning charitie. But these good men, not +regarding their malice, confessed the truth, and yielded their +lives to the death for the testimonie of the same very +gloriouslie and joyfullie.’</p> +<p>These men were the precursors of that Nonconformity which has +made England the home of the free, and such men abounded in East +Anglia. Under Queen Elizabeth they had as bad a time of it +almost as under Queen Mary. For instance, we find under Dr. +Freke, Bishop of Norwich, and in the reign of glorious Queen +Bess, as her admirers term her, Mathew Hammond, a poor +ploughwright, of Hethersett, was condemned as a heretic, had his +ears cut off, and after the lapse of a week was committed, in the +Castle ditch at Norwich, to the more agonizing torment of the +flames. The translation of Dr. Whitgift to the See of +Canterbury was the signal for augmented rigour. He was +charged by his imperious mistress to restore religious +uniformity, which she confessed, notwithstanding all her +precautions, ran out of square. One of the <!-- page +84--><a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>first +victims to this new <i>régime</i> was William Fleming, +Rector of Beccles. The living of Beccles at this period was +vested in Lady Anne Gresham, the widow of Sir Thomas Gresham, the +founder of the Royal Exchange. Previously to her marriage, +she was the widow of William Rede, merchant, of London and +Beccles. Under James I. and Bishop Wren, men of integrity +and conscience fared worse than under Queen Elizabeth, and +naturally the people thus persecuted formed themselves into a +Church. That in Beccles dated from 1652, and in the +covenant drawn up on the occasion we find it was resolved:</p> +<p>‘1. That we will for ever acknowledge and admit +the Lord to be our God in Jesus Christ, giving up ourselves to +Him to be His people.</p> +<p>‘2. That we will alwaies endevour, through the +grace of God assisting us, to walke in all His waies and +ordinances, according to His written Word, which is the only +sufficient rule of good life for every man. Neither will we +suffer ourselves to be polluted by any sinful waies, either +publike or private, but endeavour to abstaine from the very +appearance of evill, giving no offence to the Jew or Gentile, or +the Churches of Christ.</p> +<p>‘3. That we will humbly and willingly submit <!-- +page 85--><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +85</span>ourselves to the government of Christ in this +Church—in the administration of the Word, the seals, and +discipline.</p> +<p>‘4. That we will in all love approve our communion +as brethren by watching over one another, and as such shall be; +counsel, administer, relieve, assist, and bear with one another, +serving one another in love.</p> +<p>‘5. Lastly, we do not covenant or promise these +things in our own, but in Christ’s strength; neither do we +confine ourselves to the words of this covenant, but shall at all +time account it our duty to embrace any further light or covenant +which shall be revealed to us out of God’s Word.’</p> +<p>This covenant, however, was not to prevent in after time +censure being cast on others who, endeavouring to preserve its +spirit, were led to think differently from the majority. +For instance, we find in 1656 two persons, who had been members +of the Independent church at Beccles, received adult baptism, and +in so doing were considered to have given ‘offence’ +to the church, and were desired to appear and give an account of +their practices.</p> +<p>At one time there was little of what we know as congregational +singing. In 1657 it was agreed by the Beccles church +‘that they do put in <!-- page 86--><a +name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>practice the +ordinance of singing in the publick upon the forenoon and +afternoon of the Lord’s daies, and that it be between +praier and sermon; and also it was agreed that the New England +translation of the Psalmes be made use of by the church at their +times of breaking of bread, and it was agreed that the next +Lord’s day, seventh night, might be the day to enter upon +the work of singing in publick.’ It is interesting to +note that one of the pastors of the Beccles church was a Mr. +Nokes, who had been trained—where Calamy and many others +were trained—at the University of Utrecht, and that in the +same year in which Dr. Watts accepted the pastoral office, he +addressed to Mr. Nokes a poem on ‘Friendship,’ which +is still included in the Doctor’s works. Dissent, +when I was a boy, was considered low. We were +contemptuously termed ‘pograms,’ a term of reproach +the origin of which I have never learnt. The landed gentry, +the small squires, the lawyers and the doctors, and the +tradespeople who pandered to their prejudices and fattened on +their patronage, were slow to say a word in favour of a +Dissenter. The poor who went to chapel were excluded from +many benefits enjoyed by their fellow-parishioners. It was +the fashion to treat them with scorn, yet I <!-- page 87--><a +name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>have heard +one of the most excellent and finished gentlemen in the district +declare that he heard better talk in my father’s parlour +than he did anywhere else in the neighbourhood, and I can well +believe it, for the Dissenting minister, as a rule, at that time, +was a better read man, and a more studious one, than the +clergyman of the district, in spite of his University education; +and in matters affecting the welfare of the nation, and that came +under the denomination of politics, his views were far more +rational than those of Churchmen in general, and the clergy in +particular. We learn from Milton’s State Papers that +the churches of East Anglia petitioned Oliver Cromwell that the +three nations might enjoy the blessings of a godly, upright +magistracy; that they might have Courts of Judicature in their +own country; and that honest men of known fidelity and +uprightness might be authorized to determine trivial matters of +debt or difference. Assuredly the East Anglian +saints—the latter term was, and, strange to say, is still, +used as a term of reproach—were wise and right-thinking men +where Church government and public policy were concerned. +We love to read the story of the Pilgrim Fathers. With what +rapture Mrs. Hemans wrote:</p> +<blockquote><p><!-- page 88--><a name="page88"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 88</span>‘What sought they thus afar?<br +/> + Bright jewels of the mine?<br /> +The wealth of seas? the spoils of war?<br /> + They sought a faith’s pure shrine.</p> +<p>‘Ay, call it holy ground,<br /> + The soil where first they trod;<br /> +They left unstained what there they found—<br /> + <span class="smcap">Freedom to worship +God</span>.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But it seems to me that a greater glory was won by, and a +greater honour should be paid to, the men who did not cross the +Atlantic; who did not seek an asylum in a foreign land; who +remained at home to suffer—to die, if need be, to uphold +the rights of conscience, and to fight the good fight of +faith. It is not even in our tolerant, and, as we deem it, +more enlightened day, that full justice is done to these +men. In what calls itself good society you meet men and +women whose ancestors were Dissenters, and yet who are ashamed of +the fact—a fact of which no one can be ashamed who feels +how in East Anglia, at any rate, the religious teaching of +Dissent purified the life of the people, enlarged their political +views, and helped this great land of ours to sweep into a better +and a younger day.</p> +<h2><!-- page 89--><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +89</span>CHAPTER IV.<br /> +<span class="smcap">politics and theology</span>.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Homerton academy—W. Johnson Fox, +M.P.—Politics in 1830—Anti-Corn Law +speeches—Wonderful oratory.</p> +<p>About 1830 there was, if not a good deal of actual light let +into such dark places as our Suffolk village—where it was +considered the whole duty of man, as regards the poor, to attend +church and make a bow to their betters (a rustic ceremony +generally performed by pulling the lock of hair on the forehead +with the right hand), and to be grateful for the wretched station +of life in which they were placed—at any rate, a great +shaking among the dry bones. One summer morning an awe fell +on the parish as it ran from one to another that the guard of the +Yarmouth and London Royal Mail had left word with the ostler at +the Spread Eagle that George the Fourth was dead; then a certain +dull sound as of cannon firing afar off had been wafted across +the German Ocean, and had <!-- page 90--><a +name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>given rise to +mysterious speculations on the subject of Continental wars, in +which Suffolk lads might have to ‘’list’ as +‘sogers’; and last of all there came that grand +excitement when—North and South, East and West—the +nation rose as one man to demand political and Parliamentary +Reform. It was a delusion, perhaps, that cry, but it was a +glorious one, nevertheless; that the millennium could be delayed +when we had Parliamentary Reform no one for a moment +doubted. The sad but undeniable fact that mostly men are +fools with whom beer is omnipotent had not then entered into +men’s minds, and thus England and Scotland some sixty years +ago wore an aspect of activity and enthusiasm of which the +present generation can have no idea, and which, perhaps, can +never occur again.</p> +<p>Far away in the distant city which the Suffolk villagers +called Lunnon, there was a Suffolk lad, whose relations kept a +very little shop just by us, who was born at +Uggeshall—pronounced Ouchell by the common people—on +a very small farm, and who, as Unitarian preacher and newspaper +writer, had been and was doing his best in the good cause; but it +was not the influence of W. Johnson Fox—for it is of him I +write—that did much in our little <!-- page 91--><a +name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>village to +leaven the mass with the leaven of Reform. While quite a +lad the Foxes went to Norwich, where the future preacher and +teacher worked as a weaver boy. In after-years it was often +my privilege to meet Mr. Fox, who had then attained no small +share of London distinction, amongst whose hearers were men, +often many of the most distinguished <i>literati</i> of the +day—such as Dickens and Forster—and who was actually +to sit in Parliament as M.P. for Oldham, where, old as he +was—and Mr. Gladstone says, ‘People who wish to +succeed in Parliament should enter it young’—he +occupied a most respectable position, all the more creditable +when you remember that Parliament, even at that recent date, was +a far more select and aristocratic assembly than any Parliament +of our day, or of the future, can possibly be. Mr. Fox had +been educated at Homerton Academy—as such places were then +termed (college is the word we use now)—under the good and +venerable Dr. Pye-Smith, whose ‘Scripture Testimony to the +Messiah’ was supposed to have given Unitarianism a deadly +blow, but whom I chiefly remember as a very deaf old man, and one +of the first to recognise the fact that the Bible and geology +were not necessarily opposed to each other, <!-- page 92--><a +name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>and to +welcome and proclaim the truth—at that time received with +fear and trembling, if received at all—that the God of +Nature and the God of Revelation were the same. There was a +good deal of free inquiry at Homerton Academy, which, however, +Mr. Fox assured me, gradually subsided into the right amount of +orthodoxy as the time came for the student to exchange his sure +and safe retreat for the fiery ordeal of the deacon and the +pew. My father and Johnson Fox had been fellow-students, +and for some time corresponded together. The correspondence +in due time, however, naturally ceased, as it was chiefly +controversial, and nothing can be more irksome than for two +people who have made up their minds, and whom nothing can change, +to be arguing continually, and the friendship between them in +some sense ceased as the one remained firm to, and the other +wandered farther and farther from, the modified Calvinism of the +Wrentham Church and pulpit, where, as in all orthodox pulpits at +that time, it was taught that men were villains by necessity, and +fools, as it were, by a Divine thrusting on; that for some a +Saviour had been crucified, that there might be a way of escape +from the wrath of an angry and unforgiving God; whilst for the +<!-- page 93--><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>vast mass—to whom the name of Christ had never +been made known, to whom the Bible had never been +sent—there was an impending doom, the awful horror of which +no tongue could tell, no imagination conceive. But to the +last Mr. Fox—especially if you met him with his +old-fashioned hat on in the street—looked far more of a +Puritan divine than of the literary man, or the chief of the +advanced thinkers in Church and State, or an M.P. At a +later time what pleasure it gave me to listen to this +distinguished East Anglian as he appeared at the crowded +Anti-Corn Law meetings held in Covent Garden or Drury Lane! +Ungainly in figure, monotonous in tone, almost without a particle +of action, regarded as free in his religious opinions by the vast +majority of his audience, who were, at that time, prone, even in +London, to hold that Orthodoxy, like Charity, covered a multitude +of sins. What an orator he was! How smoothly the +sentences fell from his lips one after the other; with what happy +wit did he expose Protectionist fallacies, or enunciate Free +Trade principles, which up to that time had been held as the +special property of the philosopher, far too subtle to be +understood and appreciated by the mob! With what felicity +did he illustrate his weighty theme; with <!-- page 94--><a +name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>what +clearness did he bring home to the people the wrong and injustice +done to every one of them by the landlord’s attempt to keep +up his rent by a tax on corn; and then with what glowing +enthusiasm did they wait and listen for the climax, which, if +studied, and perhaps artificial, seemed like the ocean wave to +grow grander and larger the nearer it came, till it fell with +resistless force on all around. It seems to me like a +dream, all that distant and almost unrecorded past. I see +no such meetings, I hear no such orators now. As Mr. +Disraeli said of Lord Salisbury when he was Lord Robert Cecil, +there was a want of finish about his style, and the remark holds +good of the orator of to-day as contrasted with the platform +speaker of the past. It is impossible to fancy anyone in +our sober age attempting, to say nothing of succeeding in the +attempt (my remarks, of course, do not apply to Irish audiences +or Irish orators), to get an audience to rise <i>en masse</i> and +swear never to fold their arms, never to relax their efforts, +till their end was gained and victory won; yet Mr. Fox did so, +and long as I live shall I remember the night when, in response +to his impassioned appeal, the whole house—and it was +crowded to the ceiling—rose, ladies in the boxes, decent +City men in the pit, gods in <!-- page 95--><a +name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>the +gallery—to swear never to tire, never to rest, never to +slacken, till the peasant at the plough, the cotton-spinner in +the mill, the collier in the mine, the lone widow stitching for +life far into the early morning in her wretched garret, and the +pauper in his still more wretched cellar, ate their untaxed +loaf. As the ‘Publicola’ of the <i>Weekly +Dispatch</i>, Mr. Fox laboured to the end of his life in the good +cause of Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform. It is not right +that his memory should remain unrecorded—his life assuredly +was an interesting one. Harriet Martineau writes in her +autobiography that ‘his editorial correspondence with me +was unquestionably the reason, and in great measure the cause, of +the greatest intellectual progress I ever made before the age of +thirty.’</p> +<p>But it was not from William Johnson Fox that at that time came +to our small village the grain of light that was to leaven the +lump around. Lecturing and oratory, and even public +tea-meetings, were things almost unknown. Now and then a +deputation from the London Missionary Society came to Wrentham, +and in this way I remember William Ellis, then a missionary from +Madagascar, and Mr. George Bennett, who, in conjunction with the +Rev. Mr. Tyerman, had been on a tour of <!-- page 96--><a +name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 96</span>inspection to +the islands of the South Seas, and to whose tales of travel +rustic audiences listened with delight. Once upon a +time—but that was later—the Religious Tract Society +sent a deputation in the shape of a well-known travelling +secretary, Mr. Jones. This Mr. Jones was inclined to +corpulency, and I can well remember how we all laughed when, on +one occasion, the daughter of a neighbouring minister, having +opened the door in reply to his knock, ran delightedly into her +papa’s study to announce the arrival of the Tract +Society!</p> +<p>A great impression was also made in all parts of the country +by the occasional appearances of the Anti-Slavery Society’s +lecturers. In 1831, as Sir G. Stephen tells us, the younger +section of the Anti-Slavery body resolved to stir up the country +by sending lecturers to the villages and towns of the +country. The M.P.’s did not much like it. The +idea was novel to them. ‘Trust to Parliament,’ +said they; the outsiders replied, ‘Trust to the +people.’ This scheme of agitation, however, was +rejected, and would have fallen to the ground had not a +benevolent Quaker of the name of Cropper come forward. +‘Friend S., what money dost thou want?’ +‘I want £20,000, but I will <!-- page 97--><a +name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>begin if I +can get one.’ ‘Then, I will give thee +£500.’ Joseph Sturge immediately followed with +a promise of £250, and Mr. Wilberforce twenty guineas; and +£1,000 was raised, and competent agents sent out. It +proved by no means an easy matter to obtain these lecturers, for +their duty was not confined to lecturing; they had also to revive +drooping anti-slavery societies and to establish new ones. +Also they were to have collections at the end of every +lecture. One of them who came to Wrentham was Captain +Pilkington. ‘Pilkington,’ writes Sir George +Stephen, ‘was a pleasing lecturer, and won over many by his +amiable manners; but he wanted power, and resigned in six +months.’ We in Wrentham, however, did not think so, +and I can to this day recall the sensation he created in our +rustic minds as he described the horrors of slavery, and showed +us the whip and chains by which those horrors were caused. +To the Dissenting chapel most of these lecturers were indebted +for their audience, and if I ever worked hard as a boy, it was to +get signatures to anti-slavery petitions. Naturally, a +Church parson came to regard all that was attacked by Reformers +as a bulwark of the Establishment, and in our part the +Meetingers’ were the sole friends of the slave.</p> +<p><!-- page 98--><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +98</span>As was to be expected, the reading of the village was of +the most limited description. It is true we children jumped +for joy as once a month came the carrier’s cart from +Beccles, with the books for the club—the <i>Evangelical +Magazine</i>, for all the principal families of the congregation, +and the <i>Penny Magazine</i> and <i>Chambers’s +Journal</i>—then but in their infancy—for ourselves; +but, apart from that, there was no reading worth +mentioning. That which most astonishes the tourist in +Ireland is the way in which people read the newspapers. In +our Suffolk village the very reverse was the case, partly because +there were few newspapers to read, partly because there were few +to read them, and partly because they were dear to buy. The +one paper which we took in was the <i>Suffolk Chronicle</i>, +which made its appearance on Saturday morning, the price of which +was sixpence, and which was edited by a sturdy Radical of the +name of King, who to the last held to the belief that to have a +London letter full of literary or critical talk for the Suffolk +farmers was, not to put too fine a point on it, to throw pearls +before swine. And perhaps he was right. I can well +remember, when one of my early poetical contributions appeared in +its columns, how a fear was expressed to me by a farmer’s +widow in <!-- page 99--><a name="page99"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 99</span>our parish, lest ‘it had cost +me a lot o’ money’ to have that effort of my muse in +print. Mr. Childs, of Bungay, had many experiences, equally +rustic and still more illustrative of the simplicity of the +class. Once upon a time one of them came in a great state +of excitement for a copy of the ‘Life of Mr. General +Gazetteer.’ On another occasion a farmer’s wife +came in search of a Testament. She wanted it directly, and +she wanted it of a large type. A specimen was selected, +which met with the worthy woman’s approval. But the +question was, could she have it in half an hour, as she would be +away for that time shopping in the town, and would call for it on +her return. She was told that she could, and great was her +astonishment when, on calling on her return for the Testament, +there it was, printed in the particular type she had selected, +ready for her use.</p> +<p>I have a very strong idea that the calm of the country and the +peaceful occupations of the people had not a very rousing +influence upon the intellect. I may go further, and say +that the cares of the farm, when high farming was unknown, did +not much lift at that time the master above the man. The +latter wore a smock-frock, while the former, perhaps, sported a +blue coat with brass buttons, and had rather a better kind of +head-dress, and <!-- page 100--><a name="page100"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 100</span>ambled along on a little steady cob, +that knew at which ale-house to call for the regular allowance, +quite as well as his master. But as regards +talk—which was chiefly of bullocks and pigs—well, +there really was no very great difference after all. To +such religion was the mainspring which kept the whole intellect +going; and religion was to be had at the meeting. And I can +well remember how strange it seemed to me that these rough, +simple, untutored sons of the soil could speak of it with +enthusiasm, and could pray, at any rate, with astonishing +fervour. Away from the influence of the meeting-house there +existed a Bœotian state of mind, only to be excited by +appeals to the senses of the most palpable character, a state of +mind in which faith—the evidence of things not seen, +according to Paul—was quite out of the question; and I +regret to say that, notwithstanding the activity of the last +fifty years and the praiseworthy and laborious efforts of the +East Anglian clergy in all quarters, suitably to rouse and feed +the intellect of the East Anglian peasantry, a good deal yet +remains to be done. Only a year or two ago, riding on an +omnibus in a Suffolk village, the driver asked me if people could +go to America by land. ‘Of course not,’ was my +reply. ‘Why do you ask such a <!-- page 101--><a +name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>question?’ Well, it came out that he had +‘heerd tell how people got to Americay in ten days; and he +did not see how they could do that unless they went by land, and +had good hosses to get ’em there at that time.’ +On my explaining the real state of affairs, he admitted, by way +of apology, that he was not much of a traveller himself. +Once he had been to Colchester; but that was a long time ago.</p> +<p>But to return to the <i>Suffolk Chronicle</i>. It was my +duty as a lad, when it had been duly studied at home, to take it +to the next subscriber, and I fancy by the time the paper had +gone its round it was not a little the worse for wear. But +there were other political impulses which tended to create and +feed the sacred flame of civil and religious liberty. In +one corner of the village lived a small shopkeeper, who stored +away, among his pots and pans of treacle and sugar and grocery, a +few well-thumbed copies, done up in dirty brown paper, of the +squibs and caricatures published by Hone, whom I can just +remember, a red-faced old gentleman in black, in the +<i>Patriot</i> office, and George Cruikshank, with whom I was to +spend many a merry hour in after-life. This small +shopkeeper was one of the chapel people—a kind of +superintendent in the Sunday-school, for which office he <!-- +page 102--><a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +102</span>was by no means fitted, but there was no one else to +take the berth, and as the family also dealt with him in many +ways, I had often to repair to his shop. It was then our +young eyes were opened as to the wickedness in high places by the +perusal of the ‘Political House that Jack built,’ and +other publications of a similar revolutionary character. +Nothing is sacred to the caricaturist, and half a century ago +bishops and statesmen and lords and kings were very fair subjects +for the exercise of his art. In our day things have changed +for the better, partly as the result of the Radical efforts, of +which respectability at that time stood so much in awe. +London newspapers rarely reached so far as Wrentham. It was +the fashion then to look to Ipswich for light and leading. +However, as the cry for reform increased in strength, and the +debates inside the House of Commons and out waxed fiercer, now +and then even a London newspaper found its way into our house, +and I can well remember how our hearts glowed within us as some +one of us read, while father smoked his usual after-dinner pipe, +previous to going out to spend the afternoon visiting his sick +and afflicted; and how such names as Earl Grey, and Lord John +Russell, and Lord Brougham—the people then called him <!-- +page 103--><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +103</span>Harry Brougham; it was a pity that he was ever anything +else—were familiar in our mouths as household words.</p> +<p>In another way also there came to the children in Wrentham the +growing perception of a larger world than that in which we lived, +and moved, and had our being. One of the historic sites of +East Anglia is Framlingham, a small market town, lying a little +off the highroad to London, a few miles from what always seemed +to me the very uninteresting village of Needham Market, though at +one time Godwin, the author of ‘Caleb Williams,’ +preached in the chapel there. There is now a public school +for Suffolk boys at Framlingham, and it may yet make a noise in +the world. Framlingham in our time has given London Mr. +Jeaffreson, a successful man of letters, and Sir Henry Thompson, +a still more successful surgeon. In my young days it was +chiefly noted for its castle. The mother of that amiable +and excellent lady, Mrs. Trimmer, also came from Framlingham; and +it is to be hoped that the old town may have had something to do +with the formation of the character of a woman whom now we should +sneer at, perhaps, as goody-goody, but who, when George the Third +was King, did much for the education and improvement <!-- page +104--><a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>of +the young. I read in Mrs. Trimmer’s life ‘that +her father was a man of an excellent understanding, and of great +piety; and so high was his reputation for knowledge of divinity, +and so exemplary his moral conduct, that, as an exception to +their general rule, which admitted no laymen, he was chosen +member of a clerical club in the town (Ipswich) in which he +resided. From him,’ continues the biographer of the +daughter, ‘she imbibed the purest sentiments of religion +and virtue, and learnt betimes the fundamental principles of +Christianity.’ Well, it is hoped Mr. Kirby did his +best for his daughter; but, after all, how much more potent is +the influence of a mother! And hence I may claim for +Framlingham a fair share in the formation of even so burning and +shining a light as Mrs. Trimmer.</p> +<p>The name Framlingham, say the learned, or did say—for +what learned men say at one time does not always correspond with +what they say at another—is composed of two Saxon words, +signifying the habitation of strangers; and to strangers the +place is still rich in interest. In its church sleeps the +unfortunate, but heroic, Earl of Surrey, whose harmonious verse +still delights the students of English literature. Some say +he was born at <!-- page 105--><a name="page105"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 105</span>Framlingham. This is matter of +doubt; but there is no doubt about the fact that he was buried +there by his son, the Earl of Northampton, who erected a handsome +monument to his father’s memory. The monument is an +elevated tomb, with the Earl’s arms and those of his lady +in the front in the angles, and with an inscription in the +centre. It has his effigy in armour, with an ermined +mantle, his feet leaning against a lion couchant. On his +left is his lady in black, with an ermined mantle and a +coronet. Both have their hands held up as in prayer. +On a projecting plinth in front is the figure of his second son, +the Earl of Northampton, in armour, with a mantle of ermine, +kneeling in prayer. Behind, in a similar plinth, kneeling +with a coronet, and in robes, is his eldest daughter, Jane, +Countess of Westmoreland, on the right; and his third daughter +Catherine, the wife of Lord Henry Berkeley on the left. The +monument is kept in order, and painted occasionally, as directed +by the Earl of Northampton, out of the endowment of his hospital +at Greenwich. In repairing the monument in October, 1835, +the Rev. George Attwood, curate of Framlingham, discovered the +remains of the Earl lying embedded in clay, directly under his +figure on his tomb. It is <!-- page 106--><a +name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 106</span>difficult +now to find what high treason the chivalrous and poetic and +gallant Earl had been guilty of; but at that time our eighth +Henry ruled the land, and if he wished anyone out of the way, he +had not far to go for witnesses or judge or jury ready to do his +wicked and wanton will. To the shame of England be it said, +the Earl of Surrey was beheaded when he was only thirty years of +age. No particulars are preserved of his deportment in +prison or on the scaffold, but from the noble spirit he evinced +at his trial, and from his general character, it cannot be +doubted that he behaved in the last scene of his existence with +fortitude and dignity. On the barbarous injustice to which +he was sacrificed comment is unnecessary; but regret at his early +fate is increased by the circumstance that Henry was in +extremities when he ordered his execution, and that his swollen +and enfeebled hands were unequal to the task of signing his +death-warrant. In this respect more fortunate was the +father of Surrey, the Duke of Norfolk, who is buried near the +altar of the church at Framlingham. He also was condemned +to death, but in the meanwhile the King died, and his victim was +set free. Not far off is the tomb of Henry Fitzroy, a +natural son of King Henry. He <!-- page 107--><a +name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>was a +friend of Surrey, and was to have married his sister. The +other monuments which adorn the interior of this magnificent +church are a table of black marble, supported by angels, to the +memory of Sir Robert Hitcham, a mural monument by Roubillac, and +others to commemorate virtues and graces, as embodied in the +lives of decent men and women in whom the world has long ceased +to take any interest.</p> +<p>The venerable castle—here I quote Dr. Dugdale’s +‘British Traveller’—with its eventful history, +imparts the strongest interest to the town of Framlingham. +Tradition refers its origin to the sixth century, and ascribes it +to Redwald, one of the early Saxon monarchs. St. Edmund the +Martyr fled hither in 870, and was besieged by the Danes, who +took Framlingham and held it fifty years. The Norman King +gave the castle to the Bigods. The castle passed through +many hands. It was there Queen Mary took shelter when, +after the death of Edward VI., Lady Jane Grey was called to the +throne, and thence she came to London, on the capture of the +former, to take possession of the crown. It was an evil day +for England when she came to Framlingham Castle and beguiled the +hearts of the Suffolk men. Old <!-- page 108--><a +name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>Fox tells +us that when Mary had returned to her castle at Framlingham there +resorted to her ‘the Suffolke men, who, being alwayes +forward in promoting the proceedings of the Gospel, promised her +their aid and help, so that she would not attempt the alteration +of the religion which her brother, King Edward, had before +established by laws and orders publickly enacted, and received by +the consent of the whole realm in his behalf. She +afterwards agreed with such promise made unto them that no +innovation should be made of religion, as that no man would or +could then have misdoubted her. “Victorious by the +aid of the Suffolke men,” Queen Mary soon forgot her +promise. They of course remonstrated. It was, +methinks,’ adds Fox, ‘an heavie word that she +answered to the Suffolke men afterwards which did make +supplication unto her grace to performe her promise. +“For so much,” saith she, “as you being but +members desire to rule your head, you shall one day perceive the +members must obey their head, and not look to rule over the +same.”’ Well, Queen Mary was as good as her +word. As Fox adds, ‘What she performed on her part +the thing itself and the whole story of the persecution doth +testifie.’ But the stubborn Suffolk gospellers were +<!-- page 109--><a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +109</span>not to be put down, and a remnant had been left in +Framlingham, as well as in other parts of the country. At +Framlingham we find a Richard Goltie, son-in-law of Samuel Ward, +of Ipswich, was instituted to the rectory in 1630. In 1650 +he refused the engagement to submit to the then existing +Government, and was removed, when Henry Sampson, M.A., a fellow +of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, was appointed by his college to the +vacancy. He continued there till the Restoration, when Mr. +Goltie returned and took possession of the living, which he +continued to hold till his death. Not being satisfied to +conform, Mr. Sampson continued awhile preaching at Framlingham to +those who were attached to his ministry, in private houses and +other buildings, and by his labours laid the foundation of the +Congregational or Independent Church in that town, as appears +from a note in the Church Book belonging to the Dissenters +meeting at Woodbridge, in the Quay Lane. Mr. Sampson +collected materials for a history of Nonconformity, a great part +of which is incorporated in Calamy and Palmer’s +works. It was to him that John Fairfax, of Needham Market, +wrote, when he and some other ministers were shut up in Bury Gaol +for the crime of preaching the Gospel. <!-- page 110--><a +name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>It appears +that they had met in the parish church, at Walsham-le-Willows, +where, after the liturgy was read by the clergyman of the parish, +a sermon was preached by a non-licensed minister. The party +were then taken and committed to prison, where they remained till +the next Quarter Sessions, when they were released upon their +recognisances to appear at the next Assizes. Then, it +seems, though not convicted upon any other offence, upon the +suggestion of the justices, to whom they were strangers, they +were committed again to prison, on the plea that <i>they were +persons dangerous to the public peace</i>. Thus were +Dissenters treated in the good old times. Mr. Sampson seems +to have fared somewhat better. After his removal, he +travelled on the Continent, returned to London, entered himself +at the College of Physicians, and lived and died in good +repute. The old congregation having become Unitarian, a new +one was formed, and of this Church a pillar was Mr. Henry +Thompson—a gentleman well known and widely honoured in his +day. This Mr. Thompson had a son, who was sent to Wrentham +to be educated for awhile with myself. An uncle of his, one +of the most amiable of men, lived at Southwold, close by, and I +presume it was by his means that the settlement was <!-- page +111--><a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +111</span>effected. Be that as it may, the change was a +welcome one, as it gave me a pleasant companion for nearly five +years of boyish life. I confess my two sisters—one of +whom has, alas! long been in her grave—did all they could +in the way of sports and pastimes to meet my wants and wishes, +and act like boys; but the fact is, though it may be doubted in +these days of Women’s Rights, girls are not boys, nor can +they be expected to behave as such.</p> +<p>I confess the advent of this young Thompson from Framlingham +was a great event in our small family circle. In the first +place he came from a town, and that at once gave him a marked +superiority. Then his father kept a horse and gig, for it +was thus young Thompson came to Wrentham, and all the world over +a gig has been a symbol of the respectability dear to the British +heart; and he had been for that time and as an only son carefully +and intelligently trained by one of the family who, in the person +of the late Edward Miall, founder of the <i>Nonconformist</i>, +and M.P. for Bradford, was supposed to be the incarnation of what +was termed the dissidence of Dissent. Young Thompson was +also what would be called a genteel youth, and gave me ideas as +to wearing straps to my trousers, oiling my hair, and generally +adorning <!-- page 112--><a name="page112"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 112</span>my person, which had never entered +into my unsophisticated head. He also had been to London, +and as Framlingham was some twenty miles nearer the +Metropolis—the centre of intelligence—than Wrentham, +the intelligence of a Framlingham lad was of course expected, +<i>à fortiori</i>, to be of a stronger character than that +of one born twenty miles farther from the sun of London. +There was also a good deal of talent in the family on the +mother’s side. Mrs. Thompson was a Miss Medley, and +Mr. Medley was an artist of great merit, the son of Mr. Medley, +of Liverpool, a leading Baptist minister in his day, and a writer +of hymns still sung in Baptist churches. Mr. Medley was +also active as a Liberal, and was credited by us boys with a +personal acquaintance with no less illustrious an individual than +the great Brougham himself. Once or twice he came to lodge +during the summer at Southwold; naturally he was visited there by +his grandson, who would return well primed with political +anecdote to our rustic circle, and was deemed by me more of an +authority than ever. Once or twice, too, I had the honour +of being a visitor, and heard Mr. Medley, a fine old gentleman, +who lived to a very advanced age, talk of art and artists and +other matters quite out of <!-- page 113--><a +name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 113</span>my usual +sphere. It is not surprising, then, that the grandson +became in time quite an artist himself, though he is better known +to the world, not so much in that capacity, but as Sir Henry +Thompson, certainly not the least distinguished surgeon of our +day. In Lord Beaconsfield’s last novel, +‘Endymion,’ we have a passing reference to one +Wrentham lad, Sir Charles Wetherell, as ‘the eccentric and +too uncompromising Wetherell.’ Assuredly the fame of +another lad, Sir Henry Thompson, connected with Wrentham, will +longer live.</p> +<p>This reference to Sir Henry Thompson reminds me of his early +attempts at rhyme, which I trust he will forgive me for rescuing +from oblivion. Once upon a time we captured a young cuckoo, +and having carefully gorged it with bread-and-milk, and left it +in a nest in an outhouse, which we devoted mainly to rabbits, the +next morning the poor bird was found to be dead. A prize +was offered for the best couplet. Three of us +contended. My sister wrote:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘This lonely sepulchre contains<br /> +A little cuckoo’s dead remains.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I wrote:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘To our grief, cuckoo sweet<br /> +Is lying underneath our feet.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 114--><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +114</span>Thompson took quite a different and, read by the light +of his subsequent career, a far more characteristic view of the +case. He took care, as a medical man, to dwell on the cause +which had terminated the career of so interesting a bird. +According to him,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘It had a breast as soft as silk,<br /> +And died of eating bread-and-milk.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Assuredly in this case the child was father to the man.</p> +<p>But the great awakening of the time, that which made the dry +bones live, and fluttered the dove-cotes of Toryism—we +never heard the word Conservative then—was the General +Election. At that time we were always having General +Elections. We had one, of course, when George IV. died and +King William reigned in his stead; we had another when the Duke +was out and the Whigs came in; and then we had another when the +cry ran through the land, and reached even the most remote +villages of East Anglia, of ‘The Bill, the whole Bill, and +nothing but the Bill!’ Voters were brought down, or +up, as the case might be, from all quarters of the land. +Coaches-full came tearing along, gorgeous with election flags, +and placarded all over with names of rival candidates. <!-- +page 115--><a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +115</span>Gentlemen of ancient lineage called to request of the +meanest elector the favour of his vote and influence. It +was with pain the Liberals of our little village resolved to vote +against our Benacre neighbour, Sir Thomas Gooch, who had long +represented the county, but of whom the Radicals spoke derisively +as Gaffer Gooch, or the Benacre Bull, and chose in his stead a +country squire known as Robert Newton Shaw, utterly unknown in +our quarter of the county.</p> +<p>It was rather a trying time for the Wrentham Liberals and +Dissenters to do their duty, for Sir Thomas was a neighbour, and +always was a pleasant gentleman in the parish, and had power to +do anyone mischief who went against him. Our medical man +did not vote at all. Our squire actually, I believe, +supported Sir Thomas, and altogether respectable people found +themselves in an extremely awkward position. At Southwold +the people were a little more independent, for Gaffer Gooch +rarely illuminated that little town with his presence; and as my +father, with the economy which is part and parcel of the +Scotchman as he leaves his native land, but which rarely extends +to his children, had, by teaching gentlemen’s sons and +other ways, been able to save a <!-- page 116--><a +name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>little, +which little had been devoted to the purchase of cottage property +in Southwold (well do I remember the difficulty there was in +collecting the rents; never, assuredly, were people so much +afflicted or so unfortunate when the time of payment came), it +was for Southwold that he claimed his vote. I, as the son, +was permitted to share in the glories of that eventful day. +The election took place at school-time, and my companion was +Henry Thompson. We had to walk betimes to Frostenden, where +Farmer Downing lived, who was that <i>rara avis</i> a Liberal +tenant farmer; but of course he did not vote tenant farmer, but +as a freeholder. It was with alarm that Mrs. Downing saw +her lord and master drive off with us two lads in the gig. +There had been riots at London, riots as near as Ipswich, and why +not at Halesworth? A mile or two after we had started we +met, per arrangement, the Southwold contingent, who joined us +with flags flying and a band playing, and all the pride and pomp +and circumstance of war. We rode in a gig, and our animal +was a steady-going mare, and behaved as such; but all had not +gigs or steady-going mares. Some were in carts, some were +on horseback, some in ancient vehicles furbished up for the +occasion; <!-- page 117--><a name="page117"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 117</span>and as the band played and the +people shouted, some of the animals felt induced to dance, and +especially was this restlessness on the part of the quadrupeds +increased as we neared Halesworth, in the market-place of which +was the polling-booth, and in the streets of which we out-lying +voters riding in procession made quite a show. Halesworth, +or Holser, as it was called, was distant about nine miles, lying +to the left of Yoxford, a village which its admirers were wont to +call the Garden of Suffolk. In 1809 the Bishop of Norwich +wrote from Halesworth: ‘The church in this place is +uncommonly fine, and the ruins of an old castle (formerly the +seat of the Howards) are striking and majestic.’ But +when we went there the ruins were gone—the more is the +pity—and the church remained, at that time held by no less +a Liberal than Richard Whately, afterwards Archbishop of +Dublin. I used at times to meet with a country +gentleman—a brother of a noble lord—who after he had +spent a fortune merrily, as country gentlemen did in the good old +times, came to live on a small annuity, and, in spite of his +enormous daily consumption of London porter at the leading inn of +the town, managed to reach a good old age. The hon. +gentleman and I were on <!-- page 118--><a +name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 118</span>friendly +terms, and sometimes he would talk of Whately, who had often been +at his house. But, alas! he remembered nothing of a man who +became so celebrated in his day except that he would eat after +dinner any number of oranges, and was so fond of active exercise +that he would take a pitchfork and fill his tumbrels with manure, +or work just like a labourer on a farm. Of the +Doctor’s aversion to church-bell ringing we have a curious +illustration in a letter which appeared in the <i>Suffolk +Chronicle</i> in 1825: ‘A short time since a wedding took +place in the families of two of the oldest and most respectable +inhabitants of the town, when it was understood that the Rector +had, for the first time since his induction to his living, given +permission for the bells to greet the happy pair. After, +however, sounding a merry peal a short hour and a half, a message +was received at the belfry that the Rector thought they had rung +long enough. The tardiness with which this mandate was +obeyed soon brought the rev. gentleman in person to enforce his +order, which was then reluctantly complied with to the great +disappointment of the inhabitants, and mortification of the +ringers, several of whom had come from a considerable distance to +assist in the festivities of the day.’ <!-- page +119--><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +119</span>The Independent chapel was an old-fashioned +meeting-house, full of heavy pillars, which, as they intercepted +the view of the preacher, were favourable to that gentle sleep so +peculiarly refreshing on a Sunday afternoon—especially in +hot weather—in the square and commodious family pew. +The minister was an old and venerable-looking divine of the name +of Dennant, who was always writing little poems—I remember +the opening lines of one,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘A while ago when I was nought,<br /> +And neither body, soul, nor thought’—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and whose ‘Soul Prosperity,’ a volume of sober +prose, reached a second edition. His grandson, Mr. J. R. +Robinson, now the energetic manager of the <i>Daily News</i>, may +be said to have achieved a position in the world of London of +which his simple-hearted and deeply-devotional grandfather could +never have dreamed. As I was the son of a brother minister, +Mr. Dennant’s house was open to myself and Thompson, though +we did not go there on the particular day of which I write. +The leading tradesman of the town was a Liberal, and had at least +one pretty daughter, and there we went. Most of the day, +however, we mixed with the mob which crowded round, while the +voters—<!-- page 120--><a name="page120"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 120</span>you may be sure, not all of them +sober—were brought up to vote. The excitement was +immense; there was the hourly publication of the state of the +poll—more or less unreliable, but, nevertheless, exciting; +and what a tumult there was as one or other of the rival +candidates drove up to his temporary quarters in a carriage and +pair, or carriage and four, made a short speech, which was +cheered by his friends and howled at derisively by his foes, +while the horses were being changed, and then drove off at a +gallop to make the same display and to undergo the same ordeal +elsewhere! To be sure, there was a little rough play; now +and then a rush was made by nobody in particular, and for no +particular reason; or, again, an indiscreet voter—rendered +additionally so by indulgence in beer—gave occasion for +offence; but really, beyond a scrimmage, a hat broken, a coat or +two torn or bespattered with mud, a cockade rudely snatched from +the wearer, little harm was done. The voters knew each +other, and had come to vote, and had stayed to see the fun. +For the timid, the infirm, the old, the day was a trying one; but +there was an excitement and a life about the affair one misses +now that the ballot has come into play, and has made the voter +less of a man than ever. Of course <!-- page 121--><a +name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 121</span>the shops +were shut up. All who could afford to do so kept open +house, and at every available window were the bright, beaming +faces of the Suffolk fair—oh, they were jolly, those +election days of old! Well, in East Anglia, as elsewhere, +spite of the parsons, spite of the landlords, spite of the +slavery of old custom, spite of old traditions, the freeholders +voted Reform, and Reform was won, and everyone believed that the +kingdom of heaven was at hand. In ten years, I heard people +say, there would be no tithes for the farmer to pay, and welcome +was the announcement; for then, as now, the agricultural interest +was depressed, and the farmer was a ruined man. Now one +takes but a languid interest in the word Reform, but then it +stirred the hearts of the people; and how they celebrated their +victory, how they hoisted flags and got up processions and made +speeches, and feasted and hurrahed, ’twere tedious to +tell. All over the land the people rejoiced with exceeding +joy. Old things, they believed, had passed away—all +things had become new.</p> +<h2><!-- page 122--><a name="page122"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 122</span>CHAPTER V.<br /> +<span class="smcap">bungay and its people</span>.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Bungay Nonconformity—Hannah +More—The Childses—The Queen’s +Librarian—Prince Albert.</p> +<p>In the beginning of the present century, a disgraceful attack +on Methodism—by which the writer means Dissent in all its +branches—appeared in what was then the leading critical +journal of the age, the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>. ‘The +sources,’ said the writer, a clergyman (to his shame be it +recorded) of the Church of England—no less distinguished a +divine than the far-famed Sydney Smith—‘from which we +shall derive our extracts are the Evangelical and Methodistical +magazines for the year 1807, works which are said to be +circulated to the amount of 18,000 or 20,000 every month, and +which contain the sentiments of Arminian and Calvinistic +Methodists, and of the Evangelical clergymen of the Church of +England. We shall use the general term of Methodism to +designate these three <!-- page 123--><a name="page123"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 123</span>classes of fanatics, not troubling +ourselves to point out the finer shades and nicer discriminations +of lunacy, but treating them as all in one general conspiracy +against common-sense and rational orthodox +Christianity.’ To East Anglia came the reputed worthy +Canon for an illustration of what he termed their policy to have +a great change of ministers. Accordingly, he reprints from +the <i>Evangelical Magazine</i> the following notice of an East +Anglian Nonconformist ordination, which, by-the-bye, in no degree +affects the charge unjustly laid at the door of these +‘fanatics,’ as engaged ‘in one general +conspiracy against common-sense and rational orthodox +Christianity.’ ‘Same day the Rev. W. Haward, +from Hoxton Academy, was ordained over the Independent Church at +Rendham, Suffolk; Mr. Pickles, of Walpole, began with prayer and +reading; Mr. Price, of Woodbridge, delivered the introductory +discourse, and asked the questions; Mr. Dennant, of Halesworth, +offered the ordinary prayer; <i>Mr. Shufflebottom</i> [the +italics are the Canon’s], of Bungay, gave the charge from +Acts xx. 28; Mr. Vincent, of Deal, the general prayer; and Mr. +Walford, of Yarmouth, preached to the people from Phil. ii. +16.’ As a lad, I saw a good deal of Bungay, though I +never knew the Shufflebottom <!-- page 124--><a +name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span>whose name +seems to have been such a stumbling-block and cause of offence to +the Reverend Canon of St. Paul’s. I say Reverend +Canon of St. Paul’s, because, though the writer had not +gained that honour when the review appeared, it was as Canon he +returned to the charge when he sanctioned the republication of it +in his collected works. It was at Bungay that I had my +first painful experience of the utter depravity of the human +heart—a truth of which, perhaps, for a boy, I learned too +much from the pulpit. The river Waveney runs through +Bungay, and one day, fishing there, I lent a redcoat—with +whom, like most boys, I was proud to scrape an +acquaintance—my line, he promising to return it when I came +back from dinner. When I did so, alas! the red-coat was +gone.</p> +<p>Nonconformity in Bungay seems to have originated in the days +of the Lord Protector, in the person of Zephaniah Smith, who was +the author of: (1) ‘The Dome of Heretiques; or, a discovery +of subtle Foxes who were tyed tayle to tayle, and crept into the +Church to do mischief’; (2) ‘The Malignant’s +Plot; or, the Conspiracie of the Wicked against the Just, laid +open in a sermon preached at Eyke, in Suffolk, January 23, +1697. Preached and published to set forth the grounds <!-- +page 125--><a name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +125</span>why the Wicked lay such crimes to the charge of +God’s people as they are cleare off’; (3) ‘The +Skillful Teacher.’ Beloe says of this Smith that +‘he was a most singular character, and among the first +founders of the sect of the Antinomians.’ One of the +first leaders of this sect is said by Wood to have been John +Eaton, who was a minister and preacher at Wickham Market, in +which situation and capacity Smith succeeded him. This +Smith published many other tracts and sermons, chiefly fanatical +and with fantastical titles. One is described by Wood, and +is called ‘Directions for Seekers and Expectants, or a +Guide for Weak Christians in these discontented +times.’ ‘I shall not give an extract from these +sermons,’ writes Beloe, who is clearly, like Wood, by no +means a sympathetic or appreciative critic, ‘though very +curious, but they are not characterized by any peculiarity of +diction, and are chiefly remarkable for the enthusiasm with which +the doctrine of the sect to which the preacher belonged is +asserted and vindicated. The hearers also must have been +endowed with an extraordinary degree of patience, as they are +spun out to a great length.’ Mr. Smith’s +ministry at Bungay led to a contention, which resulted in an +appeal to the young Protector, Richard Cromwell. <!-- page +126--><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +126</span>Then we find Mr. Samuel Malbon silenced by the Act of +Uniformity, who is described as a man mighty in the Scriptures, +who became pastor to the church in Amsterdam. In 1695 we +hear of a conventicle in Bungay, with a preacher with a regularly +paid stipend of £40 a year. Till 1700 the +congregation worshipped in a barn; but in that year the old +meeting-house was built, and let to the congregation at £10 +per annum. In 1729 it was made over to the Presbyterians or +Independents worshipping there, ‘for ever.’ The +founders of that conventicle seem to have suffered for their +faith; yet the glorious Revolution of 1688 had been achieved, and +William of Orange—who had come from a land which had nobly +sheltered the earlier Nonconformists—was seated on the +throne.</p> +<p>Bungay, till Sydney Smith made it famous, was not much known +to the general public. It was on the borders of the county +and out of the way. The only coach that ran through it, I +can remember, was a small one that ran from Norwich through +Beccles and Bungay to Yarmouth; and, if I remember aright, on +alternate days. There was, at any rate, no direct +communication between it and London. Bungay is a well-built +market town, skirted on the east and west by the navigable river +Waveney, <!-- page 127--><a name="page127"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 127</span>which divides it from Norfolk, and +was at one time noted for the manufacture of knitted worsted +stockings and Suffolk hempen cloth; but those trades are now +obsolete. The great Roger Bigod—one of the men who +really did come over with the Conqueror—built its castle, +the ruins of which yet remain, on a bold eminence on the river +Waveney. ‘The castle,’ writes Dugdale, +‘once the residence and stronghold of the Bigods, and by +one of them conceived to be impregnable, has become the +habitation of helpless poverty, many miserable hovels having been +reared against its walls for the accommodation of the lowest +class.’ The form of the castle appears to have been +octangular. The ruins of two round fortal towers and +fortresses of the west and south-west angles are still standing, +as also three sides of the great tower or keep, the walls of +which are from 7 to 11 feet thick and from 15 to 17 feet +high. In the midst of the ruins, on what is called the +Terrace, is a mineral spring, now disused, and near it is a +vault, or dungeon, of considerable depth. Detached portions +of the wall and their foundations are spread in all directions in +the castle grounds, a ridge of which, about 40 yards long, forms +the southern boundary of a bowling-green which commands +delightful prospects. <!-- page 128--><a +name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span>The mounds +of earth raised for the defence of the castle still retain much +of their original character, though considerably reduced in +height. One of them, facing the south, was partly removed +in 1840, with the intention of forming a cattle market. As +a boy I often heard of the proud boast of Hugh Bigod, second +Earl, one of King Stephen’s most formidable opponents, as +recorded by Camden:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Were I in my castle of Bungay,<br /> +Upon the river Waveney,<br /> +I would not care for the King of Cockeney.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In ancient times the Waveney was a much broader stream than it +is now, and Bungay was called <i>Le Bon Eye</i>, or the good +island, then being nearly surrounded by water. Hence the +name, in the vulgar dialect, of Bungay. To ‘go to +Bungay to get a new bottom’ was a common saying in +Suffolk.</p> +<p>In 1777 we find Hannah More writing to Garrick from Bungay, +which she describes as ‘a much better town than I expected, +very clean and pleasant.’ ‘You are the +favourite bard of Bungay’—at that time the tragedians +of the city of Norwich were staying +there—‘and,’ writes Hannah, who at that time +had not become serious and renounced the gaieties of the great +world, ‘the <!-- page 129--><a name="page129"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 129</span>dramatic furore rages terribly among +the people, the more so, I presume, from being allowed to vent +itself so seldom. Everybody goes to the play every +night,—that is, every other night, which is as often as +they perform. Visiting, drinking, and even card-playing, is +for this happy month suspended; nay, I question if, like Lent, it +does not stop the celebration of weddings, for I do not believe +there is a damsel in the town who would spare the time to be +married during this rarely-occurring scene of festivity. It +must be confessed, however, the good folks have no bad +taste.’ It must be recollected that Hannah More in +reality belongs to East Anglia. She was the daughter of +Jacob More, who was descended from a respectable family at +Harleston. He was a High Churchman, but all his family were +Nonconformists. His mother used to tell young people that +they would have known how to value Gospel privileges had they +lived like her, when at midnight pious worshippers went with +stealthy steps through the snow to hear the words of inspiration +delivered by a holy man at her father’s house; while her +father, with a drawn sword, guarded the entrance from violent or +profane intrusion, adding that they boarded the minister and kept +his horse for £10 a year. An unfortunate <!-- page +130--><a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +130</span>lawsuit deprived the Mores of their property, and thus +it was that the celebrated Hannah was born at Gloucestershire, +and not in Suffolk or Norfolk. The family mansion was at +Wenhaston, not very far from Wrentham.</p> +<p>In my young days Bungay owed all its fame and most of its +wealth to the far-famed John Childs, who was one of our first +Church Rate martyrs, to whom is due mainly the destruction of the +Bible-printing monopoly, and to whom the late Edward Miall was +much indebted for establishing the <i>Nonconformist</i> +newspaper. For many years it was the habit of Mr. Childs to +celebrate that event by a dinner, at which the wine was good and +the talk was better. Old John Childs, of Bungay, had a +cellar of port which a dean might have envied; and many was the +bottle that I cracked with him as a young man, after a walk from +Wrentham to Bungay, a distance of fourteen miles, to talk with +him on things in general, and politics in particular. He +was emphatically a self-made man—a man who would have made +his way anywhere, and a man who had a large acquaintance with the +reformers of his day in all parts of the country. On one +occasion the great Dan O’Connell came to pay him a visit, +much to the delight of the Suffolk Radicals, <!-- page 131--><a +name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 131</span>and to the +horror of the Tories. The first great dinner at which I had +the honour of being present, and to which I was taken by my +father, who was a great friend of Mr. Childs, was on the occasion +of the presentation to the latter of a testimonial by a +deputation of distinguished Dissenters from Ipswich in connection +with his incarceration in the county gaol at Ipswich, for having +refused to pay rates for the support of a Church in which he did +not believe, and for the performance of a service in which he +took no part. At that time ‘the dear old Church of +England,’ while it was compelled to tolerate Dissent, +insisted on Dissent being taxed to the uttermost farthing; and +that it does not do so now, and that it is more popular in +consequence, is due to the firm stand taken by such men as John +Childs of Bungay. He was a great phrenologist. In his +garden he had a summer-house, which he facetiously termed his +scullery, where he had some three hundred plaster casts, many of +which he had taken himself of public individuals and friends and +acquaintances. My father was honoured in this way, as also +my eldest sister. Sir Henry Thompson and I escaped that +honour, but I have not forgotten his dark, piercing glance at our +heads, when, as boys, we first came into his presence, and how I +<!-- page 132--><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +132</span>trusted that the verdict was satisfactory. Of +course the Childses went to Meeting, but when I knew Bungay Mr. +Shufflebottom had been gathered to his fathers, and the Rev. John +Blaikie, a Scotchman, and therefore always a welcome guest at +Wrentham, reigned in his stead. Mr. Childs had a large and +promising family, few of whom now remain. His daughter was +an exceptionally gifted and glorious creature, as in that early +day it seemed to me. She also died early, leaving but one +son, Mr. Crisp, a partner in the well-known legal firm of Messrs. +Ashurst, Morris, and Crisp. It was in the little box by the +window of the London Coffee House—now, alas! no +more—where Mr. Childs, on the occasion of his frequent +visits to London, always gathered around him his friends, that I +first made the acquaintance of Mr. Ashurst, the head of the +firm—a self-made man, like Mr. Childs, of wonderful +acuteness and great public spirit. In religion Mr. Ashurst +was far more advanced than the Bungay printer. ‘It is +not a thing to reason about,’ said the latter; and so to +the last he remained orthodox, attended the Bungay Meeting-house, +invited the divines of that order to his house, put in appearance +at ordination services, and openings of chapels, and was to be +seen at May <!-- page 133--><a name="page133"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 133</span>Meetings when in town, where +occasionally his criticisms were of a freer order than is usually +met with at such places.</p> +<p>‘The Bungay Press,’ wrote a correspondent of the +<i>Bookseller</i>, on the death of Mr. Charles Childs, who had +succeeded his father in the business, ‘has been long known +for its careful and excellent work. Established some short +time before the commencement of the present century, its founder +had, for twenty years, limited its productions to serial +publications and books of a popular and useful character, and in +the year 1823, soon after Mr. John Childs had taken control of +the business, upwards of twenty wooden presses were working, at +long hours, to supply the rapidly-increasing demand for such +works as folio Bibles, universal histories, domestic medicine +books, and other publications then issuing in one and two +shilling numbers from the press.’ Originally Mr. +Childs had been in a grocer’s shop at Norwich. There +he was met with by a Mr. Brightley, a printer and publisher, who, +originally a schoolmaster at Beccles, had suggested to young +Childs that he had better come and help him at Bungay than waste +his time behind a counter. Fortunately for them both the +young man acceded to the proposal, and travelled all over <!-- +page 134--><a name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +134</span>England driving tandem, and doing everywhere what we +should now call a roaring trade. Then he married Mr. +Brightley’s daughter, and became a partner in the firm, +which was known as that of John and R. Childs, and, latterly of +Childs and Son. ‘Uncle Robert,’ as I used to +hear him called, was little known out of the Bungay circle. +He had a nice house, and lived comfortably, marrying, after a +long courtship, the only one of the Stricklands who was not a +writer. Agnes was often a visitor at Bungay, and not a +little shocked at the atrocious after-dinner talk of the Bungay +Radicals. ‘Do you not think,’ said she, in her +somewhat stilted and tragic style of talk, one day, to a literary +man who was seated next her, author of a French dictionary which +the Childses were printing at the time—‘Do you not +think it was a cruel and wicked act to murder the sainted and +unfortunate Charles I.?’ ‘Why, +ma’am,’ stuttered the author, while the dinner-party +were silent, ‘I’d have p-p-poisoned him.’ +The gifted authoress talked no more that day. Naturally, as +a lad, seeing so much of Bungay, I wished to be a printer, but +Mr. Childs said there was no use in being a printer without +plenty of capital, and so that idea was renounced.</p> +<p><!-- page 135--><a name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +135</span>But to return to Mr. John Childs. About the year +1826, in association with the late Joseph Ogle Robinson, he +projected and commenced the publication of a series of books +known in the trade as the ‘Imperial Edition of Standard +Authors,’ which for many years maintained an extensive +sale, and certainly then met an admitted literary want, +furnishing the student and critical reader, in a cheap and +handsome form, with dictionaries, histories, commentaries, +biographies, and miscellaneous literature of acknowledged value +and importance, such as Burke’s works, Gibbon’s +‘Decline and Fall,’ Howe’s works, the writings +of Lord Bacon—books which are still in the market, and +which, if I may speak from a pretty wide acquaintance with +students’ libraries fifty years ago, were in great demand +at that time. The disadvantage of such a series is that the +books are too big to put in the pocket or to hold in the +hand. But I do not know that that is a great disadvantage +to a real student who takes up a book to master its contents, and +not merely to pass away his time. To study properly a man +must be in his study. In that particular apartment he is +bound to have a table, and if you place a book on a table to +read, it matters little the size of the page, or the number <!-- +page 136--><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span>of columns each page contains. Mr. Childs set the +fashion of reprinting standard authors on a good-sized page, with +a couple of columns on each page. That fashion was followed +by Mr. W. Smith—a Fleet Street publisher, than whom a +better man never lived—and by Messrs. Chambers; but now it +seems quite to have passed away. On the failure of Mr. +Robinson, Mr. Childs’ valuable reprints were placed in the +hands of Westley and Davis, and subsequently with Ball, Arnold, +and Co.; and latterly, I think, the late Mr. H. G. Bohn reissued +them at intervals. As to his part publications, when Mr. +Childs had given up pushing them, he disposed of them all to Mr. +Virtue, of Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, who then secured almost a +monopoly of the part-number trade, and thus made a large +fortune. ‘I love books that come out in +numbers,’ says Lord Montford in ‘Endymion,’ +‘as there is a little suspense, and you cannot deprive +yourself of all interest by glancing at the last part of the last +volume.’ And so I suppose in the same way there will +always be a part-number trade, though the reapers in the field +are many, and the harvest is not what it was.</p> +<p>Active and fiery in body and soul, Mr. John Childs, at a +somewhat later period, with the <!-- page 137--><a +name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 137</span>sympathy +and advocacy of Mr. Joseph Hume and other members of Parliament, +and aided to a large extent by Lord Brougham, succeeded in +procuring the appointment of a Committee of the House of Commons +to inquire into the existing King’s Printers’ Patent +for printing Bibles and Acts of Parliament, the period for the +renewal of which was near at hand. The principle upon which +the patent was originally granted appeared to be <i>correctness +secured only by protection</i>—a fallacy which the +voluminous evidence of the Committee most completely +exposed. The late Alderman Besley, a typefounder, and a +great friend of John Childs, as well as Robert Childs, practical +printers, gave conclusive evidence on this head, and the result +was that, although the patent was renewed for thirty years, +instead of sixty as before, the Scriptures were sold to the +public at a greatly reduced price, and the trade in Bibles, +though nominally protected, has ever since been practically +free.</p> +<p>Nor did Mr. Childs’ labours end here. In Scotland +the right of printing Bibles had been granted exclusively to a +company of private persons, Blaire and Bruce, neither of whom had +any practical knowledge of the art of printing, or took any <!-- +page 138--><a name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +138</span>interest in the different editions of the Bible. +The same men also had the supplying all the public revenue +offices of Government with stationery, by which means they +enjoyed an annual profit of more than £6,000 a year. +When the Government, in an economical mood, ordered them to +relinquish the latter contract, not only were they compensated +for the loss, but were continued in their vested rights as +regards Bible-printing. In Scotland there was no one to +interfere with their rights. In England patents had been +given not only to the firm of Messrs. Strahan, Eyre and +Spottiswoode, but to each of the two Universities of Cambridge +and Oxford. Up to 1821 the Bibles of the English +monopolists came freely into Scotland, but then a prohibition, +supported by decisions in the Court of Sessions and the House of +Lords, was obtained. In 1824 Dr. Adam Thompson, of +Coldstream, and three ministers were summoned to answer for the +high crime and misdemeanour of having, as directors of Bible +societies, delivered copies of an edition of Scriptures which had +been printed in England, but which the Scotch monopolists would +not permit to circulate in Scotland. Bible societies in +Scotland had received, in return for their subscription to the +London society, copies <!-- page 139--><a +name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 139</span>of an +octavo Bible in large type, to which the Scotch patentees had no +corresponding edition, and which was much prized by the +aged. And it was because Dr. Thompson and others helped to +circulate it, as agents of the London Bible Society, that they +were proceeded against. The Scotch Bible, in consequence of +the monopoly, was as badly printed as the English one. In +order to show how monopoly had failed to secure good work, a +gentleman sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury an enormous list +of errors which he had found in the Oxford Nonpareil Bible. +In an old Scotch edition the apostle is made to say, ‘Know +ye not that the righteous shall <i>not</i> inherit the kingdom of +God?’ In another edition ‘The four beasts of +the Apocalypse’ are ‘<i>sour</i> beasts.’ +Dr. Lee, afterwards Principal of Edinburgh University, felt +deeply the injustice done by the monopoly, and the heavy taxation +consequently imposed upon the British and Foreign Bible Society; +but he was a man of the study rather than of the street. +Yet in 1837 the monopoly, powerfully defended as it was by Sir +Robert Inglis, who dreaded cheap editions of the Word of God, as +necessarily incorrect and leading to wickedness and infidelity of +all kinds, fell, and it was to John Childs, of <!-- page 140--><a +name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 140</span>Bungay, +that in a great measure the fall was due, while owing to the +repeated labours of Dr. Adam Thompson and others, we got cheaper +Bibles and Testaments on the other side of the Tweed.</p> +<p>If you turn to the life of Dr. Adam Thompson, of Coldstream, +the man who had the most publicly to do with the fall of the +monopoly, there can be no doubt on this head. Though +specially interested in the English patents, Mr. Childs was aware +that the one for Scotland fell, to be renewed sooner by twenty +years, and he kept dunning Joseph Hume on the subject, who, +Radical Reformer, at that time had his hands pretty full. +Mr. Childs had got so far as to have his Committee, and to get +the evidence printed. What was the next step? Dr. +Thompson’s biographer shall tell us. ‘Mr. +Childs had been looking out for a Scottish Dissenting minister of +proved ability, zeal, and influence, who should feel the immense +and urgent importance of the question, and after mastering the +unjust principles and the injurious results of the monopoly, +should testify to these before the Committee, in a weighty and +pointed manner, and effectively bring them also before the +ministers and people of Scotland. He fixed upon Dr. +Thompson, and the letter in which he wrote to the Doctor to +prepare <!-- page 141--><a name="page141"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 141</span>for becoming a witness was the +beginning of a ten years’ copious correspondence, the first +in a series of many hundreds of very lengthy letters, in which +Mr. Childs, with great shrewdness, sagacity, and vigour, and with +perfect confidence of always being in the right, acted as +universal censor, pronouncing oracularly upon all ecclesiastical +and political men and organs, expressing unqualified contempt for +the House of Lords, and very small satisfaction with the House of +Commons, showing no mercy to Churchmen, and little but asperity +to Dissenters, and denouncing all British journals as base or +blind except the <i>Nonconformist</i>.’ Only two of +these letters are published in Dr. Thompson’s +biography. I give one, partly because it is interesting, +and partly because it is characteristic. Unfortunately, of +all John Childs’ letters to myself, written in a fine, bold +hand, exactly reproduced by his son and grandson, so that I could +never tell one from the other, I have preserved none. +Childs thus wrote to Dr. Thompson, July 15th, 1839:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘<span class="smcap">My dear +Friend</span>,</p> +<p>‘You will be happy to know that I went into Newgate this +morning with my friend Ashurst, and heard their pardon read to +the Canadians. <!-- page 142--><a name="page142"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 142</span>They were released this afternoon, +and Mr. Parker and Mr. Wixon have been dining with me, and are +gone to a lodging, taken for them by Mr. A., where they may +remain till their departure on Wednesday. I have just sent +to Mr. Tidman to inform him they will worship God and return +thanks in his place to-morrow, if all be well. How +wonderfully God has appeared for these people! My dear +friend, when I first saw them in January all things appeared to +be against them, but all has been overruled for good.</p> +<p>‘At the time you left on Monday evening, Lord John was +making known to the House of Commons, in your own words, the plan +proposed by yourself, and adopted by him, to my amazement. +Most heartily do I congratulate you on the termination of the +event, so decidedly honourable to yourself in every way. I +do not expect you will approve of all that I have done, but I +felt it to be my duty to address a letter to the <i>Pilot</i> on +the subject, calling attention to the liberty taken with you, and +the manner in which you were humbugged when in concert with the +London societies, and the absolute triumph of your cause when +conducted with single-handed integrity, intelligence, and +energy. If it shall happen that you do not approve of all I +have <!-- page 143--><a name="page143"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 143</span>said, I am sure you ought, because +without you, and with you, if you had left it to the fellows +here, Scotland’s Dissenters would have now appeared the +degraded things which, on the Bible subject, the English +Dissenters have appeared in my eyes for some years past. It +is due to you. I was fairly rejoiced when I saw Lord +John’s declaration, because I could see from his answer to +Sir James Graham that he meant the thing should be done. +Scotland ought to have a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving, and +as I said to a friend to whom I wrote in Edinburgh, “You +ought to have a monument—the Thompson +monument.” “That, sir,” the guide would +say, “is erected to honour a man by whose honest energy and +zeal Scotland was freed from the most degrading +tyranny—that of a monopoly in printing the Word of +God.” The tablet should bear that memorable sentence +of yours on the first day of your examination, “All +monopolies are bad.” Of all monopolies religious +monopolies are the worst, and of all religious monopolies a +monopoly of the Word of God is the most outrageous.’ +Alas! I have heard nothing of the Thompson monument.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Such a man was John Childs. One more busy <!-- page +144--><a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>in +body and brain I never knew. That he was disposed to be +cynical was natural. Most men who see much of the world, +and who do not wear coloured glasses, are so. Take the +history of the Bible monopoly. The work of its abolition +was commenced by John Childs, of Bungay, carried on and completed +as far as Scotland was concerned by Dr. Adam Thompson, while the +British public in its usual silliness awarded £3,000 to Dr. +Campbell, on the plea—I quote the words of the late Dr. +Morton Brown, of Cheltenham—that, ‘God gave the +honour very largely to our friend, Dr. Campbell, to smite this +bloated enemy of God and man full in the forehead.’ +The bloated enemy, as regards Scotland, was dead before Dr. +Campbell had ever penned a line. As regards England, I +believe it still exists.</p> +<p>It must have been about 1837 that the name of John Childs, of +Bungay, was made specially notorious by reason of his refusal to +pay Church-rates, and when he had the honour of being the first +person imprisoned for their non-payment. He was proceeded +against in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and as his refusal to pay +was solely on conscientious grounds, he did not contest the +matter. The result was, he was sent to Ipswich Gaol for the +non-payment <!-- page 145--><a name="page145"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 145</span>of a rate of 17s. 6d., the animus of +the ecclesiastical authorities being manifested by the +endorsement of the writ, ‘Take no bail.’ It was +the first death-blow to Church-rates. The local excitement +it created was intense and unparalleled. In the House of +Commons Sir William Foulkes presented several petitions from +Norfolk, and Mr. Joseph Hume several from Suffolk, on the +subject. One entire sitting of the House of Commons was +devoted to the Bungay Martyr, as Sir Robert Peel ironically +termed him. The Bungay Martyr had however, right on his +side. It was found that a blot had been hit, and it had to +be removed.</p> +<p>The excitement produced by putting Mr. Childs into gaol was +intense at that time all over the land. ‘I beg to +inform you,’ wrote a Halesworth Dissenter, Mr. William +Lincoln, to the editor of the <i>Patriot</i>, at that time the +organ of Dissent, ‘that my highly-esteemed and talented +friend, Mr. John Childs, of Bungay, has just passed through this +town, in custody of a sheriff’s officer, on his way to our +county gaol, by virtue of an attachment, at the suit of Messrs. +Bobbet and Scott, churchwardens of Bungay, for non-payment of +17s. 6d. demanded of him as a Church-rate, and subsequent refusal +to obey a citation for appearance <!-- page 146--><a +name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 146</span>at the +Bishop’s Court.’ Naturally the writer remarked: +‘It will soon be seen whether proceedings so well in +harmony with the days of fire and faggot are to be tolerated in +this advanced period of the nineteenth century.’ +When, in due time, Mr. Childs obtained his release, the event was +celebrated at Bungay in fitting style. I find in a private +diary the following note: ‘This day week was a grand day at +Bungay. I heard there were not less than six or seven +thousand people there to welcome his return, and the request of +the police, that the greatest order might be observed, was fully +acted up to. Miss C. did not enter Bungay with her +father. I suppose when she found so great a multitude of +horsemen, gigs, pedestrians and banners, they thought it better +for the young lady and the younger children to retire to the +close carriages. Mr. C. during his imprisonment had letters +from all parts of the kingdom.’ I remember the +leading Dissenters came to Bungay with a piece of plate, to +present to Mr. Childs, to commemorate his heroism. A dinner +was given by Mr. Childs in connection with the +presentation. At that dinner, lad as I was, I was permitted +to be present. I had never seen anything so grand or +stately before; and that <!-- page 147--><a +name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 147</span>was my +first interview with John Childs, a dark, restless, eagle-eyed +man, whom I was to know better and love more for many a long +day. I took to Radical writing, and nothing could have +pleased John Childs better. I owed much to his friendship +in after-life.</p> +<p>In 1833 the Church-rate question was originally raised in +Bungay, and many of the Dissenters refused to pay. The +local authorities at once took high ground, and put twelve of the +recusants into the Ecclesiastical Court. They caved in, +leaving to John Childs the honour of martyrdom. At the time +of Mr. Childs’ imprisonment he had recently suffered from a +severe surgical operation, and it was believed by his friends +impossible that he could survive the infliction of +imprisonment. The Rev. John Browne writes: ‘A +committee very generously formed at Ipswich undertook the +management of his affairs, and when they learned at the end of +eleven days’ imprisonment that he had undergone a most +severe attack, indicating at least the possibility of sudden +death, they sent a deputation to the Court to pay the sum +demanded. The Court, however, required, as well as the +money, the usual oath of canonical obedience, and this Mr. Childs +refused to give. He was told by <!-- page 148--><a +name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 148</span>his friends +that he would surely die in prison, but his reply was, +‘That is not my business.’ But it seems so much +had been made of the matter by the newspapers that Mr. Childs was +released without taking the oath. Charles Childs, the son, +followed in his father’s steps. At Bungay the +Churchmen seemed to have determined to make Dissenters as +uncomfortable as possible. Actually five years after they +had thrown the father into prison, the churchwardens proceeded +against the son, having been baffled in repeated attempts to +distrain upon his goods, and cited him into the Ecclesiastical +Court, where it took two and a half years to determine whether +the sum of three shillings and fourpence was due. At the +end of that time the judge decided it was not, and the +churchwardens had to pay Mr. Childs’ costs as well as their +own, which in the course of time amounted to a very respectable +sum. Charles Childs, who died suddenly a few years since, +and who never seemed to me to have aged a day since I first knew +him, was truly a chip of the old block. He was much in +London, as he printed quite as much as his father for the leading +London publishers. An enlightened patriot, he was in very +many cases successful in resisting the obstacles <!-- page +149--><a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +149</span>raised from time to time by party spirit or Church +bigotry. On more than one occasion he conducted a number of +his workmen through an illegally-closed path, and opened it by +the destruction of the fences, repeated appeals to the persistent +obstructions having proved unavailing. He was a man of +scholarly and literary attainments, a clever talker, well able to +hold his own, and during the Corn Law and Currency agitation he +contributed one or more articles on these subjects to the +<i>Westminster Review</i>, then edited by his friend, the late +General Perronet Thompson, a very foremost figure in Radical +circles forty years ago, always trying to get into +Parliament—rarely succeeding in the attempt. +‘How can he expect it,’ said Mr. Cobden to me one +day, ‘when, instead of going to the principal people to +support him, he finds out some small tradesman—some little +tailor or shoemaker—to introduce him?’ Once +upon a time the <i>Times</i> furiously attacked Charles +Childs. His reply, which was able and convincing, was +forwarded, but only procured admission in the shape of an +advertisement, for which Mr. Childs had to pay ten pounds. +The corner of East Anglia of which I write rarely produced two +better men than the Childs, father and son. They are gone, +<!-- page 150--><a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +150</span>but the printing business still survives, though no +longer carried on under the well-known name. By their noble +integrity and public spirit they proved themselves worthy of a +craft to which light and literature and leading owe so +much. It is to such men that England is under lasting +obligations, and one of the indirect benefits of a State Church +is that it gives them a grievance, and a sense of wrong, which +compels them to gird up their energies to act the part of village +Hampdens or guiltless Cromwells. All the manhood in them is +aroused and strengthened as they contend for what they deem right +and just, and against force and falsehood. Poets, we are +told, by one himself a poet,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Are cradled into poetry by wrong;<br /> +They learn in suffering what they teach in song.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Nonconformists have cause especially to rejoice in the bigotry +and persecution to which they have been exposed, since it has led +them by a way they knew not, to become the champions of a broader +creed and a more general right than that of which their fathers +dreamed. It is easy to swim with the stream; it requires a +strong man to swim against it. Two hundred years of such +swimming had made the Bungay Nonconformists strong, and <!-- page +151--><a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +151</span>gave to the world two such exceptionally sturdy and +strengthful men as John and Charles Childs. I was proud to +know them as a boy; in advancing years I am prouder still to be +permitted to bear this humble testimony to their honest +worth. It is because Nonconformity has raised up such men +in all parts of the land, that a higher tone has been given to +our public life, that politics mean something more than a +struggle between the ins and the outs, and that +‘Onward’ is our battle-cry.</p> +<p>Of the young men more or less coming under the influence of +the Childs’s, perhaps one of the most successful was the +late Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward, Librarian to her +Majesty. When I first knew him he was in a bank at +Norwich. Thence he passed to Highbury College, and in due +time, after he had taken his B.A. degree, settled as the +Independent minister at Wortwell, near Harleston, in +Norfolk. There he became connected with John Childs, and, +amidst much hard work, edited for the firm a new edition of +‘Barclay’s Universal English Dictionary.’ +In 1860, on the death of Mr. Glover, who had for many years +filled the post of Librarian to the Queen at Windsor Castle, Mr. +Woodward’s name <!-- page 152--><a name="page152"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 152</span>was mentioned to the Prince, in +reply to inquiries for a competent successor. Acting on the +advice of a friend at head-quarters, Mr. Woodward forwarded to +Prince Albert the same printed testimonials which he had sent in +when he was a candidate for the vacant secretaryship of a large +and popular society, and to those alone he owed his appointment +to the office of Librarian to the Queen. An interview took +place at Windsor Castle, which was highly satisfactory; but +before the appointment was finally made, Mr. Woodward informed +Her Majesty and the Prince that there was one circumstance which +he had omitted to mention, and which might disqualify him for the +post. ‘Pray, what is that disqualification?’ +asked the Prince. ‘It is,’ replied Mr. +Woodward, ‘that I have been educated for, and have actually +conducted the services of an Independent congregation in the +country.’ ‘And why should that be thought to +disqualify you?’ asked the Prince. ‘It does +nothing of the sort. If that is all, we are quite +satisfied, and feel perfectly safe in having you for a +librarian.’ Am I not justified in saying that at one +time Bungay influences reached far and near?</p> +<h2><!-- page 153--><a name="page153"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 153</span>CHAPTER VI.<br /> +<span class="smcap">a celebrated norfolk town</span>.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Great Yarmouth +Nonconformists—Intellectual life—Dawson +Turner—Astley Cooper—Hudson Gurney—Mrs. +Bendish.</p> +<p>When David Copperfield, Dickens tells us, first caught sight +of Yarmouth, it seemed to him to look rather spongy and +soppy. As he drew nearer, he remarks, ‘and saw the +whole adjacent prospect, lying like a straight, low line under +the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound or so might have +improved it, and also that if the land had been a little more +separated from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been +quite so much mixed up, like toast-and-water, it would have been +much nicer.’ He adds: ‘When we got into the +street, which was strange to me, and smelt the fish, and pitch, +and oakum, and tallow, and saw the sailors walking about, and the +carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I had +done so busy a place injustice.’ In this opinion his +readers who know <!-- page 154--><a name="page154"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 154</span>Yarmouth will agree. Brighton +and Hastings and Eastbourne might envy Yarmouth its sandy beach, +where you can lead an amphibious life, watching the +fishing-smacks as they come to shore with cargoes often so heavy +as to be sold for manure; watching the merchant-ships and yachts +that lie securely in the Roads, or the long trail of black smoke +of Scotch or northern steamers far away; watching the gulls ever +skimming the surface of the waves; or the children, as they build +little forts and dwellings in the sand to be rudely swept to +destruction by the advancing tide. In the golden light of +summer, how blue is the sky, how green the sea, how yellow the +sand, how jolly look the men and handsome the women! What +health and healing are in the air, as it comes laden with ozone +from the North Sea! You have the sea in front and on each +side to look at, to walk by, to splash in, to sail on. The +danger is, that you grow too fat, too ruddy, too hearty, too +boisterous. As we all know, Venus was born out of the sea, +and out there on that eastern peninsula, of which Yarmouth is the +pride and ornament, there used to flourish bonny lasses, as if to +show that the connection between the ocean and lovely woman is as +intimate as of yore. Yarmouth and Lowestoft owe a great +<!-- page 155--><a name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +155</span>deal to the Great Eastern Railway, which has made them +places of health-resort from all parts of England; and truly the +pleasure-seeker or the holiday-maker may go farther and fare +worse.</p> +<p>I was a proud boy when first I set foot in Yarmouth. How +I came to go there I can scarcely remember, but it is to be +presumed I accompanied my father on one of those grand +occasions—as far as Nonconformist circles are +concerned—when the brethren met together for godly comfort +and counsel. It is true Wrentham was in Suffolk, and +Yarmouth was in Norfolk, but the Congregational Churches of that +quarter had always been connected by Christian fellowship and +sympathy, and hence I was taken to Yarmouth—at that time +far more like a Dutch than an English town—and wonderful to +me was the Quay, with its fine houses on one side and its long +line of ships on the other—something like the far-famed +Bompjes of Rotterdam—and the narrow rows in which the +majority of the labouring classes were accustomed to live. +‘A row,’ wrote Charles Dickens, ‘is a long, +narrow lane or alley, quite straight, or as nearly so as may be, +with houses on each side, both of which you can sometimes touch +with the finger-tips of each hand by stretching out your arms to +their full extent. <!-- page 156--><a +name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 156</span>Many and +many a picturesque old bit of domestic architecture is to be +hunted up among the rows. In some there is little more than +a blank wall for the double boundary. In others the houses +retreat into busy square courts, where washing and +clear-starching are done, and wonderful nasturtiums and +scarlet-runners are reared from green boxes filled with that +scarce commodity, vegetable mould. Most of these rows are +paved with pebbles from the beach, and to traverse them a +peculiar form of low cart, drawn by a single horse, is +employed.’ This to me was a great novelty, as with +waggons and carts I was familiar, but not with a Yarmouth +cart—now, I find, replaced by wheelbarrows. In +Amsterdam, at the present day, you may see many such quaint old +rows. But in Amsterdam you have an evil-smelling air, while +in Yarmouth it is ever fresh and crisp, and redolent, as it were, +of the neighbouring sea. The market-place and the big +church were at the back of this congeries of quays and rows, and +the sea and the old pier were at quite a respectable distance +from the town. I fancy the Yarmouth of the London bathers +has now extended down to the sandy beach, and the rough and rude +old pier has given place to one better adapted to the wants and +requirements of an <!-- page 157--><a name="page157"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 157</span>increasingly well-to-do +community. Far more Dutch than English was the Yarmouth of +half a century ago, I again say.</p> +<p>As to the Yarmouth Independent parson, I shall never forget +him. He was a very big man, with great red cheeks that hung +over his collar like blown bladders, and was always on +stilts. He preached in a big meeting-house, now no more, +the pillars of which intercepted alike the view and the +sound. One winter evening he was holding forth, in his +usual heavy style, to a few good people—with whom, +evidently, all pleasure was out of the question—who came +there, as in duty bound, and sat like martyrs all the while, and +all were as grave as the preacher, when a wicked boy rushed in +and, in a hurried manner, called out, ‘Fire! +fire!’ The effect, I am told, was electrical. +For once the good parson was in a hurry, and moved as quickly and +spoke as rapidly as his fellows; but never had there been so much +excitement in his chapel since he had been its pastor. +Once, I remember, he came to town, and dropped in at the close of +a party rather convivially inclined, in the Old London Coffee +House. As the reverend gentleman advanced to greet his +friends, a London lawyer, with all the impudence of his class, +muttered, <!-- page 158--><a name="page158"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 158</span>in a whisper intended to be heard, +and which was heard, by everyone, ‘Yarmouth +bloater.’ The good man said nothing, but it was +evident he thought all the more, as the group were more or less +tittering over the fitness of the comparison. The lawyer +who made the remark was also the son of a London minister, and, +therefore, might have been expected to have known better. I +fear the Yarmouth minister never forgave him. Well, it only +served him right, as he had a horrible way of making young people +very uncomfortable. ‘Well, Master James,’ said +he to me on one occasion, when all the brethren had come to dine +at Wrentham, and when I was admitted, in conformity with the +golden maxim in all well-regulated family circles, that little +children were to be seen and not heard (perhaps in our day the +fault is too much in an opposite direction), ‘can you +inform me which is the more proper form of expression—a +pair of new gloves, or a new pair of gloves?’ Of +course I gave the wrong answer, as I blushed up to the ears at +finding myself the smallest personage in the room, publicly +appealed to by the biggest. He meant well, I dare +say. His only object was to draw me out; but the question +and the questioner gave me a bad quarter of an hour, and I never +got <!-- page 159--><a name="page159"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 159</span>over the unpleasant sensation of +which he had unconsciously been the originator in my youthful +breast.</p> +<p>At that time Yarmouth people were supposed to be a little +superior. They were well-to-do, and lived in good style, +and, as was to be expected, considering the sanitary advantages +of the situation, were in good health and spirits. They got +a good deal of their intellectual character from Norwich, which +at the time set the fashion in such matters. In 1790 two +societies were established in that city for the private and +amicable discussion of miscellaneous questions. One of +these, the Tusculan, seems to have devoted the attention of its +members exclusively to political topics; while the Speculative, +although it imposed no restrictions on the range of inquiry, was +of a more philosophical character. William Taylor was a +member of both, and it is difficult to say whether he +distinguished himself most by his ingenuity in debate, by the +novelty of the information which he brought to bear on every +point, or by the lively sallies of imagination with which he at +once amused and excited his hearers. The papers read by +himself embraced an infinite variety of subjects, from the theory +of the earth, then unillumined by <!-- page 160--><a +name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 160</span>the +disclosures of modern geologists, to the most elaborate and +refined productions of its rational tenants, and he was seldom at +a loss to place on new ground or in a fresh light the matter of +discussion introduced by others. Writers of every tongue, +studied by him with observant curiosity, stored his retentive +memory with materials ready to be applied on every occasion, +moulded by his Promethean talent into the most animated and +alluring forms. As a speaker and converser he was eminently +characterized by a constant flow of brilliant ideas, by a rapid +succession of striking images, and by a never-failing copiousness +of words, often quaint, but always correct. A similar +society was formed at Yarmouth, under the auspices of Dr. Aiken, +at which William Taylor also occasionally attended. The +Rev. Thomas Compton has given the following description of these +visits: ‘We were, moreover, sometimes gratified by the +presence of our literary friends from Norwich. I have there +repeatedly listened to the mild and persuasive eloquence of the +late Dr. Enfield. A gentleman, too, still living, who has +lately added to his literary fame by a biographical work of high +repute (I scarcely need add that I allude to Mr. W. Taylor) would +sometimes instruct us by his <!-- page 161--><a +name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 161</span>various and +profound knowledge, or amuse us with his ingenious +paradoxes.’ When we recollect how at this time the +poetical puerilities of Bath Easton flourished in the West, we +may claim that Norwich and Yarmouth, if not as favoured by +fashion, had at any rate a claim to intellectual reputation at +least quite equal to that city of the <i>ton</i>. Dr. +Sayers, whose biography William Taylor had written, and whose +‘Dramatic Sketches of Northern Mythology’ had created +a great sensation at the time, was of Yarmouth extraction.</p> +<p>The Rev. Mr. Compton writes: ‘In Yarmouth, where I lived +at this time, and where Lord Chedworth was accustomed to pay an +annual visit, there was then a society of gentlemen who met once +a fortnight for the purpose of amicable discussion. Our +members—alas! how few remain—were of all parties and +persuasions, and some of them of very distinguished +attainments. A society thus constituted was in those days +as pleasant as it was instructive. The most eager +disputation was never found to endanger the most perfect +goodwill, nor did any bitter feuds arise from this entire freedom +of opinion till the prolific period of the French +Revolution. On this subject our controversies became very +impassioned. The present Sir Astley <!-- page 162--><a +name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 162</span>Cooper, +then a very young man, was accustomed to pass his vacations with +his most excellent father, Dr. Cooper, a name ever to be by me +beloved and revered. It was the amusement of our young +friend to say things of the most irritating nature, I +believe—like Lady Florence Pemberton in the +novel—merely to see who would make the ugliest face. +Thus circumstanced, it was not in my philosophy to be the coolest +of the party.’ We can well imagine the +consequences. There was a row, and the literary society +came to grief. As time went on matters became worse instead +of better, and the town was split up into parties—Liberal +or the reverse, Church or Dissent, but all of one mind as regards +their views being correct; and as to the weakness or wickedness +of persons who thought otherwise. The evil of this spirit +knew no bounds, and the demoralizing effect it produced was +especially apparent at election times. When Oldfield wrote +his ‘Origin of Parliaments,’ the town, he tells us, +was under the influence of the Earl of Leicester, and was for +many years represented by some of his Lordship’s +family. The right of election was in the burgesses at +large, of whom there were at that time one thousand. The +Reform Bill did little to improve the state of <!-- page 163--><a +name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 163</span>affairs; it +led to greater bribery and corruption and intimidation than ever, +and now, as a Parliamentary borough, Yarmouth has ceased to +exist. ‘Sugar,’ it seems, was the slang term +used for money, and the honest voters were too eager to get +it. Alas! in none of our seaport towns is the standard of +morality very high. Yarmouth, at any rate, is not worse +than Deal. In old days the excitement of a Yarmouth +election much affected our village. It lasted some +days. The out-voters were brought from the uttermost parts +of the earth. As there were no railways, stage-coaches were +hired to bring them down from town; and when they changed horses +at Wrentham, quite a crowd would assemble to look at the flags, +and the free and independents on their way to do their duty, +overflowing with enthusiasm and beer.</p> +<p>Sir Astley Cooper was much connected with Yarmouth in his +young days, when his father was the incumbent of the parish +church. Some of his boyish pranks were peculiar. Here +is one of them: ‘Having taken two pillows from his +mother’s bed, he carried them up the spire of Yarmouth +Church, at a time when the wind was blowing from the north-east; +and as soon as he <!-- page 164--><a name="page164"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 164</span>had ascended as high as he could, he +ripped them open, and, shaking out their contents, dispersed them +in the air. The feathers were carried away by the wind, and +fell far and wide over the surface of the market-place, to the +great astonishment of a large number of persons assembled +there. The timid looked upon it phenomenon predictive of +some calamity; the inquisitive formed a thousand conjectures; +while some, curious in natural history, actually accounted for it +by a gale of wind in the north blowing wild-fowl feathers from +the island of St. Paul’s.’ On another occasion +he got into an old trunk, which the family had agreed to get rid +of as inconvenient in the house. In this case he had to pay +the penalty, when he emerged from the chest in the +carpenter’s shop. The men, who had complained +terribly of its weight, were not inclined to allow young Astley +to get off free. One of Astley’s tricks had, however, +a good motive, as it was intended to cure an old woman of her +besetting sin—a tendency to take a drop too much. In +order to cure the old woman of this weakness, he dressed himself +as well as he could to represent the sable form of his satanic +majesty. Alas! instead of being surprised, the old lady was +too far-gone for that, and listened with tipsy gravity to the +<!-- page 165--><a name="page165"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +165</span>distinguished visitor’s discourse. In her +case it was true, as Burns wrote:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Wi’ tipenny we fear nae evil;<br /> +Wi’ usquebae we’ll face the deevil.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One of his tricks nearly led to unpleasant consequences. +Whilst out shooting one day, near Yarmouth, he killed an +owl—a bird familiarly known in Yarmouth by the sobriquet of +‘Brother Billy.’ Having arrived at home, he +went up into his mother’s room, with the bird concealed +behind his coat, and, assuming a countenance full of fear and +sorrow, exclaimed, ‘Mother, mother, I’ve shot my +brother Billy!’ but the alarm and distress instantly +depicted on the distracted countenance of his parent induced him +as quickly as possible to pull the owl from under his coat. +This at once exposed the truth and allayed the apprehensions of +his mother’s mind, but the effects of the shock it caused +did not so immediately pass away. Dr. Cooper determined to +punish his son, and he therefore confined him, according to his +usual mode of correction, in his own house. Astley was, +however, but little disposed to remain passive in his +imprisonment, and in the wantonness of his ever-active +disposition amused himself by climbing up the chimney, and having +at length reached the <!-- page 166--><a name="page166"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 166</span>summit, endeavoured, by imitating +the well-known tone of the chimney-sweeper, and calling out as +lustily as he could, ‘Sweep, sweep!’ to attract the +attention of the people below. Even on his father the +incorrigible lad seems on more than one occasion to have tried +his little game. One day, while the worthy Doctor was +marrying a couple in the church, Master Astley concealed himself +in a turret close by the altar, and, imitating his father’s +voice, repeated in a subdued tone the words of the +marriage-service as the ceremony proceeded, to the consternation +of his father, who said that he had never observed an echo in +that place before. Once or twice the lad’s life was +in peril, as when his foot slipped on the top of the church, and +he was unpleasantly suspended for some time between the rafters +of the ceiling and the floor of the chancel. On another +occasion he had a narrow escape from drowning. It seems +that on the Yare are little boats out together very slightly, for +the purpose of carrying a man, his gun, and dog over the shallows +of Braydon, in pursuit of the flights of wild-fowl which at +certain seasons haunt these shoals. When the boat is thus +loaded, it only draws two or three inches of water, and is quite +unfit for sea. Young Astley nearly lost his life <!-- page +167--><a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 167</span>in +attempting to take one of these boats out to open sea. In +this way young Astley Cooper, from his fearless and enterprising +disposition, soon became a sort of leader of the Yarmouth boys, +and at their head, for a time, seems to have devoted himself to +every kind of amusement within his reach—riding, boating, +fishing, and not unfrequently sports of a less harmless +character, such as breaking lamps and windows, ringing the church +bells at all hours, disturbing the people by frequent alterations +of the church clock, so that if any mischief were committed it +was sure, says his admiring biographer, to be set down to +him.</p> +<p>The two men who shed most literary fame on the Yarmouth of my +childhood were Dawson Turner and Hudson Gurney, who in this +respect resembled each other, that they were both bankers and +both antiquarians more or less distinguished. Dawson Turner +was a man of middle height and of saturnine aspect, who had the +reputation of being a hard taskmaster to the ladies of his +family, who were quite as intelligent and devoted to literature +as himself. He published a ‘Tour in +Normandy’—at that time scarcely anyone travelled +abroad—and much other matter, and perhaps as an +autograph-collector was unrivalled. Most of <!-- page +168--><a name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +168</span>his books, with his notes, more or less valuable, are +now in the British Museum. Sir Charles Lyell, when a young +man, visited the Turner family in 1817, and gives us a very high +idea of them all. ‘Mr. Turner,’ he says, in a +letter to his father, ‘surprises me as much as ever. +He wrote twenty-two letters last night after he had wished us +“Good-night.” It kept him up till two +o’clock this morning.’ Again Sir Charles +writes: ‘What I see going on every hour in this family +makes me ashamed of the most active day I ever spent at +Midhurst. Mrs. Turner has been etching with her daughters +in the parlour every morning at half-past six.’ Of +Hudson Gurney in his youth we get a flattering portrait in one of +the charming ‘Remains of the Late Mrs. Trench,’ +edited by her son, Archbishop of Dublin. Writing from +Yarmouth in 1799, she says: ‘I have been detained here +since last Friday, waiting for a fair wind, and my imprisonment +would have been comfortless enough had it not have been for the +attention of Mr. Hudson Gurney, a young man on whom I had no +claims except from a letter of Mr. Sanford’s, who, without +knowing him, or having any connection with him, recommended me to +his care, feeling wretched that I should be unprotected in the +first <!-- page 169--><a name="page169"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 169</span>part of my journey. He has +already devoted to me one evening and two mornings, assisted me +in money matters, lent me books, and enlivened my confinement to +a wretched room by his pleasant conversation. Mr. Sanford +having described me as a person travelling about <i>for her +health</i>, he says his old assistant in the Bank fancied I was a +decrepit elderly lady who might safely be consigned to his +youthful partner. His description of his surprise thus +prepared was conceived in a very good strain of flattery. +He is almost two-and-twenty, understands several languages, seems +to delight in books, and to be uncommonly well +informed.’ Little credit, however, is due to Mr. +Hudson Gurney for his politeness in this case. The lovely +and lively widow—she had married Colonel St. George at the +age of eighteen, and the marriage only lasted two or three years, +the Colonel dying of consumption—must have possessed +personal and mental attractions irresistible to a cultivated +young man of twenty-two. Had she been old and ugly, it is +to be feared his business engagements would have prevented the +youthful banker devoting much time to her ladyship’s +service.</p> +<p>Yarmouth is intimately connected with literature and the fine +arts. It was off Yarmouth that <!-- page 170--><a +name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 170</span>Robinson +Crusoe was shipwrecked; and the testimony he bears to the +character of the people shows how kindly disposed were the +Yarmouth people of his day. ‘We,’ he writes, +‘got all safe on shore, and walked afterwards on foot to +Yarmouth, where, as unfortunate men, we were used with great +humanity, not only by the magistrates of the town, who assigned +us good quarters, but also by particular merchants and owners of +ships, and had money given us, sufficient to carry us either to +London or back to Hull, as we thought fit.’ It was +from Yarmouth that Wordsworth and Coleridge sailed away to +Germany, then almost a <i>terra incognita</i>. Leman +Blanchard was born at Yarmouth, as well as Sayers, the first, if +not the cleverest, of our English caricaturists. One of the +most brilliant men ever returned to Parliament was Winthrop +Mackworth Praed, M.P. for Yarmouth, whose politics as a boy I +detested as much as in after-years I learned to admire his +genius. One of the most fortunate men of our day, Sir James +Paget, the great surgeon, was a Yarmouth lad, and the See of +Chester was filled by an accomplished divine, also a Yarmouth +lad. Southey, when at Yarmouth, where his brother was a +student for some time, was so much struck with <!-- page 171--><a +name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 171</span>the +uniqueness of the epitaphs in the Yarmouth Church, that he took +the trouble to copy many of them. One was as follows:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘We put him out to nurse;<br /> +Alas! his life he paid,<br /> +But judge not; he was overlaid.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And hence it may be inferred that in Yarmouth the custom of +baby-farming has long flourished. Possibly thence it may +have extended itself to London. Amongst the truly great men +who have lived and died in Yarmouth, honourable mention must be +made of Hales, the Norfolk Giant. In times past soldiers +and sailors and royal personages were often to be seen at +Yarmouth. It was at Yarmouth the heroes, returning from +many a distant battle-field, often landed. Nelson on one +occasion—that is, after the affair of Copenhagen—when +he landed, at once made his way to the hospital to see his +men. To one of them, who had lost his arm, he said, +‘There, Jack, you and I are spoiled for +fishermen.’</p> +<p>A good deal of Puritanism seems to have come into England by +way of Yarmouth. In Queen Elizabeth’s time, 300 +Flemings settled there, who had fled from Popery and Spain in +their native land. In Norwich the Dutch Church <!-- page +172--><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +172</span>remains to this day. Some of them seem to have +been the friends and teachers of the far-famed, and I believe +unjustly maligned, Robert Browne. In Norfolk the seed fell +upon good soil. While sacerdotalism was more or less being +developed in the State Church, the Norfolk men boldly protested +against Papal abominations, as they deemed them, and swore to +maintain the gospel of Geneva and Knox. One of the men +imprisoned when Bancroft was Archbishop of Canterbury, for +attending a conventicle, was Thomas Ladd, ‘a merchant of +Yarmouth.’ The writ ran: ‘Because that, on the +Sabbath days, after the sermons ended, sojourning in the house of +Mr. Jachler, in Yarmouth, who was late preacher in Yarmouth, +joined with him in repeating the substance and heads of the +sermons that day made in the church, at which Thomas Ladd was +usually present.’ In 1624 the penal laws for +suppressing Separatists were strictly enforced in Yarmouth, and +one of the teachers of a small society of Anabaptists was cast +into prison, and the Bishop of Norwich wrote a letter of thanks +to the bailiffs for their activity in this matter, which is +preserved to this day. But, nevertheless, people still +continued to worship God according to the <!-- page 173--><a +name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 173</span>dictates of +conscience; we find the Earl of Dorset in his reply to the town +of Yarmouth, as to the way in which the town should be governed, +adds: ‘I should want in my care of you if I should not let +you know that his Majesty is not only informed, but incensed +against you for conniving at and tolerating a company of +Brownists among you. I pray you remember there was no seam +in the Saviour’s garment.’ Bridge was the +founder of the Yarmouth Congregational Church, somewhere about +the time of the commencement of the Civil War. The people +declared for the Parliament. Colonel Goffe was one of its +representatives in the House of Commons. All along, the +town seems to have been puritanically inclined, and to have been +in this matter more independent than neighbouring towns. At +one time they were so tolerant that the Independents seem to have +worshipped in one end of the church while the regular clergyman +performed the service in the other; but that did not last long, +and when the Independents had a place of worship of their own, +they were not a little troubled by Friends and Papists claiming +for themselves the liberty the Independents had sought and +won. In 1655 the peace of the Church was disturbed by +Quaker doctrines. It appears two females, members <!-- page +174--><a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 174</span>of +the Church, had joined them, and refused to return. We +read: ‘The messenger appointed to visit May Rouse, brought +in an account of her disowning and despising the Church; she +would not come at all unless she had a message from the Spirit +moving her.’ She came, however, a week after +(December 11), but by reason of the cold weather was desired to +come in again the next Tuesday. She did so, and gave in +these two reasons why she forsook the Church: 1. Because +the doctrine of the Gospel of Faith was not holden forth; +2. Because there wanted the right administration of +baptism.</p> +<p>In 1659 the Church at Yarmouth, feeling the times to be full +of trouble and of peril, said:</p> +<p>‘1. We judge a Parliament to be expedient for the +preservation of the peace of these nations; and withal, we do +desire that all due care be taken that the Parliament be such as +may preserve the interests of Christ and His people in these +nations.</p> +<p>‘2. As touching the magistrates’ power in +matters of faith and worship, we have declared our judgments in +our late (Free Savoy) confession, and though we greatly prize our +Christian liberties, yet we profess our utter dislike and +abhorrence of <!-- page 175--><a name="page175"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 175</span>a universal toleration, as being +contrary to the mind of God in His Word.</p> +<p>‘3. We judge that the taking away of tithes for +the maintenance of ministers until as full a maintenance be +equally secured and as legally settled, tends very much to the +destruction of the ministry, and the preaching of the Gospel in +these nations.</p> +<p>‘4. It is our desire that countenance be not given +unto, nor trust reposed in, the hand of Quakers, they being +persons of such principles as are destructive to the Gospel, and +inconsistent with the peace of modern societies.’</p> +<p>In five years the Yarmouth people had a Roland for their +Oliver; the King had got his own again, and he and the Parliament +of the day looked upon the Independents or Presbyterians as +mischievous as the Quakers; and as to tithes, they were quite as +much resolved, the only difference being that King and Parliament +insisted on their being paid to Episcopalians alone. In +1770 Lady Huntingdon writes: ‘Success has crowned our +labours in that wicked place, Yarmouth.’</p> +<p>Mrs. Bendish, in whom the Protector was said to have lived +again, was quite a character in Yarmouth society. Bridget +Ireton, the granddaughter <!-- page 176--><a +name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 176</span>of the +Protector, married in 1669 Mr. Thomas Bendish, a descendant of +Sir Thomas Bendish, baronet, Ambassador from Charles I. to the +Sultan. She died in 1728, removing, however, in the latter +years of her life to Yarmouth. Her name stands among the +members of the church in London of which Caryl had been pastor, +and over which Dr. Watts presided. To her the latter +addressed at any rate one copy of verses to be found in his +collected works. She recollected her grandfather, and +standing, when six years old, between his knees at a State +Council, she heard secrets which neither bribes nor whippings +could extract from her. Her grandfather she held to be a +saint in heaven, and only second to the Twelve Apostles. +Asked one day whether she had ever been at Court, her reply was, +‘I have never been at Court since I was waited upon on the +knee.’ Yet she managed to dispense with a good deal +of waiting, and never would suffer a servant to attend her. +God, she said, was a sufficient guard, and she would have no +other. She is described as loquacious and eloquent and +enthusiastic, frequenting the drawing-rooms and assemblies of +Yarmouth, dressed in the richest silks, and with a small black +hood on her head. When she left, which would be at one in +the <!-- page 177--><a name="page177"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 177</span>morning, perched on her +old-fashioned saddle, she would trot home, piercing the night air +with her loud, jubilant psalms, in which she described herself as +one of the elect, in a tone more remarkable for strength than +sweetness. In the daytime she would work with her +labourers, taking her turn at the pitchfork or the spade. +The old Court dresses of her mother and Mrs. Cromwell were +bequeathed by her to Mrs. Robert Luson, of Yarmouth, and were +shown as recently as 1834, at an exhibition of Court dresses held +at the Somerset Gallery in the Strand. As was to be +expected, Mrs. Bendish was enthusiastic in the cause of the +Revolution of 1688, and the printed sheets relating to it were +dropped by her secretly in the streets of Yarmouth, to prepare +the people for the good time coming. Her son was a friend +of Dr. Watts as well as his mother. He died at Yarmouth, +unmarried, in the year 1753, and with him the line of Bendish +seems to have come to an end. Another daughter of Ireton +was married to Nathaniel Carter, who died in 1723, aged 78. +His father, John Carter, was commander-in-chief of the militia of +the town in 1654. He subscribed the Solemn League and +Covenant, being then one of the elders of the Independent +congregation. He was also bailiff of <!-- page 178--><a +name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 178</span>the town, +and an intimate friend of Ireton. He died in 1667. On +his tombstone we read:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘His course, his fight, his race,<br /> + Thus finished, fought, and run,<br /> +Death brings him to the place<br /> + From whence is no return.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He lived at No. 4, South Quay, and it was there, so it is +said, that the resolve was made that King Charles should die.</p> +<p>He is gone, but his room still remains unaltered—a large +wainscoted upper chamber, thirty feet long, with three windows +looking on to the quay, with carved and ornamented chimney-piece +and ceiling. A great obscurity, as was to be expected, +hangs over the transaction, as even now there are men who shrink +from lifting up a finger against the Lord’s anointed. +Dinner had been ordered at four, but it was not till eleven, that +it was served, and that the die had been cast. The members +of the Secret Council, we are told, ‘after a very short +repast, immediately set off by post—many for London, and +some for the quarters of the army.’ Such is the +account given in a letter, written in 1773, by Mr. Mewling Luson, +a well-known resident in Yarmouth, whose father, Mr. William +Luson, was nearly connected the <!-- page 179--><a +name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 179</span>Cromwell +family. Nathaniel Carter, the son-in-law of Ireton, was in +the habit of showing the room, and relating the occurrence +connected with it, which happened when he was a boy. +Cromwell was not at that council. He never was in Yarmouth; +but that there was such consultation there is more than +probable. Yarmouth was full of Cromwellites. In the +Market Place, now known as the Weavers’ Arms, to this day +is shown the panelled parlour whence Miles Corbet was used to go +forth to worship in that part of the church allotted to the +Independents. Miles Corbet was the son of Sir Thomas +Corbet, of Sprouston, who had been made Recorder of Yarmouth in +the first year of Charles, and who was one of the representatives +of the town in the Long Parliament. The son was an ardent +supporter of the policy of Cromwell, and, like him, laboured that +England might be religious and free and great, as she never could +be under any king of the Stuart race; and he met with his +reward. ‘See, young man,’ said an old man to +Wilberforce, as he pointed to a figure of Christ on the cross, +‘see the fate of a Reformer.’ It was so +emphatically with Miles Corbet. Under the date of 1662 +there is the following entry in the church-book:</p> +<blockquote><p><!-- page 180--><a name="page180"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 180</span>‘1662.—Miles Corbet +suffered in London.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He was a member of the church there, and was one of the judges +who sat on the trial of King Charles I. His name stands +last on the list of those who signed the warrant for that +monarch’s execution. Corbet fled into Holland at the +Restoration, with Colonels Okey and Barkstead. George +Downing—a name ever infamous—had been Colonel +Okey’s chaplain. He became a Royalist at the +Restoration, and was despatched as Envoy Extraordinary into +Holland, where, under a promise of safety, he trepanned the three +persons above named into his power, and sent them over to England +to suffer death for having been members of the Commission for +trying King Charles I. For this service he was created a +baronet. The King sent an order to the Sheriffs of London +on April 21, 1662, that Okey’s head and quarters should +have Christian burial, as he had manifested some signs of +contrition; but Barkstead’s head was directed to be placed +on the Traitor’s Gate in the Tower, and Corbet’s head +on the bridge, and their quarters on the City gates.</p> +<p>Foremost amongst the noted women of the Independent Church +must be mentioned Sarah Martin, of whose life a sketch appeared +in the <!-- page 181--><a name="page181"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 181</span><i>Edinburgh Review</i> as far back +as 1847. A life of her was also published by the Religious +Tract Society. Sarah, who joined the Yarmouth church in +1811, was born at Caistor. From her nineteenth year she +devoted her only day of rest, the Sabbath, to the task of +teaching in a Sunday-school. She likewise visited the +inmates of the workhouse, and read the Scriptures to the aged and +the sick. But the gaol was the scene of her greatest +labours. In 1819, after some difficulty, she obtained +admission to it, and soon seems to have acquired an extraordinary +influence over the minds of the prisoners. She then gave up +one day in the week to instruct them in reading and +writing. At length she attended the prison regularly, and +kept an exact account of her proceedings and their results in a +book, which is now preserved in the public library of the +town. As there was no chaplain, she read and preached to +the inmates herself, and devised means of obtaining employment +for them. She continued this good work till the end of her +days in 1843, when she died, aged fifty-three. A handsome +window of stained glass, costing upwards of £100, raised by +subscription, has been placed to her memory in the west window of +the north aisle of St. Nicholas Church. But <!-- page +182--><a name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +182</span>her fame extends beyond local limits, and is part of +the inheritance of the universal Church. It was in Mr. +Walford’s time that Sarah Martin commenced her work. +Mr. Walford tells us, in his Autobiography, that the Church had +somewhat degenerated in his day, that the line of thought was +worldly, and not such as became the Gospel. It is clear +that in his time it greatly revived, and, even as a lad, the +intelligence of the congregation seemed to lift me up into quite +a new sphere, so different were the merchants and ship-owners of +Yarmouth from the rustic inhabitants of my native village. +In this respect, if I remember aright, the family of Shelley were +particularly distinguished. One dear old lady, who lived at +the Quay, was emphatically the minister’s friend. She +had a nice house of her own and ample means, and there she +welcomed ministers and their wives and children. It is to +be hoped, for the sake of poor parsons, that such people still +live. I know it was a great treat to me to enjoy the +hospitality of the kind-hearted Mrs. Goderham, for whose memory I +still cherish an affectionate regard. To live in one of the +best houses on the Quay, and to lie in my bed and to see through +the windows the masts of the shipping, was indeed to a boy a +treat.</p> +<p><!-- page 183--><a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +183</span>A little while ago I chanced to be at Norwich, when the +thought naturally occurred to me that I would take a run to +Yarmouth—a journey quickly made by the rail. In my +case the journey was safely and expeditiously accomplished, and I +hastened once more to revisit the scenes and associations of my +youth. Alas! wherever I went I found changes. A new +generation had arisen that knew not Joseph. The wind was +howling down the Quay; the sand was blown into my mouth, my nose, +my ears; I could scarcely see for the latter, or walk for the +former; but, nevertheless, I made my way to the pier. Only +one person was on it, and his back was turned to me. As he +stood at the extreme end, with chest expanded, with mouth wide +open, as if prepared to swallow the raging sea in front and the +Dutch coast farther off, I thought I knew the figure. It +was a reporter from Fleet Street and he was the only man to greet +me in the town I once knew so well. Yes; the Yarmouth of my +youth was gone. Then a reporter from Fleet Street was an +individual never dreamt of. And so the world changes, and +we get new men, fresh faces, other minds. The antiquarian +Camden, were he to revisit Yarmouth, would not be a little +astonished at what he would see. He wrote: ‘As <!-- +page 184--><a name="page184"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +184</span>soon as the Yare has passed Claxton, it takes a turn to +the south, that it may descend more gently into the sea, by which +means it makes a sort of little tongue or slip of land, washt on +one side by itself, on the other side by the sea. In this +slip, upon an open shore, I saw Yarmouth, a very neat harbour and +town, fortified both by the nature of the place and the +contrivance of art. For, though it be almost surrounded +with water, on the west with a river, over which there is a +drawbridge, and on either side with the sea, except to the north, +where it is joined to the continent; yet it is fenced with +strong, stately walls, which, with the river, figure it into an +oblong quadrangle. Besides the towers upon these, there is +a mole or mount, to the east, from whence the great guns command +the sea (scarce half a mile distant) all round. It has but +one church, though very large and with a stately high spire, +built near the north gate by Herbert, Bishop of +Norwich.’ In only one respect the Yarmouth of to-day +resembles that of Camden’s time. Then the north wind +played the tyrant and plagued the coast, and it does so +still.</p> +<h2><!-- page 185--><a name="page185"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 185</span>CHAPTER VII.<br /> +<span class="smcap">the norfolk capital</span>.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Brigg’s Lane—The carrier’s +cart—Reform demonstration—The old +dragon—Chairing M.P.’s—Hornbutton +Jack—Norwich artists and literati—Quakers and +Nonconformists.</p> +<p>Many, many years ago, when wandering in the North of Germany, +I came to an hotel in the Fremden Buch, of which (Englishmen at +that time were far more patriotic and less cosmopolitan than in +these degenerate days) an enthusiastic Englishman had +written—and possibly the writing had been suggested by the +hard fare and dirty ways of the place:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘England, with all thy faults, I love thee +still.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Underneath, a still more enthusiastic Englishman had written: +‘Faults? What faults? I know of none, except +that Brigg’s Lane, Norwich, wants widening.’ +For the benefit of the reader who may be a stranger to the +locality, let me inform him that <!-- page 186--><a +name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +186</span>Brigg’s Lane leads out of the fine Market Place, +for which the good old city of Norwich is celebrated all the +world over, and that on a recent visit to Norwich I found that +the one fault which could be laid at the door of England had been +removed—that Brigg’s Lane had been +widened—that, in fact, it had ceased to be a lane, and had +been elevated into the dignity of a street.</p> +<p>My first acquaintance with Norwich, when I was a lad of tender +years and of limited experience, was by Brigg’s Lane. +I had reached it by means of a carrier’s cart—the +only mode of conveyance between Southwold, Wrentham, Beccles and +Norwich—a carrier’s cart with a hood drawn by three +noble horses, and able to accommodate almost any number of +travellers and any amount of luggage. As the driver was +well known to everyone, there was also a good deal of +conversation of a more or less friendly character. The cart +took one day to reach Norwich—which was, and it may be is, +the commercial emporium of all that district—and another +day to return. The beauty of such a conveyance, as compared +with the railway travelling of to-day, was that there was no +occasion to be in a flurry if you wanted to travel by it. +Goldsmith—for such was the proprietor and driver’s +name—when he came to <!-- page 187--><a +name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 187</span>a place was +in no hurry to leave it. All the tradesmen in the village +had hampers or boxes to return, and it took some time to collect +them; or messages and notes to send, and it took some time to +write them; and at the alehouse there was always a little gossip +to be done while the horses enjoyed their pail of water or +mouthful of hay. Even at the worst there was no fear of +being left behind, as by dint of running and holloaing you might +get up with the cart, unless you were very much behind +indeed. But you may be sure that when the day came that I +was to visit the great city of Norwich I was ready for the +carrier’s cart long before the carrier’s cart was +ready for me. Why was it, you ask, that the Norwich journey +was undertaken? The answer is not difficult to give. +The Reform agitation at that time had quickened the entire +intellectual and social life of the people. At length had +dawned the age of reason, and had come the rights of man. +The victory had been won all along the line, and was to be +celebrated in the most emphatic manner. We Dissenters +rejoiced with exceeding joy; for we looked forward, as a natural +result, to the restoration of that religious equality in the eye +of the law of which we had been unrighteously deprived, <!-- page +188--><a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +188</span>and in consequence of which we had suffered in many +ways. We joined, as a matter of course, in the celebration +of the victory which we and the entire body of Reformers +throughout the land had gained; and how could that be done better +than by feeding the entire community on old English fare washed +down by old English ale? And this was done as far as +practicable everywhere. For instance, at Bungay there was a +public feast in the Market Place, and on the town-pump the +Messrs. Childs erected a printing-press, which they kept hard at +work all day printing off papers intended to do honour to the +great event their fellow-townsmen were celebrating in so jovial a +manner. In Norwich the demonstration was to be of a more +imposing character, and as an invitation had come to the heads of +the family from an old friend, a minister out of work, and living +more or less comfortably on his property, it seemed good to them +to accept it, and to take me with them, deeming, possibly, that +of two evils it was best to choose the least, and that I should +be safer under their eye at Norwich than with no one to look +after me at home. At any rate, be that as it may, the +change was not a little welcome, and much did I see to wonder at +in the old Castle, the new Gaol, the size <!-- page 189--><a +name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 189</span>of the +city, the extent of the Market Place, the smartness of the +people, and the glare of the shops. It well repaid me for +the ride of twenty-six miles and the jolting of the +carrier’s cart along the dusty roads.</p> +<p>As I look into the mirror of the past, I see, alas! but a +faded picture of that wonderful banquet in Norwich to celebrate +Reform. There was a procession with banners and music, +which seemed to me endless, as it toiled along in the dust under +the fierce sun of summer, the spectators cheering all the +way. There were speeches, I dare say, though no word of +them remains; but I have a distinct recollection of peeping into +the tents or tent, where the diners were at work, and of +receiving from some one or other of them a bit of plum-pudding +prepared for that day, which seemed to me of unusual +excellence. I have a distinct recollection also of the +fireworks in the evening, the first I had ever seen, on the +Castle plain, and of the dense crowd that had turned out to see +the sight; but I can well remember that I enjoyed myself much, +and that I was awfully tired when it was all over.</p> +<p>Another memory also comes to me in connection with the old +Dragon,—not of Revelation, but of Norwich—a huge +green monster, which was usually <!-- page 190--><a +name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 190</span>kept in St. +Andrew’s Hall, and dragged out at the time of city +festivities. Men inside of it carried it along the street, +and the sight was terrible to see, as it had a ferocious head and +a villainous tail, and resembled nothing that is in the heaven +above or the earth beneath or the waters under the earth. I +fancy, however, since the schoolmaster has gone abroad, that kind +of dragon has ceased to roar. I think it was at a Norwich +election that I saw it for the first and the only time, and it +followed in the procession formed to chair the Members—the +Members being seated in gorgeous array on chairs, borne on the +heads of people, and every now and then, much to the delight of +the mob, though I should imagine very little to his own, the +chair, with the Member in it, was tossed up into the air, and by +this means it was supposed the general public were able to get a +view of their M.P. and to see what manner of man he was. It +was in some such way that I, as a lad, realized, as I never else +should have done, the red face and the pink-silk stockings of the +Hon. Mr. Scarlett, the happy candidate who pretended to enjoy the +fun, as with the best grace possible under the circumstances he +smiled on the ladies in the windows of the street, as he was +borne along and bowed to all. From <!-- page 191--><a +name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 191</span>my +recollection of the chairing I saw that time, I am more inclined +to admire the activity of Wilberforce, of whom we read, when +elected for Hull, ‘When the procession reached his +mother’s house, he sprang from the chair, and, presenting +himself with surprising quickness at a projecting window—it +was that of the nursery in which his childhood had been +passed—he addressed the populace with such complete effect +that he was afterwards able to decide the election of its +successor.’ At Norwich the Hon. Mr. Scarlett did well +in not attempting a similar display of agility. Perhaps, +however, it is quite as well that we have got rid of the chairing +and the humour—Heaven help us!—to which it gave rise +on the part of an English mob.</p> +<p>There was a delightful flavour of antiquity about the Norwich +of that day—its old fusty chapels and churches, its old +bridges and narrow streets. All the people with whom I came +into contact on that festival seemed to me well stricken in +years. It was not so very long since, old Hornbutton Jack +had been seen threading his way along its ancient streets. +With a countenance much resembling the portraits of Erasmus, with +gray hair hanging about his shoulders, with his hat drawn over +his eyes and his hands behind him, as if in deep meditation; <!-- +page 192--><a name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +192</span>John Fransham, the Norwich metaphysician and +mathematician, might well excite the curiosity of the casual +observer, especially when I add that he was bandy-legged, that he +was short of stature, that he wore a green jacket, a broad hat, +large shoes, and short worsted stockings. A Norwich weaver +had helped to make Fransham a philosopher. Wright said +Fransham could discourse well on the nature and fitness of +things. He possessed a purely philosophical spirit and a +soul well purified from vulgar errors. Fransham made +himself famous in his day. There is every reason to believe +that he had been for some time tutor to Mr. Windham. He is +once recorded to have spent a day with Dr. Parr. Many of +his pupils became professional men; with one of them, Dr. Leeds, +the reader of Foote’s comedies, if such a one exists, may +be acquainted. The tutor and his pupil, as Johnny +Macpherson and Dr. Last, were actually exhibited on the +stage. But to return to Norwich antiquities. I have a +dim memory of some old place where the Dutch and Huguenot +refugees were permitted to meet for worship, and even now I can +recognise there the possibility of another Sir Thomas +Browne—unless the Norwich of my boyhood has undergone the +destructive process we <!-- page 193--><a +name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 193</span>love to +call improvement—not even disturbed in his quiet study by +the storm of civil war, inditing his thoughts as follows: +‘That crystal is nothing else but ice strongly congealed; +that a diamond is softened or broken by the blood of a goat; that +bays preserve from the mischief of lightning and thunder; that +the horse hath no gall; that a kingfisher hanged by the bill +showeth where the wind lay; that the flesh of peacocks corrupteth +not;’ and so on—questions, it may be, as pertinent as +those learnedly discussed in half-crown magazines at the present +day.</p> +<p>As a boy, I was chiefly familiar with Norwich crapes and +bombazines and Norwich shawls, which at that time were making +quite a sensation in the fashionable world. It was at a +later time that I came to hear of Old Crome and the Norwich +school. Of him writes Mr. Wedmore, that ‘he died in a +substantial square-built house, in what was a good street then, +in the parish of St. George, Colegate, having begun as a workman, +and ended as a bourgeois. He was a simple man, of genial +company. To the end of his life he used to go of an evening +to the public-house as to an informal club. In the +privileged bar-parlour, behind the taps and glasses, he sat with +his friends and the shopkeepers, <!-- page 194--><a +name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 194</span>talking of +local things. But it is not to be supposed that because his +life was from end to end a humble one, though prosperous even +outwardly after its kind, Crome was deprived of the companionship +most fitted to his genius, the stimulus that he most +needed. The very existence of the Norwich Society of +Artists settles that question. The local men hung on his +words; he knew that he was not only making pictures, but a +school. And in the quietness of a provincial city a coterie +had been formed of men bent on the pursuit of an honest and +homely art, and of these he was the chief.’ Dying, +his last words were, ‘Hobbema, oh, Hobbema, how I loved +thee!’ In my young days Mr. John Sell Cotman chiefly +represented Norwich, although in later times he became connected +with King’s College, London. A lady writes to me: +‘I think it was in the summer of 1842 Mr. Cotman came down +to Norwich to visit his son John, who at that time was occupying +a house on St. Bennet’s Road. He visited us at Thorpe +several times, and was unusually well and in good spirits, with +sketchbook or folio always in hand. His father and sisters, +too, were then living in a small house at Thorpe, and from the +balcony of their house, which looked over the valley of the +Wensum, he made <!-- page 195--><a name="page195"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 195</span>one of his last interesting +sketches, twelve of which, after his death, the following year, +were selected by his sons for publication.’</p> +<p>Evelyn gives us a pleasant picture of Norwich when he went +there ‘to see that famous scholar and physitian, Dr. T. +Browne, author of the “Religio Medici” and +“Vulgar Errors,” etc., now lately +knighted.’ Evelyn continues: ‘Next morning I +went to see Sir Thomas Browne, with whom I had corresponded by +letter, though I had never seen him before, his whole house and +garden being a Paradise and cabinet of rarities, and that of the +best collection, especially medals, books, plants and natural +things. Amongst other curiosities, Sir Thomas has a +collection of all the eggs of all the foule and birds he could +procure; that country, especially the promonotary of Norfolck, +being frequented, as he said, by severall kinds, which seldom or +never go further into the land, as cranes, storkes, eagles, and a +variety of water-foule. He led me to see all the remarkable +places of this ancient citty, being one of the largest and +certainly, after London, one of the noblest of England, for its +venerable cathedrall, number of stately churches, cleannesse of +the streetes and building of flints so exquisitely headed and +squared, as I was much <!-- page 196--><a +name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 196</span>astonished +at; but he told me they had lost the art of squaring the flints, +in which at one time they so much excelled, and of which the +churches, best houses, and walls are built.’ Further, +Evelyn tells us: ‘The suburbs are large, the prospect +sweete with other amenities, not omitting the flower-gardens, in +which all the inhabitants excel. The fabric of stuffs +brings a vast trade to this populous towne.’</p> +<p>Long has Norwich rejoiced in clever people. In the life +of William Taylor, one of her most distinguished sons, we have a +formidable array of illustrious Norwich personages, in whom, +alas! at the present time the world takes no interest. Sir +James Edward Smith, founder and first President of the +Linnæan Society, ought not to be forgotten. Of Taylor +himself Mackintosh wrote: ‘I can still trace William Taylor +by his Armenian dress, gliding through the crowd in Annual +Reviews, Monthly Magazines, Athenæums, etc., rousing the +stupid public by paradox, or correcting it by useful and +seasonable truth. It is true that he does not speak the +Armenian or any other tongue but the Taylorian, but I am so fond +of his vigour and originality, that for his sake I have studied +and learned the language. As the Hebrew is studied by one +book, so is the Taylorian by me for another. <!-- page +197--><a name="page197"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 197</span>He +never deigns to write to me, but in print I doubt whether he has +many readers who so much understand, relish, and tolerate him, +for which he ought to reward me by some of his manuscript +esoteries.’ More may be said of William Taylor. +It was he who made Walter Scott a poet. Taylor’s +spirited translation of Burger’s ‘Leonore’ with +the two well-known lines—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Tramp, tramp along the land they rode,<br +/> +Splash, splash along the sea,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>opened up to Scott a field in which for a time he won fame and +wealth.</p> +<p>Of Mrs. Taylor, wife of the grandson of the eminent Hebraist, +Mackintosh declared that she was the Madame Roland of +Norwich. We owe to her Mrs. Austen and Lady Duff +Gordon. Mr. Reeve, the translator of De Tocqueville’s +‘Democracy,’ has preserved the memory of his father, +Dr. Henry Reeve, by the republication of his ‘Journal of a +Tour on the Continent.’ Let me also mention that Dr. +Caius, the founder of Caius College, Cambridge, was a Norwich +man.</p> +<p>To Noncons Norwich offers peculiar attractions. We have +in Dr. Williams’s library ‘The Order of the Prophesie +in Norwich’; and Robinson, the leader of the Pilgrim +Fathers, had a Norwich <!-- page 198--><a +name="page198"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +198</span>charge. Even in a later day some of the Norwich +divines had a godly zeal for freedom, worthy of Milton himself, +and on which the Pilgrim Fathers would have smiled +approval. It is told of Mark Wilks, the brother of Matthew, +and the grandfather of our London Mark Wilks, that when a +deputation went from Norwich during the Thelwall and Horne Tooke +trials, when, if the Castlereagh gang had had their will, there +would have been found a short and easy way with the Dissenters, +and came back on the Sunday morning, entering the place after the +service had commenced, that he called out, ‘What’s +the news?’ as he saw them enter. +‘Acquitted,’ was the reply. ‘Thank +God!’ said the parson, as they all joined in singing</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Praise God from whom all blessings +flow.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is a fact that Wilks’s first sermon in the Countess +of Huntingdon’s Chapel at Norwich was from the text, +‘There is a lad here with five barley loaves and a few +small fishes.’ Let me tell another story, this time +in connection with that Old Meeting which has so much to attract +the visitor at Norwich. It had a grand old man, William +Youngman, amongst its supporters; I see him now, with his +choleric face, his full fat figure, his black knee-breeches and +silk <!-- page 199--><a name="page199"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 199</span>stockings, his gold-headed +cane. He was an author, a learned man, as well as a Norwich +merchant, the very Aristarchus of Dissent—a kind-hearted, +hospitable man withal, if my boyish experience may be relied +on. One Sunday there came to preach in the Old Meeting a +young man named Halley from London, who lived to be honoured as +few of our Dissenting D.D.’s have been. He was young, +and he felt nervous as he looked from the pulpit on the austere +critic in his great square pew just beneath. Well, thought +the young preacher, a sermon on keeping the Sabbath will be safe, +and he selected that for his morning discourse. The service +over, up comes the grand old man. ‘The next time, +young man, you preach, preach on something you understand;’ +and, having said so, he bought a pennyworth of apples of a woman +in the street, leaving the young man to digest his remarks as +best he could. Again the service was to be carried +on. The young man was in the pulpit, the grand old man +below. There was singing and prayer, but no sermon, the +young man having bolted after opening the service. I like +better the picture of Norwich I get in Sir James +Mackintosh’s Life, where Basil Montague tells us how he and +Mackintosh, when travelling the <!-- page 200--><a +name="page200"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 200</span>Norfolk +circuit, always hastened to Norwich to spend their evenings in +the circle of which Mrs. Taylor was the attraction and the +centre. The wife of a Norwich tradesman, we see her sitting +sewing and talking in the midst of her family, the companion of +philosophers, who compared her to Lucy Hutchinson, and a model +wife. Far away in India Sir James writes to her: ‘I +know the value of your letters. They rouse my mind on +subjects which interest us in common—friends, children, +literature, and life. Their moral tone cheers and braces +me. I ought to be made permanently happy by contemplating a +mind like yours; which seems more exclusively to derive its +gratifications from its duties than almost any +other.’ It was in the Norwich Octagon that these +Taylors worshipped. Their Unitarianism seemed to have +affected them more favourably than it did Harriet Martineau, +whose family also attended there. I remember Edward Taylor, +who was the Gresham Professor of Music. But theologically, +I presume, the palm of excellence in connection with the Octagon +is to be awarded to Dr. Taylor, the great Hebrew scholar. +He wrote to old Newton: ‘I have been looking through my +Bible, and can’t find your doctrine of the +Atonement.’ ‘Last night I <!-- page 201--><a +name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 201</span>could not +see to get into bed,’ replied old Newton, ‘because I +found I had my extinguisher on the candle. Take off the +extinguisher, and then you will see.’</p> +<p>Leaving theology, let us get up on the gray old castle, which +is to be turned into a museum, and look round on the city lying +at our feet. Would you have a finer view? Cross the +Yare and walk up the new road (made by the unemployed one hard +winter) to Mousehold Heath, and after you have done thinking of +Kitt’s rebellion—an agrarian one, by-the-bye, and +worth thinking about just at this time—and of the Lollards, +who were burnt just under you, look across to the city in the +valley, with its heights all round, more resembling the Holy +City, so travellers say, than any other city in the world. +In the foreground is the cathedral, right beyond rises the castle +on the hill; church spires, warehouses, public buildings, private +dwellings, manufactories, chimneys’ smoke, complete the +landscape fringed by the green of the distant hills. There +are a hundred thousand people there—to be preached to and +saved.</p> +<p>Windham was rather hard on the Norwich of his day. In +his diary, in 1798, he records a visit to Norwich, of which city +he was the representative. <!-- page 202--><a +name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 202</span>On October +9 he dined at the Swan—‘dinner, like the sessions +dinner, but ball in the evening distinguished by the presence of +Mrs. Siddons.’ On the 10th he dined at the +Bishop’s—‘A party, of, I suppose, fifty, +chiefly clergy. I felt the same enjoyment that I frequently +do at large dinners—they afford, in general, what never +fails to be pleasant—solitude in a crowd.’ On +the 11th he writes: ‘Dined with sheriffs at King’s +Head. Robinson, the late sheriff, was there, and much as he +may be below his own opinion of himself, he is more to talk to +than the generality of those who are found on those +occasions. I could not help reflecting on the very low +state of talents or understanding in those who compose the whole, +nearly, of the society of Norwich. The French are surely a +more enlightened and polished people.’ Perhaps +Windham would have fared better had he dined with some of the +leading Dissenters. Few of the clergy of East Anglia at +that time would have been fitting company for the friend of +Johnson and Burke. In Norwich, Mr. Windham often managed to +make himself unpopular. For instance, towards the end of +the session of 1788, Mr. Windham called the attention of +Government to a requisition from France, which was then suffering +the greatest distress <!-- page 203--><a name="page203"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 203</span>from a scarcity of grain. The +object of this requisition was to be supplied with 20,000 sacks +of flour from this country. So small a boon ought, he +thought, to be granted from motives of humanity; but a Committee +of the House of Commons having decided against it, the Ministers, +though they professed themselves disposed to afford the relief +sought for, could not, after such a decision, undertake to grant +it upon their own responsibility. The leading part which +Mr. Windham took in favour of this requisition occasioned, +amongst some of his constituents at Norwich, considerable +clamour. He allayed the storm by a private letter addressed +to those citizens of Norwich who were most likely to be affected +by a rise in the price of provisions; but the fact that Norwich +should thus have backed up the inhuman policy of refusing food to +France showed how strong at that time was the force of passion, +and how hard it is to break down hereditary animosity. As a +further illustration of manners and habits of the East Anglian +clergy, let me mention that when, in 1778, Windham made the +speech which pointed him out to be a man of marked ability in +connection with the call made on the country for carrying on the +American War, one of the Canons of the cathedral, and a great +supporter <!-- page 204--><a name="page204"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 204</span>of the war, exclaimed: +‘D—n him! I could cut his tongue +out!’</p> +<p>In my young days, in serious circles, there was no name dearer +than that of Joseph Gurney—a fine-looking man with a +musical voice, always ready to aid with money, or in other ways, +all that was right and good, or what seemed to him such. In +the ‘Memorials of a Quaker Lady’ he is described +thus: ‘He sat on the end seat of the first cross-form, and +both preached and supplicated. I was very much struck with +him. His fine person, his beautiful dark, glossy hair, his +intelligent, benign, and truly amiable countenance, made a deep +impression upon me. And as he noticed me most kindly, as I +was introduced to him by Elizabeth Fry, as the little girl his +sister Priscilla wanted to bring to England, I felt myself +greatly honoured.’ The Gurneys have an ancient +lineage, and had their home in Gourney, in Upper Normandy. +One of them, of course, fought in the ranks of the winners at the +battle of Hastings. Another was a crusader. Another +had done good service at Acre, as a follower of Richard of the +Lion Heart. When the main line came to an end, one branch +settled in Norfolk. Gurney’s Bank at Norwich was one +of the institutions of the city, and was as famous in <!-- page +205--><a name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 205</span>my +day as at a later time was the great house of Overend and Gurney, +which, when it fell, created a panic in financial circles all the +world over.</p> +<p>At Earlham, the home of the Gurneys, we learn how much may be +done by a family, and how widespread its influence for good or +evil may become. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton certainly stands +foremost, not alone amongst the East Anglians, but the +philanthropists of later years. At the age of sixteen young +Buxton went to Earlham as a guest. His biographer writes: +‘They received him as one of themselves, early appreciating +his masterly, though still uncultivated mind; while, on his side, +their cordial and encouraging welcome seemed to draw out all his +latent powers. He at once joined with them in reading and +study, and from this visit may be dated a remarkable change in +the whole tone of his character; he received a stimulus not +merely in the acquisition of knowledge, but in the formation of +studious habits and intellectual tastes. Nor could the same +influence fail of extending to the refinement of his disposition +and manners.’ At that time Norwich—the Buxtons +being witnesses—was distinguished for good society, and +Earlham was celebrated for its hospitality. <!-- page +206--><a name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +206</span>Mr. Gurney, the father, belonged to the Society of +Friends, but his family was not brought up with any strict regard +to its peculiarities. He put little restraint on their +domestic amusements, and music and dancing were among their +favourite recreations. The third daughter, Mrs. Fry, had, +indeed, united herself more closely with the Society of Friends; +but her example had not then been followed by any of her brothers +and sisters. ‘I know,’ wrote Sir Thomas, in +later years, ‘no blessing of a temporal nature—and it +is not only temporal—for which I ought to render so many +thanks as my connection with the Earlham family. It has +given a colour to my life. Its influence was most positive, +and pregnant with good at that critical period between school and +manhood. They were eager to improve; I caught the +infection. I was resolved to please them, and in the +college at Dublin, at a distance from all my friends and all +control, their influence and the desire to please them kept me +hard at my books, and sweetened the task they gave. The +distinctions I gained at college (little valuable as +distinctions, but valuable because habits of industry, +perseverance and resolution were necessary to attain +them)—these boyish distinctions were exclusively the result +of the animating <!-- page 207--><a name="page207"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 207</span>passion in my mind to carry back to +them the prizes which they prompted and enabled me to +win.’</p> +<p>Wilberforce, when he was staying at Lowestoft in 1816, wrote: +‘I am still full of Earlham and its excellent +inhabitants. One of our great astronomers stated it as +probable there may be stars whose light has been travelling to us +from the Creation, and has not yet reached our little +planet. In the Earlham family a new constellation has +broken in upon us, for which you must invent a name, as you are +fond of star-gazing, and if it indicates a little monstrosity (as +they are apt to give the collection of stars the names of strange +creatures—dragons, bears, etc.), the various stars of which +the Earlham assemblage is made,’ continues Wilberforce, +‘will include also much to be respected and +loved.’ At that time Mrs. Opie was one of the Norwich +stars. Caroline Fox, who went to dine with her described +her as in great force and really jolly. ‘She is +enthusiastic about Father Mathew, reads Dickens voraciously, +takes to Carlyle, but thinks his appearance rather against +him—talks much and with great spirit of people, but never +ill-naturedly.’</p> +<p>‘Norwich,’ as described by Camden, ‘on +account of its wealth, populousness, neatness of buildings, <!-- +page 208--><a name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +208</span>beautiful churches, with the number of them—for +it has a matter of fifty parishes—as also the industry of +its citizens, loyalty to their Prince, is to be reckoned among +the most considerable cities in Britain. It was fortified +with walls that have a great many turrets and eleven +gates.’ Camden, quoting one writer after another, +adds the eulogy of Andrew Johnston, a Scotchman, as follows:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘A town whose stately piles and happy +seat<br /> +Her citizens and strangers both delight;<br /> +Whose tedious siege and plunder made her bear<br /> +In Norman battles an unhappy share,<br /> +And feel the sad effects of dreadful war.<br /> +These storms o’erblown, now blest with constant peace,<br +/> +She saw her riches and her trade increase.<br /> +State here by wealth, by beauty yet undone,<br /> +How blest if vain excess be yet unknown!<br /> +So fully is she from herself supplied<br /> +That England while she stands can never want a head.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>From Norwich went Robinson to help to build up in Amsterdam +that Church of the Pilgrim Fathers which was to be in its turn +the mother of a great Republic such as the world had never +seen. He has been styled the Father of Modern +Congregationalism; be that as it may, when he bade farewell in +that quaint old harbour, Delfhaven—which looks as if not a +brick or a building had been touched since—he was doing a +work from which <!-- page 209--><a name="page209"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 209</span>neither himself nor those who stood +with him could ever have expected such wonderful results. +That emigration to Holland in Wren’s time was a great loss +of money and men to England, and was an indication of +Nonconformist strength which wise Churchmen would have +conciliated rather than driven to extremities. ‘In +sooth it was,’ wrote Heylin, ‘that the people in many +great trading towns which were near the sea, having long been +discharged of the bond of ceremonies, no sooner came to hear the +least noise of a conformity, but they began to spurn against it; +and when they found that all their striving was in vain, that +they had lost the comfort of their lecturers and that their +ministers began to shrink at the very name of a visitation, it +was no hard matter for those ministers and lecturers to persuade +them to remove their dwellings and transport their +trades.’ ‘The sun of heaven,’ say they, +‘doth shine as comfortably in other places; the Sun of +Righteousness much brighter.’ ‘Better to go and +dwell in Goshen, find it where we can, than tarry in the midst of +such an Egyptian darkness as is now falling on the +land.’ One of the preachers who gave that advice and +acted in accordance with it was William Bridge, M.A. +Against him Wren <!-- page 210--><a name="page210"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 210</span>was so furious that he fled to +Holland and settled down as one of the pastors of the church at +Rotterdam. In 1643 we find him pastor of the church at +Norwich and Yarmouth, and one of the Assembly of Divines. +In 1644 the church was separated—a part meeting at Yarmouth +and a part at Norwich. This was done on the advice of Mr. +John Phillip, of Wrentham—a godly minister of great +influence in his denomination in his day.</p> +<p>As was to be expected, I was taken to the Old Meeting House at +Norwich, where many learned men had preached, and where many men +almost as learned listened. The gigantic pews, in which a +small family might have lived, filled me with amazement. +And equally appalling to me was the respectability of the people, +of a very different class from that of our Wrentham chapel. +Close by was the Octagon Chapel, where the Unitarians worshipped, +equally impressive in its respectability. But what struck +me most was the new and fashionable Baptist chapel of St. +Mary’s, where the venerable and learned Kinghorn +preached—a great Hebrew scholar and the champion of strict +communion—against Robert Hall, and other degenerate +Baptists, who were ready to admit to the Lord’s Table any +Christians, whether properly <!-- page 211--><a +name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +211</span>baptized—that is, by immersion when +adults—or merely sprinkled as infants. Up to this day +I confound the worthy man with John the Baptist, probably because +he looked so lank and long and lean. He was a man of +singularly precise habits, so much so that I heard of an old lady +who always regulated her cooking by his daily walk, putting the +dumplings into the pot to boil when he went, and taking them out +when he returned. I could write much about him, but <i>cui +bono</i>? who cares about a dead Baptist lion? Not even the +Baptists themselves. On going into their library in Castle +Street the other day, to look at Kinghorn’s life, I found +no one had taken the trouble to cut the pages. In the front +gallery of St. Mary’s, Mr. Brewer, the Norwich +schoolmaster, had sittings for the boys of his school, including +his own sons, who, at King’s College and elsewhere, have +done much to illustrate our national history and +literature. If I remember aright, one of the congregation +was a jolly-looking old gentleman who, as Uncle Jerry, laid the +foundation of a mustard manufactory, which has placed one of the +present M.P.’s for Norwich at the head of a business of +unrivalled extent. When Mr. Kinghorn died, his place was +taken by Mr. Brock, better known as Dr. Brock, <!-- page 212--><a +name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 212</span>of +Bloomsbury Chapel, London. Under Mr. Brock’s +preaching the reputation of St. Mary’s Chapel was increased +rather than diminished. As a young man himself at that +time, he was peculiarly attractive to the young, and the singing +was very different from the rustic psalmody of my native village, +in spite of the fact that we had a bass-viol at all times, and on +highly-favoured occasions such an array of flutes and clarionets +as really astonished the natives and delighted me.</p> +<p>But to return to the Old Meeting. Calamy writes of one +of the Norwich ministers, of the name of Cromwell, that ‘he +enjoyed but one peaceable day after his settlement, being on the +second forced out of his meeting-house, the licenses being called +in, and then for nine years together he was never without +trouble. Sometimes he was pursued with indictments at +sessions, at assizes, and then with citations of the +ecclesiastical courts; and at other times feigned letters, rhymes +or libels were dropped in the streets or church and fathered upon +him, so that he was forced to make his house his prison. At +length that was broken open, and he absconded into the houses of +his friends, till he contracted his old disease’ a second +time. It is said that he was invited on one occasion to +dine with Bishop Reynolds, <!-- page 213--><a +name="page213"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 213</span>when +several young clergy were present. When Mr. Cromwell +retired, the Bishop rose and attended him, and then a general +laugh ensued. On his return his lordship rebuked his guests +for their unmannerly conduct, and told them that Mr. Cromwell had +more solid divinity in his little finger than all of them had in +their bodies. It must be remembered that, like most of the +early Independent ministers, Mr. Cromwell had a University +training; and even in my young days the respect shown to a +learned ministry kept up not a little of the high standard which +had been laid down by the fathers and founders of Dissent. +In these more degenerate days it is to be questioned whether as +much can be said. The Old Meeting House at Norwich was +finished as far back as 1643. The only pastor of the church +who was not an author was the Rev. Dr. Scott, who died in +1767. In the Octagon Chapel the preachers had been still +more distinguished. One of them was the Rev. Dr. Taylor, +author of the famous Hebrew Concordance, which was published in +two volumes folio, and was the labour of fourteen years. He +left Norwich to become tutor at the newly-erected Academy at +Warrington; but his son, Mr. Edward Taylor, the Gresham Professor +of Music, was often <!-- page 214--><a name="page214"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 214</span>a visitor at Wrentham, where he had +a little property, which he valued, as it gave him a vote. +Another of the preachers at the Octagon was the Rev. R. Alderson, +who afterwards became Recorder of Norwich. The Mr. Edward +Taylor of whom I have just written was baptized by him. One +day, being under examination as a witness in court, Alderson +questioned him as to his age. ‘Why,’ said +Taylor, a little nettled, ‘you ought to know, for you +baptized me.’ ‘I baptized you!’ exclaimed +Alderson. ‘What do you mean?’ The +Recorder never liked to be reminded of his having been a +preacher. The Marchioness of Salisbury is of this +family. Perhaps, of these Unitarian preachers, one of the +most distinguished was Dr. William Enfield, whose +‘Speaker’ was one of the books placed in the hands of +ingenuous youth, and whose ‘History of Philosophy’ +was one of the works to be studied in their riper years. +Norwich, indeed, was full of learned men. Its aged Bishop, +Bathurst, was the one voter for Reform, much to the delight of +William IV., who said that he was a fine fellow, and deserved to +be the helmsman of the Church in the rough sea she would soon +have to steer through. His one offence in the eyes of +George III. was that he voted against the King—that is, in +favour <!-- page 215--><a name="page215"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 215</span>of justice to the Catholics. +With such a Bishop a Reformer, no wonder that all Norwich went +wild with joy when the battle of Reform was fought and won. +Bishop Stanley, who succeeded, was also in his way a great +Liberal, and invited Jenny Lind to stay with him at the +palace. I often used to see him at Exeter Hall, where his +activity as a speaker afforded a remarkable contrast to the +quieter style of his more celebrated son.</p> +<p>Accidentally looking into the life of Bishop Bathurst, I find +printed in the Appendix some interesting conversations at +Earlham, where Joseph John Gurney lived. On one occasion, +when Dr. Chalmers was staying there, Joseph John Gurney writes: +‘W. Y. breakfasted with us, and with his usual strong sense +and talent called forth the energies of Chalmers’ +mind. They conversed on the subject of special Providence, +and of the unseen yet unceasing superintendence of the Creator of +all the events which occur in this lower world. Said W. Y.: +“Mr. Barbauld, the husband of the authoress, was once a +resident in my house. He was a man of low opinions in +religion, and denied the agency of an unseen spirit on the mind +of man.” I remarked that when the mind was determined +to a certain right action by a combination of circumstances <!-- +page 216--><a name="page216"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +216</span>productive of the adequate motives, and meeting from +various quarters precisely at the right point for the purpose in +view, this was in itself a sufficient evidence of an especial +Providence, and might be regarded as the instrumentality through +which the Holy Spirit acts. Mr. Barbauld admitted the +justice of this argument.’ Again I read: ‘W. Y. +supported the doctrine that nature is governed through the means +of general laws—laws which broadly and obviously mark the +wisdom and benevolence of God.’ One extract more: +‘W. Y. expressed his admiration of the masterly manner in +which Dr. Chalmers, in his “Bridgewater Treatise,” +has fixed on the atheist a moral obligation to inquire into the +truth of religion; but, said he, might not the disciples of +Irving, by the same rule, oblige us to an inquiry into the +supposed evidences of their favourite doctrine that Christ is +about to appear and to reign personally on earth? Might not +even the Mahometan suppose in the Christian a similar necessity +as it relates to the pretensions of the false +prophet?’ If Joseph Gurney sent for W. Y. to converse +with Dr. Chalmers as a genial spirit, surely the name of one so +honourable and of one so friendly both to my father and myself +should not be omitted. W. Y. loved a joke. He was +<!-- page 217--><a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +217</span>very stout, and wore tight black knee breeches with +shoes and silk stockings. I remember how he made me laugh +one day as he described what happened to his knee-breeches as he +stooped to tie up his shoes ere attending a place of +worship. To cut a long story short, I may add W. Youngman +did not go to church that day. Originally I think he was a +dyer.</p> +<p>Harriet Martineau, as all the world knows, was born at +Norwich. In her somewhat ill-natured autobiography she +writes: ‘Norwich, which has now no social claims to +superiority at all, was in my childhood a rival of Lichfield +itself, in the time of the Sewards, for literary pretensions and +the vulgarity of pedantry. William Taylor was then at his +best, when there was something like fulfilment of his early +promise, when his exemplary filial duty was a fine spectacle to +the whole city, and before the vice which destroyed him had +coarsened his morale and destroyed his intellect. During +the war it was a great distinction to know anything of German +literature, and in Mr. Taylor’s case it proved a ruinous +distinction. He was completely spoiled by the flatteries of +shallow men, pedantic women, and conceited lads.’ Yet +this man was the friend of Southey and opened up a <!-- page +218--><a name="page218"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +218</span>new world to the English intellect, and perhaps in days +to come will have a more enduring reputation than Harriet +Martineau herself. The lady does not err on the side of +good nature in her criticism. All she can say of Dr. Sayers +is: ‘I always heard of him as a genuine scholar, and I have +no doubt he was superior to his neighbours in modesty and +manners. Dr. Enfield, a feeble and superficial man of +letters, was gone also from the literary supper-table before my +time. There was Sir James Smith, the botanist, made much of +and really not pedantic and vulgar like the rest, but weak and +irritable. There was Dr. Alderson, Mrs. Opie’s +father, solemn and sententious and eccentric in manner, but not +an able man in any way;’ and thus the leading lights of +Norwich are contemptuously dismissed. ‘The great days +of the Gurneys were not come yet. The remarkable family +from which issued Mrs. Fry and Priscilla and Joseph John Gurney +were then a set of dashing young people, dressed in gay riding +habits and scarlet boots, as Mrs. Fry told us afterwards, and +riding about the country to balls and gaieties of all +sorts. Accomplished and charming young ladies they were; +and we children used to overhear some whispered gossip about the +effects of their charms <!-- page 219--><a +name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 219</span>on +heart-stricken young men; but their final characteristics were +not yet apparent.’</p> +<p>It is to a Norwich man that we owe the publication of +Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates. Luke Hansard, to +whom they owe their name, was born in Norwich, 1725, was trained +as a printer, went to London with but a guinea in his pocket, was +employed by Hughes, the printer of the House of Commons, +succeeded to the business and became widely known for his +despatch and accuracy in printing Parliamentary papers and +debates. He died in 1828, but the business was continued by +his family, and to refer to Hansard became the invariable custom +when an M.P. was to be condemned out of his own mouth—as +Hansard was supposed never to err. Recently Hansard has +been carried on by a company, but the old name still remains.</p> +<p>Dr. Stoughton has in vain, in a number of the +<i>Congregationalist</i>, attempted to record the memory of a man +well known and much honoured in his day—the Rev. John +Alexander, of Norwich. The portrait is a failure. It +gives us no idea of the man with his rosy face, his curly black +hair, his merry, twinkling eye, his joyous laugh, when mirth +befitted the occasion, or his tender sympathy <!-- page 220--><a +name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 220</span>where pain +and sorrow and distress had to be endured. Mr. +Alexander’s jubilee was celebrated in St. Andrew’s +Hall in 1867, when the Mayor and a crowd of citizens did him +honour, and a sum of money for the purchase of an annuity was +presented, thus obviating the necessity of doing to him as on one +occasion he in his humorous way suggested should be done with old +ministers when past work—that they should be shot. In +1817 Mr. Alexander had come to Norwich to preach in the old +Whitfield Tabernacle in place of Mr. Hooper, one of the tutors at +Hoxton Academy. When I went to Norwich he had built a fine +chapel in Prince’s Street, and amongst the hearers was Mr. +Tillet, then in a lawyer’s office, a young man famous for +his speeches at the Mechanics’ Institute and in connection +with a literary venture, the <i>Norwich Magazine</i>, not +destined to set the Thames on fire; latterly an M.P. for Norwich +and proprietor and editor, I believe, of one of the most popular +of East Anglian journals, the <i>Norfolk News</i>. It was +in Prince’s Street Chapel I first learned to realize how +influential was the Nonconformist public, of which I frankly +admit in our little village, with Churchmen all round, I had but +a limited idea. It seemed to me that we were rather a puny +folk, <!-- page 221--><a name="page221"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 221</span>but at Norwich, with its chapels and +pastors and people, I saw another sight. There was the Rev. +John Alexander, with an overflowing audience on the Sunday and an +active vitality all the week, now dining at the palace with the +Bishop or breakfasting at Earlham with the Gurneys, now meeting +on terms of equality the literati of the place (at that time Mrs. +Opie was still living near the castle, and Mr. Wilkins was +writing his life of the far-famed Norwich doctor, the learned and +ingenious author of the ‘Religio Medici’), now +visiting the afflicted and the destitute, now carrying +consolation to the home of the mourner. John Alexander was +a man to whom East Anglian Nonconformity owes much. In the +old city there was a good deal of young intelligence, and a good +deal of it amongst the Noncons. Dr. Sexton was one of the +Old Meeting House congregation, as was Lucy Brightwell, a lady +not unknown to the present generation of readers. To a +certain extent a Noncon. is bound to be more or less +intelligent. He finds a great State Establishment of +religion wherever he goes. It enjoys the favour of the +Court. It is patronized by the aristocracy. It +enlists among its supporters all who wish to rise in the world or +to make a figure in society. By means of the endowed <!-- +page 222--><a name="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +222</span>schools of the land, it offers to the young, even of +the humblest birth, a chance of winning a prize. Conform, +it says, and you may be rich and respectable. It was said +of a late Bishop of Winchester that he would forgive a man +anything so long as he were but a good Churchman, and even now +one meets in society with people who regard a Dissenter as little +better than a heathen or a publican. A man who can thus +voluntarily place himself at a disadvantage, to a certain extent, +must have exercised his intellect and be ready to give a reason +for the faith that is in him. Naturally, men are of the +religion of the country in which they are born—Roman +Catholics in Italy, Mahometans in Turkey, Buddhists in the +East. It requires more power and strength of mind and +decision of character to dissent from the Church of the State +than to support it. ‘How was it,’ asked Dr. +Storrar, Chairman of the Convocation of the University of London, +the other day, ‘that the lads educated at Mill Hill Grammar +School had done so well at Cambridge and Oxford?’ The +reply, said the Doctor, was—I don’t give his words, +merely the idea—to be found in the fact that a couple of +centuries ago there were men of strong intellect and tender +consciences who refused <!-- page 223--><a +name="page223"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 223</span>to renounce +their opinions at the command of a despotic power. They had +been succeeded by their sons with the same quickness of intellect +and conscience. Generations one after another had come and +gone, and the children of these old Nonconformists thus came to +the school with an hereditary intelligence, destined to win in +the gladiatorship of the school, the college, or the world.</p> +<p>Let me now give an anecdote of Dr. Bathurst, the Lord Bishop +of Norwich, too good to be lost. It is told by Sir Charles +Leman, who described him in 1839 as gradually converting his +enemies into friends by his uniform straightforwardness and +enlarged Christian principle. One of his clergy, who had +been writing most abusively in newspapers, had on one occasion +some favour to solicit, which he did with natural +hesitation. The Bishop promised all in his power and in the +kindest manner, and when the clergyman was about to leave the +room he suddenly turned with, ‘My lord, I must say, +however, I much regret the part I have taken against you; I see I +was quite in the wrong, and I beg your forgiveness.’ +This was readily accorded. ‘But how was it,’ +the clergyman continued, ‘you did not turn your back on +<!-- page 224--><a name="page224"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +224</span>me? I quite expected it.’ ‘Why, +you forget that I profess myself a Christian,’ was the +reply.</p> +<p>Of a later Bishop—Stanley—whom I can well +remember, a dark, energetic little man, making a speech at Exeter +Hall, we hear a little in Caroline Fox’s memories of old +friends. In 1848 she writes: ‘Dined very pleasantly +at the palace; the Bishop was all animation and good humour, but +too unsettled to leave any memorable impression. I like +Mrs. Stanley much—a shrewd, sensible, observing +woman. She told me much about her Bishop, how very trying +his position was on first settling at Norwich; for his +predecessor was an amiable, indolent old man, who let things take +their course, and a very bad course too, all which the present +man has to correct as way opens, and continually sacrifice +popularity to a sense of right.’</p> +<p>The following anecdote of Miss Fox and her friends calling at +a cottage in the neighbourhood of Norwich is too good to be +lost. ‘A young woman,’ she writes, ‘told +us that her father was nearly converted, and that a little more +teaching would complete the business,’ adding, ‘He +quite believes that he is lost, which is, of course, a great +consolation to the old man.’ That story is racy of +the soil. It is in that way the East Anglian peasantry <!-- +page 225--><a name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +225</span>who have any religion at all talk; they have no hope of +a man who does not feel that he is lost. Well, there are +many ways to heaven, and that must comfort some of us who still +believe that man was made in the image of his Maker, a little +lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour, and not +destined to an eternity of misery for the sins of a day.</p> +<h2><!-- page 226--><a name="page226"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 226</span>CHAPTER VIII.<br /> +<span class="smcap">the suffolk capital</span>.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">The Orwell—The Sparrows—Ipswich +notabilities—Gainsborough—Medical +men—Nonconformists.</p> +<p>Those who imagine Suffolk to be a flat and uninteresting +county, with no charms for the eye and no associations worth +speaking of, are much mistaken. There are few lovelier +rivers in England than the Orwell, on which Ipswich stands, up +which river the fiery Danes used to sail to plunder all the +country round, and on the banks of which Gainsborough learned to +love Nature and draw her in all her charms. The town itself +stands in a valley, but it has gradually crept up the hills on +each side, so that almost everywhere you have a pleasing prospect +and breathe a bracing air. A few miles, or, rather, a short +walk, brings you to Henley, which has the reputation of being the +highest land in Suffolk, and on the other side there is a railway +that connects Ipswich with Felixstowe, <!-- page 227--><a +name="page227"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 227</span>just as the +Crystal Palace is connected with the City. Ipswich may +claim to be the most prosperous and enterprising of all the +Suffolk towns. It goes with the times. Its citizens +are active and pushing men of business, and have enlightened +ideas as well. They are also Liberal in politics and +practical in religion, and are never behind in coming forward +when there is a chance of benefiting themselves or their +fellow-creatures. And yet Ipswich has a history as long as +the dullest cathedral town. It was a place of note during +the existence of the Saxon Heptarchy. Twice it had the +honour of publicly entertaining King John; and there is a +tradition that in the curious and beautifully-ornamented house in +the Butter Market—formerly the residence of Mr. Sparrow, +the Ipswich coroner, whose old family portraits, including one of +the Jameses, presented to an ancestor of the family, filled me +not a little with youthful wonder—Charles II. was secreted +by one of the Sparrows of that day, when he came to hide in +Ipswich after the battle of Worcester. ‘The house is +now a shop,’ but, observes Mr. Glyde, a far-famed local +historian, ‘a concealed room in the upper story of the +house, which was discovered during some alterations in 1801, is +well adapted for such a <!-- page 228--><a +name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +228</span>purpose.’ And, at any rate, the gay and +graceless monarch, in search of a hiding-place, might have gone +farther and fared worse. Be that as it may, Ipswich can +rejoice in the fact that it was the birthplace of Cardinal +Wolsey; and that he was one of the first educational reformers of +the day must be admitted, at any rate, in Ipswich, of which, +possibly, he would have made a second Cambridge. Alas! of +his efforts in that direction, the only outward and visible sign +is the old gateway in what is called College Street, which +remains to this day. Ipswich fared well in the Elizabethan +days, when her Gracious Majesty condescended to visit the +place. Sir Christopher Hatton, the dancing Lord Chancellor, +who led the brawls, when</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The seals and maces danced before +him,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>lived in a house near the Church of St. Mary-le-Tower. +Sir Edward Coke resided in a village not far off, and in 1597 the +M.P. for Ipswich was no other than the great Lord Bacon, who by +birth and breeding was emphatically a Suffolk man. From +Windham’s diary, it appears that at Ipswich that +distinguished statesman experienced a new sensation. In +1789 he writes: ‘Left Ipswich not till near twelve. +Saw Humphries there, and <!-- page 229--><a +name="page229"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 229</span>was for the +first time entertained with some sparring; felt much amused with +the whole of the business.’</p> +<p>In the early part of the present century Miss Berry, on +returning from one of her Continental trips, paid Ipswich a +visit, having landed at Southwold. ‘Appearance of +Ipswich very pretty in descending towards it,’ is the entry +in her diary. About the same time Bishop Bathurst made his +visitation tour, and he writes to one of his lady correspondents: +‘You will be glad that, during the three weeks I passed in +Suffolk, I did not meet a single unpleasant man, nor experience a +single unpleasant accident.’ With the name of the +Suffolk hero Captain Broke, of the <i>Shannon</i>. (I can +well remember the Shannon coach—which ran from Yoxford to +London—the only day-coach we had at that time), Ipswich is +inseparably connected. He was born at Broke Hall, just by, +and there spent the later years of his life. Another of our +naval heroes, Admiral Vernon, the victor of Porto Bello, resided +in the same vicinity. At one time there seems to have been +an attempt to connect Ipswich with the Iron Duke. In the +memoir of Admiral Broke we have more than one reference to the +Duke’s shooting in that neighbourhood, <!-- page 230--><a +name="page230"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 230</span>and +actually it appears that, unknown to himself, he was nominated as +a candidate to the office of High Steward. Ipswich, +however, preferred a neighbour, in the shape of Sir Robert +Harland. At a later day the office was filled by Mr. +Charles Austin, the distinguished writer on Jurisprudence.</p> +<p>One of the celebrated noblemen who lived in Ipswich was Lord +Chedworth. He wore top-boots, and wore them till they were +not fit to be seen. When new boots were sent home he was +accustomed to set them on one side, and get his manservant to +wear them a short time to prepare them for his own feet. +Sometimes the man would tell his lordship that he thought the +boots were ready, but his lordship would generally reply, +‘Never mind, William; wear them another week.’ +While at Ipswich his lordship was frequently consulted, owing to +his legal attainments and well-known generous disposition, by +tradesmen and people in indigent circumstances. The +applicants were ushered into the library, where, surrounded by +books, they found his lordship. The chairs and furniture of +the room, like his lordship’s clothes, had not merely seen +their best days, but were comparatively worthless, and the old +red cloak which invariably enveloped his shoulders made him look +<!-- page 231--><a name="page231"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +231</span>more like a gipsy boy than a peer of the realm. +His lordship’s legacies to Ipswich ladies and others, +especially of the theatrical profession, were of the most liberal +character.</p> +<p>Ipswich in its old days had its share of witches. One of +the most notorious of them was Mother Hatheland, who in due +course was tried, condemned and executed. From her +confession in 1645 it appears ‘the said Mother Hatheland +hath been a professor of religion, a constant hearer of the Word +for these many years, yet a witch, as she confessed, for the +space of nearly twenty years. The devil came to her first +between sleeping and waking, and spake to her in a hollow voice, +telling her that if she would serve him she would want +nothing. After often solicitations she consented to +him. Then he stroke his claw (as she confessed) into her +hands, and with her blood wrote the covenant.’ Now, +as the writer gravely remarks, the subtlety of Satan is to be +observed in that he did not press her to deny God and Christ, as +he did others, because she was a professor, and he might have +lost all his hold by pressing her too far. Satan appears to +have provided her with three imps, in the shape of two little +dogs and a mole.</p> +<p><!-- page 232--><a name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +232</span>As the home of Gainsborough Ipswich has enduring claims +on the English nation and on lovers of art and artists +everywhere. That must have been a Suffolk man who passed +the following criticism on Gainsborough’s celebrated +picture of ‘Girl and Pigs,’ of which Sir Joshua +Reynolds became the purchaser at one hundred guineas, though the +artist asked but sixty: ‘They be deadly like pigs; but who +ever saw pigs feeding together, but one on ’em had a foot +in the trough?’ Gainsborough had an enthusiastic +attachment to music. It was the favourite amusement of his +leisure hours, and his love for it induced him to give one or two +concerts to his most intimate acquaintances whilst living in +Ipswich. He was a member of a musical club, and painted +some of the portraits of his brother members in his picture of a +choir. Once upon a time, Gainsborough was examined as a +witness on a trial respecting the originality of a picture. +The barrister on the other side said: ‘I observe you lay +great stress on a painter’s eye; what do you mean by that +expression?’ ‘A painter’s eye,’ +replied Gainsborough, ‘is to him what the lawyer’s +eye is to you.’ As a boy at the Grammar School of his +native town, it is to be feared he loved to play truant. +One day he went out to his <!-- page 233--><a +name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 233</span>usual +sketching haunts to enjoy the nature which he loved heartily, +previously presenting to his uncle, who was master of the school, +the usual slip of paper, ‘Give Tom a holiday,’ in +which his father’s handwriting was so exactly imitated that +not the slightest suspicion of the forgery ever entered the mind +of the master. Alas! however, the crime was detected, and +his terrified parent exclaimed in despair, ‘Tom will one +day be hanged.’ When, however, he was informed how +the truant schoolboy had employed his truant hours, and the +boy’s sketches were laid before him, forgetful of the +consequences of forgeries in a commercial society, he declared, +with all the pride of a father, ‘Tom will be a +genius,’ and he was right.</p> +<p>Worthy Mr. Pickwick seems to have known Ipswich about the same +time as myself. ‘In the main street of +Ipswich,’ wrote the biographer of that distinguished +individual, ‘on the left-hand side of the way, a short +distance after you have passed through the open space fronting +the Town Hall, stands an inn known far and wide by the +appellation of the Great White Horse, rendered the more +conspicuous by a stone statue of some rapacious animal, with +flowing mane and tail, distantly <!-- page 234--><a +name="page234"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 234</span>resembling +an insane carthorse, which is elevated above the principal +door. The Great White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood +in the same degree as a prize ox, a county paper chronicled +turnip, or unwieldy pig, for its enormous size. Never were +such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such clusters of mouldy, +ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens for eating or +sleeping in, beneath any one roof as are collected together +between the four walls of the Great White Horse of +Ipswich.’ This was the great hotel of the Ipswich of +my youth. As regards hotels, Ipswich has not improved, but +in every other way it has much advanced. One of the old +inns has been turned into a fine public hall, admirably adapted +for concerts and public meetings. The new Town Hall, Corn +Exchange, and Post-office are a credit to the town. The +same may be said of the new Museum and the Grammar School and the +Working Men’s College and that health resort, the +Arboretum; while by means of the new dock ships of fifteen +hundred tons burden can load and unload. Nowadays everybody +says Ipswich is a rising town, and what everyone says must be +right. The Ipswich people, at any rate, have firmly got +that idea into their heads. Its fathers and founders <!-- +page 235--><a name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +235</span>built the streets narrow, evidently little anticipating +for Ipswich the future it has since achieved. The Ipswich +of to-day is laid out on quite a different scale. It has a +tram road service evidently much in excess of the present +population, and as you wander in the suburbs you come to a +sign-post bearing the name of a street in which not even the +enterprise of the speculative builder has been able at present to +plant a single dwelling. When Ipswich has climbed up its +surrounding hills, and taken up all the building sites at present +in the market, it will be a goodly and gallant town, almost +fitted to invite the temporary residence of holiday-making +Londoners who are fond of the water. At all times it is a +pretty sail to Harwich and thence to Felixstowe, that quiet +watering-place, a seaside residence that has still a pleasant +flavour of rusticity about it, with a fine crisp sea-sand floor +for a promenade.</p> +<p>When I was a boy Ipswich was resorted to by Londoners in the +summer-time. As an illustration, I give the case of Mr. +Ewen, one of the deacons of the Weigh House Chapel, when the Rev. +John Clayton was the pastor. In his memories of the Clayton +family, the Rev. Dr. Aveling writes of Mr. Ewen, that ‘he +was so sensitively conscientious <!-- page 236--><a +name="page236"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 236</span>in the +discharge of his official duties at the Weigh House, that he was +never absent from town on the days when the Lord’s Supper +was administered, and when he was expected to assist in the +administration of the elements. His London residence was in +Lincoln’s Inn Fields, but having a house and property in +the town of Ipswich, he passed his summer months there. Yet +so intent was he upon duly filling his place in the sanctuary of +God, that he regularly travelled by post-chaise once in every +month, and returned in the same manner, that he might be present, +together with his pastor and the brethren, at the table of the +Lord. The length and the expense of the journey (and +travelling was not then what it is now) did not deter him from +what he at least deemed to be a matter of Christian +obligation.’ Dr. Aveling is quite right when he tells +us travelling is not what it was. It took almost a day to +go from Ipswich to London when I was a boy, and now the journey +is done by means of the Great Eastern Railway in about an hour +and a half. It seems marvellous to one who, like myself, +remembers well the past, to leave Liverpool Street at 5.0 p.m. +precisely, and to find one’s self landed safe and well in +Ipswich soon after half-past six. The present generation +can <!-- page 237--><a name="page237"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 237</span>have no conception of travelling in +England in the olden time.</p> +<p>There were some wonderful old Radicals in Ipswich, though it +was, and is, the county town of the most landlord-ridden district +in England. Some of them got the great Dan O’Connell +to pay the town a visit, and some of them nobly stood by old John +Childs when he became famous all the world over as the +Church-rate martyr. The lawyers and the doctors were mostly +Tories, but the tradesmen and the merchants were not a little +leavened with the leaven of Dissent. Mr. Hammond was, +however, a Liberal surgeon, and as such flourished. His +Whig principles, writes Mr. Glyde, brought him many patients, and +his skill and sound qualities retained them. Dr. Garrord, +the well-known London practitioner, was an apprentice of Mr. +Hammond’s; and this reminds me that among the Ipswich men +who have risen is Mr. Sprigg, the Premier of Cape Colony when Sir +Bartle Frere was at the head of affairs there. The father +of Mr. Sprigg was the respected pastor of a Baptist chapel in the +town. The only Ipswich minister whom I can remember was the +Rev. Mr. Notcutt, who preached in the leading Independent chapel, +now pulled down to make way for a much more <!-- page 238--><a +name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 238</span>attractive +building. All I can recollect about him is, that once, when +a lad, I fainted away when he was preaching. No sermon ever +affected me so since; and that effect was due, it must be +confessed, not to the preacher, who seemed to me rather aged and +asthmatic, but to the heat of the place, in consequence of the +crowd attracted to the meeting-house on some special +occasion.</p> +<p>But to return to the doctors. Of one of them, who was +famed for his love of bleeding his patients, not metaphorically, +but in the old-fashioned way, with the lancet, it is recorded +that on the occasion of his taking a holiday two of his patients +died. Lamenting the fact to a friend, the following epigram +was the result:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘B--- kills two patients while from home +away—<br /> + A clever fellow this same B---, I wot;<br /> +If absent thus his patients he can slay,<br /> + How he must kill them when he’s on the +spot!’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Perhaps one of the noted physicians of my boyhood was Mr. +Stebbing. ‘He was once,’ writes Mr. Glyde, +‘called in to see one of the Ipswich Dissenting ministers, +who had taken life very easily, and had grown corpulent. +After examining the patient and hearing his statement as to +bodily state, he replied: “You’ve no particular +ailment; <!-- page 239--><a name="page239"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 239</span>mind and keep your eyes longer open, +and your mouth longer shut, and you will do very well in a short +time.”’ On another occasion a raw and very +poor-looking young fellow called upon him for advice. The +doctor told him to go home and eat more pudding, adding, +‘That’s all you want; physic is a very good thing for +one to live by, but a precious bad thing for you to +take.’ One of the Ipswich characters of my boyhood, +of whom Mr. Glyde has preserved an anecdote, was old Tuxford, the +veterinary surgeon. He used to declare that he never took +more than one meal a day—a breakfast; but when asked of +what that consisted, he said, ‘A pound of beefsteak, seven +eggs, three cups of tea, and a quartern of rum.’ It +may also be mentioned that before Mrs. Garrett Anderson was born, +Ipswich had a lady physician in the person of Miss Stebbing, +daughter of the doctor to whom I have already referred. +‘She was,’ says one who knew her well, ‘a woman +of general education, with more than ordinary tact and +discernment, combined with the true womanly power of analyzing +and observing. She had good physical powers, and, like her +worthy father, was somewhat pungent in her remarks and eccentric +in her habits. She entered the ranks as a medical +practitioner during her father’s life. The <!-- page +240--><a name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +240</span>benefit of his advice so aided her perceptive powers as +to make her quite an expert in various ways, and she continued to +practise long after his decease, occasionally attending males as +well as females. Her knowledge of midwifery caused a large +number of ladies to engage her services.</p> +<p>Of the Radicals of Ipswich, the only one with whom I came into +contact was Mr. John King, the proprietor and editor of what was +then, at any rate, a far-famed journal—the <i>Suffolk +Chronicle</i>. Astronomy was his hobby, and he had ideas on +the subject which, unfortunately, I failed to catch. He had +built himself an observatory, if I remember aright, at his +residence on Rose Hill, where he would sweep the heavens nightly, +to see what could be seen. He was a Radical of the old +type, a tall, dark, bilious-looking man, a little hard and dry, +perhaps, who seemed to think that it was no use to throw pearls +before swine, and to serve up for the chaw-bacons a too rich +intellectual treat, and his policy was a successful one. +Priest-ridden as Suffolk was, the <i>Suffolk Chronicle</i> was +the leading paper of the county, and had a large circulation, +and, let me add, did good service in its day. Now I find +Ipswich rejoices in a well-conducted daily journal, the <i>East +Anglian Times</i>, which I hear, and <!-- page 241--><a +name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 241</span>am glad to +hear, is a fine property, and I see all the leading towns in +Suffolk have a paper to themselves, even if they can’t get +up a decent paragraph of local news—and some of them I +know, from my experiences of Suffolk life, are quite unequal to +that—once a week. The plan is to have some sheets +already printed in London, at some great establishment, whence +perhaps a hundred little towns are supplied, and then the local +news and advertisements are added on, and Little Pedlington has +its <i>Observer</i>, and Eatanswill its <i>Gazette</i>. +When I was a boy, such a thing was out of the question, as to +each paper a fourpenny-halfpenny stamp was attached. As the +stamps had to be paid for in advance, and as, besides, there was +an eighteen-penny duty on every advertisement, it was not quite +such an easy matter to run a paper then as it has since +become. I fancy the old-established journals suffered much +by the change, which completely revolutionized the newspaper +trade; at any rate, so far as the country was concerned. In +this connection, let me add that it was to an Ipswich journalist +we owe the establishment of penny readings on anything like a +large and successful scale. They were originated by Mr. +Sully, at that time the proprietor and editor of the <i>Ipswich +</i><!-- page 242--><a name="page242"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 242</span><i>Express</i>, a paper intended to +steer between the ferocious Toryism of the <i>Ipswich +Journal</i>, and the equally ferocious Radicalism of the +<i>Suffolk Chronicle</i>. As was to be expected, the +attempt did not succeed. As in love and in war, so in +politics and theology, moderation is a thing hateful to gods and +men. The electioneering annals of Ipswich can testify to +that fact. I have a dim recollection of an election +petition which ended in Sir Fitzroy Kelly’s admitting that +he had stated what was not true, but he did it as a lawyer, not +as a gentleman, and in sending one of the finest old gentlemen I +ever knew to gaol, because he would not tell what he knew of the +matter. There was not much half-and-half work in the +Ipswich politics of my young days.</p> +<p>When people fight fiercely in politics, it is natural to +expect an equal earnestness in religious matters. It was so +emphatically with respect to the Ipswich of the past. +‘The Reformed religion, after those fiery days of +persecution,’ writes John Quick, ‘was now revived, +and flourished again in the country, under the auspicious name of +our English Deborah, Queen Elizabeth; and Ipswich, the capital +town of Suffolk, was not more famous for its spacious sheds, +large and beautiful buildings, rich and great trade, <!-- page +243--><a name="page243"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +243</span>and honourable merchants, both at home and abroad, than +it was for its learned and godly ministers and its religious +intolerants.’ Of the godly ministers, one of the most +famous was Samuel Ward, who was buried in St. Mary-le-Tower +Church. In 1666 he preached a sermon at St. Paul’s +Cross. But he meddled with politics. For instance, in +1621 he published a caricature picture, entitled ‘Spayne +and Rome Defeated.’ It is thus described: The Pope +and his Council are represented in the centre of the piece, and +beneath, on one side the Armada, and on the other the Gunpowder +Treason. Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, complained of it +as insulting to his master. Ward was placed in +custody. Being Puritanically inclined, he was, in addition, +prosecuted in the Consistory Court of Norwich by Bishop Harsnet +for Nonconformity. Ten years later, when 600 persons were +contemplating a removal from Ipswich to New England—as a +place where they could worship God without fear of priest or +king—the blame was cast by Laud on Ward. Rushworth +informs us that the charges laid against him were that he +preached against the common bowing at the name of Jesus and +against the King’s ‘Book of Sports,’ and +further said that <!-- page 244--><a name="page244"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 244</span>the Church of England was ready to +ring changes in England, and that the Gospel stood on tiptoe as +ready to be gone; and for this he was removed from his +lectureship and sent to gaol. John Ward, his brother, +Rector of St. Clement’s, was a member of the Assembly of +Divines, and was called to preach two sermons before the House of +Commons, for which he received the thanks of the House. At +that time we find a reference to Ipswich as a place which +‘the Lord hath long made famous and happy as a valley of +Gospel vision.’ Such places, alas! seem to have been +commoner formerly than they are now.</p> +<p>One of the Congregational churches of Ipswich, at any rate, +has very interesting historical associations. ‘Salem +Chapel,’ writes the Rev. John Browne, in his ‘History +of Congregationalism in Suffolk and Norfolk,’ ‘stands +in St. George’s Lane, opposite the place where St. +George’s Chapel formerly stood, where Bilney was +apprehended when preaching in favour of the Reformation, and +where he so enraged the monks that they twice plucked him out of +the pulpit.’ The last time I was at Ipswich I saw +bricklayers at work at the old Presbyterian church in St. +Nicholas Street, which it would be a pity to see modernized, +being <!-- page 245--><a name="page245"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 245</span>such a fine illustration of the +old-fashioned Dissenting Meeting-house, before it became the +fashion to have a taste and to build Gothic chapels in which it +is difficult to see or hear, and the only advantage of which is +that they are an exact copy of the steeple-houses against which +at one time Nonconformist England waged remorseless war. +One of the pastors of this congregation removed to Mill Hill +Chapel, Leeds, where he succeeded Dr. Priestley; another was the +author of a ‘History and Description of Derbyshire’; +while one of the supplies was the Rev. Robert Alderson, +afterwards of the Octagon Chapel, Norwich, who ultimately became +a lawyer and Recorder of Norwich. Perhaps one of the most +singular scenes connected with Dissenting chapels in Ipswich was +that which took place in the old chapel in Tackard, now Tacket, +Street. In 1766 the minister there was the Rev. Mr. +Edwards, who, it appears, was sent for to the gaol to see two men +who had been found guilty of house-breaking, and who, according +to the law as it then stood, were to be hung. Mr. Edwards +did so, and stayed with them two hours. As the result of +this visit they were brought to a penitent state of mind. +They had heard that Mr. Edwards had prepared a sermon for them +and <!-- page 246--><a name="page246"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 246</span>desired them to attend. This +was a mistake, but notwithstanding they obtained permission to go +to the chapel, where Mr. Edwards was conducting a church +meeting. A report of the purpose got abroad, and many +persons came to the meeting, upon which it was thought most +proper that the church business should be laid aside, and that +Mr. Edwards should go into the pulpit. This he did, and +after singing and prayer the prisoners came in with their +shackles and fetters on. Mr. Edwards, in describing the +scene, says:</p> +<p>‘Many were moved at the sight. As for myself, I +was obliged for some time to stop to give vent to tears. +When I recovered I gave out part of a hymn suitable to the +occasion, then prayed. The subject of discourse was, +“This is a faithful saying,” and the poor prisoners +shed abundance of tears while I was explaining the several parts +of the text, and especially when I turned and addressed myself +immediately to them. The house was thronged, and I suppose +not a dry eye in the whole place—nothing but weeping and +sorrow; and the floods of tears which gushed from the eyes of the +two prisoners were very melting.’</p> +<p>The good man continues: ‘When we had concluded I went +and spoke some encouraging words <!-- page 247--><a +name="page247"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 247</span>by way of +supporting them under their sorrow. They then desired I +should see them in the evening, which I did, and called upon Mr. +Blindle on the way; the old gentleman went along with me to the +prison, and was one who prayed with them with much fervour and +enlargement of heart. We spent nearly two hours with them, +and a crowd of people were present.’ On another +occasion we find an American Indian preaching in the +pulpit—a novelty in 1767. He came over with a Dr. +Whitaker, of Norwich, in America, to collect money for the +education and conversion of Indians, and at Tackard Street the +people raised the very respectable sum of £80 for the +purpose. In 1561 Queen Elizabeth paid Ipswich a +visit. At that time the place was a little too Protestant +for her. Strype writes: ‘Here Her Majesty took a +great dislike to the impudent behaviour of most of the ministers +and readers, there being many weak ones among them, and little or +no order observed in the public service, and few or none wearing +the surplice, and the Bishop of Norwich was thought remiss, and +that he winked at schismatics. But more particularly she +was offended with the clergy’s marriage, and that in +cathedrals and colleges there were so many wives and children and +widows seen, <!-- page 248--><a name="page248"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 248</span>which, she said, was contrary to the +intent of the founders, and so much tending to the interruption +of the studies of those who were placed there. Therefore +she issued an order to all dignitaries, dated August 9, at +Ipswich, to forbid all women to the lodgings of cathedrals or +colleges, and that upon pain of losing their ecclesiastical +promotion.’ From this it is clear that when Elizabeth +was Queen there was little chance of the Women’s Rights +Question finding a favourable hearing. The Queen was +succeeded by monarchs after her own heart. In 1636 Prynne +published his ‘Newes from Ipswich,’ +‘discovering certain late detestable practices of some +domineering Lordly Prelates to undermine the established doctrine +and discipline of our Church, extirpate all orthodox sincere +preachers and preaching of God’s Word, usher in popery, +idolatry and superstition.’ For this publication +Prynne was sentenced to be fined £5,000 to the King, to +lose the remainder of his ears, to be branded on both cheeks, and +to be perpetually imprisoned in Carnarvon Castle. At that +time the Ipswich people were far too Liberal for the powers +existing. Ipswich news nowadays is little calculated to +displease anyone, and governments and kings are less prone to +take <!-- page 249--><a name="page249"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 249</span>offence at the exercise of free +thought and free speech.</p> +<p>Ipswich people make their way. Miss Reeve—who +wrote the ‘Old English Baron,’ a popular tale years +ago—was the daughter of the Rev. William Reeve of St. +Nicholas Church. Another Ipswich lady, Mrs. Keeley, who +lives on in her grand old age, was certainly one of the most +popular performers of her day.</p> +<p>Two hundred years ago, no city man was better known than +Thomas Firmin, who was born at Ipswich, described in his +biography as ‘a very large and populous town in the county +of Suffolk,’ in 1632. He was of Puritan parentage, +and bound apprentice in the city of London, and then began +business as a linen-draper on the modest capital of +£100. In a little while he married and was enabled to +dispense a generous hospitality, seeking all opportunities of +becoming acquainted with persons of worth, whether foreigners or +his fellow-countrymen. Amongst his special friends were +Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, and Archbishop Tillotson, at that +time the afternoon lecturer at St. Lawrence’s. During +the time of the plague he managed to secure work for the London +poor, and after the fire he erected a warehouse on the banks of +the <!-- page 250--><a name="page250"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 250</span>Thames, where coal and corn were +sold at cost price. In 1676 he built a great factory in +Little Britain, for the employment of the needy and industrious +in the linen manufacture; he also relieved poor debtors in +prison. The great work of his later years was in connection +with the Blue Coat School. He was also one of the Governors +of St. Thomas’s Hospital, which he did much to rescue from +the wretched condition in which he found it. When the +French refugees, in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of +Nantes, were driven over to this country, Firmin exerted himself +powerfully on their behalf, and sent some of them to Ipswich to +engage in manufacturing there. He also had a good deal to +do with Ireland, when, as now, the country was torn by contending +factions. At a large expense he also educated many boys and +set them up in trade. He was also one of the first of the +avowed and ardent friends and advocates of a free thought, of +which there were few supporters in England at that day—even +among the countrymen of Milton and John Locke. Unitarians +were rare in the days when Firmin proclaimed himself one. +Altogether he was one of the best men of his age, and well +deserved to be buried in Christchurch, Newgate, among the +Bluecoat <!-- page 251--><a name="page251"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 251</span>School boys, to whom he had ever +been such a friend, and to have the memorial pillar erected in +his honour by Lady Clayton in Marden Park, Surrey. It is to +be hoped that the memorial remains, though, alas! the noble +mansion at one time inhabited by Wilberforce, and where the great +philanthropist’s celebrated son, the Bishop of Oxford was +born, and where I have spent more than one pleasant day when Sir +John Puleston lived there, has been since burnt down.</p> +<h2><!-- page 252--><a name="page252"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 252</span>CHAPTER IX.<br /> +<span class="smcap">an old-fashioned town</span>.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Woodbridge and the country round—Bernard +Barton—Dr. Lankester—An old Noncon.</p> +<p>The traveller as he leaves the English coast for Antwerp or +Rotterdam or the northern ports of Germany, may remember that the +last glimpse of his native land is the light from Orford Ness, +which is a guiding star to the mariner as he ploughs his weary +way along the deep. Of that part of Suffolk little is known +to the community at large. When I was a boy it was looked +upon as an <i>ultima Thule</i>, where the people were in a +primitive state of civilization; where shops and towns and +newspapers and good roads were unknown; where traditions of +smuggling yet remained. Few ever went into that region, and +those who did, when they returned, did not bring back with them +encouraging reports. Barren sandy moors, along which the +bitter east wind perpetually blew, fatal <!-- page 253--><a +name="page253"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 253</span>alike to +vegetation and human life, were the chief characteristics of a +district the natives of which were not rich, at any rate as +regards this world’s goods. Orford, like Dunwich, was +once a place of some importance. ‘A large and +populous town with a castle of reddish stone,’ writes +Camden, but in his time a victim of the sea’s ingratitude; +‘which withdraws itself little by little, and begins to +envy it the advantages of a harbour.’ In the time of +Henry I., writes Ralph de Coggeshall, when Bartholomew de +Glanville was Governor of its castle, some fishermen there caught +a wild man in their nets. ‘All the parts of his body +resembled those of a man. He had hair on his head, a +long-peaked beard, and about the breast was exceeding hairy and +rough. But at length he made his escape into the sea, and +was never seen more,’ which was a pity, as undoubtedly he +was the ‘missing link.’ Besides, as Camden +remarks, the fact was a confirmation of what the common people of +his time remarked. ‘Whatever is produced in any part +of nature is in the sea,’ and shows ‘that not all is +fabulous what Pliny has written about the Triton on the coasts of +Portugal, and the sea man in the Straits of +Gibraltar.’ Nor is that the only wonder connected +with the district. Close by is <!-- page 254--><a +name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 254</span>Aldborough, +where the poet Crabbe learned to become, as Byron calls him,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Nature’s sternest painter, but the +best;’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and as Camden writes, ‘Hard by, when in the year 1555 +all the corn throughout England was choakt in the ear by +unseasonable weather, the inhabitants tell you that in the +beginning of autumn there grew peas miraculously among the rocks, +and that they relieved the dearth in those parts. But the +more thinking people affirm that pulse cast upon the shore by +shipwreck used to grow there now and then, and so quite exclude +the miracle.’ At the present the crag-beds are the +most interesting feature to the visitor, especially if he be of a +geological turn. These are so rich in fossil shells that +you may find some of the latter in almost every house in +Ipswich. The Coralline Crag is the oldest bed; but this +formation does not occur in an undisturbed state, except in +Sudbourne Park and about Orford. A drive thither from +Ipswich, through Woodbridge, conveys the traveller through some +of the loveliest scenery in Suffolk, and the numerous exposures +of Coralline Crag in Sudbourne Park, which is about two miles +from Orford, will amply repay the traveller, on account of the +number of fossils which he can there obtain, and the ease <!-- +page 255--><a name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +255</span>with which he can extract them. In this +neighbourhood live the far-famed Garrett family, one of whom, as +Mrs. Dr. Anderson, is well known in London society, as is also +her sister, Mrs. Fawcett, the wife of the late popular M.P. for +Hackney. Close by is Leiston Abbey, originally one of Black +Canons, consisting of several subterranean chapels, various +offices and a church, which appears to have been a handsome +structure, faced with flint and freestone. The interior was +plain and undecorated, yet massive. A large extent of the +neighbouring fields was enclosed with walls, which have been +demolished, as was to be expected, for the sake of the +materials. We hear much of the dead cities of the Zuyder +Zee. On her eastern coast England has her dead +cities. Dunwich, of which I have already spoken, is +one. Orford, now known solely by its lighthouse, is +another; Blythburgh, in the church of which is the tomb of Anna, +King of the East Angles, who was slain in 654, is a third. +Like Tyre and Sidon, these places had their merchant princes, who +lived delicately, and whose ships traded far and near. It +is said incorrectly of Love, that it</p> + +<blockquote><p> ‘At +sight of human ties<br /> +Spreads its soft wings and in a moment flies.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The remark is truer of commerce, which is a law to <!-- page +256--><a name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +256</span>itself, and which defies Acts of Parliament and royal +patronage. Hence it is the east coast of Suffolk is so rich +in melancholy remains of ancient cities, now given over to +decay. In my young days the chief town of this district was +Woodbridge. Manufactories were then unknown. The +steam-engine had not then been utilized for the everyday use of +man, and farmers, peasants, coal and corn merchants, solely +inhabited the district, and in Woodbridge especially the latter +rose and flourished for a time.</p> +<p>How it was, I know not, but nevertheless such was the fact, +that the Ipswich of my youthful days seemed to have little, if +any, literary associations connected with it. The +celebrated Mr. Fulcher published his ‘Ladies’ +Pocket-book’ at Sudbury, which had a great reputation in +its day, and for which very distinguished people used to +write. It was, in fact, more of an annual than a +pocket-book, and was patronized accordingly. Then there was +James Bird, living at Yoxford, ‘the garden of +Suffolk,’ as it was called. Woodbridge had a still +higher reputation. James Bird kept a shop, and was supposed +to be a Unitarian; but Bernard Barton was in a bank, and, +besides, he was a Quaker, and Quakers all the world over are, +<!-- page 257--><a name="page257"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +257</span>or were, famous for their goodness and their +wealth. The fame of the Quaker-poet conferred quite a +literary reputation on the district, and the more so as no one at +that time associated Quakerism with literary faculty in any +way. Now and then, it is true, the Stricklands talked of a +charming young Quaker, who indeed once or twice called at our +house to see Susanna when she was staying there; but Allan +Ransome—for it is to him I refer—did not pursue +literature or poetry to any great extent, and instead preferred +to develop the manufacture of agricultural implements—a +manufacture which, carried on under the same name, is now one of +the chief industries of the busy and thriving town of Ipswich, +and employs quite a thousand men. Woodbridge then bore away +the palm from the county capital, as the home of literature and +poetry and romance. As a town, it is more prettily situated +than are most East Anglian villages and towns. The +principal thoroughfare, as you rode through it by one of the +Yarmouth coaches, that connected it at that time with the +Metropolis, was long and narrow. If you turned off to the +right you came to the Market-place, where were the leading +shops. On your left you reached the Quay and the river, +where a few coasters were employed, chiefly in the <!-- page +258--><a name="page258"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +258</span>coal and corn trade. In our time Woodbridge has +done its duty to the State. Dr. Edwin Lankester the +well-known coroner for Middlesex, came from Melton, close by, the +High Street of which gradually terminates in the Woodbridge +thoroughfare; and the lately deceased Lord Hatherley, one of +England’s most celebrated lawyers, was educated in that +district, and took his wife from the same happy land. The +body of the late Lord Hatherley, the great Whig Lord Chancellor, +we were told the other day, was interred in the family vault of +Great Bearings, Suffolk. His mother was a Woodbridge lady, +a Miss Page. Lord Hatherley’s father was the +far-famed Liberal Alderman, Sir Matthew Wood, for many years M.P. +for the City of London, and Queen Caroline’s trusted friend +and counsellor. Lord Hatherley married, in 1830, Charlotte, +the only daughter of the late Major Edward Moore, of Great +Bealings, Suffolk, but was left a widower in 1878. He +devoted much time to religious work, so long as he had the +strength to undertake it. He was the author of a work +entitled ‘The Continuity of Scripture, as declared by the +Testimony of Our Lord and the Evangelists and the +Apostles’, which has passed through three or four +editions. He was created an Hon. D.C.L. of Oxford in 1851, +<!-- page 259--><a name="page259"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +259</span>was an Hon. Student of Christ Church, Oxford, a +Governor of the Charterhouse, and a member of the +Fishmongers’ Company, of which his father had at one time +been Prime Warden. Major Moore himself was a great +authority on Suffolk literature and antiquities, and published +more than one book—now very scarce—on the interesting +theme.</p> +<p>As to Dr. Lankester, all Woodbridge was scandalized when it +was announced that he was articled to a medical man. +‘What, make a doctor of him!’ said the local gossips +at the time. ‘They had much better make a butcher of +him.’ And not a little were the good people +astonished when he came to town, and was signally successful as a +medical lecturer, and as an advocate of the sanitary principles +which in our day have come to be recognised as essential to the +welfare of the State. Dr. Lankester was in great request as +a writer on medical subjects in a popular manner, and did +undoubtedly much good in his day. A good many genteel +people lived in the neighbourhood of Woodbridge, and it had a +society to which it can lay no claim at the present time. +Edward Fitzgerald, the friend of Thackeray and Carlyle, himself +an author of no mean repute, lived close by.</p> +<p>That genteel people should have pitched their <!-- page +260--><a name="page260"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +260</span>tents in or around Woodbridge is not much to be +wondered at, as the neighbourhood was certainly attractive and +convenient at the same time. The scenery around is as +interesting as any that could be found, at any rate, in that part +of England. The drive from Tuddenham to Woodbridge, says +Mr. Taylor, in his ‘Ipswich Handbook,’ is perhaps +unequalled in Suffolk. On the road you pass through the +villages of Little and Great Bealings, and if you are on the +look-out for spots which an artist would love to study, you may +make a very short detour to Playford. The churches, both of +Little and of Great Bealings, are very ancient, and well deserve +a visit; but the Woodbridge Road itself passes through some very +pretty scenery. Rushmere Heath, in the early summer time, +when the gorse is in bloom, is one mass of yellow, in the cleared +spaces of which may usually be seen a gipsy encampment. The +gibbet once stood on this heath, and in former times it seems to +have been the place where executions usually took place. It +was here that in 1783 a woman, named Bedingfield, was burnt for +murdering her husband. In the early part of this century, +when there were many alarms as to a French invasion, and it was +the firm belief of the old ladies that one fine morning <!-- page +261--><a name="page261"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +261</span>Bony would land upon our shores, and carry them all +away captive, many were the reviews of soldiers held there by the +Duke of Cambridge—whose house has been pointed out to me at +Woodbridge—and the Duke of Kent. At that time it was +the fashion to exercise the volunteers on a Sunday, a practice +which would not be sanctioned in our more religious age. It +is a beautiful ride through Kesgrave. Dense plantations +abound on both sides, and in May the chorus of nightingales is +described as something wonderful. In the word +‘Kesgrave’ we have an allusion to the barrows or +tumuli to be seen on Kesgrave Heath. There are several of +these erections remaining to this day, and perhaps tradition is +warranted in speaking of the spot as the site whereon the Danes +and Saxons met in deadly fight. It is certain that the +former frequently came up the Deben and the Orwell. At +Martlesham you see a creek, richly wooded on both sides, which +flows up from the River Deben. It is a striking object at +high water, but by no means so striking as the sign of the +village public-house—the head of a huge wooden lion painted +with the brightest of reds. It was originally the +figure-head of a Dutch man-of-war, one of the fleet defeated at +the famous battle of Sole Bay. Be <!-- page 262--><a +name="page262"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 262</span>that as it +may, no sign is better known than that of Martlesham Red +Lion. ‘As red as Martlesham Lion’ is still a +common figure of speech throughout East Suffolk, and I am glad to +see that in the beautiful East Anglian etchings of Mr. Edwards, a +Suffolk lawyer, who turned artist, Martlesham Red Lion has +justice done to it at last.</p> +<p>Woodbridge, which the guide-book in 1844 described as a +thriving town and port—I question whether it is thriving +now—is situated on the western bank of the Deben, about +nine miles above the mouth of the river, and about eight miles to +the north of Ipswich. In Domesday Book the place is called +Udebridge, of which its present name is no doubt a +corruption. Mr. William White, whom I have already quoted, +says: ‘Fifty years ago only one daily coach and a weekly +waggon passed through the town to and from London; but more than +twelve conveyances (coaches, omnibuses and carriers’ +waggons) now pass daily between the hours of six in the morning +and twelve at noon, and persons may travel from Woodbridge to +London in a few hours for ten shillings, instead of paying three +times that amount, and being thirteen hours on the road, as was +formerly the case.’ The railway has now rendered <!-- +page 263--><a name="page263"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +263</span>it possible for people to travel at a quicker speed and +at a cheaper rate. In London we have a Woodbridge Street, +in the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell Green, which points to a +connection between the poorer part of the City and the +picturesque Suffolk town on the banks of the Deben, and this +gives me occasion to speak of Thomas Seckford, Esq., one of the +masters of the Court of Requests, and Surveyor of the Court of +Wards and Liveries in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He was +not less distinguished in the profession of the law than in the +other polite accomplishments of the age in which he lived, and to +his patronage of his servant, Christopher Saxton, the public were +indebted for the first set of county maps, which were engraved by +his encouragement and at his request. He represented +Ipswich in three Parliaments, and died without issue in 1588, +aged seventy-two. In Woodbridge his name is perpetuated by +a handsome pile of buildings known as the Seckford Almshouses and +Schools, to which the property in Clerkenwell is devoted. +At the time of his decease that property produced about +£112 a year; in 1768 it was said to be of the yearly value +of £563. In 1826 an Act of Parliament was obtained to +enable the governors of the almshouses to grant building and <!-- +page 264--><a name="page264"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +264</span>other leases, to take down many of the old buildings, +to erect new premises, and repair and alter old ones, and to lay +out new streets on the charity estate in Clerkenwell, and, in +consequence, we find in 1830 the estate producing a rental of +more than £3,000 a year. In 1844 the yearly rental +had risen to £4,000. Since then it has much +increased, and all this is devoted to the benefit of the +Woodbridge poor.</p> +<p>In 1806 Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet, came to live at +Woodbridge. When fourteen years old he was apprenticed to +Mr. Samuel Jessup, a shopkeeper in Halstead, Essex. +‘There I stood,’ he writes, ‘for eight years +behind the counter of the corner shop at the top of Halstead +Hill, kept to this day (November 9, 1828) by my old master and +still worthy uncle, S. Jessup.’ In Woodbridge he +married a niece of his old master, and went into partnership with +her brother as corn and coal merchant. But she died in +giving birth to the Lucy Barton whose name still, unless I am +mistaken, adorns our literature. Bernard gave up business +and retired into the bank of the Messrs. Alexander, where he +continued for forty years, working within two days of his +death. He had always been fond of books, and was one of the +<!-- page 265--><a name="page265"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +265</span>most active members of a Woodbridge Book Club, and had +been in the habit of writing and sending to his friends +occasional copies of verse. In 1812 he published his first +volume, called ‘Metrical Effusions,’ and began a +correspondence with Southey. A complimentary copy of verses +which he had addressed to the author of the ‘Queen’s +Wake,’ just then come into notice, brought him long and +vehement letters from the Ettrick—letters full of thanks to +Barton and praises of himself, and a tragedy ‘that will +astonish the world ten times more than the “Queen’s +Wake,”’ to which justice could not be done in +Edinburgh, and which Bernard Barton was to try to get represented +in London. In 1825 one of Bernard’s volumes of poems +had run into a fifth edition, and of another George IV. had +accepted the dedication. Thus prompted to exertion, he +worked too hard; banking all day and writing poetry all night +were too much for him. Lamb, however, cheered up the +dyspeptic poet. ‘You are too much apprehensive about +your complaint,’ he wrote. ‘I know many that +are always writing of it and live on to a good old age. I +knew a merry fellow—you partly know him, too—who, +when his medical adviser told him he had drunk all <i>that +part</i>, congratulated <!-- page 266--><a +name="page266"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 266</span>himself, +now his liver was gone, that he should be the longest liver of +the two.’ Southey wrote in a soberer vein. +‘My friend, go to bed early; and if you eat suppers, read +afterwards, but never compose, that you may lie down with a quiet +intellect. There is an intellectual as well as a religious +peace of mind, and without the former be assured there can be no +health for a poet.’</p> +<p>At times Bernard Barton seems to have been troubled about +money matters. On one occasion he appears to have made up +his mind to have done with banking and devote himself to +literature. ‘Keep to your bank,’ wrote Lamb, +‘and the bank will keep you. Trust not to the public: +you may hang, starve, drown yourself, for anything that worthy +personage cares. I bless every star that Providence, not +seeing good to make me independent, has seen it next good to +settle me on the stable foundation of Leadenhall. Sit down, +good B. B., in the banking office. What! is there not from +six to eleven p.m. six days in the week? and is there not all +Sunday?’ Fortunately for B. B., friends came to his +rescue. A few members of his Society, including some of the +wealthier of his own family, raised among them £1,200 for +his benefit. The scheme originated with Joseph John Gurney, +<!-- page 267--><a name="page267"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +267</span>of Norwich, and in 1824 when the money was collected, +it was felt that £1,200 was a great deal for a poet to +receive. Bernard Barton’s daughter married a Suffolk +gentleman, well-to-do in the world, but the lady and gentleman +had not congenial minds, and parted almost as soon as the +honeymoon was over.</p> +<p>B. B. was a great correspondent. As a banker’s +clerk, necessarily his journeys were few and far between. +Once or twice he visited Charles Lamb. He once also met +Southey at Thomas Clarkson’s, at Playford Hall, perhaps the +most picturesque old house in East Anglia, where the latter +resided, and of which I have a distinct recollection, as, on the +terrace before the moat with which it was surrounded, I once saw +the venerable philanthropist and his grandchildren. Now and +then B. B. also visited the Rev. Mr. Mitford at Benhall, a +village between Woodbridge and Saxmundham, who was then engaged +in editing the Aldine edition of the English Poets. But B. +B.’s correspondents were numerous. Poor, unfortunate +L. E. L. sent him girlish letters. Mrs. Hemans was also a +correspondent, as were the Howitts and Mrs. Opie and Dr. Drake, +of Hadley, whose literary disquisitions are now, alas! forgotten; +and poor Charles Lloyd, <!-- page 268--><a +name="page268"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 268</span>whose +father wrote of his son’s many books ‘that it is +easier to write them than to gain numerous readers.’ +Dr. Bowring and Josiah Conder were also on writing terms with the +Quaker poet. His excursions, his daughter tells us, rarely +extended beyond a few miles round Woodbridge, to the vale of +Dedham, Constable’s birthplace and painting-room; or to the +neighbouring seacoast, including Aldborough, doubly dear to him +from its association with the memory and poetry of Crabbe. +Once upon a time he dined with Sir Robert Peel, when he had the +pleasure of meeting Airy, the late Astronomer Royal, whom he had +known as a lad at Playford. The dinner with Sir Robert Peel +ended satisfactorily, as it resulted in the bestowal by the Queen +on the poet of a pension of £100 a year. He was now +beyond the fear of being tempted to commit forgery, and being +hung in consequence—a possibility, which was the occasion +of one of Lamb’s wittiest letters. The gentle Elia +made merry over the chance of a Quaker poet being hung.</p> +<p>Amiable and liberal as was Bernard Barton, he could and did +strike hard when occasion required. In East Anglia, when I +was a lad, there was a great deal of intolerance—almost as +much as exists in society circles at the present day—and +<!-- page 269--><a name="page269"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +269</span>that is saying a great deal. Churchmen, in their +ignorance, were ready to put down Dissent in every way, and +occasionally, by their absurdity, they roused the righteous ire +of the Quaker poet. One of them, for instance, had said at +a public meeting: ‘This was the opinion he had formed of +Dissenters, that they were wolves in sheep’s +clothing.’ Whereupon B. B. wrote:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Wolves in sheep’s clothing! bitter +words and big;<br /> + But who applies them? first the speaker scan;<br /> +A suckling Tory! an apostate Whig!<br /> + Indeed a very silly, weak young man!</p> +<p>‘What such an one may either think or say,<br /> + With sober people matters not one pin;<br /> +In <i>their</i> opinion his own senseless bray<br /> + Proves <i>him</i> the <span class="smcap">ass wrapt +in a lion’s skin</span>!’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Better is the following address to a certain Dr. E.:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘A bullying, brawling, champion of the +Church,<br /> +Vain as a parrot screaming on her perch;<br /> +And like that parrot screaming out by rote,<br /> +The same stale, flat, unprofitable note;<br /> +Still interrupting all debate<br /> +With one eternal cry of “Church and State!”<br /> +With all the High Tory’s ignorance increased,<br /> +By all the arrogance that makes the priest;<br /> +One who declares upon his solemn word<br /> +The Voluntary system is absurd;<br /> +He well may say so, for ’twere hard to tell<br /> +Who would support him did not law compel.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 270--><a name="page270"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +270</span>A prophet, it is said, is not honoured in his own +country. Bernard Barton was happily the rare exception that +proves the rule. I remember being at the launching of a +vessel, bought and owned by a Woodbridge man, called the +<i>Bernard Barton</i>; it was the first time I had ever seen a +ship launched, and I was interested accordingly. The +ultimate fate of the craft is unknown to history. On one +occasion she was reported in the shipping list amongst the +arrivals at some far-off port as the <i>Barney Burton</i>. +Such is fame!</p> +<p>Of his local reputation Bernard was not a little proud. +His little town was vain of him. It was something to go +into the bank and get a cheque cashed by the poet. The +other evening I went to the house of a Woodbridge man who has +done well in London, and lives in one of the few grand old houses +which yet adorn Stoke Newington Green—just a stone’s +throw from where Samuel Rogers dwelt—and there in the +drawing-room were Bernard Barton’s own chair and cabinet +preserved with as much pious care as if he had been a Shakespeare +or a Milton. Bernard Barton made no secret of his vocation, +and when the time had come that he had delivered himself of a new +poem, it was his habit to call on one or other of his friends and +<!-- page 271--><a name="page271"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +271</span>discuss the matter over a bottle of port—port +befitting the occasion; no modern liquor of that name—</p> + +<blockquote><p> ‘Not +such as that<br /> +You set before chance comers,<br /> + But such whose father grape grew fat<br /> +On Lusitanian summers.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And then there was a good deal of talk, as was to be expected, +on things in general, for B. B. loved his joke and was full of +anecdote—anecdote, perhaps, not always of the most refined +character. But what could you expect at such happy times +from a man brimful of human nature, who had to pose all life +under the double weight of decorum imposed on him, in the first +place as a Quaker, and in the second place as a banker’s +clerk?</p> +<p>Bernard Barton, as I recollect him, was somewhat of a dear old +man—short in person, red in face, with dark brown +hair. He was, as I have said, a clerk in a bank, but his +poetry had elevated him, somehow, to the rank of a provincial +lion, and at certain houses, where the dinner was good and the +wine was ditto, he ever was a welcome guest. I dined with +him at the house of a friend in Woodbridge, and it seemed to me +that he cared more for good feeding and a glass of wine and a +<!-- page 272--><a name="page272"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +272</span>pinch of snuff than the sacred Nine. Of course at +that time I had not been educated up to the fitting state of mind +with which the philosopher of our day proceeds to the performance +of the mysteries of dinner. Dining had at that time not +been elevated to the rank of a science, to the study of which the +most acute intellects devote their highest energies; nor had +flowers then been invoked to lend an additional grace to the +dining-table. Besides, dinners such as Mr. Black gives at +Brighton, scientific dinners, such as those feasts with which Sir +Henry Thompson regales his friends, were unknown. +Nevertheless, now and then we managed to dine comfortably off +roast beef or lamb, a slice of boiled or roast fowl, a bit of +plum-pudding or fruit tart, a crust of bread and cheese, +with—tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of +Askalon—sherry and Madeira at dinner, and a few glasses of +fine old fruity port after. Some Shakespearian +quotations—unknown to me then, for Shakespeare was little +quoted in purely evangelical circles, either in Church or +Dissent—a reference to Sir Walter Scott’s earlier +German translations, formed about the sum and substance of the +conversation which took place between the poet and my host; all +the rest was <!-- page 273--><a name="page273"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 273</span>principally social gossip and an +exchange of pleasantries between the poet and his friend, whom he +addressed familiarly as ‘mine ancient.’ It was +a great treat to me, of course, to dine with Bernard Barton, the +Quaker poet. Once upon a time a Quaker minister had come to +Woodbridge on a preaching tour, and all the Quakers, male and +female, small and great, rich and poor, were ranged before +him. When Bernard Barton was announced, the good old man +said, ‘Barton—Barton—that’s a name I +don’t recollect.’ The bearer of the name +replied it would be strange if he did, seeing that they had never +met before. Suddenly looking up, the minister exclaimed, +‘Art thou the versifying man?’ Unlike the +venerable stranger, I had no need to ask the question, as in my +mother’s album there was more than one letter from the +genial B. B.</p> +<p>I can well recall the room in which I dined with the +poet. My host had come into a handsome fortune by marrying +a wealthy widow—one of the possibilities of a Dissenting +minister’s situation—and he had retired from the +ministry to cultivate literature and literary men. As I +think of that room and that dinner, I am reminded of the +wonderful contrast effected within the last age. <!-- page +274--><a name="page274"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 274</span>At +that time the dinner-table presented a far less picturesque +appearance than it does now. We had always pudding before +meat; the latter was solid, and in the shape of a joint. +Nor was it handed round by servants, but carved by the host or +his lady. Silver forks were unknown, and electro-plate had +not then been invented. Vegetables, also, were deficient as +regards quantity and quality compared with the supply at a +respectable dinner nowadays. In manners the change is +equally remarkable. It was said of a nobleman, a personal +friend of George III., and a model gentleman of his day, that he +had made the tour of Europe without ever touching the back of his +travelling carriage. That includes an idea of self-denial +utterly unknown to all the young people of to-day. The +study now is how to make our houses more comfortable, and to +furnish them most luxuriously. Then, perhaps, there was but +one sofa in the house, and that was repellent rather than +attractive. Easy-chairs were few and far between. +Lounging of any kind was out of the question. In the +drawing-room, the furniture was of the same uncomfortable +description, and there were none of the modern appliances which +exist to make ladies and gentlemen happy. Couches, <!-- +page 275--><a name="page275"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +275</span>antimacassars, photographs, were unknown. One +picture invariably to be seen was a painting of a favourite +steed, with the owner looking at it in a state of intense +admiration; and a few family portraits might be ostentatiously +displayed. As to pianos, there never was but one in the +house; and a billiard-table would have been considered as the +last refuge of human depravity. In sitting-rooms and +bedrooms and passages there was a great deficiency of carpets and +of oilcloth. But furniture was furniture then, and could +stand a good deal of wear and tear; while as to the spare bed in +the best room, with its enormous four posts and its gigantic +funereal canopy and its heavy curtains, through which no breath +of fresh air could penetrate, all I can say is that people slept +in it and survived the operation—so wonderfully does nature +adapt itself to circumstances the most adverse.</p> +<p>This reference to Bernard Barton reminds me of a portrait he +has left in one of his pleasant letters of a Suffolk yeoman, a +class of whose virtues I can testify from personal +experience. ‘He was a hearty old yeoman of +eighty-six, and had occupied the farm in which he lived and died +about fifty-five years. Social, hospitable, friendly, a +liberal master to his labourers, a kind neighbour, and a right +merry <!-- page 276--><a name="page276"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 276</span>companion within the limits of +becoming mirth. In politics a stanch Whig, in his +theological creed as sturdy a Dissenter; yet with no more party +spirit in him than a child. He and I belonged to the same +book-club for about forty years. . . . Not that he greatly cared +about books or was deeply read in them, but he loved to meet his +neighbours and get them round him on any occasion or no occasion +at all. As a fine specimen of the true English yeoman, I +have met with few to equal, if any to surpass him, and he looked +the character as well as he acted it, till within a few years, +when the strong man was bowed by bodily infirmity. About +twenty-six years ago, in his dress costume of a blue coat and +yellow buckskins, a finer sample of John Bullism you would rarely +see. It was the whole study of his long life to make the +few who revolved round him in his little orbit as happy as he +seemed to be himself. Yet I was gravely queried when I +happened to say that his children had asked me to write a few +lines to his memory, whether I could do this in keeping with the +general tone of my poetry—the speaker doubted if he was a +decidedly pious character! He had at times in his altitude +been known to vociferate a song, of which the chorus was +certainly not teetotalism:</p> +<blockquote><p><!-- page 277--><a name="page277"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 277</span>‘“Sing old Rose, and +burn the bellows,<br /> +Drink and drive dull care away.”’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Bernard Barton goes on to describe the deceased yeoman as a +diligent attendant at the meeting-house, a frequent and serious +reader of the Bible, and the head of an orderly and +well-regulated house. He is described as knowing Dr. +Watts’ hymns almost by heart, and as singing them on Sunday +at meeting with equal fervour and unction. Bernard Barton +feared in 1847—the date of his epistle—the breed of +such men was dying out. It is to be feared in East Anglia +the race is quite extinct. In our meeting-house at +Wrentham, when I was a lad, there were several such. I am +afraid there is not one there now. The sons and daughters +have left the old rustic houses, and gone out into the +world. They have become respectable, and go to church, and +have lost a good deal of the vigour and independence of their +forefathers. In all the East Anglian meeting-houses fifty +years ago such men abounded. Of a Sunday, with their blue +coats and kerseymere knee-breeches, and jolly red laces, they +looked more like country squires than common farmers. They +drove up to the meeting-house yard with very superior gigs and +cattle. In their houses creature comforts of all known +kinds <!-- page 278--><a name="page278"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 278</span>were to be found. Tea—a +hearty meal, not of mere bread-and-butter, but of ham and cake as +well—was served up in the parlour, with a glass or two of +real home-brewed ale, amber-coloured, of a quality now unknown, +and which was wonderfully refreshing after a long walk or +drive. Then, if it were summer, there was a stroll in the +big garden, well planted with fruit-trees and strawberry-beds, +and adorned with flowers—old-fashioned, perhaps, but rich, +nevertheless, in colour and perfume. In one corner there +was sure to be an arbour, all covered with honeysuckle, such as +Izaak Walton himself would have approved; and there, while the +seniors over their long pipes discussed politics and theology, +and corn and cattle, the younger ones would make their first +feeble efforts, all unconsciously, perhaps, to conjugate the verb +‘to love.’ Outside the church organizations +these old yeomen lived and died. There was a flavour of the +world about them. They would dine at market ordinaries, and +perhaps would stop an hour in the long room of the public-house, +where they put up their horses, to smoke a pipe and take a drop +of brandy-and-water for the good of the landlord. Now and +then—sometimes to the sorrow of their wives, who were often +church-members—they would join, as I have indicated, in +<!-- page 279--><a name="page279"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +279</span>a song of an objectionable character when severely +criticised. Perhaps their parson would be much exercised on +their behalf; but surely the noble spirit of humanity in these +old yeomen, at any rate, was as worthy of admiration as the +Puritanic faith of the past—or as the honest doubt of the +present age. If I mistake not, the fine old yeoman to whom +Bernard Barton referred lived not far from Seckford Hall.</p> +<p>Woodbridge has some claim to consideration from the +Nonconformist point of view. In 1648 a schoolmistress, +Elizabeth Warren, published a pamphlet, ‘The Old and Good +Way Vindicated, in a Treatise, wherein Divers Errours, both in +Judgment and Practice incident to these Declining Days, are +Unmasked for the Caution of humble Christians.’ From +the same town also there issued ‘The Preacher Sent: a +Vindication of the Liberty of Public Preaching by Some Men not +Ordained.’ The author of this book, or one of the +authors of it, was the Rev. Frederick Woodall, the first pastor +of the Free Church—‘a man of learning, ability, and +piety, a strict Independent, zealous for the fifth monarchy, and +a considerable sufferer after his ejectment.’ He had, +we are told, to contend with a tedious embarrassment, through the +persecuting <!-- page 280--><a name="page280"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 280</span>spirit that for many years +prevailed, and considerably cramped the success of his +ministry. Woodbridge is one of the churches which Mr. +Harmer refers to in his ‘Miscellaneous Works,’ as +being rigidly Congregationalist, and which conducted its affairs +rather according to the heads of Savoy Confession than the heads +of Agreement. When I was a boy the pastor was a Mr. +Pinchback, who seems to have been a worthy successor of godly +men, equally attractive and successful. He had previously +settled at Ware. It is recorded of the good divine that on +one occasion he had to leave his wife at the point of death, as +it seemed, to go to chapel. In the course of the service he +mentioned the fact of her illness, and announced in consequence +that he would preach her funeral sermon on the following +Sunday. But when the following Sunday came the lady was +better, and lived for many years to assist her husband in his +godly work. In the rural districts the Baptists flourished +immensely.</p> +<p>At Grundisburgh there preached for many years to a large +congregation a worthy man of the name of Collins, who was one of +the leading lights of the body which rejoiced in a John Foreman +and a Brother Wells. People who live in London cannot <!-- +page 281--><a name="page281"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +281</span>have forgotten Jemmy Wells, of the Surrey Tabernacle, +and his grotesque and telling anecdotes. One can scarcely +imagine how people could ever believe the things Wells used to +say as to the Lord’s dealings with him; but they did, and +his funeral—in South London, at any rate—was almost +as numerously attended as that of Arthur, Duke of +Wellington. I expect high-and-dry Baptists have been not a +little troublesome in their day, and in East Anglia they were +more numerous than in London. It may be that they have +helped to weaken Dissent in that part of the world. Men of +independent intellect must have been not a little shocked by that +unctuous familiarity with God and the devil which is the +characteristic of that class. On a Sunday morning Jemmy +Wells, as his admirers called him, would describe in the most +graphic manner what the devil had said to him in the course of +the week; and on one memorable occasion, at any rate, described +with much force the shame he felt at having to tell the gentleman +in black that his people’s memories, unfortunately, were +somewhat remiss in the matter of pew-rents. Brother Collins +avoided such flights, but he was an attractive preacher to all +the country round, nevertheless. Truly such a one was +needed in that <!-- page 282--><a name="page282"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 282</span>district. At Rendham, a +village near Saxmundham, lived a godly minister of the Church of +England. In 1844, speaking to a friend of the writer, he +said that when he came into the county, between thirty and forty +years before, there was only one other clergyman and himself +between Ipswich and Great Yarmouth who preached the Gospel, and +that sometimes the squire of the parish would hold up his watch +to him to bid him close his sermon. In some places where he +went to preach he had to have a body-guard to prevent his being +mobbed and pelted with rotten eggs on account of his evangelical +principles.</p> +<h2><!-- page 283--><a name="page283"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 283</span>CHAPTER X.<br /> +<span class="smcap">milton’s suffolk +schoolmaster</span>.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Stowmarket—The Rev. Thomas +Young—Bishop Hall and the Smectymnian +divines—Milton’s mulberry-tree—Suffolk +relationships.</p> +<p>‘My father destined me,’ writes John Milton, in +his ‘Defensio Secunda,’ ‘while yet a little +boy, for the study of humane letters, which I served with such +eagerness that, from the twelfth year of my age, I scarcely ever +went from my lessons to bed before midnight, which, indeed, was +the first cause of injury to my eyes, to whose natural weakness +there were also added frequent headaches; all which not retarding +my natural impetuosity in learning, he caused me to be instructed +both at the Grammar School and under other masters at +home.’ Of the latter, the best known was the Rev. +Thomas Young, the Puritan minister, of Stowmarket, Suffolk.</p> +<p>It is generally claimed for Young that he was <!-- page +284--><a name="page284"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 284</span>an +East Anglian. Professor Masson has, however, settled the +question that he was a Scotchman, of the University of +Aberdeen. Be that as it may, like most Scotchmen, he made +his way to England, and was employed by Mr. Milton, the scrivener +of Bread Street, to teach his gifted son. As he seems to +have been married at the time, it is not probable that he resided +with his pupil, but only visited him daily. Never had +master a better pupil, or one who rewarded him more richly by the +splendour of his subsequent career. The poet, writing to +him a few years after he ceased to be his pupil, speaks of +‘the incredible and singular gratitude he owed him on +account of the services he had done him,’ and calls God to +witness that he reverenced him as his father. In a Latin +elegy, after implying that Young was dearer to him than Socrates +to Alcibiades, or than the great Stagyrite to his generous pupil, +Alexander, he goes on to say: ‘First, under his guidance, I +explored the recesses of the Muses, and beheld the sacred green +spots of the cleft summit of Parnassus and quaffed the Pierian +cups, and, Clio favouring me, thrice sprinkled my joyful mouth +with Castalian wine;’ from which it is clear that Young had +done his duty to his pupil, and that the latter ever regarded +<!-- page 285--><a name="page285"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +285</span>him with an affection as beautiful as rare. Never +did a Rugby lad write of Arnold as Milton of Thomas Young. +How long the latter’s preceptorship lasted cannot be +determined with precision. ‘It certainly +closed,’ writes Professor Masson, in that truly awful +biography of his, ‘when Young left England at the age of +thirty-five, and became pastor of the congregation of British +merchants settled at Hamburg.’</p> +<p>As one of the leaders of the Presbyterian party, Dr. Thomas +Young became Vicar of Stowmarket in due time. He was one of +the Smectymnian divines. As it is not every schoolboy who +knows what the term means, let me explain who they were. +Two or three hundred years ago people were much more +controversial than they are now, and very fierce was the battle +on the subject of the relative claims, from a Scriptural point of +view, of Prelacy or Presbytery. One of the most +distinguished champions of the former was Dr. Hall, Bishop of +Norwich—a simple, godly, learned man, who deserves to be +held in remembrance, if only for the way in which he got +married. ‘Being now settled,’ he writes, +‘in that sweet and civil county of Suffolk, the uncouth +solitariness of my life, and the extreme incommodity of that +single housekeeping, drew my <!-- page 286--><a +name="page286"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 286</span>thoughts, +after two years, to condescend to the necessity of a married +state, which God no less strangely provided for me; for walking +from the church on Monday, in the Whitsun week, with a grave and +reverend minister, I saw a comely and modest gentlewoman standing +at the door of that house where we were invited to a +wedding-dinner, and inquiring of that worthy friend whether he +knew her, “Yes,” quoth he, “I know her well, +and have bespoken her for your wife.” When I further +demanded an account of that answer, he told me she was the +daughter of a gentleman whom he much respected—Mr. George +Whinniff, of Brettenham; that out of an opinion he had of the +fitness of that match for me he had already treated with her +father about it, whom he found very apt to entertain it. +Advising me not to neglect the opportunity, and not concealing +the just praises of the modesty, piety, good disposition, and +other virtues that were lodged in that seemly presence, I +listened to the motion as sent from God, and at last, upon due +prosecution, happily prevailed, enjoying the comfortable society +of that meet-help for the space of forty-nine years.’ +A young clergyman so good and amiable ought to have fared better +as regards the days in which his lot was passed. Hall <!-- +page 287--><a name="page287"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +287</span>should have lived in some theological Arcadia. As +it was, he had to fight much and suffer much. In those +distracted times he was all for peace. When the storm was +brewing in Church and State, which for a time swept away Bishop +and King, he published—but, alas! in vain—his +‘Via Media.’ ‘I see,’ he wrote, +‘every man to rank himself unto a side, and to draw in the +quarrel he affecteth. I see no man either holding or +joining their hands for peace.’ Bishop Hall was the +most celebrated writer of his time in defence of the Church of +England. Archbishop Laud got him to write on ‘The +Divine Right of Episcopacy,’ nor could he have well placed +the subject in abler hands. This was followed, after Laud +had fallen, with ‘An Humble Remonstrance to the High Court +of Parliament,’ in which treatise he vindicated the +antiquity of liturgies and Episcopacy with admirable skill, +meekness, and simplicity, yet with such strength of argument that +five Presbyterian divines clubbed their wits together to frame an +answer. These Presbyterian ministers were—Stephen +Marshal, then lecturer at St. Margaret’s, whom Baillie +terms the best of the preachers in England; Edmund Calamy, who +had long been a celebrated East Anglian preacher, first at +Swaffham, then at Bury <!-- page 288--><a +name="page288"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 288</span>St. +Edmunds, who, as we all know, refused a bishopric when offered +him, and whom, therefore, at any rate, his adversaries must allow +to have been sincere; Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William +Spurstow. To this reply was given the name of +Smectymnuus—a startling word, as Calamy calls it, made up +of the initial letters of these names. This work, which was +published in 1641, gave, says Dr. M’Crie, the first serious +blow to Prelacy. It was composed in a style superior to +that of the Puritans in general, and was, by the confession of +the learned Bishop Wilkins, a capital work against +Episcopacy. Dr. Kippis says, ‘This piece is certainly +written with great fierceness and asperity of language,’ +and quotes, as evidence, some strong things said against the +practice of the prelates. But Neal, who has given a long +account of the work, states that, if the rest of the clergy had +been of the same temper and spirit with Bishop Hall, the +controversy between him and the Smectymnian divines might have +been compromised.</p> +<p>Stowmarket, as I have said, had the honour of being placed +under the pastoral care of one of these Smectymnian +divines. He came there in March, 1628, on the presentation +of Mr. John <!-- page 289--><a name="page289"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 289</span>Howe, a gentleman then residing in +the town, and a man of wealth, whose ancestors had been great +cloth-manufacturers in that place and neighbourhood. Since +the time of Edward III. the cloth manufacture had been very +active in Suffolk, and it is little to the credit of its +merchants that we find them, in 1522, petitioning for the repeal +of a royal law which inflicted a penalty against those who sold +cloth which, when wetted, shrunk up, on the plea that, as such +goods were made for a foreign market, the home-consumer was not +injured. Stowmarket, when I was a lad, had reached its +climax in a pecuniary sense. In the early part of the +present century it was spoken of as a rising town. Situated +as it was in the centre of the county, it was a convenient mart +for barley, and great quantities of malt were made. Its +other manufactures were sacking, ropes, and twine. Its +tanneries were of a more recent date, as also its manufactory of +gun-cotton, connected with which at one time there was an +explosion of a most fatal and disastrous character. In 1763 +it was connected with Ipswich by means of a canal, which was a +great source of prosperity to the town. Up to the time of +the great Reform Bill, it was the great place for county +meetings, and for the nomination of the county +representatives. In our <!-- page 290--><a +name="page290"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 290</span>day it has +a population of 4,052. When I was a lad it was one of the +first towns to welcome the Plymouth Brethren into Suffolk, and +they are there still. The Independent Chapel for awhile +suffered much from them. The pastor was a very worthy but +somewhat dry preacher. His favourite quotation in the +pulpit, when he would describe the attacks of the enemy of God +and man, was</p> +<blockquote><p>‘He worries whom he can’t devour<br /> +With a malicious joy.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Suffolk had its great lawyers as well as Norfolk. The +first to head the list is Ranulph de Glanville, a man of great +parts, deep learning, for the times, eminent alike for his legal +abilities and energetic mind. He was said, by one account, +to have been born at Stowmarket. It is certain he founded +Leiston Abbey, near Aldborough, and Bentley Priory. As +Chief Justice under Henry II. he naturally was no favourite with +Richard I., who deprived him of his office and made use of his +wealth. He lived, however, to accompany Richard to the Holy +Land, and died at the siege of Acre. His treatise on our +laws is one of the earliest on record. It must be +remembered also that Godwin, the author of ‘Political +Justice,’ and ‘Caleb Williams,’ a novel still +read—the husband of one gifted <!-- page 291--><a +name="page291"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 291</span>woman, and +the father of another—was at one time an Independent +minister at Stowmarket.</p> +<p>But to return to Dr. Young. He, like Mr. Newcomen, had +become an East Anglian, and Smectymnuus may therefore more or +less be said to have an East Anglian original. As the +living of Stowmarket was at that time worth £300 a year, +and as £300 a year then was quite equal to £600 a +year now, Dr. Young must have been in comfortable circumstances +while at Stowmarket. A likeness of him is hung up, or was +preserved, in Stowmarket Vicarage. ‘It,’ wrote +an old observer, ‘possesses the solemn, faded yellowness of +a man much given to austere meditation, yet there is sufficient +energy in the eye and mouth to show, as he is preaching in Geneva +gown and bands, that he is a man who could write and think, and +speak with great vigour.’ One of Milton’s +biographers terms him, contemptuously, a Puritan who cut his hair +short. The Rev. Mr. Hollingsworth writes that it is an +error to suppose that Young remained long as chaplain to +merchants abroad. ‘He must have remained generally in +constant residence, because we possess his signature to the +vestry accounts, in a curious quarto book, which contains the +annual accounts of Stow upland Parish for eighty-four +years. At the parish meetings, <!-- page 292--><a +name="page292"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 292</span>and at the +audit of each year’s accounts Vicar Young presided, with +some exceptions, from the year 1629 to 1655, and his autograph is +attached to each page.’ As an author, Dr. Young had +distinguished himself before he appeared as one of the +Smectymnians. In 1639, while the Stuarts and the Bishops +were doing all they could to break down the sanctity of the +Sabbath, and to make it a day of vulgar revelry and rustic sport, +Dr. Young published a thin quarto in Latin, entitled ‘Dies +Dominica,’ containing a history of the institution of the +Sabbath, and its vindication from all common and profane +uses. There is no place of publication named, the signature +is feigned, ‘Theophilus Philo Kunaces Loncardiensis,’ +and in the copy reserved at Stowmarket is added, in characters by +no means unlike that of the handwriting of the Vicar himself, +‘Dr. Thos. Young, of Jesus.’ The tractate is +described as a very elaborate and learned compilation from the +Fathers upon the sanctity of the Sabbath. A spirit of +laborious and determined energy pervades it, nor is it unworthy +the abilities and erudition of the author. The work was +written at Stowmarket, and may have been published in +Ipswich. Its paper and type are coarse; the name of the +author was concealed, because at that time <!-- page 293--><a +name="page293"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 293</span>a man who +reverenced the Sabbath had a good chance of being brought before +the Star Chamber, and of being roughly treated by Archbishop +Laud, as an enemy to Church and State. About ten years +before, Dr. Young had heard how, for writing his plea against +Prelacy, Dr. Alexander Leighton had been cast into Newgate, +dragged before the Star Chamber, where he was sentenced to have +his ears cut off, to have his nose slit, to be branded in the +face, to stand in the pillory, to be whipped at the post, to pay +a fine of £10,000, and to suffer perpetual +imprisonment. Dr. Young might well shrink from exposing +himself to similar torture. But Dr. Young had other +warnings, and much nearer home.</p> +<p>Dr. Young, like most of the men of that time, persecuted +witches. These latter were supposed to have existed in +great numbers, and a roving commission for their discovery was +given to one Matthew Hopkins, of Manningtree, in Essex, to find +them out in the eastern counties and execute the law upon +them. It was a brutal business, and Hopkins followed it for +three or four years. He proceeded from town to town and +opened his courts. Stowmarket was one of the places he +visited. The Puritans are said to have hung sixty <!-- page +294--><a name="page294"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +294</span>witches in Suffolk, but the Puritans were not alone +responsible. It is a fact that, up to fifty years ago two +supposed witches lived in Stowmarket.</p> +<p>Dr. Young escaped the Star Chamber, but, like most good men +who would be free at that time he had to fly his native land for +awhile. Milton refers to this exile in his Latin elegy:</p> + +<blockquote><p> ‘Meantime +alone<br /> +Thou dwellest, and helpless on a soil unknown,<br /> +Poor, and receiving from a foreign hand<br /> +The aid denied thee in thy native land.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It seems from this that the living at Stowmarket was under +sequestration. A little while after Young is back in +Stowmarket, and Milton thus describes his daily life—a +personal experience of the poet’s, not a flight of +fancy:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Now, entering, thou shalt haply seated +see<br /> +Besides his spouse, his infants on his knee;<br /> +Or, turning page by page with studious look<br /> +Some bulky paper or God’s holy Book.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Good times came to Dr. Young. The seed he had sown bore +fruit. For awhile England had woke up to attack the Stuart +doctrine of royal prerogative in Church and State. The men +of Suffolk had been the foremost in the fight, and in 1643 we +find the Doctor in Duke’s Place, London. A sermon was +preached by him before <!-- page 295--><a +name="page295"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 295</span>the House +of Commons, and printed by order of the House. A Stowmarket +Rector speaks of it naturally as a very prolix, learned, somewhat +dull and heavy effort to encourage them to persevere in their +civil war against the King; but he has the grace to add: +‘There is much less of faction in it than many others, and +it is rather the production of a contemplative than of an active +partisan.’ ‘One of his examples,’ writes +Mr. Hollingsworth, ‘is from 2 Sam. xiii. 28, where the +command of Absalom was to kill Amnon: “Could the command of +a <i>mortal man</i> infuse that courage and valour into the +hearts <i>of his servants</i> as to make them adventure upon a +<i>desperate</i> design? And shall not the command of the +<i>Almighty God</i> raise up the hearts of His people employed by +Him in any work to which <i>He</i> calls them, raise up their +hearts in following at His command!”’ The +Doctor had not cleared himself of all the errors of his +times. He urged on his hearers, by the example of the +Emperors, the necessity of maintaining the doctrine of the +Trinity uncorrupt, by the aid of the civil power. He urged, +however, on them personal holiness, in order that the reformation +of the Church might be more easily accomplished. The two +legislative enactments he wished them to pass <!-- page 296--><a +name="page296"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 296</span>were to +confer a power upon the Presbyterian clergy to exclude men from +the Sacrament, and enforce a better observance of the +Sabbath-day. The sermon is scarce, but is bound up with +others in the Library at Cambridge, preached at the monthly fasts +before the House of Commons.</p> +<p>In the library of the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, where +assuredly the portrait of the Stowmarket Rector should find a +place, there is a copy of this sermon, which was preached at the +last solemn fast. February 28, 1643, with the notice that +‘It is this day ordered by the Commoners’ House of +Parliament that Sir John Trevor and Mr. Rous do from this House +give thanks to Mr. Young for the great paines hee tooke in the +sermon hee preached that day at the intreaty of the said House of +Commons at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, it being the day of +publike humiliation, and to desire him to print this +sermon;’ which accordingly was done, under the title of +‘Hope’s Encouragement.’ The motto on the +outside was: ‘Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul +both sure and steadfast, and entereth into that which is within +the veil.’ The sermon was printed in London for Ralph +Smith, at the sign of the Bible, in Cornhill, near the Royal +Exchange. In <!-- page 297--><a name="page297"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 297</span>his sermon the preacher took for his +text: ‘Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your +heart, all ye that wait upon the Lord.’ The three +propositions established are: First, that God’s people are +taught by the Lord in all their troubles to wait patiently on +Him. The second is that such as wait patiently upon the +Lord must rouse themselves with strength and courage to further +wait upon Him; and that, thirdly, when God’s people wait +upon Him, He will increase their courage. The preacher +quotes the Hebrew and Augustine, and reasons in a most undeniable +manner in support of his propositions; but above all things he is +practical. ‘The work you are now called on to +do,’ he says to the M.P.’s, ‘is a work of great +concernment. It is the purging of the Lord’s +floor. As it hath reference both to the Church and the +Commonwealth, a work sure enough to be encountered with great +opposition. Yet I must say it is a work with the managing +whereof God hath not so honoured others which have gone before +you in your places, but hath reserved it to make you the +instruments of His glory in advancing it, and that doth much add +unto your honour. Was it an honour to the Tyrians that they +were counted amongst the builders of the Temple when Hiram sent +to <!-- page 298--><a name="page298"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +298</span>Solomon things necessary for that work? How, +then, hath God honoured you, reserving to you the care of +re-edifying His Church (the throne of the living God) and the +repairing of the shattered Commonwealth, so far borne down before +He raised you to support it, that succeeding ages may with honour +to your names, say, “This was the Reforming +Parliament,” a work which God, by His blessing on your +unwearied pains, hath much furthered already, whilst He, by you, +hath removed the rubbish that might hinder the raising up of that +godly structure appointed and prescribed by the Lord in His +Word.’ They were to stick to the truth, contended the +preacher, quoting the edict of the Emperor Justinian in the Arian +controversy, and the reply of Basil the Great to the +Emperor’s deputy: ‘That none trained up in Holy +Scriptures would suffer one syllable of Divine truth to be +betrayed; but were ready, if it be required, to suffer any death +in the defence thereof.’ People, he maintained, are +ever carried on by the example of their governors. +‘How,’ he asks, ‘was the Eastern Empire +polluted with execrable Arianism, whilst yet the Western +continued in the truth? The historians give the reason of +it. Constantine, an Arian, ruled in the East when at the +same time <!-- page 299--><a name="page299"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 299</span>Constans and Constantius, sons to +Constantine the Great, treading in the steps of their pious +father, adhered to the truth professed by him, and so did as far +ennoble the Western Empire with the truth as the other did defile +the Eastern with his countenancing of error and +heresy.’ The preacher here asks his hearers to make +no laws against religion and piety, and ‘recall such as +have been made in time of ignorance against the same, and study +to uphold and maintain such profitable and wholesome laws as have +been formerly enacted for God and His people. Improve what +was well begun by others before you, and not perfected by +them.’ Under this latter head he dwelt on the +possible abuse of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, +and the irreligious profanation of the Lord’s Day.</p> +<p>In 1643 the Earl of Manchester ejected many of the Royalist +clergymen from their livings who were scandalous ministers. +Dr. Sterne having been deprived of the mastership of Jesus +College, Cambridge, the Stowmarket Vicar was placed there in his +stead. He held the situation till 1654, when, on his +refusal of the engagement, Government deprived him of his +office. At the time the sermon was preached Dr. Young was +one of the far-famed <!-- page 300--><a name="page300"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 300</span>Assembly of Divines which met in +Henry VII.’s chapel in accordance with the Solemn League +and Covenant, which proposed three grand objects: ‘To +endeavour the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy superstition, +heresy, and profaneness; to endeavour the preservation of the +reformed religion in Scotland and the reformation of religion in +the kingdoms of England and Ireland in doctrine, worship, +discipline, and government according to the Word of God and the +example of the best Reformed Church; and to endeavour to bring +the Churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest +conjunction and uniformity in religion—confession of faith, +form of Church government, directory for worship and catechizing; +that we and our posterity after us may as brethren live in faith +and love, and that the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of +us.’ A clause was inserted to the effect that it was +English prelacy which they contemned; and thus modified, after +all due solemnities, and with their right hands lifted to heaven, +was the Solemn League and Covenant sworn to by the English +Parliament and by the Assembly of Divines in St. Margaret’s +Church, September 25, 1643. It was, writes a Presbyterian +divine, too much the creature of the Long Parliament who convoked +the meeting, <!-- page 301--><a name="page301"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 301</span>selected the members of Assembly, +nominated its president, prescribed its bye-laws, and kept a firm +hold and a vigilant eye on all their proceedings. Still, +with all these drawbacks, it must be admitted that Parliament +could hardly have made a selection of more pious, learned, and +conscientious men. The Assembly consisted of men nominated +by the members for each county sending in suitable names. +The two divines appointed for Suffolk were Mr. Thomas Young, of +Stowmarket, and Mr. John Phillips, of Rentall. The Vicar, +it is said, sometimes acted as chairman, but this, as Mr. +Hollingsworth remarks, is doubtful.</p> +<p>Mr. Young’s claim to fame rests on something greater +than his sermon, or his position in the Assembly of Divines at +Westminster, or his mastership of Jesus College. He was, as +we have said, Milton’s schoolmaster. The poet tells +us:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘’Tis education forms the common +mind;<br /> +Just as a twig is bent the tree’s inclined.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>If so, much of Milton’s piety and lofty principle and +massive learning must have come to him from the Stowmarket +Vicar. In our day there is little chance of a young scholar +becoming imbued with Miltonian ideas on the subject of civil and +religious <!-- page 302--><a name="page302"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 302</span>liberty. That sublime genius +which was to sing in immortal verse of</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Man’s first disobedience, and the +fruit<br /> +Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste<br /> +Brought death into the world, and all our woe,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>must have owed much to Dr. Young—a debt which the poet +acknowledged, as we have already seen, in no niggardly way. +Amongst Milton’s Latin letters is the following, which has +been translated by Professor Masson thus: ‘Although I had +resolved with myself, most excellent preceptor, to send you a +certain small epistle composed in metrical numbers, yet I did not +consider that I had done enough unless I also wrote something in +prose: for, truly, the singular and boundless gratitude of my +mind which your deserts justly claim from me was not to be +expressed in that cramped mode of speech, straitened by fixed +feet and syllables, but in a free oration—nay, rather, if +it were possible, in an Asiatic exuberance of words. To +express sufficiently how much I owe you, were a work far greater +than my strength, even if I should call into play all those +commonplaces of argument which Aristotle or that dialectician of +Paris (Ramus) has collected, or even if I should exhaust all the +fountains of oratory. You complain <!-- page 303--><a +name="page303"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 303</span>as justly +that my letters have been to you very few and very short; but I, +on the other hand, do not so much grieve that I have been remiss +in a duty so pleasant and so enviable, as I rejoice, and all but +exult, at having such a place in your friendship, as that you +should care to ask for frequent letters from me. That I +should never have written to you for over more than three years, +I pray you will not misconceive, but, in accordance with your +wonderful indulgence and candour, put the more charitable +construction on it; for I call God to witness how much, as a +father, I regard you, with what singular devotion I have always +followed you in thought, and how I feared to trouble you with my +writings. In sooth, I make it my first care, that since +there is nothing else to commend my letters, that their rarity +may commend them. Next, as out of that most vehement desire +after you which I feel, I always fancy you with me, and speak to +you, and beheld you as if you were present, and so, as always +happens in love, soothe my grief by a certain vain imagination of +your presence, it is, in truth, my fear, as soon as I meditate +sending you a letter, that it should suddenly come into my mind +by what an interval of earth you are distant from me, and so the +grief of your absence, already <!-- page 304--><a +name="page304"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 304</span>nearly +lulled, should grow fresh and break up my sweet dream. The +Hebrew Bible, your truly most acceptable gift, I have already +received. These lines I have written in London, in the +midst of town distractions, not, as usual, surrounded by books; +if, therefore, anything in this epistle should please you less +than might be, and disappoint your expectations, it will be made +up for by another more elaborate one as soon as I have returned +to the haunts of the Muses.’</p> +<p>When the above letter was written, Milton had become a +Cambridge student, where he was to experience a new kind of +tutor. Milton could not get on with Chappell as he did with +Young. The tie between the Stowmarket Vicar and the poet +was of a much more cordial character.</p> +<p>Again the poet appears to have forwarded the following letter +to the Stowmarket Vicarage. It is to be feared that few +such precious epistles find their way there now. Milton +writes to the Doctor: ‘On looking at your letter, most +excellent preceptor, this alone struck me as superfluous, that +you excused your slowness in writing; for though nothing could +come to me more desirable than your letters, how could I or ought +I to hope that you should have so much leisure from serious and +<!-- page 305--><a name="page305"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +305</span>more sacred affairs, especially as that is a matter +entirely of kindness, and not at all of duty? That, +however, I should suspect that you had forgotten me, your so many +recent kindnesses to me would by no means allow. I do not +see how you could dismiss out of your memory one laden with so +great benefits by you. Having been invited by you to your +part of the country, as soon as spring has a little advanced I +will gladly come to enjoy the delights of the year, and not less +of your conversation, and will then withdraw myself from the din +of town to your Stoa of the Iceni, as to that most celebrated +porch of Zeno or the Tusculan Villa of Cicero, where you with +moderate means, but regal spirit, like some Serranus or Curius, +placidly reign in your little farm, and contemning fortune, hold +as it were a triumph over riches, ambition, pomp, luxury, and +whatever the herd of man admire and are amazed by. But as +you have deprecated the blame of slowness, you will also, I hope, +pardon me the fault of haste; for having put off this letter, I +preferred writing little, and that rather in a slovenly manner, +to not writing at all. Farewell, much-to-be respected +Sir.’</p> +<p>The question is, Did Milton carry out this intention, and pay +Stowmarket a visit? Professor <!-- page 306--><a +name="page306"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 306</span>Masson +thinks he may have been there in the memorable summer and autumn +of 1630. The Rev. Mr. Hollingsworth, the Stowmarket +historian argues that it is not unlikely that several, if not +many, visits, extending over a period of thirty years, while the +tutor held the living, were made by the poet to the place. +Tradition has constantly associated his name with the +mulberry-trees of the Vicarage, which he planted, but of these +only one remains. ‘This venerable relic of the +past,’ continues the Vicar, ‘is much decayed, and is +still in vigorous bearing. Its girth, before it breaks into +branches, is ten feet, and I have had in one season as much as +ten gallons from the pure juices of its fruits, which yields a +highly flavoured and brilliant-coloured wine.’ It +stands a few yards distant from the oldest part of the house, and +opposite the windows of an upstair double room, which was +formerly the sitting-parlour of the Vicar, and where, it is to be +believed, the poet and his friend had many a talk of the way to +advance religion and liberty in the land, to remove hirelings out +of the Church, and to abolish the Bishops. There too, +perhaps, might have come to the guest visions of ‘Paradise +Lost.’ In his first work Milton throws out something +like a hint of the great <!-- page 307--><a +name="page307"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 307</span>poem which +he was in time to write. ‘Then, amidst,’ to +quote his own sonorous language, ‘the hymns and hallelujahs +of saints, <i>someone</i> may, perhaps, be heard offering in high +strains, in new and lofty measures, to sing and celebrate Thy +Divine mercies and marvellous judgments in this land throughout +all ages.’ We can easily believe how, in the +Stowmarket Vicarage, the plan of the poet may have been talked +over, and the heart of the poet encouraged to the work. +Regarding Young as Milton did, we may be sure that he would have +been only too glad to listen to his suggestions and adopt his +advice. There must have been a good deal of plain living +and high thinking at the Stowmarket Vicarage when Milton came +there as an occasional guest. This is the more probable as +Milton’s earliest publications were in support of the views +of Smectymnian divines. His friendship for Young probably +led him into the field of controversy, for he owns that he was +not disposed to this manner of writing ‘wherein, knowing +myself inferior to myself, led by the genial power of nature to +another task, I have the use, as I may account, but of my left +hand.’ It is a fact that Milton was thus drawn into +the controversy, and what more natural than that he should have +been <!-- page 308--><a name="page308"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 308</span>induced to do so by the Stowmarket +Vicar in the Stowmarket Vicarage? The poet’s family +were familiar with that part of Suffolk, and his brother, Sir +Christopher, who was a stanch Royalist and barrister, lived at +Ipswich, but twelve miles off. He went to see Milton, and +Milton might have visited Ipswich and Stowmarket at the same +time. Be that as it may, tradition and probability alike +justify the belief that Milton came to Stowmarket, and that he +went away all the wiser and better, all the stronger to do good +work for man and God, for his age and all succeeding ages. +Young, as it may be inferred, was held in high honour by his +friends. He was spoken of by two neighbouring ejected +Rectors as the reverend, learned, orthodox, prudent, and holy Dr. +Young. When he died, an epitaph was inscribed with some +care by a friendly hand, and an unwilling admission is made of +the opposition he had encountered. It is now illegible, and +some of its lines appear to have been carefully erased—by +some High Church chisel, probably. But the following copy +was made when the epitaph was fresh and legible:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Here is committed to earth’s trust<br +/> +Wise, pious, spotlesse, learned dust,<br /> +Who living more adorned the place<br /> +Than the place him. Such was God’s grace.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 309--><a name="page309"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +309</span>Is the verse of this epitaph from Milton’s pen or +not? Mr. Hollingsworth writes: ‘The probability is +quite in favour that the pupil should write the last memorial of +one whom he so highly honoured and loved as his old master. +Nor is the verse itself, with the exception of the last line, +unlike the character of Milton’s poetry, and this last may +have been mutilated and rendered inharmonious by the action of +the stone-cutter, who also confused the death of the father and +son.’ It is pleasant to think, not only that Milton +now and then came to the Stowmarket Vicarage, but that in the +church itself there is a slight record of his poetical +fame. Let me add, as a further illustration of the +connection of the great poet with the county of Suffolk, that I +am informed one of the family of the Meadowses, of Witnesham, was +for a time one of his secretaries.</p> +<p>Young died, aged sixty-eight, in the year 1655, when Milton +was fully embarked in public life, when he could spare but little +time; but we may be sure that he would be the last at that time +of life to forget all that he owed to his tutor Young. Wife +and son had predeceased the Vicar. It seems as if there was +no one left but the poet to record on the marble in the middle +aisle, in front <!-- page 310--><a name="page310"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 310</span>of the present reading-desk, the +virtues of a character which had long exercised so beneficial an +influence on his own, and which he had loved so well. +Milton’s regret for the loss of such a guide, philosopher, +and friend must have been lasting and sincere.</p> +<h2><!-- page 311--><a name="page311"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 311</span>CHAPTER XI.<br /> +<span class="smcap">in constable’s county</span>.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">East Bergholt—The Valley of the +Stour—Painting from nature—East Anglian girls.</p> +<p>Charles Kingsley was wont to glorify the teaching of the +hills, and to maintain that the man of the mountain is more +imaginative and poetical than the man of the plain. There +are many Scotch people, mostly those born in the Highlands, who +tell us much the same. If the theory be true—and I am +not aware that it is—the exceptions are striking and +many. Lincolnshire is rather a flat country, but it gave us +(I can never bring myself to call him Lord) Alfred +Tennyson. Many of our greatest poets and artists were +cockneys; and Constable, that sweet painter of cornfields and +shady lanes and quiet rivers, used to say that the scenes of his +boyhood made him a painter. I was one autumn in +Constable’s county, and I do not wonder at it. It is +a wonderful district. I <!-- page 312--><a +name="page312"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 312</span>trod all +the while, it seemed to me, on enchanted ground: in the gilded +mist of autumn, with its river and its marsh lands, where the +cows lazily fed—or got under the pollards to be out of the +way of the flies—where laughing children swarmed along the +hedges in pursuit of the ripe blackberry, where every cottage +front was a thing of beauty, with its ivy creeping up the roof or +over the wall; while the little garden was a mass of +flowers. We expected to see the old gods and goddesses +again to participate in the joyousness of an ancient mirth.</p> +<p>Nor was it altogether a flat land, sacred to fat cattle and +wheat and turnips. All round me were the elements of +romance. At one end of the Vale of Dedham is a hill whence +you may look all along the valley (Constable has made it the +subject of one of his pictures) as far as Harwich; and as I +lingered by the Stour—the river which divides Essex and +Suffolk—East Bergholt, clothed with woods and crowned with +a church, in which there is a stained-glass window put up in +honour of Constable, and a baptismal font, the gift of +Constable’s brother, unfolded to my wondering eye all her +rural charms. There are people who love to climb hills; I +hate to do so. It is all vanity and <!-- page 313--><a +name="page313"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 313</span>vexation of +spirit; when you get to the top of one hill the chances are all +you see is another hill, to the top of which you will have to +climb. Give me a country lane, with its luxuriant hedges, +its shady trees, its flowers, its richness of greensward, its +pigs and poultry and farmyard; there is poetry in such nooks and +corners of the earth, as Burns and Bloomfield and Gerald Massey +found. No wonder the place made Constable an artist, and an +artist whose name will not speedily pass away. My dear sir +or madam, the next time you are on your way from London to +Ipswich, don’t rush along at express speed; get out at +Ardleigh, make your way to the Vale of Dedham, then walk along +the Stour, and cross it by a couple of rustic bridges, and you +are at East Bergholt, in Suffolk, where Constable was born, and +if you do so you will bless me evermore. Then, if you like, +rejoin the train at Manningtree, and resume your journey. +Few East Anglians even are aware of the wealth of beauty in that +quiet corner. ‘The beauty of the surrounding +scenery,’ writes Constable’s biographer, ‘its +gentle declivities, its luxuriant meadows, flats sprinkled with +flocks and herds, its well-cultivated Uplands, its woods and +rivers, with mansions scattered, and churches, farms, and +picturesque <!-- page 314--><a name="page314"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 314</span>cottages—all impart to this +spot an amenity and elegance hardly anywhere else to be +found.’</p> +<p>The Constables have been long in the district. The +grandfather was a farmer at a village close by. The father, +who was well-to-do, purchased a water-mill at Dedham and two +windmills at East Bergholt, where he lived. The great +artist, his son John, was born in the last century, and was +educated at Lavenham and the Dedham Grammar School, and when the +lad had reached sixteen or seventeen became addicted to painting, +his studio being in the house of a Mr. John Dunthorne, a painter +and glazier, with whom he remained on terms of the greatest +intimacy for many years. The father would fain have made +the son a farmer. He preferred to be a miller, and in his +young days was known in the district as the handsome +miller. His windmills, when he took to painting, were +wonderful, and well deserved the criticism of his brother, who +used to say, ‘When I look at a windmill painted by John, I +see that it will go round, which is not always the case with +those of other artists,’ for the simple reason that John +knew what he was about, which the others did not. Again, +his industrial career helped him in another way. A miller +learns to study the clouds, and Constable’s <!-- page +315--><a name="page315"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +315</span>clouds were exceptionally life-like and real. The +handsome young miller soon acquired artistic friends, one of them +being Sir George Beaumont, the guide, philosopher, and friend of +most of the geniuses of that time. Said another to him, +‘Do not trouble yourself about inventing figures for a +landscape; you cannot remain an hour in a spot without the +appearance of some living thing, that will in all probability +better accord with the scene and the time of day than any +invention of your own.’ After a visit to his artist +friends in London, he resumed his mill life, and in 1779 he +finally commenced his artistic career, and painted all the +country round. His studies were chiefly Dedham, East +Bergholt, the Valley of the Stour, and the neighbouring village +of Stratford. At Stoke Nayland he painted an altar-piece +for the church. There is also another altar-piece in a +neighbouring church, but his altar-pieces are not known or +treasured like his other works.</p> +<p>Cooper tells a good story of Constable. One day Stodart, +the sculptor, met Fuseli starting forth with an old +umbrella. ‘Why do you carry the umbrella?’ +asked the sculptor. ‘I am going to see +Constable,’ was the reply, ‘and he is always painting +rain.’ One can only remark that, if <!-- page +316--><a name="page316"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +316</span>Constable was always painting rain, he always did it +well.</p> +<p>Another good story was told Redgrave by Lee. ‘I +hear you sell all your pictures,’ said Constable to the +younger landscape-painter. ‘Why, yes,’ said +Lee; ‘I’m pretty fortunate. Don’t you +sell yours?’ ‘No,’ said Constable, +‘I don’t sell any of my pictures, and I’ll tell +you why: when I paint a <i>bad</i> picture I don’t like to +part with it, and when I paint a <i>good</i> one I like to keep +it.’ It is well known that one year when Constable +was on the Council of the Royal Academy, one of his own pictures +was passed by mistake before the judges. ‘Cross +it,’ said one. ‘It won’t do,’ said +another. ‘Pass on,’ said a third. And the +carpenter was just about to chalk it with a cross, when he read +the name of ‘John Constable.’ Of course there +were lame apologies, and the picture was taken from the condemned +heap and placed with the works of his brother Academicians. +But after work was over Constable took the picture under his arm, +and, despite the remonstrance of his brother colleagues, marched +off with it, saving: ‘I can’t think of its being hung +after it has been fairly turned out. The work so condemned +was the ‘Stream bordered in with Willows,’ now in the +South Kensington <!-- page 317--><a name="page317"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 317</span>Museum. Leslie once remarked +to Redgrave that he would give any work he had painted for it, so +warmly did he admire it.</p> +<p>‘Constable is the best landscape-painter we have,’ +wrote Frith to his mother in 1835. ‘He is a very +merry fellow, and very rich. He told us an anecdote of a +man who came to look at his pictures; he was a gardener. +One day he called him into his painting-room to look at his +pictures, when the man made the usual vulgar remarks, such as, +“Did you do all this, sir?” +“Yes.” “What, all this?” +“Yes.” “What, frame and all?” +At last he came to an empty frame that was hung against the wall +without any picture in it, when he said to Constable, “But +you don’t call this picture quite finished, do you, +sir?” Constable said that quite sickened him, and he +never let any ignoramuses ever see his pictures again, or frames +either.’</p> +<p>Constable’s great merits, writes Mr. Frith, were first +recognised in France, with the result upon French landscape art +that is felt at the present time. His advice to Frith was: +‘Never do anything without nature before you if it be +possible to have it. See those weeds and the dock +leaves? They are to come into the foreground of this <!-- +page 318--><a name="page318"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +318</span>picture. I know dock leaves pretty well, but I +should not attempt to introduce them into a picture without +having them before me.’</p> +<p>Constable died very suddenly in 1837. His fame, now that +he is dead, is greater than when he was alive. His work +abides in all its strength.</p> +<p>There is little in East Bergholt to remind one of Constable, +where his reputation remains as that of a genial and +kindly-hearted man; but the landscape in all its essential +features remains the same. The house in which he was born +was pulled down in 1841, which is a great pity, as it is +described as a large and handsome mansion. But I never saw +a small village with so many attractive residences, though why +anybody should live in any of them I could not, for the life of +me, understand. Yet there they were, quite a street of +them, all in beautiful order, as if they were the residences of +wealthy citizens in the suburbs of a busy town. They ought +to have been filled with handsome girls, as Charles Kingsley +tells us East Anglia is famed for the beauty of its women; all I +can say, however, is that I saw none of them, or any sign of life +anywhere, beyond the inevitable tradesmen’s carts. +Independently of Constable, East Bergholt claims to be worth a +pilgrimage for its rustic beauty, <!-- page 319--><a +name="page319"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 319</span>which, +however, becomes tame and common as you get away from it. +The church is old, and has a history—of little consequence, +however, to anyone now. One of its rectors was burned at +Ipswich in Queen Mary’s reign. His name, Samuel, +ought to be preserved by a Church which, till lately, had few +martyrs of its own. East Bergholt has also a Congregational +and Primitive Methodist chapel, and a colony of Benedictine nuns, +driven away from France by the great Revolution. We are a +hospitable people, and we are proud to be so, but have we not +just at this time too many refugee nuns and monks in our +midst?</p> +<h2><!-- page 320--><a name="page320"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 320</span>CHAPTER XII.<br /> +<span class="smcap">east anglian worthies</span>.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Suffolk cheese—Danes, Saxons, and +Normans—Philosophers and statesmen—Artists and +literati.</p> +<p>Abbo Floriacencis, who flourished in the year <span +class="smcap">a.d.</span> 910, describes East Anglia as +‘very noble, and particularly because of its being watered +on all sides. On the south and east it is encompassed by +the ocean, on the north by the moisture of large and wet fens +which, arising almost in the heart of the island, because of the +evenness of the ground for a hundred miles and more, descend in +great rivers into the sea. On the west the province is +joyned to the rest of the island, and, therefore, may be entered +(by land); but lest it should be harassed by the frequent +incursions of the enemy it is fortifyed with an earthen rampire +like a high wall, and with a ditch. The inner parts of it +is a pretty rich soil, made exceeding pleasant by gardens and +groves, rendered agreeable by its <!-- page 321--><a +name="page321"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 321</span>convenience +for hunting, famous for pasturage, and abounding with sheep and +all sorts of cattle. I do not insist upon its rivers full +of fish, considering that a tongue as it were of the sea itself +licks it on one side, and on the other side the large fens make a +prodigious number of lakes two or three miles over. These +fens accommodate great numbers of monks with their desired +retirement and solitude, with which, being enclosed, they have no +occasion for the privacy of a wilderness.’ Before the +monks came the place was held by the Iceni—a stout and +valiant people, as Tacitus describes them. In the time of +the Heptarchy, King Uffa was their lord and master. In +later times Suffolk, when explored by Camden, was celebrated for +its cheeses, which, to the great advantage of the inhabitants, +were bought up through all England, nay, in Germany also, with +France and Spain, as Pantaleon Medicus has told us, who scruples +not to set them against those of Placentia both in colour and +taste. To the Norfolk people, it must be admitted, Camden +gives the palm. The goodness of the soil of that country, +he argues, ‘may be gathered from hence, that the +inhabitants are of a bright, clear complexion, not to mention +their sharpness of wit and admirable quickness in the <!-- page +322--><a name="page322"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +322</span>study of our common law. So that it is at +present, and always has been, reputed the common nursery of +lawyers, and even amongst the common people you shall meet with a +great many who (as one expresses it), if they have no just +quarrel, are able to raise it out of the very quirks and niceties +of the law.’ In our time it is rather the fashion to +run down the East Anglians, yet that they have done their duty to +their country no one can deny. ‘They say we are +Norfolk fules,’ said a waiter at a Norfolk hotel, to me, a +little while ago; ‘but I ain’t ashamed of my county, +for all that.’ Why should he be, the reader naturally +asks?</p> +<p>The Saxons of East Anglia gave the name of England to this +land of ours; but before this time East Anglia had attained, by +means of its sons and daughters, to fame far and near. If +we may believe Gildas, a Christian church was planted in England +in the time of Nero. Claudia, to whom Paul refers in +Philippians and Timothy, was a British lady of great wit and +greater beauty, celebrated by the poet Martial. She may +have been converted by Paul, argued the Rev. Mr. Hollingsworth, a +local historian, Rural Dean and Rector of Stowmarket; nor is it +at all improbable, he adds, ‘that Claudia, the British +beauty, may have been <!-- page 323--><a name="page323"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 323</span>an Iceni, or East Anglian lady, as +her brilliant complexion, for which so many in these counties are +celebrated, had caused a vivid feeling of sensation and curiosity +and envy even among the haughty dames of the imperial city of +Rome.’ The Romans were glad to make terms with the +Iceni till the unfortunate Boadicea perished in the revolt which +she had so rashly raised. The Saxons came after the Romans, +and took possession of the land. Saxon proprietors +compelled the people, whose lives they spared, to till the very +lands on which their fathers had lived under the Roman Government +or their own chiefs. Pagan worship was reintroduced; but +when Sigberht, the son of Redwald, King of East Anglia, reigned, +he sent to France for Christian ministers, and one of them, +Felix, a Burgundian, landed at Felixstowe, and there commenced +his Christian labours. Felix was held in high repute by the +Bishops in other parts of the kingdom. His opinions were +quoted and revered. The diocese was large, and the fourth +Bishop divided it into two parts, the second Bishop being planted +at North Elmham, in Norfolk. In 955 the see was again +united, when Erfastus, the twenty-second Bishop, removed to +Thetford. A little while after the Bishop’s residence +was removed <!-- page 324--><a name="page324"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 324</span>to Norwich, and there it has ever +since remained; but the land was not long permitted to remain in +peace. In 870 a large party of Danes marched from +Lincolnshire into Suffolk, defeated King Edmund, near Hoxne, and, +as he would not become an idolater, shot him to death with +arrows. Bury St. Edmunds still preserves the name and fame +of one of the most illustrious of our Anglo-Saxon martyrs. +King Alfred, with a policy worthy of his sagacity, made Guthrum, +the Danish governor of Suffolk, a Christian, and continued him in +his rule. The Danes in East Anglia were then an immense +army, and thus at once they were turned from foes into +friends. Guthrum was baptized, and it is to be hoped was +all the better for it. At any rate, he returned to Suffolk +and divided many of the estates which had been held by Saxon +proprietors killed in war. He died in peace, and had a +fitting funeral at Hadleigh. The children of those Danish +soldiers were dangerous friends, and too frequently betrayed the +Saxons. Blood is thicker than water, and as each succeeding +band of Danish adventurers landed on our eastern coast, they were +welcomed by such followers of Guthrum as had settled in Suffolk +as friends and allies. Nevertheless, the Danes found the +conquest <!-- page 325--><a name="page325"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 325</span>of the island impossible. +Divine Providence, Mr. Hollingsworth tells us, did not suffer the +Saxon race to be vanquished by those who were connected with them +by blood. Nevertheless, the struggle was long and +severe. The two races were equally matched in courage, but +the Saxon surpassed his foe in that stern, unyielding endurance +which enabled him to resist every defeat and prepare again for +the contest. The whole surface of the country became +studded with entrenchments, moats, and mounds, within whose line +the harassed Saxon defended his property and all he valued in his +home. History begins, as far as England is practically +concerned, with the Norman Conquest. It was then the +Norsemen, blue-eyed, fair-haired, the finest blood in Europe, +planted themselves in Norfolk and Suffolk, and brought with them +feudalism and civilization. It was in 787 that, according +to the Saxon Chronicle, they first reached England; but it was +not till William the Conqueror made the land his own that they +settled as English lords, and divided between them the land in +which their rapacious forefathers had won many a precious +treasure.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The red gold and the white silver<br /> +He covets as a leech does blood,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>wrote an old poet of the Norseman.</p> +<p><!-- page 326--><a name="page326"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +326</span>Let us take, as an illustration of the county, a +Norfolk family. In Westminster Abbey there is monument to +Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, who was buried in the ruined chancel of +the little church at Overstrand, near Northrepps, ‘a droll, +irregular, unconventional-looking place,’ as Caroline Fox +calls it, where he loved at all times to live, and where he +retired to die. The family from which Sir Thomas descended +resided, about the middle of the sixteenth century, at Sudbury, +in Suffolk. It was while at Earlham that he made his +début as a public speaker at one of the earlier meetings +of the Norfolk Bible Society. In the winter of 1817 he went +over to France with some of the Gurneys and the Rev. Francis +Cunningham, who was anxious to establish a Bible Society in +Paris. He was also anxious to inquire into the way in which +the gaols at Antwerp and Ghent were conducted. On his +return he examined minutely into the state of the London gaols, +and, to use his own expression, his inquiries developed a system +of folly and wickedness which surpassed belief. In the +following year he published a work entitled ‘An Inquiry +whether Crime be Produced or Prevented by our Present System of +Penal Discipline,’ which ran through six editions, and +tended powerfully to create a proper <!-- page 327--><a +name="page327"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 327</span>public +feeling on the subject. In 1819 we find him in Parliament +seconding Sir James Mackintosh in his efforts to promote a reform +of our criminal law—then the most sanguinary in +Europe. One of his earliest efforts was to get the House to +abolish the burning of widows in India; and in 1821 he received +from Wilberforce the command to relieve him of a responsibility +too heavy for his advancing years and infirmities—the care +of the slave: a holy enterprise for which Mr. Buxton had been +qualifying himself by careful thought and study, and which he was +spared to carry to a successful end. At first he resided at +Cromer Hall, an old seat of the Windham family, which no longer +exists, having been pulled down and replaced by a modern +residence. It was situated about a quarter of a mile from +the sea, but sheltered from the north winds by closely +surrounding hills and woods, and with its old buttresses, gables, +and porches clothed with roses and jessamine, and its famed lawn, +where the pheasants came down to feed, had a peculiar character +of picturesque simplicity. The interior corresponded with +its external appearance, and had little of the regularity of +modern building. One attic chamber was walled up, with no +entrance save through the window: and at different times <!-- +page 328--><a name="page328"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +328</span>large pits were discovered under the floor or in the +thick walls—used, it was supposed, in old times by the +smugglers of the coast. There is much picturesque scenery +around Cromer, and large parties were often made up for +excursions to Sherringham—one of the most beautiful spots +in all the eastern counties, to the wooded dells of Felbrigg and +Runton, or to the rough heath ground by the beach beacon. +One who was a frequent guest at Cromer Hall wrote: ‘I wish +I could describe the impression made upon me by the extraordinary +power of interesting and stimulating others which was possessed +by Sir Fowell Buxton some thirty years ago. In my own case +it was like having powers of thinking, powers of feeling, and, +above all, the love of true poetry suddenly aroused within me, +which, though I had possessed them before, had been till then +unused. From Locke “On the Human +Understanding,” to “William of Deloraine, good at +need,” <i>he</i> woke up in me the sleeping principle of +taste, and, in giving me such objects of pursuit, has added +immeasurably to the happiness of my life.’ On a +Sunday afternoon, we are told, his large dining-hall was filled +with a miscellaneous audience of fishermen and neighbours, as +well as of his own household, to whom he would read the <!-- page +329--><a name="page329"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +329</span>Bible, commenting on it at the same time. Very +simple and beautiful seems to us that far-away Norfolk life; +except that his hospitalities were more bounded by want of room, +his life at Northrepps was much the same as it had been at Cromer +Hall. It is one of the pleasures of my life that I have +heard Sir Thomas speak. In modern England the influence of +the Buxton family and name is yet a power.</p> +<p>Having already alluded to the Windhams and Felbrigg, it +remains to say that the last of that illustrious line died in +1810. Felbrigg was purchased by the Windhams as far back as +1461. The public life of Windham, the statesman, may be +considered as having commenced in 1783, when he undertook the +office of Principal Secretary to Lord Northington, who was +appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The great Marquis of +Lansdowne, when he was last at Felbrigg, in 1861, said Mr. +Windham had the best Parliamentary address of any man he had ever +seen, which was enhanced by the grace of his person and the +dignity of his manners. Still more glowing was the +testimony borne to Mr. Windham by Earl Grey when he heard of his +death. A mere glance at his diary is sufficient to convince +us that Windham, <!-- page 330--><a name="page330"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 330</span>when in London, mixed with the first +men and women of his time. The late Lord Chief Justice +Scarlett, on being asked by his son-in-law to name the very best +speech he had heard during his life, and that which he thought +most worthy of study, answered, without hesitation, +‘Windham’s speech on the Law of +Evidence.’ In a conversation with Lord Palmerston, +Pitt observed of Windham: ‘Nothing can be so well-meaning +or eloquent as he is. His speeches are the finest +productions possible of warm imagination and fancy.’ +In 1800 we read in the Malmesbury Diaries that old George III. +had meant Windham to be his First Minister. As a friend of +Burke and Johnson, Windham’s name will not easily fade +away. It is to him we owe the most pathetic account of the +closing hours of the Monarch of Bolt Court.</p> +<p>Sir Cloudesley Shovel may well claim to be one of +Norfolk’s heroes. Born in an obscure village, an +apprentice to a shoemaker, he obtained rank and fame as one of +Queen Anne’s most honoured Admirals. It is denied +that he was in very humble circumstances, and it is a fact that +his original letters were so well worded as to indicate that he +had received a fair education. At any rate, he went to sea +at ten years old with <!-- page 331--><a name="page331"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 331</span>his friend Sir John Hadough; and +although not a cabin-boy in the modern acceptation of that term, +he undertook his captain’s errands, swimming on one +occasion through the enemy’s fire with some despatches for +a distant ship, carrying the papers in his mouth, displaying a +courage worthy of admiration. He distinguished himself in +the Battle of Bantry Bay. As an enemy of France and Spain, +he triumphed in many a fierce fight. Returning home flushed +with victory, his ship and all on board were lost on the Scilly +Isles in an October gale. Some uncertainty hangs over his +last moments. It is asserted that he swam to shore alive, +and that he was put to death for the sake of his ring of emeralds +and diamonds. An ancient woman is stated to have confessed +as much. For the honour of human nature, we would fain +believe the story to be untrue. A still greater Norfolk +hero was Lord Nelson, who is buried in St. Paul’s +Cathedral. ‘My principle,’ said Nelson, on one +occasion, ‘is to assist in driving the French to the devil, +and in restoring peace and happiness to mankind.’ +Whether he succeeded as regards the former we are not in a +position to state; but peace and happiness, alas! are still far +from being the <!-- page 332--><a name="page332"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 332</span>common property of mankind. +The rectory house at Burnham Thorpe, where Nelson was born, +exists no longer. Sir Cloudesley Shovel lived in a +castellated stone house in the small agricultural village of +Cockthorpe, originally fortified as a defence against the +incursions of smugglers. A room in this house, entered by a +doorway arched over with stone, is shown, which is still called +by the villagers Sir Cloudesley’s drawing-room.</p> +<p>A chapter might be written about the Norfolk Cokes. Sir +Edward Coke, the great lawyer, was buried at Tittleshale, in +Norfolk. The well-known Coke, the distinguished +agriculturist, inhabited that splendid Holkham, the fame of which +exists in our day. It was begun by Lord Leicester in 1734, +and finished by his Countess in 1764. Blomefield, the +well-known Norfolk historian, speaks of it as a noble, stately, +and sumptuous palace. Lord Coke and Lord Burlington were +men of similar tastes and pursuits, and were diligent students of +classical and Italian art. The Holkham Library still +contains treasures rich and rare. Many of the latter formed +part of the library of Sir Edward Coke; the title-page of the +first edition of the ‘Novum Organum,’ published in +1620, bears the design of a ship passing through <!-- page +333--><a name="page333"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +333</span>the Pillars of Hercules into an undulating sea. +The Holkham copy is adorned by the inscription, ‘Ex dono +auctoris.’</p> +<p>Above the ship, in the handwriting of Coke, is the +couplet:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘It deserveth not to be read in schools,<br +/> +But to be freighted in the ship of fools.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Thomas Shadwell, the Poet Laureate and historiographer of +William III., was a Norfolk man. He is buried in +Westminster Abbey. It is said by Noble that he was an +honest man. Of course he was. Chalmers accuses him of +indecent conversation, or Lord Rochester would not have said that +he had more wit and humour than any other poet. I am afraid +he confers little honour on his native county. +‘Others,’ wrote Dryden in one of his satires,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘To some faint meaning make pretence,<br /> +But Shadwell never deviates into sense.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Sir Robert Walpole, who saved England from wooden shoes and +slavery, was of a Norfolk family, yet flourishing; as are the +Townshends, to whom we owe the introduction of the turnip. +Norfolk also can boast of Sir Thomas Gresham and Sir Francis +Walsingham. In Norfolk was born that ‘great oracle of +law, patron of the Church, and <!-- page 334--><a +name="page334"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 334</span>glory of +England,’ as Camden calls him, Sir Henry Spelman. At +Bickling, in the same county, was born that ill-starred Anne +Boleyn, of whom it is written that</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Love could teach a monarch to be wise,<br +/> +And Gospel light first beamed from Boleyn’s +eyes.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the same neighbourhood, also, was born John Baconthorpe, +the resolute doctor, of whom Pantias Pansa has written: +‘This one resolute doctor has furnished the Christian +religion with armour against the Jews stronger than that of +Vulcan.’ Pansa was a Norfolk man, and so was the +great botanist Sir W. Hooker.</p> +<p>Who has not heard of Lynn, in Norfolk, where, when Eugene Aram +was the usher,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Four-and-twenty happy boys<br /> +Came bounding out of school’?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It was in that old town Fanny Burney, the friend of Mrs. +Thrale and Dr. Johnson, the author of novels like +‘Evelina,’ which people even read nowadays, was born +on the 13th of June, 1752. She grew up low of stature, of a +brown complexion. One of her friends called her the dove, +which she thought was from the colour of her eyes—a +greenish-gray; her last editor thinks it must have <!-- page +335--><a name="page335"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +335</span>been from their kind expression. She was very +short-sighted, like her father. In her portrait, taken at +the age of thirty, merriment seems latent behind a demure +look. At any rate, her countenance was what might be called +a speaking one. ‘Poor Fanny!’ said her father, +‘her face tells what she thinks, whether she will or +no. I long to see her honest face once more.’ +‘Poor Fanny’ lived to a good old age, and her +gossiping diary is a mine of wealth as regards the Royal Family, +and Johnson, and Mrs. Thrale, and the cleverest men and women of +her time.</p> +<p>Thomas Bilney, one of our Protestant martyrs, was a Norfolk +man. It was a Norfolk knight, Sir Thomas Erpingham, who +gave signal for the archers at Agincourt. Shakespeare +refers to him in his ‘King Henry V.’ as follows:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘<span +class="smcap">King</span>.—Good-morrow, old Sir Thomas +Erpingham;<br /> +A good soft pillow for that good white head<br /> +Were better than a churlish turf of France.</p> +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Erp</span>.—Not so, my liege; +this lodging likes me better,<br /> +Since I may say, now lie I like a king.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Many East Anglians helped to win the battle of +Agincourt. The Earl of Kimberley still bears Agincourt on +his shield.</p> +<p>Let us now pass over into Suffolk. It is worth <!-- page +336--><a name="page336"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +336</span>asking how Suffolk came to earn the nickname of Silly +Suffolk. ‘Silly,’ say the learned, is derived +from the German <i>selig</i>, meaning ‘holy or +blessed,’ and is said to have been applied to Suffolk on +account of the number of beautiful churches it contains; Suffolk, +at any rate, is silly no longer. In the present day it +shows to advantage, if we may judge by the enterprise and public +spirit of such a town as Ipswich, for instance. Not long +since, as I landed on the docks at Hamburg, I had the pleasure of +seeing some dozen or more steam ploughs and agricultural +implements waiting to be transported into the interior. The +ploughs and implements bore well-known Suffolk names, such as +Garrett and Sons or Ransomes, Sims and Jefferies, and were open +manifestations of Suffolk skill and energy, and ability to hold +its own against all comers. Amongst the women of the +present generation, where are to be met the superiors of Mrs. +Garrett Anderson or of Mrs. Fawcett, widow of the distinguished +statesman, and mother of a sweet girl-graduate who has beaten all +the men at her University? I was the other day at +Haverhill, where Mr. D. Gurteen still lives to enjoy, at the ripe +old age of eighty-three, the fruits of an energy on his part +which has raised <!-- page 337--><a name="page337"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 337</span>Haverhill from a village of paupers +into a flourishing community, whose manufactures are to be met +with all over the land. One day, as I was walking along +Gray’s Inn Road, a fine, well-built man stopped me to ask +me if I remembered him. When he mentioned his name I did +directly. He was of the poorest of the poor in his home at +Wrentham. He had done well in London. ‘You +know, sir,’ he said, ‘how poor our family was. +Well, I had enough of poverty, and I made up my mind to come to +London and be either a man or a mouse.’</p> +<p>In the London of to-day the heads of some of our greatest +establishments are Suffolk men. We all know the stately +pile in Holborn, once Meekings’, now Wallis’s, where +all the world and his wife go to buy. Mr. Wallis hails from +Stowmarket, and the man who fits up London shops in the most +tasty style, Mr. Sage, of Gray’s Inn Road, was a Suffolk +carpenter, who, when out of work, with his last guinea got some +cards printed, one of which got him a job, which ultimately led +on to fame and fortune.</p> +<p>No, Suffolk has long ceased to be silly. It must have +deserved the title in the days which I can remember when a +Conservative M.P., amidst <!-- page 338--><a +name="page338"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +338</span>enthusiastic cheering, at Ipswich, intimated that it +was quite as well the sun and moon were placed high up in the +heavens, else</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Some reforming ass<br /> + Would soon propose to pluck them down<br /> +And light the world with gas.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One of the oddest, most attractive, and most original women of +the last century was Elizabeth Simpson, a Suffolk girl, who ran +away from her home, where she was never taught anything, at the +age of sixteen, to make her fortune, and to win fame. In +both cases she succeeded, though not so soon as she could have +wished. Failing to touch the hard heart of the manager of +the Norwich Theatre, a Welshman of the name of Griffiths, she +packed up her things in a bandbox, and, good-looking and +audacious, landed herself on the Holborn pavement. +‘By the time you receive this,’ she wrote to her +mother, ‘I shall leave Standingfield perhaps for +ever. You are surprised, but be not uneasy; believe the +step I have undertaken is indiscreet, but by no means criminal, +unless I sin by not acquainting you with it. I now endure +every pang, am not lost to every feeling, on thus quitting the +tenderest and best of parents, I would say most beloved, too, but +cannot prove my affection, <!-- page 339--><a +name="page339"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 339</span>yet time +may. To that I must submit my hope of retaining your +regard. The censures of the world I despise, as the most +worthy incur the reproaches of that. Should I ever think +you will wish to hear from me I will write.’ A +pretty, unprotected, unknown girl of sixteen, in London, had, we +can well believe, no easy time of it. Strangers followed +her in the street, people insulted her in the theatre, suspicious +landladies looked her up. Happily, a brother-in-law met her +in a penniless state and took her home. Unhappily, at his +house she met Inchbald, an indifferent and badly-paid +actor. They were immediately married, and the girl rejoiced +to think that she was an actress, and about to realize the +ambition of her youth. It was no small part which the +Suffolk girl felt herself qualified to fill. On the 4th of +September, 1772, she made her début as Cordelia to her +husband’s Lear. In 1821 Mrs. Inchbald, famed for her +‘simple story,’ which took the town by storm, was +buried in Kensington Churchyard. But before she got there +she had to endure much. At that time theatrical performers +were much worse paid than they are now, when, as Mr. Irving tells +us, any decent-looking young man, with a good suit of clothes, +can command his five <!-- page 340--><a name="page340"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 340</span>or six pounds a week. Mrs. +Inchbald and her husband had to drink of the cup of poverty, and +its consequent degradation, to the dregs. On one occasion +they took it into their heads to go to France, believing that +they could make money—he by painting, she by writing. +The scheme, as was to be expected, did not answer, and they were +landed on their return somewhere near Brighton, in the September +of 1776, literally without a crust of bread. On one +occasion it was stated that they dined off raw turnips, stolen +from a field as they wandered past. Next year, however, the +world began to mend so far as they were concerned.</p> +<p>At Manchester they met the Siddonses and J. P. Kemble, and one +result of that meeting was peace and prosperity. At this +time also the lady’s husband died, and that was no great +loss, as the lady was far too independent for a wife. Yet, +if the great Kemble had proposed to her, as she used to tell +Fanny Kemble, she would have jumped at him. To the last her +habits of life were most penurious. She spent nothing on +dress, she was indifferent in the matter of eating and drinking, +and when she was making as much as from £500 to £900 +by a new play, in order to save a trifle she would sit in the +depth of <!-- page 341--><a name="page341"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 341</span>winter without a fire. Only +fancy any of our later lady-novelists thus ascetic and +self-denying. The idea is absurd. She was to the last +what Godwin described her, a mixture of lady and milkmaid. +And yet the lady had ambition. She had an idea that she +might be Lady Bunbury. However, she marred her chance, at +the same time missing a rich Mr. Glover, who offered a marriage +settlement of £500 a year. Mrs. Inchbald, however, +well knew how to take care of herself. No one better. +She had learned the art in rather a hard school, and, besides, +she knew how to take care of her poor relations. None of +her sisters seem to have done well, and she had to aid them +all.</p> +<p>Sudbury was the birthplace of that William Enfield, whose +‘Speaker’ was the terror and delight of more than one +generation of England’s ingenuous youth. Lord +Chancellor Thurlow, of the rugged eyebrows and the savage look, +and fellow-clerk with the poet Cowper, was born at Ashfield, an +obscure village not far off. Robert Bloomfield, who wrote +the ‘Farmer’s Boy,’ came from Honington, where +his mother kept a village school, and where he became a +shoemaker. Capel Loft, an amiable gentleman of literary +sympathies and pursuits, and Bloomfield’s warmest friend, +<!-- page 342--><a name="page342"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +342</span>resided at Troston Hall, in the immediate neighbourhood +of Honington. At one time there was no writer better known +than John Lydgate, called the Monk of Bury, born at the village +of Lydgate, in 1380. ‘His language,’ writes a +learned critic, ‘is much less obsolete than +Chaucer’s, and a great deal more harmonious.’ +Stephen Gardener, Bishop of Winchester, and an enemy to the +Reformation, was born at Bury. At Trinity St. Martin lived +Thomas Cavendish, the second Englishman who sailed round the +globe. Admiral Broke, memorable for his capture of the +<i>Chesapeake</i>, when we were at war with America, was born at +Nacton. The great non-juring Archbishop Sancroft was born +at Fressingfield, where he retired to die, and where he is buried +under a handsome monument. The great scholar, Robert +Grossetête, Bishop of Lincoln, was born at +Stradbrook. Of him Roger Bacon wrote that he was the only +man living who was in possession of all the sciences. +Wycliff, on innumerable occasions, refers to him with +respect. Arthur Young, the celebrated agriculturist, some +of whose sentences are preserved as golden ones—especially +that which says, ‘Give a man the secure possession of a +rock, and he will make a garden of it’—and whose +valuable works, I am glad to see, <!-- page 343--><a +name="page343"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 343</span>are +republished, was born and lived near Bury St. Edmunds. +Echard, the historian, was born at Barsham, in 1671. Porson +was a Norfolk lad.</p> +<p>Sir Thomas Hanmer was one of the most independent men that +ever sat for the county of Suffolk. Mr. Glyde, of Ipswich, +terms him the Gladstone of his age. Pope appears to +stigmatize him as a Trimmer,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Courtiers and patrols in two ranks +divide;<br /> +Through both he passed, and bowed from side to side.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His garden at Mildenhall was celebrated for the quality of its +grapes, and Sir Thomas used to send every year hampers filled +with these grapes, and carried on men’s shoulders, to +London for the Queen. That stubborn Radical and +Freethinker, Tom Paine, was born at Thetford. Sir John +Suckling, a Suffolk poet, has written, at any rate, one verse +never excelled:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Her feet beneath her petticoat,<br /> +Like little mice, stole in and out,<br /> + As if they feared the light.<br /> +But oh, she dances such a way,<br /> +No sun upon an Easter day<br /> + Is half so fine a sight.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>England has in all parts of the world sons and daughters who +have deserved well of the State, and not a few of them are East +Anglians by birth <!-- page 344--><a name="page344"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 344</span>and breeding. May their fame +be cherished and their examples followed by their successors in +that calm, quiet, Eastern land—far from the madding +crowd—where the roar and rush of our modern life are almost +unknown—where farmers weep and wail but look jolly +nevertheless!</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">the +end</span>.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">billing and +sons</span>, <span class="smcap">printers</span>, <span +class="smcap">guildford</span>.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST ANGLIA***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 30717-h.htm or 30717-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/7/1/30717 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: East Anglia + Personal Recollections and Historical Associations + + +Author: J. Ewing Ritchie + + + +Release Date: December 20, 2009 [eBook #30717] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST ANGLIA*** + + +Transcribed from the 1893 Jarrold & Sons edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + +_PRESS NOTICES OF THE FIRST EDITION_. + + + 'We cordially recommend Mr. Ritchie's book to all who wish to pass an + agreeable hour and to learn something of the outward actions and + inner life of their predecessors. It is full of sketches of East + Anglian celebrities, happily touched if lightly limned.'--_East + Anglian Daily Times_. + + 'A very entertaining and enjoyable book. Local gossip, a wide range + of reading and industrious research, have enabled the author to + enliven his pages with a wide diversity of subjects, specially + attractive to East Anglians, but also of much general + interest.'--_Daily Chronicle_. + + 'The work is written in a light gossipy style, and by reason both of + it and of the variety of persons introduced is interesting. To a + Suffolk or Norfolk man it is, of course, especially attractive. The + reader will go through these pages without being wearied by + application. They form a pleasant and entertaining contribution to + county literature, and "East Anglia" will, we should think, find its + way to many of the east country bookshelves.'--_Suffolk Chronicle_. + + 'The book is as readable and attractive a volume of local chronicles + as could be desired. Though all of our readers may not see "eye to + eye" with Mr. Ritchie, in regard to political and theological + questions, they cannot fail to gain much enjoyment from his excellent + delineation of old days in East Anglia.'--_Norwich Mercury_. + + '"East Anglia" has the merit of not being a compilation, which is + more than can be said of the great majority of books produced in + these days to satisfy the revived taste for topographical gossip. + Mr. Ritchie is a Suffolk man--the son of a Nonconformist minister of + Wrentham in that county--and he looks back to the old neighbourhood + and the old times with an affection which is likely to communicate + itself to its readers. Altogether we can with confidence recommend + this book not only to East Anglians, but to all readers who have any + affinity for works of its class.'--_Daily News_. + + 'Mr. Ritchie's book belongs to a class of which we have none too + many, for when well done they illustrate contemporary history in a + really charming manner. What with their past grandeur, their present + progress, their martyrs, patriots, and authors, there is plenty to + tell concerning Eastern counties: and one who writes with native + enthusiasm is sure to command an audience.'--_Baptist_. + + 'Mr. Ritchie, known to the numerous readers of the _Christian World_ + as "Christopher Crayon," has the pen of a ready, racy, refreshing + writer. He never writes a dull line, and never for a moment allows + our interest to flag. In the work before us, which is not his first, + he is, I should think, at his best. The volume is the outcome of + extensive reading, many rambles over the districts described, and of + thoughtful observation. We seem to live and move and have our being + in East Anglia. Its folk-lore, its traditions, its worthies, its + memorable events, are all vividly and charmingly placed before us, + and we close the book sorry that there is no more of it, and + wondering why it is that works of a similar kind have not more + frequently appeared.'--_Northern Pioneer_. + + 'It has yielded us more gratification than any work that we have read + for a considerable time. The book ought to have a wide circulation + in the Eastern counties, and will not fail to yield profit and + delight wherever it finds its way.'--_Essex Telegraph_. + + 'Mr. Ritchie has here written a most attractive chapter of + autobiography. He recalls the scenes of his early days, and whatever + was quaint or striking in connection with them, and finds in his + recollections ready pegs on which to hang historical incident and + antiquarian curiosities of many kinds. He passes from point to point + in a delightfully cheerful and contagious mood. Mr. Ritchie's + reading has been as extensive and careful as his observation is keen + and his temper genial; and his pages, which appeared in _The + Christian World Magazine_, well deserve the honour of book-form, with + the additions he has been able to make to them.'--_British Quarterly + Review_. + + * * * * * + + + + + + EAST ANGLIA. + + + _PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS_ + AND + _HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS_. + + * * * * * + + BY + J. EWING RITCHIE. + + * * * * * + + 'Behold, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem.' + + MATTHEW. + + * * * * * + + _SECOND EDITION_, + REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED. + + * * * * * + + LONDON: + JARROLD & SONS, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C. + 1893. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. + + +The chapters of which this little work consists originally appeared in +the _Christian World Magazine_, where they were so fortunate as to +attract favourable notice, and from which they are now reprinted, with a +few slight additions, by permission of the Editor. In bringing out a +second edition, I have incorporated the substance of other articles +originally written for local journals. It is to be hoped, touching as +they do a theme not easily exhausted, but always interesting to East +Anglians, that they may help to sustain that love of one's county which, +alas! like the love of country, is a matter reckoned to be of little +importance in these cosmopolitan days, but which, nevertheless, has had +not a little share in the formation of that national greatness and glory +in which at all times Englishmen believe. + +One word more. I have retained some strictures on the clergy of East +Anglia, partly because they were true at the time to which I refer, and +partly because it gives me pleasure to own that they are not so now. The +Church of England clergyman of to-day is an immense improvement on that +of my youth. In ability, in devotion to the duties of his calling, in +intelligence, in self-denial, in zeal, he is equal to the clergy of any +other denomination. If he has lost his hold upon Hodge, that, at any +rate, is not his fault. + +CLACTON-ON-SEA, + _January_, 1893. + + + CONTENTS. + CHAPTER I. + + A SUFFOLK VILLAGE. +Distinguished people born there--Its Puritans and 1 +Nonconformists--The country round +Covehithe--Southwold--Suffolk dialect--The Great Eastern +Railway + CHAPTER II. + + THE STRICKLANDS. +Reydon Hall--The clergy--Pakefield--Social life in a village 37 + CHAPTER III. + + LOWESTOFT. +Yarmouth bloaters--George Borrow--The town fifty years 54 +ago--The distinguished natives + CHAPTER IV. + + POLITICS AND THEOLOGY. +Homerton academy--W. Johnson Fox, M.P.--Politics in 89 +1830--Anti-Corn Law speeches--Wonderful oratory + CHAPTER V. + + BUNGAY AND ITS PEOPLE. +Bungay Nonconformity--Hannah More--The Childses--The Queen's 122 +Librarian--Prince Albert + CHAPTER VI. + + A CELEBRATED NORFOLK TOWN. +Great Yarmouth Nonconformists--Intellectual life--Dawson 153 +Turner--Astley Cooper--Hudson Gurney--Mrs. Bendish + CHAPTER VII. + + THE NORFOLK CAPITAL. +Brigg's Lane--The carrier's cart--Reform demonstration--The 185 +old dragon--Chairing M.P.'s--Hornbutton Jack--Norwich artists +and literati--Quakers and Nonconformists + CHAPTER VIII. + + THE SUFFOLK CAPITAL. +The Orwell--The Sparrows--Ipswich 226 +notabilities--Gainsborough--Medical men--Nonconformists + CHAPTER IX. + + AN OLD-FASHIONED TOWN. +Woodbridge and the country round--Bernard Barton--Dr. 252 +Lankester--An old Noncon. + CHAPTER X. + + MILTON'S SUFFOLK SCHOOLMASTER. +Stowmarket--The Rev. Thomas Young--Bishop Hall and the 283 +Smectymnian divines--Milton's mulberry-tree--Suffolk +relationships + CHAPTER XI. + + IN CONSTABLE'S COUNTY. +East Bergholt--The Valley of the Stour--Painting from 311 +nature--East Anglian girls + CHAPTER XII. + + EAST ANGLIAN WORTHIES. +Suffolk cheese--Danes, Saxons, and Normans--Philosophers and 320 +statesmen--Artists and literati + + +CHAPTER I. +A SUFFOLK VILLAGE. + + +Distinguished people born there--Its Puritans and Nonconformists--The +country round Covehithe--Southwold--Suffolk dialect--The Great Eastern +Railway. + +In his published Memoirs, the great Metternich observes that if he had +never been born he never could have loved or hated. Following so +illustrious a precedent, I may observe that if I had not been born in +East Anglia I never could have been an East Anglian. Whether I should +have been wiser or better off had I been born elsewhere, is an +interesting question, which, however, it is to be hoped the public will +forgive me if I decline to discuss on the present occasion. + +In a paper bearing the date of 1667, a Samuel Baker, of Wattisfield Hall, +writes: 'I was born at a village called Wrentham, which place I cannot +pass by the mention of without saying thus much, that religion has there +flourished longer, and that in much piety; the Gospel and grace of it +have been more powerfully and clearly preached, and more generally +received; the professors of it have been more sound in the matter and +open and steadfast in the profession of it in an hour of temptation, have +manifested a greater oneness amongst themselves and have been more +eminently preserved from enemies without (albeit they dwell where Satan's +seat is encompassed with his malice and rage), than I think in any +village of the like capacity in England; which I speak as my duty to the +place, but to my particular shame rather than otherwise, that such a dry +and barren plant should spring out of such a soil.' I resemble this +worthy Mr. Baker in two respects. In the first place, I was born at +Wrentham, though at a considerably later period of time than 1667; and, +secondly, if he was a barren plant--he of whom we read, in Harmer's +Miscellaneous Works, that 'he was a gentleman of fortune and education, +very zealous for the Congregational plan of church government and +discipline, and a sufferer in its bonds for a good conscience'--what am +I? + +Nor was it only piety that existed in this distant parish. If the reader +turns to the diary of John Evelyn, under the date of 1679, he will find +mention made of a child brought up to London, 'son of one Mr. Wotton, +formerly amanuensis to Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winton, who both read and +perfectly understood Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic and Syriac, and most of +the modern languages, disputed in divinity, law and all the sciences, was +skilful in history, both ecclesiastical and profane; in a word, so +universally and solidly learned at eleven years of age that he was looked +on as a miracle. Dr. Lloyd, one of the most deep-learned divines of this +nation in all sorts of literature, with Dr. Burnet, who had severely +examined him, came away astonished, and told me they did not believe +there had the like appeared in the world. He had only been instructed by +his father, who being himself a learned person, confessed that his son +knew all that he himself knew. But what was more admirable than his vast +memory was his judgment and invention, he being tried with divers hard +questions which required maturity of thought and experience. He was also +dexterous in chronology, antiquities, mathematics. In sum, an +_intellectus universalis_ beyond all that we reade of Picus Mirandula, +and other precoce witts, and yet withal a very humble child.' This +prodigy was the son of the Rev. Henry Wotton, minister of Wrentham, +Suffolk. Sir William Skippon, a parishioner, in a letter yet extant, +describes the wonderful achievements of the little fellow when but five +years old. He was admitted at Katherine Hall, Cambridge, some months +before he was ten years old. In after-years he was the friend and +defender of Bentley and the antagonist of Sir William Temple in the great +controversy about ancient and modern learning. He died in 1726, and was +buried at Buxted, in Sussex. It is clear that there was no such +intellectual phenomenon in all London under the Stuarts as that little +Wrentham lad. + +Of that village, when I came into the world, my father was the honoured, +laborious and successful minister. The meeting-house, as it was called, +which stood in the lane leading from the church to the highroad, was a +square red brick building, vastly superior to any of the ancient +meeting-houses round. It stood in an enclosure, one side of which was +devoted to the reception of the farmers' gigs, which, on a Sunday +afternoon, when the principal service was held, made quite a respectable +show when drawn up in a line. By the side of it was a cottage, in which +lived the woman who kept the place tidy, and her husband, who looked +after the horses as they were unharnessed and put in the stable close by. +The backs of the gigs were sheltered from the road by a hedge of lilacs, +and over the gateway a gigantic elm kept watch and ward. The house in +which we lived was also part of the chapel estate, and, if it was a +little way off, it was, at any rate, adapted to the wants of a family of +quiet habits and simple tastes. On one side of the house was a +water-butt, and I can well remember my first sad experience of the +wickedness of the world when, getting up one morning to look after my +rabbits and other live stock, I found that water-butt had gone, and that +there were thieves in a village so rural and renowned for piety as ours. +I say renowned, and not without reason. Years and years back there was a +pious clergyman of the name of Steffe, who had a son in Dr. Doddridge's +Academy, at Daventry, and it is a fact that the great Doctor himself, at +some time or other, had been a guest in the village. + +In 1741 the Doctor thus records his East Anglian recollections, in a +letter to his wife: 'You have great reason to confide in that very kind +Providence which has hitherto watched over us, and has, since the date of +my last, brought us about sixty miles nearer London. From Yarmouth we +went on Friday morning to Wrentham, where good Mrs. Steffe lives, and +from thence to a gentleman's seat, near Walpole, where I was most +respectfully entertained. As I had twenty miles to ride yesterday +morning, he, though I had never seen him before last Tuesday, brought me +almost half-way in his chaise, to make the journey easier. I reached +Woodbridge before two, and rode better in the cool of the evening, and +had the happiness to be entertained in a very elegant and friendly +family, though perfectly a stranger; and, indeed, I have been escorted +from one place to another in every mile of my journey by one, and +sometimes by two or three, of my brethren in a most respectful and +agreeable manner.' Dr. Doddridge's East Anglian recollections seem to +have been uncommonly agreeable, owing quite as much, I must candidly +confess, to the presence of the sisters as of the brethren. Writing to +his wife an account of a little trip on the river, he adds: 'It was a +very pleasant day, and I concluded it in the company of one of the finest +women I ever beheld, who, though she had seven children grown up to +marriageable years, or very near it, is still herself almost a beauty, +and a person of sense, good breeding, and piety, which might astonish one +who had not the happiness of being intimately acquainted with you.' What +a sly rogue was Dr. Doddridge! How could any wife be jealous when her +husband finishes off with such a compliment to herself? + +But to return to the good Mrs. Steffe, of whom I am, on my mother's side, +a descendant. I must add that as there were great men before Agamemnon, +so there were good people in the little village of Wrentham before Mrs. +Steffe appeared upon the scene. The Brewsters, who were an ancient +family, which seems to have culminated under the glorious usurpation of +Oliver Cromwell, were eminently good people in Dr. Doddridge's +acceptation of the term, and I fancy did much as lords of the manor--and +as inhabitants of Wrentham Hall, a building which had ceased to exist +long before my time--to leaven with their goodness the surrounding lump. +It seems to me that these Brewsters must have been more or less connected +with Brewster the elder--of Robinson's Church at Leyden, who, we are +told, came of a wealthy and distinguished family--who was well trained at +Cambridge, and, says the historian, 'thence, being first seasoned with +the seeds of grace and virtue, he went to the Court, and there served +that religious and godly Mr. Davison divers years, when he was Secretary +of State, who found him so discreet and faithful as he trusted him, above +all others that were about him, and only employed him in matters of great +trust and secrecy; he esteemed him rather as a son than a servant, and +for his wisdom and godliness in private, he would converse with him more +like a familiar than a master.' When evil times came, this Brewster was +living in the big Manor House at Scrooby, and how he and his godly +associates were driven into exile by a foolish King and cruel priests is +known, or ought to be known, to everyone. Of these Wrentham Brewsters, +one served his country in Parliament, or I am very much mistaken. It was +to their credit that they sought out godly men, to whom they might +entrust the cure of souls. In this respect, when I was a lad, their +example certainly had not been followed, and Dissent flourished mainly +because the moral instincts of the villagers and farmers and small +tradesmen were shocked by hearing men on the Sunday reading the Lessons +of the Church, leading the devotions of the people, and preaching +sermons, who on the week-days got drunk and led immoral lives. As to the +right of the State to interfere in matters of religion, as to the danger +to religion itself from the establishment of a State Church, as to the +liberty of unlicensed prophesying, such topics the simple villagers +ignored. All that they felt was that there came to them more of a +quickening of the spiritual life, a fuller realization of God and things +divine, in the meeting-house than in the parish church. They were not +what pious Churchmen so much dread nowadays--Political Dissenters; how +could they be such, having no votes, and never seeing a newspaper from +one year's end to the other? + +It was to the Brewsters that the village was indebted for the ministry of +the Rev. John Phillip, who married the sister of the pious and learned +Dr. Ames, Professor of the University of Franeker. Calamy tells us that +by means of Dr. Ames, Mr. Phillip had no small furtherance in his +studies, and intimate acquaintance with him increased his inclination to +the Congregational way. Archbishop Abbot, writing to Winwood, 1611, +says: 'I have written to Sir Horace Vere touching the English preacher at +the Hague. We heard what he was that preceded, and we cannot be less +cognisant what Mr. Ames is, for by a Latin printed book he hath laden the +Church and State of England with a great deal of infamous contumely, so +that if he were amongst us he would be so far from receiving preferment, +that some exemplary punishment would be his reward. His Majesty had been +advertised how this man is entertained and embraced at the Hague, and how +he is a fit person to breed up captains and soldiers there in mutiny and +faction.' One of Dr. Ames's works, which got him into trouble, was +entitled 'A Fresh Suit against Ceremonies,' a work which we may be sure +would be as distasteful to the Ritualists of our day as it was to the +Ritualists of his own. One of his works, his 'Medulla Theologiae,' I +believe, adorned the walls of the paternal study. There is, belonging to +the Wrentham Congregational Church Library, a volume of tracts, +sixty-seven in number, of six or eight pages each, printed in 1622, +forming a series of theses on theological topics, maintained by different +persons, under the presidency of Dr. Ames; and I believe a son of the +Doctor is buried in Wrentham Churchyard, as I recollect my father, on one +occasion, had an old gravestone done up and relettered, which bore +testimony to the virtues and piety and learning of an Ames. Thus if Mr. +Phillip was chased out of Old England into New England for his +Nonconformity, some of the good old Noncons remained to uphold the lamp +which was one day to cast a sacred light on all quarters of the land. +That some did emigrate with their pastor is probable, since we learn that +there is a town called Wrentham across the Atlantic, said to have +received that name because some of the first settlers came from Wrentham +in England. + +Touching Mr. Phillip, a good deal has been written by the Rev. John +Browne, the painstaking author of 'The History of Congregationalism in +Suffolk and Norfolk.' It appears that his arrival in America was not +unexpected, as the Christian people of Dedham had invited him to that +plantation beforehand. He did not, however, accept their invitation, but +being much in request, 'and called divers ways, could not resolve; but, +at length, upon weighty reasons concerning the public service and +foundations of the college, he was persuaded to attend to the call of +Cambridge;' and, adds an American writer, 'he might have been the first +head of that blessed institution.' On the calling of the Long +Parliament, he and his wife returned to England, and in 1642 we find him +ministering to his old flock. So satisfied were the neighbouring +Independents of his Congregationalism, that when, in 1644, members of Mr. +Bridge's church residing in Norwich desired to form themselves into a +separate community, they not only consulted with their brethren in +Yarmouth, but with Mr. Phillip also, as the only man then in their +neighbourhood on whose judgment and experience they could rely. In 1643 +Mr. Phillip was appointed one of the members of the Assembly of Divines, +and was recognised by Baillie in his Letters as one of the Independent +men there. The Independents, as we know, sat apart, and were a sad thorn +in the Presbyterians' side. Five of them, more zealous than the rest, +formally dissented from the decisions of the Assembly, and afraid that +toleration would not be extended to them, appealed to Parliament, 'as the +most sacred refuge and asylum for mistaken and misjudged innocence.' Mr. +Phillip's name, however, I do not find in that list; and possibly he was +too old to be very active in the matter. He lived on till 1660, when he +died at the good old age of seventy-eight. In the later years of his +ministry he was assisted by his nephew, W. Ames, who in 1651 preached a +sermon at St. Paul's, before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, 'On the Saint's +Security against Seducing Sports, or the Anointing from the Holy One.' +It is to be feared, in our more enlightened age, a good Wrentham +Congregational minister would have little chance of preaching before a +London Lord Mayor. Talent is supposed to exist only in the crowded town, +where men have no time to think of anything but of the art of getting on. + +Other heroic associations--of men who had suffered for the faith, who +feared God rather than man, who preferred the peace of an approving +conscience to the vain honours of the world--also were connected with the +place. I remember being shown a bush in which the conventicle preacher +used to hide himself when the enemy, in the shape of the myrmidons of +Bishop Wren, of Norwich, were at his heels. That furious prelate, as +many of us know, drove upwards of three thousand persons to seek their +bread in a foreign land. Indeed, to such an extent did he carry out his +persecuting system, that the trade and manufactures of the country +materially suffered in consequence. However, in my boyish days I was not +troubled much about such things. Dissent in Wrentham was quite +respectable. If we had lost the Brewster family, whose arms were still +to be seen on the Communion plate, a neighbouring squire attended at the +meeting-house, as it was then the fashion to call our chapel, and so did +the leading grocer and draper of the place, and the village doctor, the +father of six comely daughters; and the display of gigs on a Sunday was +really imposing. Alas! as I grew older I saw that imposing array not a +little shorn of its splendour. The neighbouring baronet, Sir Thomas +Gooch, M.P., added as he could farm to farm, and that a Dissenter was on +no account to have one of his farms was pretty well understood. I fancy +our great landlords have, in many parts of East Anglia, pretty well +exterminated Dissent, to the real injury of the people all around. I +write this advisedly. I dare say the preaching in the meeting-house was +often very miserably poor. The service, I must own, seemed to me often +peculiarly long and unattractive. There was always that long prayer +which was, I fear, to all boys a time of utter weariness; but, +nevertheless, there was a moral and intellectual life in our Dissenting +circle that did not exist elsewhere. It was true we never attended +dinners at the village public-house, nor indulged in card-parties, and +regarded with a horror, which I have come to think unwholesome, the +frivolity of balls or the attractions of a theatre; but we had all the +new books voted into our bookclub, and, as a lad, I can well remember how +I revelled in the back numbers of the _Edinburgh Review_, though even +then I could not but feel the injustice which it did to what it called +the Lake school of poets, and more especially to Coleridge and +Wordsworth. Shakespeare also was almost a sealed book, and perhaps we +had a little too much of religious reading, such as Doddridge's 'Rise and +Progress,' or Baxter's 'Saint's Rest,' or Alleine's 'Call to the +Unconverted,' or Fleetwood's 'Life of Christ'--excellent books in their +way, undoubtedly, but not remarkably attractive to boys redolent of +animal life, who had thriven and grown fat in that rustic village, on +whose vivid senses the world that now is produced far more effect than +the terrors or splendours of the world to come. + +The country round, if flat, was full of interesting associations. At the +back of us--that is, on the sea--was the village of Covehithe, and when a +visitor found his way into the place--an event which happened now and +then--our first excursion with him or her--for plenty of donkeys were to +be had which ladies could ride--was to Covehithe, known to literary men +as the birthplace of John Bale, Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland. In +connection with donkeys, I have this interesting recollection, that one +of the old men of the village told me. At the time of the Bristol riots, +he remembered Sir Charles Wetherall, the occasion of them, as a boy at +Wrentham much given to donkey-riding. In the history of the drama John +Bale takes distinguished rank. He was one of those by whom the drama was +gradually evolved, and all to whom it is a study and delight must +remember him with regard. His play of 'Kynge John' is described by Mr. +Collier as occupying an intermediate place between moralities and +historical plays--and it is the only known existing specimen of that +species of composition of so early a date. Bale, who was trained at the +monastery of White Friars, in Norwich, thence went to Jesus College, +Cambridge, and was expelled in consequence of the zeal with which he +exposed the errors of Popery. However, Bale had a friend and protector +in Cromwell, Henry VIII.'s faithful servant. On the death of that +nobleman Bale proceeded to Germany, where he appears to have been well +received and hospitably entertained by Luther and Melancthon, and on the +accession of Edward VI. he returned to England. In Mary's reign +persecution recommenced, and Bale fled to Frankfort. He again returned +at the commencement of Elizabeth's reign, and was made prebend of +Canterbury, at which place he died at the age of sixty-three. Covehithe +nowadays is not interesting so much as the birthplace of Bale, as on +account of its ecclesiastical ruins, which are covered with ivy and +venerable in their decay. The church was evidently almost a cathedral, +and surely at one time or other there must have been an enormous +population to worship in such a sanctuary; and yet all you see now is a +public-house just opposite the church, a few cottages, and a farmhouse. +A few steps farther bring you to the low cliff, and there is the sea ever +encroaching on the land in that quarter and swallowing up farmhouse and +farm. Miss Agnes Strickland, who lived at Reydon Hall--a few miles +inland--has thus sung the melancholy fate of Covehithe: + + 'All roofless now the stately pile, + And rent the arches tall, + Through which with bright departing smile + The western sunbeams fall. + + * * * * * + + 'Tradition's voice forgets to tell + Whose ashes sleep below, + And Fancy here unchecked may dwell, + And bid the story flow.' + +Ah! what was that story? How the question puzzled my young head, as I +walked in the sandy lane that led from my native village! How +insignificant looked the little church built up inside! What had become +of the crowds that at one time must have filled that ancient fane? How +was it that no trace of them remained? They had vanished in the +historical age, and yet no one could tell how or when. Nature was, then, +stronger than man. He was gone, but the stars glittered by night and the +sun shone by day, and the ivy had spread its green mantle over all. Yes! +what was man, with his pomp and glory, but dust and ashes, after all! +How I loved to go to Covehithe and climb its ruins, and dream of the +distant past! + +Here in that eastern point of England it seemed to me there was a good +deal of decay. Sometimes, on a fine summer day, we would take a boat and +sail from the pretty little town of Southwold, about four miles from +Wrentham, to Dunwich, another relic of the past. According to an old +historian, it was a city surrounded with a stone wall having brazen +gates; it had fifty-two churches, chapels, and religious houses; it also +boasted hospitals, a huge palace, a bishop's seat, a mayor's mansion, and +a Mint. Beyond it a forest appears to have extended some miles into what +is now the sea. One of our local Suffolk poets, James Bird (I saw him +but once, when I walked into his house, about twelve miles from Wrentham, +having run away from home at the ripe age of ten, and told him I had come +to see him, as he was a poet; and I well remember how then, much to my +chagrin, he gave me plum-pudding for dinner, and sent me to play with his +boys till a cart was found in which the prodigal was compelled to +return), wrote and published a poetical romance, called 'Dunwich; or, a +Tale of the Splendid City;' and Agnes Strickland also made it the subject +of her melodious verse, commencing: + + 'Oft gazing on thy craggy brow, + We muse on glories o'er. + Fair Dunwich! Thou art lonely now, + Renowned and sought no more.' + +Never has a splendid city more utterly collapsed. After a long ride over +sandy lanes and fields, you come to the edge of a cliff, on which stand a +few houses. There is all that remains of the Dunwich where the first +Bishop of East Anglia taught the Christian faith, and where was born John +Daye, the printer of the works of Parker, Latimer, and Fox, who, in the +reign of Mary, became, as most real men did then, a prisoner and an exile +for the truth. He has also the reputation of being the first in England +who printed in the Saxon character. In the records of type-founding the +name of Daye stands with that of the most illustrious. When the Company +of Stationers obtained their charter from Philip and Mary, he was the +first person admitted to their livery. In 1580 he was master of the +company, to which he bequeathed property at his death. The following is +the inscription which marks the place of his burial in Little Bradley, +Suffolk: + + 'Here lyes the DAYE that darkness could not blynd, + When Popish fogges had overcast the sunne; + This DAYE the cruel night did leave behind, + To view and show what bloudie actes were donne. + He set a FOX to write how martyrs runne + By death to lyfe, FOX ventured paynes and health. + To give them light Daye spent in print his wealth, + But GOD with gayne returned his wealth agayne, + And gave to him as he gave to the poore. + Two wyfes he had partakers of his payne: + Each wyfe twelve babes, and each of them one more, + Als was the last increaser of his store; + Who, mourning long for being left alone, + Sett up this tombe, herself turned to a stone.' + +Unlike Covehithe, Dunwich has a history. In the reign of Henry II., a +MS. in the British Museum tells us, the Earl of Leicester came to attack +it. 'When he came neare and beheld the strength thereof, it was terror +and feare unto him to behold it; and so retired both he and his people.' +Dunwich aided King John in his wars with the barons, and thus gained the +first charter. In the time of Edward I. it had sixteen fair ships, +twelve barks, four-and-twenty fishing barks, and at that time there were +few seaports in England that could say as much. It served the same King +in his wars with France with eleven ships of war, well furnished with men +and munition. In most of these ships were seventy-two men-at-arms, who +served thirteen weeks at their own cost and charge. Dunwich seems to +have suffered much by the French wars. Four of the eleven ships already +referred to were captured by the French, and in the wars waged by Edward +III. Dunwich lost still more shipping, and as many as 500 men. Perhaps +it might have flourished till this day had if not been for the curse of +war. But the sea also served the town cruelly. That spared nothing--not +the King's Forest, where there were hawking and hunting--not the homes +where England nursed her hardy sailors--not even the harbour whence the +brave East Anglians sailed away to the wars. In Edward III.'s time, at +one fell swoop, the remorseless sea seems to have swallowed up '400 +houses which payde rente to the towne towards the fee-farms, besydes +certain shops and windmills.' Yet, when I was a lad, this wreck of a +place returned two members to Parliament, and Birmingham, Manchester and +Sheffield not one. Between Covehithe and Dunwich stood, and still +stands, the charming little bathing-place of Southwold. Like them, it +has seen better days, and has suffered from the encroachments of the +ever-restless and ever-hungry sea. It was at Southwold that I first saw +the sea, and I remember naturally asking my father, who showed me the +guns on the gun-hill--pointing seaward--whether that was where the +enemies came from. + +Southwold appears to have initiated an evangelical alliance, which may +yet be witnessed if ever a time comes of reasonable toleration on +religious matters. In many parts of the Continent the same place of +worship is used by different religious bodies. In Brussels I have seen +the Episcopalians, the Germans, the French Protestants, all assembling at +different times in the same building. There was a time when a similar +custom prevailed in Southwold, and that was when Master Sharpen, who had +his abode at Sotterley, preached at Southwold once a month. There were +Independents in the towns in those days, and 'his indulgence,' writes a +local historian, 'favoured the Separatists with the liberty and free use +of the church, where they resorted weekly, or oftener, and every fourth +Sunday both ministers met and celebrated divine service alternately. He +that entered the church first had the precedency of officiating, the +other keeping silence until the congregation received the Benediction +after sermon.' Most of the people attended all the while. It was before +the year 1680 that these things were done. After that time there came to +the church 'an orthodox man, who suffered many ills, and those not the +lightest, for his King and for his faith, and he compelled the +Independents not only to leave the church, but the town also. We read +they assembled in a malt-house beyond the bridge, where, being disturbed, +they chose more private places in the town until liberty of conscience +was granted, when they publicly assembled in a fish-house converted to a +place of worship.' At that time many people in the town were Dissenters; +but it was not till 1748 that they had a church formed. Up to that time +the Southwold Independents were members of the Church at Wrentham, one of +the Articles of Association of the new church being to take the Bible as +their sole guide, and when in difficulties to resort to the neighbouring +pastor for advice and declaration. Such was Independency when it +flourished all over East Anglia. + +A writer in the _Harleian Miscellany_ says that 'Southwold, of sea-coast +town, is the most beneficial unto his Majesty of all the towns in +England, by reason all their trade is unto Iceland for lings.' In the +little harbour of Southwold you see nowadays only a few colliers, and I +fear that the place is of little advantage to her Majesty, however +beneficial it may be as a health-resort for some of her Majesty's +subjects. It is a place, gentle reader, where you can wander undisturbed +at your own sweet will, and can get your cheeks fanned by breezes unknown +in London. The beach, I own, is shingly, and not to be compared with the +sands of Yarmouth and Lowestoft; but, then, you are away from the Cockney +crowds that now infest these places at the bathing season, and you are +quiet--whether you wander on its common, till you come to the Wolsey +Bridge, getting on towards Halesworth, where, if tradition be +trustworthy, Wolsey, as a butcher's boy, was nearly drowned, and where he +benevolently caused a bridge to be erected for the safety of all future +butcher-boys and others, when he became a distinguished man; or ramble by +the seaside to Walberswick, across the harbour, or on to Easton +Bavent--another decayed village, on the other side. Southwold has its +historical associations. Most of my readers have seen the well-known +picture of Solebay Fight at Greenwich Hospital. Southwold overlooks the +bay on which that fight was won. Here, on the morning of the 28th May, +1672, De Ruyter, with his Dutchmen, sailed right against those wooden +walls which have guarded old England in many a time of danger, and found +to his cost how invincible was British pluck. James, Duke of York--not +then the drivelling idiot who lost his kingdom for a Mass, but James, +manly and high-spirited, with a Prince's pride and a sailor's heart--won +a victory that for many a day was a favourite theme with all honest +Englishmen, and especially with the true and stout men who, alarmed by +the roar of cannon, as the sound boomed along the blue waters of that +peaceful bay, stood on the Southwold cliff, wishing that the fog which +intercepted their view might clear off, and that they might welcome as +victors their brethren on the sea. I can remember how, when an old +cannon was dragged up from the depths of the sea, it was supposed to be, +as it might have been, used in that fight, and now is preserved at one of +the look-out houses on the cliff as a souvenir of that glorious struggle. +The details of that fight are matters of history, and I need not dwell on +them. Our literature, also, owes Southwold one of the happiest effusions +of one of the wittiest writers of that age; and in a county history I +remember well a merry song on the Duke's late glorious success over the +Dutch, in Southwold Bay, which commences with the writer telling-- + + 'One day as I was sitting still + Upon the side of Dunwich Hill, + And looking on the ocean, + By chance I saw De Ruyter's fleet + With Royal James's squadron meet; + In sooth it was a noble treat + To see that brave commotion.' + +The writer vividly paints the scene, and ends as follows: + + 'Here's to King Charles, and here's to James, + And here's to all the captains' names, + And here's to all the Suffolk dames, + And here's to the house of Stuart.' + +Well, as to the house of Stuart, the less said the better; but as to the +Suffolk dames, I agree with the poet, that they are all well worthy of +the toast, and it was at a very early period of my existence that I +became aware of that fact. But the course of true love never does run +smooth, and from none--and they were many--with whom I played on the +beach as a boy, or read poetry to at riper years, was it my fate to take +one as wife for better or worse. In the crowded city men have little +time to fall in love. Besides, they see so many fresh faces that +impressions are easily erased. It is otherwise in the quiet retirement +of a village where there is little to disturb the mind--perhaps too +little. I can well remember a striking illustration of this in the +person of an old farmer, who lived about three miles off, and at whose +house we--that is, the whole family--passed what seemed to me a very +happy day among the haystacks or harvest-fields once or twice a year. +The old man was proud of his farm, and of everything connected with it. +'There, Master James,' he was wont to say to me after dinner, 'you can +see three barns all at once!' and sure enough, looking in the direction +he pointed, there were three barns plainly visible to the naked eye. +Alas! the love of the picturesque had not been developed in my bucolic +friend, and a good barn or two--he was an old bachelor, and, I suppose, +his heart had never been softened by the love of woman--seemed to him +about as beautiful an object as you could expect or desire. One emotion, +that of fear, was, however, I found, strongly planted in the village +breast. The boys of the village, with whom, now and then, I stole away +on a birds'-nesting expedition, would have it that in a little wood about +a mile or two off there were no end of flying serpents and dragons to be +seen; and I can well remember the awe which fell upon the place when +there came a rumour of the doings of those wretches, Burke and Hare, who +were said to have made a living by murdering victims--by placing pitch +plasters on their mouths--and selling them to the doctors to dissect. At +this time a little boy had not come home at the proper time, and the +mother came to our house lamenting. The good woman was in tears, and +refused to be comforted. There had been a stranger in the village that +day; he had seen her boy, he had put a pitch plaster on his mouth, and no +doubt his dead body was then on its way to Norwich to be sold to the +doctor. Unfortunately, it turned out that the boy was alive and well, +and lived to give his poor mother a good deal of trouble. Another thing, +of which I have still a vivid recollection, was the mischief wrought by +Captain Swing. In Kent there had been an alarming outbreak of the +peasantry, ostensibly against the use of agricultural machinery. They +assembled in large bodies, and visited the farm buildings of the +principal landed proprietors, demolishing the threshing machines then +being brought into use. In some instances they set fire to barns and +corn-stacks. These outrages spread throughout the county, and fears were +entertained that they would be repeated in other agricultural districts. +A great meeting of magistrates and landed gentry was held in Canterbury, +the High Sheriff in the chair, when a reward was offered of 100 pounds +for the discovery of the perpetrators of the senseless mischief, and the +Lords of the Treasury offered a further reward of the same amount for +their apprehension; but all was in vain to stop the growing evil. The +agricultural interest was in a very depressed state, and the number of +unemployed labourers so large, that apprehensions were entertained that +the combinations for the destruction of machinery might, if not at once +checked, take dimensions it would be very difficult for the Government to +control. When Parliament opened in 1830, the state of the agricultural +districts had been daily growing more alarming. Rioting and incendiarism +had spread from Kent to Suffolk, Norfolk, Surrey, Hampshire, Wiltshire, +Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Huntingdonshire, and Cambridgeshire, and a +great deal of very valuable property had been destroyed. A mystery +enveloped these proceedings that indicated organization, and it became +suspected that they had a political object. Threatening letters were +sent to individuals signed 'Swing,' and beacon fires communicated from +one part of the country to the other. With the object of checking these +outrages, night patrols were established, dragoons were kept in readiness +to put down tumultuous meetings, and magistrates and clergymen and landed +gentry were all at their wits' ends. Even in our out-of-the-way corner +of East Anglia not a little consternation was felt. We were on the +highroad nightly traversed by the London and Yarmouth Royal Mail, and +thus, more or less, we had communications with the outer world. Just +outside of our village was Benacre Hall, the seat of Sir Thomas Gooch, +one of the county members, and I well remember the boyish awe with which +I heard that a mob had set out from Yarmouth to burn the place down. +Whether the mob thought better of it, or gave up the walk of eighteen +miles as one to which they were not equal, I am not in a position to say. +All I know is, that Benacre Hall, such as it is, remains; but I can never +forget the feeling of terror with which, on those dark and dull winter +nights, I looked out of my bedroom window to watch the lurid light +flaring up into the black clouds around, which told how wicked men were +at their mad work, how fiendish passion had triumphed, how some honest +farmer was reduced to ruin, as he saw the efforts of a life of industry +consumed by the incendiary's fire. It was long before I ceased to +shudder at the name of 'Swing.' + +The dialect of the village was, I need not add, East Anglian. The people +said 'I woll' for 'I will'; 'you warn't' for 'you were not,' and so on. +A girl was called a 'mawther,' a pitcher a 'gotch,' a 'clap on the +costard' was a knock on the head, a lad was a 'bor.' Names of places +especially were made free with. Wangford was 'Wangfor,' Covehithe was +'Cothhigh,' Southwold was 'Soul,' Lowestoft was 'Lesteff,' Halesworth was +'Holser,' London was 'Lunun.' People who lived in the midland counties +were spoken of as living in the shires. The 'o,' as in 'bowls,' it is +specially difficult for an East Anglian to pronounce. A learned man was +held to be a 'man of larnin',' a thing of which there was not too much in +Suffolk in my young days. A lady in the village sent her son to school, +and great was the maternal pride as she called in my father to hear how +well her son could read Latin, the reading being reading alone, without +the faintest attempt at translation. Sometimes it was hard to get an +answer to a question, as when a Dissenting minister I knew was sent for +to visit a sick man. 'My good man,' said he, 'what induced you to send +for me?' 'Hey, what?' said the invalid. 'What induced you to send for +me?' Alas! the question was repeated in vain. At length the wife +interfered: 'He wants to know what the deuce you sent for him for.' And +then, and not till then, came an appropriate reply. This story, I +believe, has more than once found its way into _Punch_; but I heard it as +a Suffolk boy years and years before _Punch_ had come into existence. + +One of the prayers familiar to my youth was as follows: + + 'Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, + Bless the bed that I lie on; + Four corners to my bed, + Four angels at my head; + Two to watch and one to pray, + And one to carry my soul away.' + +An M.P., who shall be nameless, supplies me with an apt illustration of +East Anglian dialect. It was at the anniversary of a National School, +with the great M.P. in the chair, surrounded by the benevolent ladies and +the select clergy of the district. The subject of examination was +Christ's entry into Jerusalem on an ass's colt. 'Why,' said the +M.P.--'why did they strew rushes before the Saviour? can any of you +children tell me?' Profound silence. The M.P. repeated the question. A +little ragamuffin held up his hand. The M.P. demanded silence as the apt +scholar proceeded with his answer. 'Why were the rushes strewed?' said +the M.P. in a condescending tone. I don't know,' replied the boy, +'unless it was to hull the dickey down.' + +Roars of laughter greeted the reply, as all the East Anglians present +knew that 'hull' meant 'throw,' and 'dickey' is Suffolk for 'donkey,' but +some of the Cockney visitors present were for a while quite unable to +enjoy the joke. + +It is to be feared the three R's were not much patronized in East Anglia, +if it be true that some forty or fifty years ago, in such a respectable +town as Sudbury, it was the fashion for some fifty of the leading +inhabitants to meet in the large bar-parlour of the old White Horse to +hear the leading paper of the eastern counties read out by a scholar and +elocutionist known as John. For the discharge of this important duty he +was paid a pound a year, and provided with as much free liquor as he +liked, and there were people who considered that the Saturday +newspaper-reading did them more good than what they heard at church the +next day. + +In some cases our East Anglian dialect is merely a survival of old +English, as when we say 'axe' for 'ask.' We find in Chaucer: + + 'It is but foly and wrong wenging + To axe so outrageous thing.' + +In his 'Envious Man,' Gowing made 'axeth' to rhyme with 'taxeth.' No +word is more common in Suffolk than 'fare'; a pony is a 'hobby'; a thrush +is a 'mavis'; a chest is a 'kist'; a shovel is a 'skuppet'; a chaffinch +is a 'spink.' If a man is upset in his mind, he tells us he is 'wholly +stammed,' and the Suffolk 'yow' is at least as old as Chaucer, who wrote: + + 'What do you ye do there, quod she, + Come, and if it lyke yow + To daucen daunceth with us now.' + +An awkward lad is 'ungain.' A good deal may be written to show that our +Suffolk dialect is the nearest of all provincial dialects to that of +Chaucer and the Bible, and if anyone has the audacity to contradict me, +why, then, in Suffolk phraseology, I can promise him--'a good hiding.' + +I am old enough to remember how placid was the county, how stay-at-home +were the people, what a sensation there was created when anyone went to +London, or any stranger appeared in our midst. From afar we heard of +railways; then we had a railway opened from London to Brentwood; then the +railways spread all over the land, and there were farmers who did think +that they had something to do with the potato disease. The change was +not a pleasant one: the turnpikes were deserted; the inns were void of +customers; no longer did the villagers hasten to see the coach change +horses, and the bugle of the guard was heard no more. For a time the +Eastern Counties Railway had a somewhat dolorous career. It was thought +to be something to be thankful for when the traveller by it reached his +journey's end in decent time and without an accident. Now the change is +marvellous. The Great Eastern Railway stands in the foremost rank of the +lines terminating in London. It now runs roundly 20,000,000 of train +miles in the course of a year. It carries a larger number of passengers +than any other line. It carries the London working man twelve miles in +and twelve miles out for twopence a day. It is the direct means of +communication with all the North of Europe by its fine steamers from +Harwich. It has yearly an increased number of season-ticket-holders. On +a Whit Monday it gives 125,000 excursionists a happy day in the country +or by the seaside. In 1891 the number of passengers carried was +81,268,661, exclusive of season-ticket-holders. It is conspicuous now +for its punctuality and freedom from accidents. It is, in short, a model +of good management, and it also deserves credit for looking well after +the interests of its employes, of whom there are some 25,000. It +contributes to the Accident Fund, to the Provident Society, to the +Superannuation Fund, and to the Pension Fund, to which the men also +subscribe, in the most liberal manner, and besides has established a +savings bank, which returns the men who place their money in it four per +cent. It is a liberal master. It does its duty to its men, who deserve +well of the public as of the Great Eastern Railway itself; but its main +merit, after all, is that it has been the making of East Anglia. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +THE STRICKLANDS. + + +Reydon Hall--The clergy--Pakefield--Social life in a village. + +As I write I have lying before me a little book called 'Hugh Latimer; or, +The School-boy's Friendship,' by Miss Strickland, author of the 'Little +Prisoner,' 'Charles Grant,' 'Prejudice and Principle,' 'The Little +Quaker.' It bears the imprint--'London: Printed for A. R. Newman and +Co., Leadenhall Street.' On a blank page inside I find the following: +'James Ewing Ritchie, with his friend Susanna's affectionate regards.' +Susanna was a sister of Miss Agnes Strickland, the authoress, and was as +much a writer as herself. The Stricklands were a remarkable family, +living about four or five miles from Wrentham, on the road leading from +Wangford to Southwold, at an old-fashioned residence called Reydon Hall. +They had, I fancy, seen better days, and were none the worse for that. +The Stricklands came over with William the Conqueror. One of them was +the first to land, and hence the name. A good deal of blue blood flowed +in their veins. Kate--to my eyes the fairest of the lot--was named +Katherine Parr, to denote that she was a descendant of one of the wives +of the too-much-married Henry VIII., and in the old-fashioned +drawing-room of Reydon Hall I heard not a little--they all talked at +once--of what to me was strange and rare. Mr. Strickland had deceased +some years, and the widow and the daughters kept up what little state +they could; and I well remember the feeling of surprise with which I +first entered their capacious drawing-room--a room the size of which it +had never entered into my head to conceive of. It is to the credit of +these Misses Strickland that they did not vegetate in that old house, but +held a fair position in the world of letters. Miss Strickland herself +chiefly resided in town. Agnes, the next, whose 'Queens of England' is +still a standard book, was more frequently at home. The only one of the +family who did not write was Sarah, who married one of the Radical +Childses of Bungay, and who not till after the death of her husband +became respectable and atoned for her sins by marrying a clergyman. +Kate, as I have said, the fairest of the whole, married an officer in the +army of the name of Traill, and went out to Canada, and wrote there a +book called 'The Backwoods of Canada,' which was certainly one of the +most popular of the four-and-sixpenny volumes published under the +auspices of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful and Entertaining +Knowledge. Our friend was Susanna, who wrote a volume of poems on +Enthusiasm, and who seemed to me, with her dark eyes and hair, a very +enthusiastic personage indeed. The reason of her friendship with our +family was her deeply religious nature, which impelled her to leave the +cold and careless service of the Church--not a little to the disgust of +her aristocratic sisters, who, as of ancient lineage, not a little +haughty, and rank Tories, had but little sympathy with Dissent.. Susanna +was much at our house, and when away scarcely a day passed on which she +did not write some of us a letter or send us a book. Then there was a +brother Tom, a midshipman--a wonderful being to my inexperienced +eyes--who once or twice came to our house seated in the family +donkey-chaise, which seemed to me, somehow or other, not to be an +ordinary donkey-chaise, but something of a far superior character. I +have pleasant recollections of them all, and of the annuals in which they +all wrote, and a good many of which fell to my share. Like her sister, +Susanna married an officer in the army--a Major Moodie--and emigrated to +Canada, where the Stricklands have now a high position, where she had +sons and daughters born to her, and wrote more than one novel which found +acceptance in the English market. The Stricklands gave me quite a +literary turn. When I was a small boy it was really an everyday +occurrence for me to write a book or edit a newspaper, and with about as +much success as is generally achieved by bookmakers and newspaper +editors, whose merit is overlooked by an unthinking public. Let me say +in the Stricklands I found an indulgent audience. On one occasion I +remember reciting some verses of my own composition, commencing, + +'I sing a song of ancient men, + Of warriors great and bold, +Of Hercules, a famous man, + Who lived in times of old. +He was a man of great renown, + A lion large he slew, +And to his memory games were kept, + Which now I tell to you,' + +which they got me to repeat in their drawing-room, and which, though I +say it that should not, evinced for a boy a fair acquaintance with +'Mangnall's Questions' and Pinnock's abridgment of Goldsmith's 'History +of Rome.' Happily, at that time, Niebuhr was unknown, and sceptical +criticism had not begun its deadly work. We had not to go far for truth +then. It was quite unnecessary to seek it--at any rate, so it seemed to +us--at the bottom of a well; there it was right underneath one's +nose--before one's very eyes in the printed pages of the printed book. + +Agnes Strickland did all she could to confer reputation on her native +county. The tall, dark, self-possessed lady from Reydon Hall was a lion +everywhere. On one occasion she visited the House of Lords, just after +she had written a violent letter against Lord Campbell, charging him with +plagiarism. Campbell tells us he had a conversation with her, which +speedily turned her into a friend. He adds: 'I thought Brougham would +have died with envy when I told him the result of my interview, and +Ellenborough, who was sitting by, lifted his hands in admiration. +Brougham had thrown me a note across the table, saying: "So you know your +friend Miss Strickland has come to hear you."' Miss Strickland often +visited Alison, the historian, at Possil House. He says of her that she +had strong talents of a masculine rather than feminine +character--indefatigable perseverance, and that ardour in whatever +pursuit she engaged in without which no one could undergo similar +fatigue. On one occasion she was descanting on the noble feeling of +Queen Mary, 'That may all be very true, Miss Strickland,' replied the +historian; 'but unfortunately she had an awkward habit of burning +people--she brought 239 men, women, and children to the stake in a reign +which did not extend beyond a few years!' 'Oh yes,' was her reply, 'it +was terrible, dreadful, but it was the fault of the age--the temper of +the times; Mary herself was everything that is noble and heroic.' Such +was her feminine tendency to hero-worship. Another tendency of a +feminine character was her love of talking. 'She did,' instances Sir +Archibald, 'not even require an answer or a sign of mutual intelligence; +it was enough if the one she was addressing simply remained passive. One +day when I was laid up at Possil on my library sofa from a wound in the +knee, she was kind enough to sit with me for two hours, and was really +very entertaining, from the number of anecdotes she remembered of queens +in the olden time. When she left the room she expressed herself kindly +to Mrs. Alison as to the agreeable time she had spent, and the latter +said to me on coming in, "What did you get to say to Miss Strickland all +this time? She says you were so agreeable, and she was two hours here." +"Say!" I replied with truth; "I assure you I did not say six words to her +the whole time."' Agnes was a terrible one to talk--as, indeed, all the +Stricklands were. In Suffolk such accomplished conversationalists were +rare. + +It must have been, now I come to think of it, a dismal old house, +suggestive of rats and dampness and mould, that Reydon Hall, with its +scantily furnished rooms and its unused attics and its empty barns and +stables, with a general air of decay all over the place, inside and out. +It had a dark, heavy roof and whitewashed walls, and was externally +anything but a showy place, standing, as it did, a little way from the +road. It must have been a difficulty with the family to keep up the +place, and the style of living was altogether plain; yet there I heard a +good deal of literary life in London, of Thomas Pringle, the poet, and +the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, whose 'Residence in South +Africa' is still one of the most interesting books on that quarter of the +world, and of whom Josiah Conder, one of the great men of my smaller +literary world at that time, wrote an appreciative biographical sketch. +Mr. Pringle, let me remind my readers, was the original editor of +_Blackwood's Magazine_, a magazine which still maintains its reputation +as being the best of its class. Mr. Pringle, I believe, at some time or +other, had visited Wrentham; at any rate, the Stricklands, especially +Susanna, were among his intimate friends, and, from what I heard, I could +well believe, when, at a later period, I visited his grave in Bunhill +Fields, what I found recorded there--that 'In the walks of British +literature he was known as a man of genius; in the domestic circle he was +loved as an affectionate relative and faithful friend; in the wide sphere +of humanity he was revered as the advocate and protector of the +oppressed,' who 'left among the children of the African desert a memorial +of his philanthropy, and bequeathed to his fellow-countrymen an example +of enduring virtue.' At the home of the Pringles the Stricklands made +many literary acquaintances, such as Alaric Watts, and Mrs. S. C. Hall, +and others of whom I heard them talk. At that time, however, literature +was not, as far as women were concerned, the lucrative profession it has +since become, and I have a dim remembrance of their paintings--for in +this respect the Stricklands, like my own mother, were very +accomplished--being sold at the Soho Bazaar, a practice which helped to +maintain them in the respectability and comfort becoming their position +in life. But in London they never forgot the old home, and wrote so much +about it in their stories, that there was not a flower, or shrub, or +tree, or hedge, or mossy bank redolent in early spring of primroses and +violets, to which they had not given, to my boyish eyes, a glory and a +charm. This reference to painting reminds me of a feature of my young +days, not without interest, in connection with the name of Cunningham--a +name at one time well known in the religious world. + +The reader must be reminded that the reverend gentleman referred to was a +_rara avis_, and that between him and the neighbouring clergy there was +little sympathy--unless the common rallying cry of 'The Church in +Danger!' was raised as an electioneering dodge. The clergyman at +Wrentham at that time, who declared himself the appointed vessel of grace +for the parish, I have been led to believe, since I have become older, +was by no means a saint, and his brethren were notorious as evil-livers. +Some twenty years ago one of them had his effects sold off, and his +library was viewed with no little amusement by his parishioners, to many +of whom, if popular fame be an authority, he was more than a spiritual +father. The library contained only one book that could be called +theological, and the title of that wonderfully unique volume was, 'Die +and be Damned; or, An End of the Methodists.' All the other books were +exclusively sporting, while the pictures were such as would have been a +disgrace to Holywell Street. It was of him that the clerk said that +'next Sunday there would be no Divine sarvice, as maaster was going to +Newmarket.' Once upon a time after a sermon one of his flock approached +him, as he had been preaching on miracles, to ask him to explain what a +miracle really was. The reverend gentleman gave his rustic inquirer a +kick, adding, 'Did you feel that?' + +'Oh yes, sir; but what of that?' + +'Why,' said the reverend gentleman, 'if you had not felt it, it would +have been a miracle, that is all.' Yet that man was as popular as any +parson in the district, perhaps more so, and it was with some indignation +in certain quarters that the people learned that a new Bishop had come to +Norwich, and that the parson had been deprived of his living for immoral +conduct. Of another it is said that, calling on a poor villager, dying +and full of gloomy anticipations as to the future, all he could say was, +'Don't be frightened; I dare say you will meet a good many people you +know.' I have often heard old men talk of the time when they used to +take the parson home in a wheelbarrow--but that was before we had a +Sunday-school, at which I was a regular teacher. The church had a +Sunday-school, but not till after the one in the chapel had existed many +years. Of these ornaments of the Church and foes of Dissent, some had +apparently a sense of shame--one of them, at any rate, committed suicide. + +At Pakefield, some seven miles from Wrentham, and just on the borders of +Lowestoft, then, as now, the most eastern extremity of England, resided +the Rev. Francis Cunningham. He was a clergyman of piety and +philanthropy, rare at that time in that benighted district, and in this +respect he was aided by his wife, a little dark woman whom I well +remember, a sister of the far-famed John Joseph Gurney, of Earlham. It +is with pleasure I quote the following from the Journal of Caroline Fox: +'A charming story of F. Cunningham coming in to prayers just murmuring +something about the study being on fire, and proceeding to read a long +chapter and make equally long comments thereupon. When the reading was +over, and the fact became public, he observed, "Yes, I saw it was a +little on fire, but I opened the window on leaving the room."' Mr. +Cunningham had much to do with establishing a branch of the British and +Foreign Bible Society in Paris in connection with the Buxtons. In this +way, but on a smaller scale, the Cunninghams were equally distinguished, +and one of the things they had established at Pakefield was an infant +school, to which I, in company with my parents--indeed, I may add, the +whole family--was taken, in order, if possible, that our little village +should possess a similar institution. But my principal pilgrimages to +the Pakefield vicarage were in connection with some mission to aid +Oberlin in his grand work amongst the mountains and valleys of +Switzerland. It appeared Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham had visited the good +man, and watched him in his career, and had come back to England to gain +for him, if possible, sympathy and friends. Mrs. Cunningham had taken +drawings of the principal objects of interest, which had been +lithographed, and these lithographs my mother, who in her way was as +great an enthusiast as Susanna Strickland herself, was very anxious to +obtain; the financial position of the family, however, forbade any +thought of purchase. But she had a wonderful gift of painting, and she +painted while we children were learning the Latin grammar, or preparing +our lessons in the Delectus, much to my terror, as I had a habit of +restlessness which, by shaking the table, not only impaired her work, but +drew down upon me not a little of reproach; and with these paintings I +was despatched on foot to Pakefield, where, in return for them, I was +given the famous lithographs, which were to be preserved for many a year +in the spare room we called the parlour--drawing-rooms at that time in +East Anglia were, I think, unknown. What a joy it was to us children +when that parlour had its fire lit, and we found out that company was +coming--partly, I must add, for sensual reasons. We knew that the best +tea-things were to be used, that unusual delicacies were to be placed +upon the table, and I must do my mother the justice to say that she could +cook as well as she could paint; but for other and higher motives, and +not as an occasion of feasting or for the disuse of the economical +pinafore which was always worn to keep our clothes clean, did we rejoice +when we found there was to be tea in the parlour. If young people were +coming, we were sure to dissect puzzles, or play some game which combined +amusement with instruction; and if the party consisted of seniors, as on +the occasion of the Book Club--almost all Dissenting congregations had +their Book Clubs then--it was a pleasure to listen to my father's talk, +who was a well-read man, and who, being a Scotchman, had inherited his +full share of Scotch wit, which, however, was enlivened with quotations +from 'Hudibras,' the only poet, alas! in whom he seemed to take any +particular interest. There, in the parlour, were the fraternal meetings +attended by all the neighbouring Independent ministers, all clad in sober +black, and whose wildest exploits in rollicking debauchery were confined +to a pipe and a glass of home-made wine. Madeira, port and sherry were +unknown in ministers' houses, though now and then one got a taste of them +at the houses of men better to do, and who, perhaps, had been as far as +London once or twice in their lives. Of these neighbouring ministers, +one of the most celebrated at that time was the Rev. Edward Walford, then +of Yarmouth, who afterwards became tutor of Homerton College, and who, +after the death of a favourite and accomplished daughter--I can still +remember the gracefulness of her person--sank into a state of profound +melancholy, which led him to shut himself from his friends, to give up +all public preaching and tutorial work, and to consider himself as +hopelessly lost. It is a curious fact that he dated his return to reason +and happiness and usefulness after a visit paid him by my father, who +happened to be in town, and who naturally was drawn to see his afflicted +friend, with whom, in the days of auld lang syne, he had smoked many a +pipe and held many an argument respecting Edwards on Freedom of the Will, +and his favourite McKnight. Mrs. Walford, who was aware of my father's +intended visit, had thoughtfully prepared pipes and tobacco, and placed +them on the table of the room where the interview was to take place. My +father went and smoked his pipe and talked as usual, poor Mr. Walford +sitting sad and dejected, and refusing to be comforted all the while. +When my father had left--owing, I suppose, to the force of old +associations--actually the poor man approached the table, took up a pipe, +filled it with tobacco, and smoked it. From that hour, strange to say, +he recovered, wrote a translation of the Psalms, became a trustee of +Coward's College, and took charge of a church at Uxbridge. This is 'a +fac,' as Artemus Ward would say, and 'facs' are stubborn things. Of this +Mr. Walford, the well-known publisher of that name in St. Paul's +Churchyard was a son, and the firm of Hodder and Stoughton may be said to +carry on his business, though on a larger scale. + +Dressed in rusty black, with hats considerably the worse for wear, with +shoes not ignorant of the cobbler's art, unconscious of and careless for +the fashions of the world, rarely in London, except on the occasion of +the May Meetings--no one can tell, except those who, like myself, were +admitted behind the scenes, as it were, how these good men lived to keep +alive the traditions of freedom, civil and religious, in districts most +under the sway of the ignorant squire and the equally ignorant parson of +the parish. If there has been a decency and charm about our country life +it is due to them, and them alone. Perhaps, more in the country than in +the crowded city is the pernicious influence felt of sons of Belial, +flushed with insolence and wine. It is difficult to give the reader an +idea of the utter animalism, if I may so term it, of rural life some +fifty years ago. For small wages these Dissenting ministers did a noble +work, in the way of preserving morals, extending education, promoting +religion, and elevating the aim and tone of |the little community in +which they lived, and moved, and had their being. At home the +difficulties of such of them as had large families were immense. The +pocket was light, and too often there was but little in the larder. But +they laboured on through good and bad report, and now they have their +reward. Perhaps one of their failings was that they kept too much the +latter end in view, and were too indifferent to present needs and +requirements. They did not try to make the best of both worlds. I can +never forget a remark addressed to me by all the good men of the class +with whom I was familiar in my childhood as to the need of getting on in +life and earning an honest penny, and becoming independent in a pecuniary +point of view. I was to be a good boy, to love the Lord, to study the +Assembly's Catechism, to read the Bible, as if outside the village there +was no struggle into which sooner or later I should have to plunge--no +hard battle with the world to fight, no temporal victory to win. + + + + +CHAPTER III +LOWESTOFT. + + +Yarmouth bloaters--George Borrow--The town fifty years ago--The +distinguished natives. + +'I'm a-thinking you'll be wanting half a pint of beer by this time, won't +you?' + +Such were the first words I heard as I left the hotel where I was a +temporary sojourner about nine o'clock. Of course I turned to look at +the speaker. He wore an oilskin cap, with a great flap hanging over the +back of the neck; his oilskin middle was encased in a thick blue +guernsey; his trousers were hidden in heavy jack-boots, which came up +above his knees; his face was red, and his body was almost as round as +that of a porpoise. When I add that the party addressed was similarly +adorned and was of a similar build, the reader will guess at once that I +was amongst a seafaring community, and let me add that this supposition +is correct. I was, in fact, at Lowestoft, and Lowestoft just now is, +with Yarmouth, the headquarters of the herring fishery. The truth is, as +the poet tells us, 'Things are not what they seem,' and that many of the +Yarmouth bloaters which we are in the habit of indulging in at breakfast +in reality come from Lowestoft. + +It is worth going from London at the season of the year when the finest +bloaters are being caught, to realize the peril and the enterprise and +the industry connected with the herring trade, which employs some five +hundred boats, manned by seven to twelve men, who work the business on +the cooperative system, which, when the season is a good one, gives a +handsome remuneration to all concerned, and which drains the country of +young men for miles around. Each boat is furnished with some score of +nets, and each net extends more than thirty-two yards. The boat puts off +according to the tide, and if it gets a good haul, at once returns to the +harbour with its freight; if the catch is indifferent, the boat stays +out; the fish are salted as they are caught, and then the boat, generally +at a distance of about twenty miles from the shore, waits till a +sufficient number have been caught to complete the cargo. When that is +the case, the boat at once makes for Lowestoft, and the fish are unloaded +under a shed in heaps of about half a last (a last is professedly 10,000 +herrings, but really much more). At nine a bell rings and the various +auctioneers commence operations. A crowd is formed, and in a very few +minutes a lot is sold off to traders who are well known, and who pay at +the end of the week. The auctioneer then proceeds to the next group, +which is disposed of in a similar way. Other auctioneers in various +parts of the enormous shed erected for their accommodation do the same, +and then, as more boats arrive, other cargoes are sold, the sailors +bringing a hundred as a sample from the boat. And thus all day long the +work of selling goes on, and as soon as a lot are sold they are packed up +with ice, if fresh, or with more salt, if already salted, and despatched +by train to various quarters of England, where, it is to be presumed, +they meet with a speedy and immediate sale. In this way as many as one +hundred and ninety-eight trucks are sometimes sent off in a single day. +But in London we are familiar with the kipper, the red herring, and the +Yarmouth bloater, and to see how they are prepared for consumption I +leave the market--always wet and fishy and slippery--and make my way to +the extensive premises on the beach belonging to Mr. Thomas Brown--the +only Brown whose name is familiar to the fish-dealer in every market in +England, and the extent of whose business may be best realized by the +reader when I state that Mr. Brown sends off from his factory as many as +forty lasts a week. + +An intelligent foreman, after I have evaded the attack of a formidable +dog which keeps watch and ward over the premises, explains to me the +mystery of the trade. I find myself in the midst of a square. On one +side are a great stack of oak and many casks of old salt. The latter, I +gather, is sold to be used as manure. The former is applied to the fire, +which gently smokes the Yarmouth bloater. On one side, the herrings, as +they are received, are pickled--that is, first washed in fresh water, and +then immersed in great tubs in which the water is mixed with salt. The +next thing is to take them into a room in which several women are engaged +in spitting them--that is, hanging them on rods--and then they are +carried to the apartment where they are hung up, while oak logs are burnt +beneath. In twelve hours they are sufficiently smoked, and then you have +the real Yarmouth bloater. I am glad I have seen the process, as I have +a horrible suspicion that the costermonger manufactures many a Yarmouth +bloater in some filthy Whitechapel slum, the odour of which by no means +tends to improve the flavour of so delicate a fish. + +But we have to discuss the red-herring, not of the artful politician, +anxious to dodge his hearers, but of the breakfast-table. For this +purpose I am taken to a large oven filled with oak sawdust, gathered from +Ipswich, and oak shavings, which are also brought from a distance, +principally from Bass's Brewery, and, indeed, from all the great works +where oak is used; I see heaps of fire made from these ashes, which give +out much heat, and at the same time much smoke. In a loft above are hung +the herrings, and there they hang twelve days, till they gradually become +of the colour of a guinea, when they are packed up and sent away in +casks, while the bloaters go away in baskets of a hundred, in pots +holding a smaller number, and in barrels in which as many as three +hundred are stowed away. As to the kippered herring, he undergoes quite +a different treatment. Some twenty or thirty women get hold of him, cut +him open, take out his gut and wash him, and then he is hung over an oak +fire and smoked for twelve hours, and thus, saturated with smoke inside +and out, is regarded in many circles as a delicacy to be highly prized. +But he must be got off the premises. Well, if we climb to a loft, we +shall see a good many young women hard at work stripping the rods, on +which he and his fellows have been suspended, and stowing the fish away. +In the autumn especially the peculiar industries connected with the trade +are very considerably exercised. All day long carts come in with the +fish; all day long carts go out with the manufactured articles to the +railway-station; day and night the men and women are at work; in one +quarter the women make and mend the nets, which are then boiled in cutch +and put on board the boats; in another quarter coopers are at work making +boxes and casks and barrels. As to the baskets, the country is ransacked +for them, and as soon as they are filled they take the train and away +they go, to give a flavour to the potato dinner of the poor man, or to +form a tasty adjunct to the dishes under which the breakfast table of his +lord and master groans. In London we get the best--the smaller herrings +go to the North, as the dwellers in those parts will not pay the price +the Londoner does. Great is the joy and rejoicing, as well can be +imagined, at Lowestoft when the herring season comes on. It is true, the +Lowestoft fishers do not have it all to themselves. Yarmouth is a fierce +rival in the race, and, as it has now superior accommodation, many a boat +makes for that far-famed port. Then, the Scotch, when they have done +their fishing, make for the English coast, and manage, as Scotchmen ever +do, to gather a fair share of the spoil. As to the foreigners, they are +not such formidable rivals as sometimes we are apt to believe. The +Frenchman or the Dutchman comes, but that is when he is blown off by a +gale from his own happy hunting-ground, and then we know, all the world +over, the cry is, 'Any port in a storm.' + +Oh, these storms! how terrible they are! and how little, as we eat our +Yarmouth bloater of a morning, or spread the bloater-paste as a covering +to the thin slice of bread-and-butter, to tempt the languid appetite--how +little do we who sit at home at ease realize their fury and their power! +As I now write, twenty-one orphans are bewailing the loss of fathers who +went out in a craft during the last gale, and of whom no sign has been +seen, nor ever will. Hour by hour the women, weeping and watching on the +sandy shore, saw one and another familiar boat come, more or less +buffeted, into port. On more than one a hand had been washed away, but +the craft and the rest of the crew were saved somehow. But one boat yet +remained missing, and in vain the survivors were questioned as to what +had become of the _Skimmer of the Sea_. Day by day anxious eyes swept +the distant horizon. Day by day a sadder weight came down on weeping +child and broken-hearted wife; and now all hope is gone, and all felt +that in the fury of the gale the _Skimmer of the Sea_ foundered with all +her hands. Well, as the good old Admiral said, as he and his men were +about to perish, 'My lads, the way to heaven is as short by sea as by +land.' But the wounded heart in the agony of its grief is slow to +realize that fact. Sailors ought to be serious men; every halfpenny they +earn is won at the risk of a life. In Lowestoft, I am glad to find, many +of them are. 'The Salvation Army has done 'em a deal of good,' says a +decent woman, with whom I happened to scrape an acquaintance at the most +attractive coffee-house I have ever seen--the Coffee Pot at Mutford +Bridge. 'Not that I holds with the Salvation Army myself, sir, but +they've done the men a deal of good, and they don't spend their wages, as +they used to do, in drink.' + +Lowestoft, when I was there last, had just lost one of its heroes--I mean +the late Mr. George Borrow--whose 'Bible in Spain' was the talk of the +season in religious and worldly circles alike, and whose writings on +Gipsies and Wild Wales and the 'Bible in Spain' achieved at one time an +enormous popularity. He lived--I can still remember his tall form--on a +bank a couple of miles out of Lowestoft, sloping down to a large piece of +water known in those parts as Oulton Broad. The tourist, if he looks to +his right just after he has passed Mutford Bridge on the rail from +Lowestoft to Beccles, across the wide sheet of water, which, as I saw it +last, lay calm and blue in the fading glory of an autumnal sun, will +perhaps see a white house at a distance, nestled in among the +fir-trees--that was where George Borrow lived, and where he died, though +he was buried in Brompton Cemetery by the side of his wife. You cannot +make a mistake, for houses are rare in those parts. As his step-daughter +observed to me, the proper way is by water; to get to the house by +land--at least as I did--you walk along the rail for a couple of miles, +then break off across a bit of a swamp, to a little lane that conducts +you to Oulton Church--a very ancient one, which, however, is in a state +of good repair and is noted partly on account of the fact that the +steeple is built in the middle, and partly on account of its containing, +so it is said, the earliest example of a brass to an ecclesiastic which +is to be found in England. A narrow path from the church leads you to +Oulton Hall, which came into the possession of Borrow by marriage, really +a very plain, red-brick, capacious, comfortable-looking old farmhouse, +only of a superior class. Keeping the Hall to the right, you reach a +gate, which opens into a very narrow lane, full of mud in the winter and +dust in the summer. The lane loses itself in the marshland, on the +borders of Lake Lothing--a name supposed to have been derived from a +certain Danish prince, murdered on the spot by a jealous Court retainer; +and it is a fitting place for a murder, as in that lonely district there +was no eye to pity, no ear to hear, no hand to save. Even to-day, as you +look away from the train, there is little sign of life, save the sail of +a distant wherry as it makes sluggishly for Norwich or Beccles, as it +goes either into the Waveney or the Yare; or the gray wing of the heron +as it flies heavily along the marsh; and that is all. Far away, perhaps, +rises a ridge, with a house on it; or a steeple, with a few trees +struggling to yield the barren spot a shelter from the suns of summer or +the howling winds of winter; but all is still life there, and the +habitations of men are few and far between. In the particular lane to +which I have introduced the reader--there are but two--there is a little +cottage on your left, and beyond, under a group of trees, mostly fir, +which almost hide it from view, a home of a rather superior character, in +a very dilapidated condition, with everything around it more or less +untidy--that was where George Borrow lived and worked in his way for many +a long day. The step-daughter and her husband reside there now--very +ancient people, who are to be seen driving about Lowestoft in a little +wicker car, drawn by an amiable and active donkey, an aged dog guarding +the cottage during their temporary absence. The female, an ancient one, +who did for the house, lives in the little cottage which the tourist will +have already observed, and the interior of which presented, when I peeped +in, a far greater idea of comfort than did Oulton Cottage, the residence +of the late George Borrow. The picture one gets is rather a melancholy +one. 'He was a funny-tempered man'--that seems to have been the idea of +the few people around. Latterly he kept no company, and no one came to +see him. All who did call on him, however, tell me that he was well +dressed, but that all the interior of the house was dirty. Well, that +was to be expected of a man who loved to live with the gipsies, and +patter to them in Romany of Egyptian lore, for it could not have been +want of means. Borrow must have made a good deal of money by his books, +and I have heard his landed property estimated at five hundred per year. +The house looked like the residence of a miser who would not lay out a +penny in keeping up appearances or in repairs. It must be remembered, +however, that the grand old man had long become bowed with age; that for +some years before his death he was scarcely able to move himself without +help; that the grasshopper, as it were, had become a burden. In summer +time such a residence, in good repair and well furnished, would be +perfectly charming. The house contains a sitting-room on each side of +the entrance-hall. Behind is the kitchen, and above are four bedrooms +and two attics--none of them large, I own, but at any rate capable of +being made very cosy. On your right, in a little niche in the cliff, is +a small stable. Lower down is a large summer-house, then full of books +(amongst them, I believe, there were a hundred lexicons), where their +learned proprietor loved to write. Farther down the lawn you come to the +lake, where Borrow could enjoy his morning bath without fear of being +disturbed, and where any amount of fish can be got. Just previous to my +last visit to the spot a pike of more than twenty pounds' weight--I am +afraid to say how many pounds more, lest the reader should think I was +exaggerating--had been caught. For a real angler or sportsman such a +house as that in which George Borrow spent the latter years of his long +life must have been a perfect paradise. The world is utterly away from +you, and, what is better still, in such a spot the world has no chance of +finding you out. Approaching by road, you see no sign of the house till +you are in it, so completely is it hidden in the nook of trees in which +it stands. Only to the water is it open. It would be really beautiful +to live there in the summer, and have a gondola to row into Beccles or +Lowestoft or Bungay when you wanted to be gay. + +One good anecdote I heard of George Borrow the last time I was in the +neighbourhood, which is worth repeating. My informant was an Independent +minister, at that time supplying the pulpit at Lowestoft, and staying at +Oulton Hall, then inhabited by a worthy Dissenting tenant. One night a +meeting of the Bible Society was held at Mutford Bridge, at which the +party from the Hall attended, and where George Borrow was one of the +speakers. After the meeting was over, all the speakers went back to +supper at Oulton Hall, and my friend among them, who, in the course of +the supper, found himself attacked very violently by the clergyman for +holding Calvinistic opinions. Naturally my friend replied that the +clergyman was bound to do the same. 'How do you make that out?' 'Why, +the Articles of your Church are Calvinistic, and to them you have sworn +assent.' 'Oh yes, but there is a way of explaining them away.' 'How +so?' said my friend. 'Oh,' replied the clergyman, 'we are not bound to +take the words in their natural sense.' My friend, an honest, blunt East +Anglian, intimated that he did not understand that way of evading the +difficulty; but he was then a young man, and did not like to continue the +discussion further. However, George Borrow, who had not said a word +hitherto, entered into the discussion, opening fire on the clergyman in a +very unexpected manner, and giving him such a setting down as the +hearers, at any rate, never forgot. All the sophistry about the +non-natural meaning of terms was held up by Borrow to ridicule, even +contempt; and the clergyman was beaten at every point. 'Never,' says my +friend, 'did I hear one man give another such a dressing as on that +occasion.' It was not always, however, that Borrow thus shone. In the +neighbourhood of Bungay lived a gentleman much given to collect around +him men of literary taste and culture. A lecture was to be given in the +neighbourhood, and all the men of light and leading around were invited. +George Borrow was one of the earliest arrivals, and seated himself before +the fire with a book in his hand, over which he nodded superciliously, as +the host brought up all his guests in succession to be introduced to the +lion of the town. At dinner which followed, which was rather a jovial +one, and at which the bottle went round freely, so loud and general was +the conversation that my friend, a clever lawyer, with remarkably good +ears, was quite unable to catch a sentence from the great author's lips. +Perhaps Borrow really did say nothing, or next to nothing. It is quite +as likely that he did as not, as I have already informed the reader that +'he was a funny-tempered man.' + +'Catherine Gurney,' writes Caroline Fox, 'gave us a note to George +Borrow, so on him we called--a tall, ungainly man, with great physical +strength, quick, penetrating eye, a confident manner, and a disagreeable +tone and pronunciation.' We gather from the same lady that it was Joseph +John Gurney who recommended George Borrow to the Committee of the Bible +Society. 'So he stalked up to London, and they gave him a hymn to +translate into the Manchow language, and the same to one of their people +to translate also. When compared they proved to be very different. When +put before their reader, he had the candour to say that Borrow's was much +the better of the two. On this they sent him to Petersburg to get it +printed, and then gave him business in Portugal.' + +One thing is clear--that Borrow was a lonely man, and evidently one who +did not hold the resources of civilization in such esteem as Mr. +Gladstone does. He loved Nature and her ways, and people like the +gipsies, who are supposed to be of a similar way of thinking. He +eschewed the hum of cities and the roar of the 'madding crowd.' He was +big in body and in mind, and wanted elbow-room; and yet what would he +have been if he had not lived in a city, and come under the stimulative +influence of such men as Edward Taylor, of Norwich? It is idle to +complain of cities, however they sully the air, and deface the land, and +pollute the water, and rear the weak and vicious and the wicked--to +remind us how low and depraved human nature can become when it is cut off +from communion with Nature and Nature's God. Borrow owed much to cities, +and was best appreciated by the men who dwelt in them. There is often a +good deal of affectation about the love of rural solitude, nor does it +often last long when there is a wife to have a voice in the matter. Yet +in Borrow undoubtedly the feeling was sincere, and of him Wordsworth +might have written-- + + 'As in the eye of Nature he has lived, + So in the eye of Nature let him die.' + +Lowestoft was a frequent attraction for a youthful ramble--perhaps almost +too far, unless one could manage to get a lift in a little yellow-painted +black-bodied vehicle called a whisky, which was grandfather's property, +and into the shafts of which could be put any spare quadruped, whether +donkey, or mule, or pony, it mattered little, and which afforded a +considerable relief when a trip as far as Lowestoft was determined on. +At that time there was no harbour, and the town consisted simply of one +High Street, gradually rising towards the north, with a fine space for +boys to play in between the cliff and the sea, called the denes. I can +well remember being taken to view the works of the harbour before the +water was let in, and not a little astonished at what then was to me a +new world of engineering science and skill. In the High Street there was +a little old-fashioned and by no means flourishing Independent Chapel, +where at one time the preacher was the Rev. Mr. Maurice, the father of +the Mr. Maurice to whom many owe a great awakening of spiritual life, and +whose memory they still regard as that of a beloved and honoured teacher. +Mr. Maurice was a Unitarian, I believe, and, when he retired, handed over +the chapel to my father with the remark that it was no use his preaching +there any longer. The preacher in my time was the Rev. George Steffe +Crisp, a kindly, timid, tearful man, always in difficulties with his +people, and who often resorted to Wrentham for advice. Latterly he +retired from the ministry, and kept a shop and school. In this capacity +one day my old friend John Childs, of Bungay, the far-famed printer--of +whom I shall have much to say anon--called on him, when the following +dialogue took place: 'Good-morning, Mr. Crisp.' 'Good-morning, Mr. +Childs.' 'Well, how are you getting on?' 'Oh, very well; but there is +one thing that troubles me much.' 'What is that?' 'That I am getting +deaf, and can't hear my minister.' 'Oh,' was the cynical reply, 'you +ought to be thankful for your privileges.' + +Lowestoft is reported to have been a fishing station as early as the time +of the Romans; but the ancient town is supposed to have been long +engulfed by the resistless sea, for there was to be seen till the 25th of +Henry VIII. the remains of an old house upon an inundated spot--left dry +at low water about four furlongs east of the present beach. The town has +been the birthplace of many distinguished men--of Sir Thomas Allen, for +instance, who was steadily attached to the Royal cause, and who after the +Restoration rose high in command, and won many a victory over the Dutch +and the Algerines; of Sir Andrew Leake, who fell in the attack on +Gibraltar; of Rear-Admiral Richard Utbar, also a renowned fighter when +England and Holland were at war. To the same town also belong Admiral +Sir John Ashby, who died in 1693, and his nephew Vice-Admiral James +Mighells. Nor must we fail to do justice to Thomas Nash, a facetious +writer of considerable reputation in the latter part of the sixteenth +century. The most witty of his productions is a satirical pamphlet in +praise of red herrings, intended as a joke upon the great staple of +Yarmouth, and the pretensions of that place to superiority over +Lowestoft. It must be confessed that Nash is chiefly famous as a caustic +pamphleteer and an unscrupulous satirist. For illustration we may point +to his battle with Gabriel Harvey, the friend of Edmund Spenser, who +desired that he might be epitaphed the inventor of the not yet +naturalized English hexameter; and his other battle with Martin Mar +Prelate, or the writer or writers who passed under that name, and who +have acquired a reputation to which poor Nash can lay no claim. His one +conspicuous dramatic effort is 'Summer's Last Will and Testament.' Nash +wrote for bare existence--to use his own words, 'contending with the +cold, and conversing with scarcity.' Nash lived in an unpropitious age. +A recent French writer has placed him in the foremost rank of English +writers. Dr. Jusserand, the author referred to, in his accounts of the +English novel in the time of Shakespeare, tells us Nash was the most +successful exponent in England of the picturesque novel. The picturesque +novel is the forerunner of the realistic novel of modern times. It +portrays the life and fortunes of the picaro--the adventurer who tries +all roads to fortune. Spanish in its origin, it developed into a school +in which Defoe and Thackeray distinguished themselves. 'Nash,' writes +the French author, 'mingled serious scenes with his comedy, in order that +his romances might more nearly resemble real life.' In fact (he writes), +'Nash does not only possess the merit of learning how to observe the +ridiculous side of human nature, and of portraying in a full light +picturesque figures--now worthy of Teniers and now of Callot--some fat +and greasy, others lean and lank; he possesses a thing very rare with the +picturesque school, the faculty of being moved. He seems to have +foreseen the immense field of study which was to be opened later to the +novelist. A distant ancestor of Fielding, as Lilly and Sidney appear to +us to be distant ancestors of Richardson, he understands that a picture +of active life, reproducing only in the Spanish fashion scenes of comedy, +is incomplete and departs from reality. The greatest jesters, the most +arrogant, the most venturesome, have their days of anguish. No hero has +ever yet remained imprisoned from the cradle to the grave, and no one has +been able to live an irresponsible spectator, and not feel his heart +sometimes beat the quicker, nor bow his head unmoved. Nash caught a +glimpse of this.' As an illustration, Dr. Jusserand points to his 'Jack +Wilton'--'The best specimen of the picturesque tale in English literature +anterior to Defoe.' In Lowestoft they ought to keep his memory green. + +The writer well remembers the day when Mr., afterwards Sir, Morton Peto, +assembled the inhabitants of Lowestoft in the then dilapidated Town Hall, +and promised that if they would sell their ruined harbour works, and back +him in making a railway, their mackerel and herrings should be delivered +almost alive in Manchester, Liverpool, and London. The inhabitants +believed in the power of the enchanter, and Lowestoft is metamorphosed. +The old town remains upon its beautiful eminence, and memory clings to +the cliffs and to the denes, tenanted only, the one by wild rabbits, the +other by the merry children and the nets of the fishermen. But a new +town has grown up around the harbour--a grand hotel, excellent +lodging-houses, a new church; a great population have upset the romance, +and borne witness to the spirit of enterprise which characterizes this +generation. The new town has spread to Kirkley, has Londonized even +quiet Pakefield, and awakened a sleeping neighbourhood to what men call +life. + +At Lowestoft commence what are known to sailors as the Yarmouth Roads--a +grand stretch of sea protected by the sands, where an armada might anchor +secure; and it was a sight not to be seen now, when gigantic steamers do +all the business of the sea, to watch the hundreds of ships that would +come inside the Roads at certain seasons of the year. There, in the +winter-time--that is, from Lowestoft to Covehithe--I have seen the beach +strewed with wrecks, chiefly of rotten colliers, or ships in the corn +trade; but inside 'Lowestoft Roads,' to which they were guided by a +lighthouse on the cliff, they were supposed to be secure. Lowestoft at +that time, with its charming sands, was little known to the gay world, +and depended far more on the fishing than the bathing season. The former +was a busy time, and kept all the country round in a state of excitement. +Many were the men, for instance, who, even as far off as Wrentham, went +herring or mackerel fishing in the big craft, which, drawn up on the +beach when the season was over, seemed to me ships such as never had been +seen by the mariners of Tyre and Sidon; but the chief interest to me were +the vans in which the fish were carried from Lowestoft to London--light +spring-carts with four wheels and two horses, that, after changing horses +at our Spread Eagle, raced like lightning along the turnpike-road, at all +hours, and even on Sundays--a sad grievance to the godly--beating the +Yarmouth mail. + +Now and then, even at that remote period, when railways were not, and +when Lowestoft was no port, nothing but a fishing-station, distinguished +people came to Lowestoft, attracted by its bracing air and exceptional +bathing attractions. I can in this way recollect Sir Edward Parry and M. +Guizot. But there were other personages equally distinguished. One of +these was Mrs. Siddons, with whom an old Dissenting minister--the Rev. S. +Sloper, of Beccles, whom I can well remember--contracted quite an +intimacy. She had already passed the zenith of her celebrity. +'Providence,' writes my friend, Mr. Wilton Rix, of Beccles, in his 'East +Anglian Nonconformity,' published as far back as 1851, 'had repeatedly +and recently called her to tread in domestic life the path of sorrow, and +her religious advantages, however few, had taught her that + + '"That path alone + Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown." + +'"Sweet, sometimes," said she, "are the uses of adversity. It not only +strengthens family affection, but it teaches us all to walk humbly with +God." It is not surprising that she was disposed to cultivate the +society of those who could blend piety with cheerfulness, and with whom +she might be on friendly terms without ceremony. Such acquaintances she +found in Mr. Sloper's family. Mrs. Siddons, with unassuming kindness, +contributed to their amusement by specimens of her powerful reading. She +joined willingly in the worship of the family, and maintained the same +invaluable practice at her own lodgings.' Mr. Rix continues: 'Just at +that time Mr. Sloper was requested to preach to his own people on an +affecting and mournful occasion, the death of a suicide. Though he +keenly felt the delicacy and difficulty of the task, a sense of duty and +a possibility of usefulness overcame his scruples. He selected for his +text the impressive sentiment of the Apostle, "The sorrow of the world +worketh death." Mrs. Siddons was one of his auditors. She, who had been +the honoured guest of Royalty, who had been enthroned as the Tragic Muse, +and whose voice had charmed applauding multitudes, was seen in the humble +Dissenting meeting-house at Beccles shedding abundant and unaffected +tears at the plain and faithful exhibition of religious truth. Mr. +Sloper's preaching was as powerfully recommended to her by the delightful +illustration of Christian principles exhibited in his private character, +as by the intrinsic importance of those principles, and the simple +gravity and penetrating earnestness with which they were announced from +his lips. He afterwards procured for her, at her request, a copy of +Scott's admirable "Commentary on the Bible," which he accompanied with a +letter, warmly urging upon her attention the great realities her +profession had so manifest a tendency to exclude from her contemplations. +Mrs. Siddons,' again I quote Mr. Rix, 'more than once expressed her +gratitude for the interest Mr. Sloper had evinced in her eternal welfare; +she thanked him in writing for the advice he had given her, adding an +emphatic wish that God might enable her to follow it--a wish which her +pious and amiable correspondent echoed with all the fervour of his heart. +She returned into the glare of popularity, but a hope may easily be +indulged that the pressure of subsequent relative afflictions and of old +age were not permitted to come upon her unaccompanied by the impressions +and consolations of true religion. Her elegant biographer, Mr. Campbell, +draws a veil over the state of her mind during her last hours, which it +would be deeply interesting to penetrate. Would she not then, if reason +were undimmed, reflect upon the faithful counsel she received with +Scott's Bible as being of infinitely greater value than the applause of +myriads or the fame of ages?' + +Beccles, where this good Mr. Sloper lived, and where the writer of this +extract was a respectable solicitor--I believe the firm of Rix and Son +still exists--was a small market town about eight miles from Wrentham, +inland. At that time it ranked as the third town in Suffolk. Towards +the west it is skirted by a cliff, once washed by the estuary which +separated the eastern portions of Norfolk and Suffolk. There is every +reason to believe that ages back the mouth of the Yare was an estuary or +arm of the sea, and extended with considerable magnitude for many miles +up the country. The herring fishery was thus a principal source of +emolument to the inhabitants, and in the time of the Conqueror the fee +farm rent of the manor of Beccles to the King was 60,000 herrings, and in +the time of the Confessor 20,000. About 956 the manor and advowson of +Beccles were granted by King Edwy to the monks of Bury, and remained in +their possession until the dissolution of the religious houses under +Henry VIII. + +As I have said, and as I repeat, in these languid days--when the old +creeds have lost their power and the old bottles are bursting with new +wine--the glory of East Anglia was that it was the first to stand up in +the face of priest or king for the truth--or what it held to be such. +Amongst the early martyrs under Mary were three burnt at Beccles--Thomas +Spicer, of Winston, labourer, John Deny, and Edmond Poole. This was in +the year 1556. Their crime in the indictment, drawn up by Dr. Hopton, +Bishop of Norwich, and his Chancellor, Dunning, according to Fox, was: + +'1. First was articulate against them that they belieued not the Pope of +Rome to bee supreame head immediately in Christ on earth of the +Universall Catholike Church. + +'2. That they belieued not holie bread and holie water, ashes, palmes, +and all other like ceremonies used in the Church to bee good and laudable +for stirring up the people to devotion. + +'3. Item that they belieued not afterwards of consecration spoken by the +priest, the very naturall body of Christ, and no other substance of bread +and wine to bee in the Sacrament of the altar. + +'4. Item that they belieued it to bee idolatry to worship Christ in the +Sacrament of the altar. + +'5. Item that they tooke bread and wine in remembrance of Christ's +Passion. + +'6. Item that they would not followe the crosse in procession nor bee +confessed to a priest. + +'7. Item that they affirmed no mortal man to have in himself free will +to do good or evill.' + +It appears that the writ had not come down, nevertheless these brave men +were burnt at the stake. 'When they came,' continues Fox, 'to the +reciting of the creed, Sir John Silliard spake to them, "That is well +said, sirs. I am glad to heare you saie you do belieue the Catholike +Church; that is the best word I heard of you yet." + +'To which his sayings Edmond Poole answered, "Though they belieue the +Catholike Church, yet do they not belieue in their Popish Church, which +is no part of Christ's Catholike Church, and, therefore, no part of their +beliefe." + +'When they rose from praier they all went joyfullie to the stake, and, +being bound thereto, and the fire burning about them, they praised God in +such an audible voice that it was wonderful to all those who stood bye +and heard them. Then one Robert Bacon, dwelling in the said Beccles, a +very enemy to God's truth, and a persecutor of His people, being then +present, within the hearing thereof willed the tormentors to throwe on +faggots to stop the knaues breathes, as he termed them; so hot was his +burning charitie. But these good men, not regarding their malice, +confessed the truth, and yielded their lives to the death for the +testimonie of the same very gloriouslie and joyfullie.' + +These men were the precursors of that Nonconformity which has made +England the home of the free, and such men abounded in East Anglia. +Under Queen Elizabeth they had as bad a time of it almost as under Queen +Mary. For instance, we find under Dr. Freke, Bishop of Norwich, and in +the reign of glorious Queen Bess, as her admirers term her, Mathew +Hammond, a poor ploughwright, of Hethersett, was condemned as a heretic, +had his ears cut off, and after the lapse of a week was committed, in the +Castle ditch at Norwich, to the more agonizing torment of the flames. +The translation of Dr. Whitgift to the See of Canterbury was the signal +for augmented rigour. He was charged by his imperious mistress to +restore religious uniformity, which she confessed, notwithstanding all +her precautions, ran out of square. One of the first victims to this new +_regime_ was William Fleming, Rector of Beccles. The living of Beccles +at this period was vested in Lady Anne Gresham, the widow of Sir Thomas +Gresham, the founder of the Royal Exchange. Previously to her marriage, +she was the widow of William Rede, merchant, of London and Beccles. +Under James I. and Bishop Wren, men of integrity and conscience fared +worse than under Queen Elizabeth, and naturally the people thus +persecuted formed themselves into a Church. That in Beccles dated from +1652, and in the covenant drawn up on the occasion we find it was +resolved: + +'1. That we will for ever acknowledge and admit the Lord to be our God +in Jesus Christ, giving up ourselves to Him to be His people. + +'2. That we will alwaies endevour, through the grace of God assisting +us, to walke in all His waies and ordinances, according to His written +Word, which is the only sufficient rule of good life for every man. +Neither will we suffer ourselves to be polluted by any sinful waies, +either publike or private, but endeavour to abstaine from the very +appearance of evill, giving no offence to the Jew or Gentile, or the +Churches of Christ. + +'3. That we will humbly and willingly submit ourselves to the government +of Christ in this Church--in the administration of the Word, the seals, +and discipline. + +'4. That we will in all love approve our communion as brethren by +watching over one another, and as such shall be; counsel, administer, +relieve, assist, and bear with one another, serving one another in love. + +'5. Lastly, we do not covenant or promise these things in our own, but +in Christ's strength; neither do we confine ourselves to the words of +this covenant, but shall at all time account it our duty to embrace any +further light or covenant which shall be revealed to us out of God's +Word.' + +This covenant, however, was not to prevent in after time censure being +cast on others who, endeavouring to preserve its spirit, were led to +think differently from the majority. For instance, we find in 1656 two +persons, who had been members of the Independent church at Beccles, +received adult baptism, and in so doing were considered to have given +'offence' to the church, and were desired to appear and give an account +of their practices. + +At one time there was little of what we know as congregational singing. +In 1657 it was agreed by the Beccles church 'that they do put in practice +the ordinance of singing in the publick upon the forenoon and afternoon +of the Lord's daies, and that it be between praier and sermon; and also +it was agreed that the New England translation of the Psalmes be made use +of by the church at their times of breaking of bread, and it was agreed +that the next Lord's day, seventh night, might be the day to enter upon +the work of singing in publick.' It is interesting to note that one of +the pastors of the Beccles church was a Mr. Nokes, who had been +trained--where Calamy and many others were trained--at the University of +Utrecht, and that in the same year in which Dr. Watts accepted the +pastoral office, he addressed to Mr. Nokes a poem on 'Friendship,' which +is still included in the Doctor's works. Dissent, when I was a boy, was +considered low. We were contemptuously termed 'pograms,' a term of +reproach the origin of which I have never learnt. The landed gentry, the +small squires, the lawyers and the doctors, and the tradespeople who +pandered to their prejudices and fattened on their patronage, were slow +to say a word in favour of a Dissenter. The poor who went to chapel were +excluded from many benefits enjoyed by their fellow-parishioners. It was +the fashion to treat them with scorn, yet I have heard one of the most +excellent and finished gentlemen in the district declare that he heard +better talk in my father's parlour than he did anywhere else in the +neighbourhood, and I can well believe it, for the Dissenting minister, as +a rule, at that time, was a better read man, and a more studious one, +than the clergyman of the district, in spite of his University education; +and in matters affecting the welfare of the nation, and that came under +the denomination of politics, his views were far more rational than those +of Churchmen in general, and the clergy in particular. We learn from +Milton's State Papers that the churches of East Anglia petitioned Oliver +Cromwell that the three nations might enjoy the blessings of a godly, +upright magistracy; that they might have Courts of Judicature in their +own country; and that honest men of known fidelity and uprightness might +be authorized to determine trivial matters of debt or difference. +Assuredly the East Anglian saints--the latter term was, and, strange to +say, is still, used as a term of reproach--were wise and right-thinking +men where Church government and public policy were concerned. We love to +read the story of the Pilgrim Fathers. With what rapture Mrs. Hemans +wrote: + + 'What sought they thus afar? + Bright jewels of the mine? + The wealth of seas? the spoils of war? + They sought a faith's pure shrine. + + 'Ay, call it holy ground, + The soil where first they trod; + They left unstained what there they found-- + FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD.' + +But it seems to me that a greater glory was won by, and a greater honour +should be paid to, the men who did not cross the Atlantic; who did not +seek an asylum in a foreign land; who remained at home to suffer--to die, +if need be, to uphold the rights of conscience, and to fight the good +fight of faith. It is not even in our tolerant, and, as we deem it, more +enlightened day, that full justice is done to these men. In what calls +itself good society you meet men and women whose ancestors were +Dissenters, and yet who are ashamed of the fact--a fact of which no one +can be ashamed who feels how in East Anglia, at any rate, the religious +teaching of Dissent purified the life of the people, enlarged their +political views, and helped this great land of ours to sweep into a +better and a younger day. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +POLITICS AND THEOLOGY. + + +Homerton academy--W. Johnson Fox, M.P.--Politics in 1830--Anti-Corn Law +speeches--Wonderful oratory. + +About 1830 there was, if not a good deal of actual light let into such +dark places as our Suffolk village--where it was considered the whole +duty of man, as regards the poor, to attend church and make a bow to +their betters (a rustic ceremony generally performed by pulling the lock +of hair on the forehead with the right hand), and to be grateful for the +wretched station of life in which they were placed--at any rate, a great +shaking among the dry bones. One summer morning an awe fell on the +parish as it ran from one to another that the guard of the Yarmouth and +London Royal Mail had left word with the ostler at the Spread Eagle that +George the Fourth was dead; then a certain dull sound as of cannon firing +afar off had been wafted across the German Ocean, and had given rise to +mysterious speculations on the subject of Continental wars, in which +Suffolk lads might have to ''list' as 'sogers'; and last of all there +came that grand excitement when--North and South, East and West--the +nation rose as one man to demand political and Parliamentary Reform. It +was a delusion, perhaps, that cry, but it was a glorious one, +nevertheless; that the millennium could be delayed when we had +Parliamentary Reform no one for a moment doubted. The sad but undeniable +fact that mostly men are fools with whom beer is omnipotent had not then +entered into men's minds, and thus England and Scotland some sixty years +ago wore an aspect of activity and enthusiasm of which the present +generation can have no idea, and which, perhaps, can never occur again. + +Far away in the distant city which the Suffolk villagers called Lunnon, +there was a Suffolk lad, whose relations kept a very little shop just by +us, who was born at Uggeshall--pronounced Ouchell by the common +people--on a very small farm, and who, as Unitarian preacher and +newspaper writer, had been and was doing his best in the good cause; but +it was not the influence of W. Johnson Fox--for it is of him I +write--that did much in our little village to leaven the mass with the +leaven of Reform. While quite a lad the Foxes went to Norwich, where the +future preacher and teacher worked as a weaver boy. In after-years it +was often my privilege to meet Mr. Fox, who had then attained no small +share of London distinction, amongst whose hearers were men, often many +of the most distinguished _literati_ of the day--such as Dickens and +Forster--and who was actually to sit in Parliament as M.P. for Oldham, +where, old as he was--and Mr. Gladstone says, 'People who wish to succeed +in Parliament should enter it young'--he occupied a most respectable +position, all the more creditable when you remember that Parliament, even +at that recent date, was a far more select and aristocratic assembly than +any Parliament of our day, or of the future, can possibly be. Mr. Fox +had been educated at Homerton Academy--as such places were then termed +(college is the word we use now)--under the good and venerable Dr. +Pye-Smith, whose 'Scripture Testimony to the Messiah' was supposed to +have given Unitarianism a deadly blow, but whom I chiefly remember as a +very deaf old man, and one of the first to recognise the fact that the +Bible and geology were not necessarily opposed to each other, and to +welcome and proclaim the truth--at that time received with fear and +trembling, if received at all--that the God of Nature and the God of +Revelation were the same. There was a good deal of free inquiry at +Homerton Academy, which, however, Mr. Fox assured me, gradually subsided +into the right amount of orthodoxy as the time came for the student to +exchange his sure and safe retreat for the fiery ordeal of the deacon and +the pew. My father and Johnson Fox had been fellow-students, and for +some time corresponded together. The correspondence in due time, +however, naturally ceased, as it was chiefly controversial, and nothing +can be more irksome than for two people who have made up their minds, and +whom nothing can change, to be arguing continually, and the friendship +between them in some sense ceased as the one remained firm to, and the +other wandered farther and farther from, the modified Calvinism of the +Wrentham Church and pulpit, where, as in all orthodox pulpits at that +time, it was taught that men were villains by necessity, and fools, as it +were, by a Divine thrusting on; that for some a Saviour had been +crucified, that there might be a way of escape from the wrath of an angry +and unforgiving God; whilst for the vast mass--to whom the name of Christ +had never been made known, to whom the Bible had never been sent--there +was an impending doom, the awful horror of which no tongue could tell, no +imagination conceive. But to the last Mr. Fox--especially if you met him +with his old-fashioned hat on in the street--looked far more of a Puritan +divine than of the literary man, or the chief of the advanced thinkers in +Church and State, or an M.P. At a later time what pleasure it gave me to +listen to this distinguished East Anglian as he appeared at the crowded +Anti-Corn Law meetings held in Covent Garden or Drury Lane! Ungainly in +figure, monotonous in tone, almost without a particle of action, regarded +as free in his religious opinions by the vast majority of his audience, +who were, at that time, prone, even in London, to hold that Orthodoxy, +like Charity, covered a multitude of sins. What an orator he was! How +smoothly the sentences fell from his lips one after the other; with what +happy wit did he expose Protectionist fallacies, or enunciate Free Trade +principles, which up to that time had been held as the special property +of the philosopher, far too subtle to be understood and appreciated by +the mob! With what felicity did he illustrate his weighty theme; with +what clearness did he bring home to the people the wrong and injustice +done to every one of them by the landlord's attempt to keep up his rent +by a tax on corn; and then with what glowing enthusiasm did they wait and +listen for the climax, which, if studied, and perhaps artificial, seemed +like the ocean wave to grow grander and larger the nearer it came, till +it fell with resistless force on all around. It seems to me like a +dream, all that distant and almost unrecorded past. I see no such +meetings, I hear no such orators now. As Mr. Disraeli said of Lord +Salisbury when he was Lord Robert Cecil, there was a want of finish about +his style, and the remark holds good of the orator of to-day as +contrasted with the platform speaker of the past. It is impossible to +fancy anyone in our sober age attempting, to say nothing of succeeding in +the attempt (my remarks, of course, do not apply to Irish audiences or +Irish orators), to get an audience to rise _en masse_ and swear never to +fold their arms, never to relax their efforts, till their end was gained +and victory won; yet Mr. Fox did so, and long as I live shall I remember +the night when, in response to his impassioned appeal, the whole +house--and it was crowded to the ceiling--rose, ladies in the boxes, +decent City men in the pit, gods in the gallery--to swear never to tire, +never to rest, never to slacken, till the peasant at the plough, the +cotton-spinner in the mill, the collier in the mine, the lone widow +stitching for life far into the early morning in her wretched garret, and +the pauper in his still more wretched cellar, ate their untaxed loaf. As +the 'Publicola' of the _Weekly Dispatch_, Mr. Fox laboured to the end of +his life in the good cause of Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform. It is not +right that his memory should remain unrecorded--his life assuredly was an +interesting one. Harriet Martineau writes in her autobiography that 'his +editorial correspondence with me was unquestionably the reason, and in +great measure the cause, of the greatest intellectual progress I ever +made before the age of thirty.' + +But it was not from William Johnson Fox that at that time came to our +small village the grain of light that was to leaven the lump around. +Lecturing and oratory, and even public tea-meetings, were things almost +unknown. Now and then a deputation from the London Missionary Society +came to Wrentham, and in this way I remember William Ellis, then a +missionary from Madagascar, and Mr. George Bennett, who, in conjunction +with the Rev. Mr. Tyerman, had been on a tour of inspection to the +islands of the South Seas, and to whose tales of travel rustic audiences +listened with delight. Once upon a time--but that was later--the +Religious Tract Society sent a deputation in the shape of a well-known +travelling secretary, Mr. Jones. This Mr. Jones was inclined to +corpulency, and I can well remember how we all laughed when, on one +occasion, the daughter of a neighbouring minister, having opened the door +in reply to his knock, ran delightedly into her papa's study to announce +the arrival of the Tract Society! + +A great impression was also made in all parts of the country by the +occasional appearances of the Anti-Slavery Society's lecturers. In 1831, +as Sir G. Stephen tells us, the younger section of the Anti-Slavery body +resolved to stir up the country by sending lecturers to the villages and +towns of the country. The M.P.'s did not much like it. The idea was +novel to them. 'Trust to Parliament,' said they; the outsiders replied, +'Trust to the people.' This scheme of agitation, however, was rejected, +and would have fallen to the ground had not a benevolent Quaker of the +name of Cropper come forward. 'Friend S., what money dost thou want?' +'I want 20,000 pounds, but I will begin if I can get one.' 'Then, I will +give thee 500 pounds.' Joseph Sturge immediately followed with a promise +of 250 pounds, and Mr. Wilberforce twenty guineas; and 1,000 pounds was +raised, and competent agents sent out. It proved by no means an easy +matter to obtain these lecturers, for their duty was not confined to +lecturing; they had also to revive drooping anti-slavery societies and to +establish new ones. Also they were to have collections at the end of +every lecture. One of them who came to Wrentham was Captain Pilkington. +'Pilkington,' writes Sir George Stephen, 'was a pleasing lecturer, and +won over many by his amiable manners; but he wanted power, and resigned +in six months.' We in Wrentham, however, did not think so, and I can to +this day recall the sensation he created in our rustic minds as he +described the horrors of slavery, and showed us the whip and chains by +which those horrors were caused. To the Dissenting chapel most of these +lecturers were indebted for their audience, and if I ever worked hard as +a boy, it was to get signatures to anti-slavery petitions. Naturally, a +Church parson came to regard all that was attacked by Reformers as a +bulwark of the Establishment, and in our part the Meetingers' were the +sole friends of the slave. + +As was to be expected, the reading of the village was of the most limited +description. It is true we children jumped for joy as once a month came +the carrier's cart from Beccles, with the books for the club--the +_Evangelical Magazine_, for all the principal families of the +congregation, and the _Penny Magazine_ and _Chambers's Journal_--then but +in their infancy--for ourselves; but, apart from that, there was no +reading worth mentioning. That which most astonishes the tourist in +Ireland is the way in which people read the newspapers. In our Suffolk +village the very reverse was the case, partly because there were few +newspapers to read, partly because there were few to read them, and +partly because they were dear to buy. The one paper which we took in was +the _Suffolk Chronicle_, which made its appearance on Saturday morning, +the price of which was sixpence, and which was edited by a sturdy Radical +of the name of King, who to the last held to the belief that to have a +London letter full of literary or critical talk for the Suffolk farmers +was, not to put too fine a point on it, to throw pearls before swine. +And perhaps he was right. I can well remember, when one of my early +poetical contributions appeared in its columns, how a fear was expressed +to me by a farmer's widow in our parish, lest 'it had cost me a lot o' +money' to have that effort of my muse in print. Mr. Childs, of Bungay, +had many experiences, equally rustic and still more illustrative of the +simplicity of the class. Once upon a time one of them came in a great +state of excitement for a copy of the 'Life of Mr. General Gazetteer.' +On another occasion a farmer's wife came in search of a Testament. She +wanted it directly, and she wanted it of a large type. A specimen was +selected, which met with the worthy woman's approval. But the question +was, could she have it in half an hour, as she would be away for that +time shopping in the town, and would call for it on her return. She was +told that she could, and great was her astonishment when, on calling on +her return for the Testament, there it was, printed in the particular +type she had selected, ready for her use. + +I have a very strong idea that the calm of the country and the peaceful +occupations of the people had not a very rousing influence upon the +intellect. I may go further, and say that the cares of the farm, when +high farming was unknown, did not much lift at that time the master above +the man. The latter wore a smock-frock, while the former, perhaps, +sported a blue coat with brass buttons, and had rather a better kind of +head-dress, and ambled along on a little steady cob, that knew at which +ale-house to call for the regular allowance, quite as well as his master. +But as regards talk--which was chiefly of bullocks and pigs--well, there +really was no very great difference after all. To such religion was the +mainspring which kept the whole intellect going; and religion was to be +had at the meeting. And I can well remember how strange it seemed to me +that these rough, simple, untutored sons of the soil could speak of it +with enthusiasm, and could pray, at any rate, with astonishing fervour. +Away from the influence of the meeting-house there existed a Boeotian +state of mind, only to be excited by appeals to the senses of the most +palpable character, a state of mind in which faith--the evidence of +things not seen, according to Paul--was quite out of the question; and I +regret to say that, notwithstanding the activity of the last fifty years +and the praiseworthy and laborious efforts of the East Anglian clergy in +all quarters, suitably to rouse and feed the intellect of the East +Anglian peasantry, a good deal yet remains to be done. Only a year or +two ago, riding on an omnibus in a Suffolk village, the driver asked me +if people could go to America by land. 'Of course not,' was my reply. +'Why do you ask such a question?' Well, it came out that he had 'heerd +tell how people got to Americay in ten days; and he did not see how they +could do that unless they went by land, and had good hosses to get 'em +there at that time.' On my explaining the real state of affairs, he +admitted, by way of apology, that he was not much of a traveller himself. +Once he had been to Colchester; but that was a long time ago. + +But to return to the _Suffolk Chronicle_. It was my duty as a lad, when +it had been duly studied at home, to take it to the next subscriber, and +I fancy by the time the paper had gone its round it was not a little the +worse for wear. But there were other political impulses which tended to +create and feed the sacred flame of civil and religious liberty. In one +corner of the village lived a small shopkeeper, who stored away, among +his pots and pans of treacle and sugar and grocery, a few well-thumbed +copies, done up in dirty brown paper, of the squibs and caricatures +published by Hone, whom I can just remember, a red-faced old gentleman in +black, in the _Patriot_ office, and George Cruikshank, with whom I was to +spend many a merry hour in after-life. This small shopkeeper was one of +the chapel people--a kind of superintendent in the Sunday-school, for +which office he was by no means fitted, but there was no one else to take +the berth, and as the family also dealt with him in many ways, I had +often to repair to his shop. It was then our young eyes were opened as +to the wickedness in high places by the perusal of the 'Political House +that Jack built,' and other publications of a similar revolutionary +character. Nothing is sacred to the caricaturist, and half a century ago +bishops and statesmen and lords and kings were very fair subjects for the +exercise of his art. In our day things have changed for the better, +partly as the result of the Radical efforts, of which respectability at +that time stood so much in awe. London newspapers rarely reached so far +as Wrentham. It was the fashion then to look to Ipswich for light and +leading. However, as the cry for reform increased in strength, and the +debates inside the House of Commons and out waxed fiercer, now and then +even a London newspaper found its way into our house, and I can well +remember how our hearts glowed within us as some one of us read, while +father smoked his usual after-dinner pipe, previous to going out to spend +the afternoon visiting his sick and afflicted; and how such names as Earl +Grey, and Lord John Russell, and Lord Brougham--the people then called +him Harry Brougham; it was a pity that he was ever anything else--were +familiar in our mouths as household words. + +In another way also there came to the children in Wrentham the growing +perception of a larger world than that in which we lived, and moved, and +had our being. One of the historic sites of East Anglia is Framlingham, +a small market town, lying a little off the highroad to London, a few +miles from what always seemed to me the very uninteresting village of +Needham Market, though at one time Godwin, the author of 'Caleb +Williams,' preached in the chapel there. There is now a public school +for Suffolk boys at Framlingham, and it may yet make a noise in the +world. Framlingham in our time has given London Mr. Jeaffreson, a +successful man of letters, and Sir Henry Thompson, a still more +successful surgeon. In my young days it was chiefly noted for its +castle. The mother of that amiable and excellent lady, Mrs. Trimmer, +also came from Framlingham; and it is to be hoped that the old town may +have had something to do with the formation of the character of a woman +whom now we should sneer at, perhaps, as goody-goody, but who, when +George the Third was King, did much for the education and improvement of +the young. I read in Mrs. Trimmer's life 'that her father was a man of +an excellent understanding, and of great piety; and so high was his +reputation for knowledge of divinity, and so exemplary his moral conduct, +that, as an exception to their general rule, which admitted no laymen, he +was chosen member of a clerical club in the town (Ipswich) in which he +resided. From him,' continues the biographer of the daughter, 'she +imbibed the purest sentiments of religion and virtue, and learnt betimes +the fundamental principles of Christianity.' Well, it is hoped Mr. Kirby +did his best for his daughter; but, after all, how much more potent is +the influence of a mother! And hence I may claim for Framlingham a fair +share in the formation of even so burning and shining a light as Mrs. +Trimmer. + +The name Framlingham, say the learned, or did say--for what learned men +say at one time does not always correspond with what they say at +another--is composed of two Saxon words, signifying the habitation of +strangers; and to strangers the place is still rich in interest. In its +church sleeps the unfortunate, but heroic, Earl of Surrey, whose +harmonious verse still delights the students of English literature. Some +say he was born at Framlingham. This is matter of doubt; but there is no +doubt about the fact that he was buried there by his son, the Earl of +Northampton, who erected a handsome monument to his father's memory. The +monument is an elevated tomb, with the Earl's arms and those of his lady +in the front in the angles, and with an inscription in the centre. It +has his effigy in armour, with an ermined mantle, his feet leaning +against a lion couchant. On his left is his lady in black, with an +ermined mantle and a coronet. Both have their hands held up as in +prayer. On a projecting plinth in front is the figure of his second son, +the Earl of Northampton, in armour, with a mantle of ermine, kneeling in +prayer. Behind, in a similar plinth, kneeling with a coronet, and in +robes, is his eldest daughter, Jane, Countess of Westmoreland, on the +right; and his third daughter Catherine, the wife of Lord Henry Berkeley +on the left. The monument is kept in order, and painted occasionally, as +directed by the Earl of Northampton, out of the endowment of his hospital +at Greenwich. In repairing the monument in October, 1835, the Rev. +George Attwood, curate of Framlingham, discovered the remains of the Earl +lying embedded in clay, directly under his figure on his tomb. It is +difficult now to find what high treason the chivalrous and poetic and +gallant Earl had been guilty of; but at that time our eighth Henry ruled +the land, and if he wished anyone out of the way, he had not far to go +for witnesses or judge or jury ready to do his wicked and wanton will. +To the shame of England be it said, the Earl of Surrey was beheaded when +he was only thirty years of age. No particulars are preserved of his +deportment in prison or on the scaffold, but from the noble spirit he +evinced at his trial, and from his general character, it cannot be +doubted that he behaved in the last scene of his existence with fortitude +and dignity. On the barbarous injustice to which he was sacrificed +comment is unnecessary; but regret at his early fate is increased by the +circumstance that Henry was in extremities when he ordered his execution, +and that his swollen and enfeebled hands were unequal to the task of +signing his death-warrant. In this respect more fortunate was the father +of Surrey, the Duke of Norfolk, who is buried near the altar of the +church at Framlingham. He also was condemned to death, but in the +meanwhile the King died, and his victim was set free. Not far off is the +tomb of Henry Fitzroy, a natural son of King Henry. He was a friend of +Surrey, and was to have married his sister. The other monuments which +adorn the interior of this magnificent church are a table of black +marble, supported by angels, to the memory of Sir Robert Hitcham, a mural +monument by Roubillac, and others to commemorate virtues and graces, as +embodied in the lives of decent men and women in whom the world has long +ceased to take any interest. + +The venerable castle--here I quote Dr. Dugdale's 'British +Traveller'--with its eventful history, imparts the strongest interest to +the town of Framlingham. Tradition refers its origin to the sixth +century, and ascribes it to Redwald, one of the early Saxon monarchs. +St. Edmund the Martyr fled hither in 870, and was besieged by the Danes, +who took Framlingham and held it fifty years. The Norman King gave the +castle to the Bigods. The castle passed through many hands. It was +there Queen Mary took shelter when, after the death of Edward VI., Lady +Jane Grey was called to the throne, and thence she came to London, on the +capture of the former, to take possession of the crown. It was an evil +day for England when she came to Framlingham Castle and beguiled the +hearts of the Suffolk men. Old Fox tells us that when Mary had returned +to her castle at Framlingham there resorted to her 'the Suffolke men, +who, being alwayes forward in promoting the proceedings of the Gospel, +promised her their aid and help, so that she would not attempt the +alteration of the religion which her brother, King Edward, had before +established by laws and orders publickly enacted, and received by the +consent of the whole realm in his behalf. She afterwards agreed with +such promise made unto them that no innovation should be made of +religion, as that no man would or could then have misdoubted her. +"Victorious by the aid of the Suffolke men," Queen Mary soon forgot her +promise. They of course remonstrated. It was, methinks,' adds Fox, 'an +heavie word that she answered to the Suffolke men afterwards which did +make supplication unto her grace to performe her promise. "For so much," +saith she, "as you being but members desire to rule your head, you shall +one day perceive the members must obey their head, and not look to rule +over the same."' Well, Queen Mary was as good as her word. As Fox adds, +'What she performed on her part the thing itself and the whole story of +the persecution doth testifie.' But the stubborn Suffolk gospellers were +not to be put down, and a remnant had been left in Framlingham, as well +as in other parts of the country. At Framlingham we find a Richard +Goltie, son-in-law of Samuel Ward, of Ipswich, was instituted to the +rectory in 1630. In 1650 he refused the engagement to submit to the then +existing Government, and was removed, when Henry Sampson, M.A., a fellow +of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, was appointed by his college to the vacancy. +He continued there till the Restoration, when Mr. Goltie returned and +took possession of the living, which he continued to hold till his death. +Not being satisfied to conform, Mr. Sampson continued awhile preaching at +Framlingham to those who were attached to his ministry, in private houses +and other buildings, and by his labours laid the foundation of the +Congregational or Independent Church in that town, as appears from a note +in the Church Book belonging to the Dissenters meeting at Woodbridge, in +the Quay Lane. Mr. Sampson collected materials for a history of +Nonconformity, a great part of which is incorporated in Calamy and +Palmer's works. It was to him that John Fairfax, of Needham Market, +wrote, when he and some other ministers were shut up in Bury Gaol for the +crime of preaching the Gospel. It appears that they had met in the +parish church, at Walsham-le-Willows, where, after the liturgy was read +by the clergyman of the parish, a sermon was preached by a non-licensed +minister. The party were then taken and committed to prison, where they +remained till the next Quarter Sessions, when they were released upon +their recognisances to appear at the next Assizes. Then, it seems, +though not convicted upon any other offence, upon the suggestion of the +justices, to whom they were strangers, they were committed again to +prison, on the plea that _they were persons dangerous to the public +peace_. Thus were Dissenters treated in the good old times. Mr. Sampson +seems to have fared somewhat better. After his removal, he travelled on +the Continent, returned to London, entered himself at the College of +Physicians, and lived and died in good repute. The old congregation +having become Unitarian, a new one was formed, and of this Church a +pillar was Mr. Henry Thompson--a gentleman well known and widely honoured +in his day. This Mr. Thompson had a son, who was sent to Wrentham to be +educated for awhile with myself. An uncle of his, one of the most +amiable of men, lived at Southwold, close by, and I presume it was by his +means that the settlement was effected. Be that as it may, the change +was a welcome one, as it gave me a pleasant companion for nearly five +years of boyish life. I confess my two sisters--one of whom has, alas! +long been in her grave--did all they could in the way of sports and +pastimes to meet my wants and wishes, and act like boys; but the fact is, +though it may be doubted in these days of Women's Rights, girls are not +boys, nor can they be expected to behave as such. + +I confess the advent of this young Thompson from Framlingham was a great +event in our small family circle. In the first place he came from a +town, and that at once gave him a marked superiority. Then his father +kept a horse and gig, for it was thus young Thompson came to Wrentham, +and all the world over a gig has been a symbol of the respectability dear +to the British heart; and he had been for that time and as an only son +carefully and intelligently trained by one of the family who, in the +person of the late Edward Miall, founder of the _Nonconformist_, and M.P. +for Bradford, was supposed to be the incarnation of what was termed the +dissidence of Dissent. Young Thompson was also what would be called a +genteel youth, and gave me ideas as to wearing straps to my trousers, +oiling my hair, and generally adorning my person, which had never entered +into my unsophisticated head. He also had been to London, and as +Framlingham was some twenty miles nearer the Metropolis--the centre of +intelligence--than Wrentham, the intelligence of a Framlingham lad was of +course expected, _a fortiori_, to be of a stronger character than that of +one born twenty miles farther from the sun of London. There was also a +good deal of talent in the family on the mother's side. Mrs. Thompson +was a Miss Medley, and Mr. Medley was an artist of great merit, the son +of Mr. Medley, of Liverpool, a leading Baptist minister in his day, and a +writer of hymns still sung in Baptist churches. Mr. Medley was also +active as a Liberal, and was credited by us boys with a personal +acquaintance with no less illustrious an individual than the great +Brougham himself. Once or twice he came to lodge during the summer at +Southwold; naturally he was visited there by his grandson, who would +return well primed with political anecdote to our rustic circle, and was +deemed by me more of an authority than ever. Once or twice, too, I had +the honour of being a visitor, and heard Mr. Medley, a fine old +gentleman, who lived to a very advanced age, talk of art and artists and +other matters quite out of my usual sphere. It is not surprising, then, +that the grandson became in time quite an artist himself, though he is +better known to the world, not so much in that capacity, but as Sir Henry +Thompson, certainly not the least distinguished surgeon of our day. In +Lord Beaconsfield's last novel, 'Endymion,' we have a passing reference +to one Wrentham lad, Sir Charles Wetherell, as 'the eccentric and too +uncompromising Wetherell.' Assuredly the fame of another lad, Sir Henry +Thompson, connected with Wrentham, will longer live. + +This reference to Sir Henry Thompson reminds me of his early attempts at +rhyme, which I trust he will forgive me for rescuing from oblivion. Once +upon a time we captured a young cuckoo, and having carefully gorged it +with bread-and-milk, and left it in a nest in an outhouse, which we +devoted mainly to rabbits, the next morning the poor bird was found to be +dead. A prize was offered for the best couplet. Three of us contended. +My sister wrote: + + 'This lonely sepulchre contains + A little cuckoo's dead remains.' + +I wrote: + + 'To our grief, cuckoo sweet + Is lying underneath our feet.' + +Thompson took quite a different and, read by the light of his subsequent +career, a far more characteristic view of the case. He took care, as a +medical man, to dwell on the cause which had terminated the career of so +interesting a bird. According to him, + + 'It had a breast as soft as silk, + And died of eating bread-and-milk.' + +Assuredly in this case the child was father to the man. + +But the great awakening of the time, that which made the dry bones live, +and fluttered the dove-cotes of Toryism--we never heard the word +Conservative then--was the General Election. At that time we were always +having General Elections. We had one, of course, when George IV. died +and King William reigned in his stead; we had another when the Duke was +out and the Whigs came in; and then we had another when the cry ran +through the land, and reached even the most remote villages of East +Anglia, of 'The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill!' Voters +were brought down, or up, as the case might be, from all quarters of the +land. Coaches-full came tearing along, gorgeous with election flags, and +placarded all over with names of rival candidates. Gentlemen of ancient +lineage called to request of the meanest elector the favour of his vote +and influence. It was with pain the Liberals of our little village +resolved to vote against our Benacre neighbour, Sir Thomas Gooch, who had +long represented the county, but of whom the Radicals spoke derisively as +Gaffer Gooch, or the Benacre Bull, and chose in his stead a country +squire known as Robert Newton Shaw, utterly unknown in our quarter of the +county. + +It was rather a trying time for the Wrentham Liberals and Dissenters to +do their duty, for Sir Thomas was a neighbour, and always was a pleasant +gentleman in the parish, and had power to do anyone mischief who went +against him. Our medical man did not vote at all. Our squire actually, +I believe, supported Sir Thomas, and altogether respectable people found +themselves in an extremely awkward position. At Southwold the people +were a little more independent, for Gaffer Gooch rarely illuminated that +little town with his presence; and as my father, with the economy which +is part and parcel of the Scotchman as he leaves his native land, but +which rarely extends to his children, had, by teaching gentlemen's sons +and other ways, been able to save a little, which little had been devoted +to the purchase of cottage property in Southwold (well do I remember the +difficulty there was in collecting the rents; never, assuredly, were +people so much afflicted or so unfortunate when the time of payment +came), it was for Southwold that he claimed his vote. I, as the son, was +permitted to share in the glories of that eventful day. The election +took place at school-time, and my companion was Henry Thompson. We had +to walk betimes to Frostenden, where Farmer Downing lived, who was that +_rara avis_ a Liberal tenant farmer; but of course he did not vote tenant +farmer, but as a freeholder. It was with alarm that Mrs. Downing saw her +lord and master drive off with us two lads in the gig. There had been +riots at London, riots as near as Ipswich, and why not at Halesworth? A +mile or two after we had started we met, per arrangement, the Southwold +contingent, who joined us with flags flying and a band playing, and all +the pride and pomp and circumstance of war. We rode in a gig, and our +animal was a steady-going mare, and behaved as such; but all had not gigs +or steady-going mares. Some were in carts, some were on horseback, some +in ancient vehicles furbished up for the occasion; and as the band played +and the people shouted, some of the animals felt induced to dance, and +especially was this restlessness on the part of the quadrupeds increased +as we neared Halesworth, in the market-place of which was the +polling-booth, and in the streets of which we out-lying voters riding in +procession made quite a show. Halesworth, or Holser, as it was called, +was distant about nine miles, lying to the left of Yoxford, a village +which its admirers were wont to call the Garden of Suffolk. In 1809 the +Bishop of Norwich wrote from Halesworth: 'The church in this place is +uncommonly fine, and the ruins of an old castle (formerly the seat of the +Howards) are striking and majestic.' But when we went there the ruins +were gone--the more is the pity--and the church remained, at that time +held by no less a Liberal than Richard Whately, afterwards Archbishop of +Dublin. I used at times to meet with a country gentleman--a brother of a +noble lord--who after he had spent a fortune merrily, as country +gentlemen did in the good old times, came to live on a small annuity, +and, in spite of his enormous daily consumption of London porter at the +leading inn of the town, managed to reach a good old age. The hon. +gentleman and I were on friendly terms, and sometimes he would talk of +Whately, who had often been at his house. But, alas! he remembered +nothing of a man who became so celebrated in his day except that he would +eat after dinner any number of oranges, and was so fond of active +exercise that he would take a pitchfork and fill his tumbrels with +manure, or work just like a labourer on a farm. Of the Doctor's aversion +to church-bell ringing we have a curious illustration in a letter which +appeared in the _Suffolk Chronicle_ in 1825: 'A short time since a +wedding took place in the families of two of the oldest and most +respectable inhabitants of the town, when it was understood that the +Rector had, for the first time since his induction to his living, given +permission for the bells to greet the happy pair. After, however, +sounding a merry peal a short hour and a half, a message was received at +the belfry that the Rector thought they had rung long enough. The +tardiness with which this mandate was obeyed soon brought the rev. +gentleman in person to enforce his order, which was then reluctantly +complied with to the great disappointment of the inhabitants, and +mortification of the ringers, several of whom had come from a +considerable distance to assist in the festivities of the day.' The +Independent chapel was an old-fashioned meeting-house, full of heavy +pillars, which, as they intercepted the view of the preacher, were +favourable to that gentle sleep so peculiarly refreshing on a Sunday +afternoon--especially in hot weather--in the square and commodious family +pew. The minister was an old and venerable-looking divine of the name of +Dennant, who was always writing little poems--I remember the opening +lines of one, + + 'A while ago when I was nought, + And neither body, soul, nor thought'-- + +and whose 'Soul Prosperity,' a volume of sober prose, reached a second +edition. His grandson, Mr. J. R. Robinson, now the energetic manager of +the _Daily News_, may be said to have achieved a position in the world of +London of which his simple-hearted and deeply-devotional grandfather +could never have dreamed. As I was the son of a brother minister, Mr. +Dennant's house was open to myself and Thompson, though we did not go +there on the particular day of which I write. The leading tradesman of +the town was a Liberal, and had at least one pretty daughter, and there +we went. Most of the day, however, we mixed with the mob which crowded +round, while the voters--you may be sure, not all of them sober--were +brought up to vote. The excitement was immense; there was the hourly +publication of the state of the poll--more or less unreliable, but, +nevertheless, exciting; and what a tumult there was as one or other of +the rival candidates drove up to his temporary quarters in a carriage and +pair, or carriage and four, made a short speech, which was cheered by his +friends and howled at derisively by his foes, while the horses were being +changed, and then drove off at a gallop to make the same display and to +undergo the same ordeal elsewhere! To be sure, there was a little rough +play; now and then a rush was made by nobody in particular, and for no +particular reason; or, again, an indiscreet voter--rendered additionally +so by indulgence in beer--gave occasion for offence; but really, beyond a +scrimmage, a hat broken, a coat or two torn or bespattered with mud, a +cockade rudely snatched from the wearer, little harm was done. The +voters knew each other, and had come to vote, and had stayed to see the +fun. For the timid, the infirm, the old, the day was a trying one; but +there was an excitement and a life about the affair one misses now that +the ballot has come into play, and has made the voter less of a man than +ever. Of course the shops were shut up. All who could afford to do so +kept open house, and at every available window were the bright, beaming +faces of the Suffolk fair--oh, they were jolly, those election days of +old! Well, in East Anglia, as elsewhere, spite of the parsons, spite of +the landlords, spite of the slavery of old custom, spite of old +traditions, the freeholders voted Reform, and Reform was won, and +everyone believed that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. In ten years, +I heard people say, there would be no tithes for the farmer to pay, and +welcome was the announcement; for then, as now, the agricultural interest +was depressed, and the farmer was a ruined man. Now one takes but a +languid interest in the word Reform, but then it stirred the hearts of +the people; and how they celebrated their victory, how they hoisted flags +and got up processions and made speeches, and feasted and hurrahed, +'twere tedious to tell. All over the land the people rejoiced with +exceeding joy. Old things, they believed, had passed away--all things +had become new. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +BUNGAY AND ITS PEOPLE. + + +Bungay Nonconformity--Hannah More--The Childses--The Queen's +Librarian--Prince Albert. + +In the beginning of the present century, a disgraceful attack on +Methodism--by which the writer means Dissent in all its +branches--appeared in what was then the leading critical journal of the +age, the _Edinburgh Review_. 'The sources,' said the writer, a clergyman +(to his shame be it recorded) of the Church of England--no less +distinguished a divine than the far-famed Sydney Smith--'from which we +shall derive our extracts are the Evangelical and Methodistical magazines +for the year 1807, works which are said to be circulated to the amount of +18,000 or 20,000 every month, and which contain the sentiments of +Arminian and Calvinistic Methodists, and of the Evangelical clergymen of +the Church of England. We shall use the general term of Methodism to +designate these three classes of fanatics, not troubling ourselves to +point out the finer shades and nicer discriminations of lunacy, but +treating them as all in one general conspiracy against common-sense and +rational orthodox Christianity.' To East Anglia came the reputed worthy +Canon for an illustration of what he termed their policy to have a great +change of ministers. Accordingly, he reprints from the _Evangelical +Magazine_ the following notice of an East Anglian Nonconformist +ordination, which, by-the-bye, in no degree affects the charge unjustly +laid at the door of these 'fanatics,' as engaged 'in one general +conspiracy against common-sense and rational orthodox Christianity.' +'Same day the Rev. W. Haward, from Hoxton Academy, was ordained over the +Independent Church at Rendham, Suffolk; Mr. Pickles, of Walpole, began +with prayer and reading; Mr. Price, of Woodbridge, delivered the +introductory discourse, and asked the questions; Mr. Dennant, of +Halesworth, offered the ordinary prayer; _Mr. Shufflebottom_ [the italics +are the Canon's], of Bungay, gave the charge from Acts xx. 28; Mr. +Vincent, of Deal, the general prayer; and Mr. Walford, of Yarmouth, +preached to the people from Phil. ii. 16.' As a lad, I saw a good deal +of Bungay, though I never knew the Shufflebottom whose name seems to have +been such a stumbling-block and cause of offence to the Reverend Canon of +St. Paul's. I say Reverend Canon of St. Paul's, because, though the +writer had not gained that honour when the review appeared, it was as +Canon he returned to the charge when he sanctioned the republication of +it in his collected works. It was at Bungay that I had my first painful +experience of the utter depravity of the human heart--a truth of which, +perhaps, for a boy, I learned too much from the pulpit. The river +Waveney runs through Bungay, and one day, fishing there, I lent a +redcoat--with whom, like most boys, I was proud to scrape an +acquaintance--my line, he promising to return it when I came back from +dinner. When I did so, alas! the red-coat was gone. + +Nonconformity in Bungay seems to have originated in the days of the Lord +Protector, in the person of Zephaniah Smith, who was the author of: (1) +'The Dome of Heretiques; or, a discovery of subtle Foxes who were tyed +tayle to tayle, and crept into the Church to do mischief'; (2) 'The +Malignant's Plot; or, the Conspiracie of the Wicked against the Just, +laid open in a sermon preached at Eyke, in Suffolk, January 23, 1697. +Preached and published to set forth the grounds why the Wicked lay such +crimes to the charge of God's people as they are cleare off'; (3) 'The +Skillful Teacher.' Beloe says of this Smith that 'he was a most singular +character, and among the first founders of the sect of the Antinomians.' +One of the first leaders of this sect is said by Wood to have been John +Eaton, who was a minister and preacher at Wickham Market, in which +situation and capacity Smith succeeded him. This Smith published many +other tracts and sermons, chiefly fanatical and with fantastical titles. +One is described by Wood, and is called 'Directions for Seekers and +Expectants, or a Guide for Weak Christians in these discontented times.' +'I shall not give an extract from these sermons,' writes Beloe, who is +clearly, like Wood, by no means a sympathetic or appreciative critic, +'though very curious, but they are not characterized by any peculiarity +of diction, and are chiefly remarkable for the enthusiasm with which the +doctrine of the sect to which the preacher belonged is asserted and +vindicated. The hearers also must have been endowed with an +extraordinary degree of patience, as they are spun out to a great +length.' Mr. Smith's ministry at Bungay led to a contention, which +resulted in an appeal to the young Protector, Richard Cromwell. Then we +find Mr. Samuel Malbon silenced by the Act of Uniformity, who is +described as a man mighty in the Scriptures, who became pastor to the +church in Amsterdam. In 1695 we hear of a conventicle in Bungay, with a +preacher with a regularly paid stipend of 40 pounds a year. Till 1700 +the congregation worshipped in a barn; but in that year the old +meeting-house was built, and let to the congregation at 10 pounds per +annum. In 1729 it was made over to the Presbyterians or Independents +worshipping there, 'for ever.' The founders of that conventicle seem to +have suffered for their faith; yet the glorious Revolution of 1688 had +been achieved, and William of Orange--who had come from a land which had +nobly sheltered the earlier Nonconformists--was seated on the throne. + +Bungay, till Sydney Smith made it famous, was not much known to the +general public. It was on the borders of the county and out of the way. +The only coach that ran through it, I can remember, was a small one that +ran from Norwich through Beccles and Bungay to Yarmouth; and, if I +remember aright, on alternate days. There was, at any rate, no direct +communication between it and London. Bungay is a well-built market town, +skirted on the east and west by the navigable river Waveney, which +divides it from Norfolk, and was at one time noted for the manufacture of +knitted worsted stockings and Suffolk hempen cloth; but those trades are +now obsolete. The great Roger Bigod--one of the men who really did come +over with the Conqueror--built its castle, the ruins of which yet remain, +on a bold eminence on the river Waveney. 'The castle,' writes Dugdale, +'once the residence and stronghold of the Bigods, and by one of them +conceived to be impregnable, has become the habitation of helpless +poverty, many miserable hovels having been reared against its walls for +the accommodation of the lowest class.' The form of the castle appears +to have been octangular. The ruins of two round fortal towers and +fortresses of the west and south-west angles are still standing, as also +three sides of the great tower or keep, the walls of which are from 7 to +11 feet thick and from 15 to 17 feet high. In the midst of the ruins, on +what is called the Terrace, is a mineral spring, now disused, and near it +is a vault, or dungeon, of considerable depth. Detached portions of the +wall and their foundations are spread in all directions in the castle +grounds, a ridge of which, about 40 yards long, forms the southern +boundary of a bowling-green which commands delightful prospects. The +mounds of earth raised for the defence of the castle still retain much of +their original character, though considerably reduced in height. One of +them, facing the south, was partly removed in 1840, with the intention of +forming a cattle market. As a boy I often heard of the proud boast of +Hugh Bigod, second Earl, one of King Stephen's most formidable opponents, +as recorded by Camden: + + 'Were I in my castle of Bungay, + Upon the river Waveney, + I would not care for the King of Cockeney.' + +In ancient times the Waveney was a much broader stream than it is now, +and Bungay was called _Le Bon Eye_, or the good island, then being nearly +surrounded by water. Hence the name, in the vulgar dialect, of Bungay. +To 'go to Bungay to get a new bottom' was a common saying in Suffolk. + +In 1777 we find Hannah More writing to Garrick from Bungay, which she +describes as 'a much better town than I expected, very clean and +pleasant.' 'You are the favourite bard of Bungay'--at that time the +tragedians of the city of Norwich were staying there--'and,' writes +Hannah, who at that time had not become serious and renounced the +gaieties of the great world, 'the dramatic furore rages terribly among +the people, the more so, I presume, from being allowed to vent itself so +seldom. Everybody goes to the play every night,--that is, every other +night, which is as often as they perform. Visiting, drinking, and even +card-playing, is for this happy month suspended; nay, I question if, like +Lent, it does not stop the celebration of weddings, for I do not believe +there is a damsel in the town who would spare the time to be married +during this rarely-occurring scene of festivity. It must be confessed, +however, the good folks have no bad taste.' It must be recollected that +Hannah More in reality belongs to East Anglia. She was the daughter of +Jacob More, who was descended from a respectable family at Harleston. He +was a High Churchman, but all his family were Nonconformists. His mother +used to tell young people that they would have known how to value Gospel +privileges had they lived like her, when at midnight pious worshippers +went with stealthy steps through the snow to hear the words of +inspiration delivered by a holy man at her father's house; while her +father, with a drawn sword, guarded the entrance from violent or profane +intrusion, adding that they boarded the minister and kept his horse for +10 pounds a year. An unfortunate lawsuit deprived the Mores of their +property, and thus it was that the celebrated Hannah was born at +Gloucestershire, and not in Suffolk or Norfolk. The family mansion was +at Wenhaston, not very far from Wrentham. + +In my young days Bungay owed all its fame and most of its wealth to the +far-famed John Childs, who was one of our first Church Rate martyrs, to +whom is due mainly the destruction of the Bible-printing monopoly, and to +whom the late Edward Miall was much indebted for establishing the +_Nonconformist_ newspaper. For many years it was the habit of Mr. Childs +to celebrate that event by a dinner, at which the wine was good and the +talk was better. Old John Childs, of Bungay, had a cellar of port which +a dean might have envied; and many was the bottle that I cracked with him +as a young man, after a walk from Wrentham to Bungay, a distance of +fourteen miles, to talk with him on things in general, and politics in +particular. He was emphatically a self-made man--a man who would have +made his way anywhere, and a man who had a large acquaintance with the +reformers of his day in all parts of the country. On one occasion the +great Dan O'Connell came to pay him a visit, much to the delight of the +Suffolk Radicals, and to the horror of the Tories. The first great +dinner at which I had the honour of being present, and to which I was +taken by my father, who was a great friend of Mr. Childs, was on the +occasion of the presentation to the latter of a testimonial by a +deputation of distinguished Dissenters from Ipswich in connection with +his incarceration in the county gaol at Ipswich, for having refused to +pay rates for the support of a Church in which he did not believe, and +for the performance of a service in which he took no part. At that time +'the dear old Church of England,' while it was compelled to tolerate +Dissent, insisted on Dissent being taxed to the uttermost farthing; and +that it does not do so now, and that it is more popular in consequence, +is due to the firm stand taken by such men as John Childs of Bungay. He +was a great phrenologist. In his garden he had a summer-house, which he +facetiously termed his scullery, where he had some three hundred plaster +casts, many of which he had taken himself of public individuals and +friends and acquaintances. My father was honoured in this way, as also +my eldest sister. Sir Henry Thompson and I escaped that honour, but I +have not forgotten his dark, piercing glance at our heads, when, as boys, +we first came into his presence, and how I trusted that the verdict was +satisfactory. Of course the Childses went to Meeting, but when I knew +Bungay Mr. Shufflebottom had been gathered to his fathers, and the Rev. +John Blaikie, a Scotchman, and therefore always a welcome guest at +Wrentham, reigned in his stead. Mr. Childs had a large and promising +family, few of whom now remain. His daughter was an exceptionally gifted +and glorious creature, as in that early day it seemed to me. She also +died early, leaving but one son, Mr. Crisp, a partner in the well-known +legal firm of Messrs. Ashurst, Morris, and Crisp. It was in the little +box by the window of the London Coffee House--now, alas! no more--where +Mr. Childs, on the occasion of his frequent visits to London, always +gathered around him his friends, that I first made the acquaintance of +Mr. Ashurst, the head of the firm--a self-made man, like Mr. Childs, of +wonderful acuteness and great public spirit. In religion Mr. Ashurst was +far more advanced than the Bungay printer. 'It is not a thing to reason +about,' said the latter; and so to the last he remained orthodox, +attended the Bungay Meeting-house, invited the divines of that order to +his house, put in appearance at ordination services, and openings of +chapels, and was to be seen at May Meetings when in town, where +occasionally his criticisms were of a freer order than is usually met +with at such places. + +'The Bungay Press,' wrote a correspondent of the _Bookseller_, on the +death of Mr. Charles Childs, who had succeeded his father in the +business, 'has been long known for its careful and excellent work. +Established some short time before the commencement of the present +century, its founder had, for twenty years, limited its productions to +serial publications and books of a popular and useful character, and in +the year 1823, soon after Mr. John Childs had taken control of the +business, upwards of twenty wooden presses were working, at long hours, +to supply the rapidly-increasing demand for such works as folio Bibles, +universal histories, domestic medicine books, and other publications then +issuing in one and two shilling numbers from the press.' Originally Mr. +Childs had been in a grocer's shop at Norwich. There he was met with by +a Mr. Brightley, a printer and publisher, who, originally a schoolmaster +at Beccles, had suggested to young Childs that he had better come and +help him at Bungay than waste his time behind a counter. Fortunately for +them both the young man acceded to the proposal, and travelled all over +England driving tandem, and doing everywhere what we should now call a +roaring trade. Then he married Mr. Brightley's daughter, and became a +partner in the firm, which was known as that of John and R. Childs, and, +latterly of Childs and Son. 'Uncle Robert,' as I used to hear him +called, was little known out of the Bungay circle. He had a nice house, +and lived comfortably, marrying, after a long courtship, the only one of +the Stricklands who was not a writer. Agnes was often a visitor at +Bungay, and not a little shocked at the atrocious after-dinner talk of +the Bungay Radicals. 'Do you not think,' said she, in her somewhat +stilted and tragic style of talk, one day, to a literary man who was +seated next her, author of a French dictionary which the Childses were +printing at the time--'Do you not think it was a cruel and wicked act to +murder the sainted and unfortunate Charles I.?' 'Why, ma'am,' stuttered +the author, while the dinner-party were silent, 'I'd have p-p-poisoned +him.' The gifted authoress talked no more that day. Naturally, as a +lad, seeing so much of Bungay, I wished to be a printer, but Mr. Childs +said there was no use in being a printer without plenty of capital, and +so that idea was renounced. + +But to return to Mr. John Childs. About the year 1826, in association +with the late Joseph Ogle Robinson, he projected and commenced the +publication of a series of books known in the trade as the 'Imperial +Edition of Standard Authors,' which for many years maintained an +extensive sale, and certainly then met an admitted literary want, +furnishing the student and critical reader, in a cheap and handsome form, +with dictionaries, histories, commentaries, biographies, and +miscellaneous literature of acknowledged value and importance, such as +Burke's works, Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall,' Howe's works, the writings of +Lord Bacon--books which are still in the market, and which, if I may +speak from a pretty wide acquaintance with students' libraries fifty +years ago, were in great demand at that time. The disadvantage of such a +series is that the books are too big to put in the pocket or to hold in +the hand. But I do not know that that is a great disadvantage to a real +student who takes up a book to master its contents, and not merely to +pass away his time. To study properly a man must be in his study. In +that particular apartment he is bound to have a table, and if you place a +book on a table to read, it matters little the size of the page, or the +number of columns each page contains. Mr. Childs set the fashion of +reprinting standard authors on a good-sized page, with a couple of +columns on each page. That fashion was followed by Mr. W. Smith--a Fleet +Street publisher, than whom a better man never lived--and by Messrs. +Chambers; but now it seems quite to have passed away. On the failure of +Mr. Robinson, Mr. Childs' valuable reprints were placed in the hands of +Westley and Davis, and subsequently with Ball, Arnold, and Co.; and +latterly, I think, the late Mr. H. G. Bohn reissued them at intervals. +As to his part publications, when Mr. Childs had given up pushing them, +he disposed of them all to Mr. Virtue, of Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, who +then secured almost a monopoly of the part-number trade, and thus made a +large fortune. 'I love books that come out in numbers,' says Lord +Montford in 'Endymion,' 'as there is a little suspense, and you cannot +deprive yourself of all interest by glancing at the last part of the last +volume.' And so I suppose in the same way there will always be a +part-number trade, though the reapers in the field are many, and the +harvest is not what it was. + +Active and fiery in body and soul, Mr. John Childs, at a somewhat later +period, with the sympathy and advocacy of Mr. Joseph Hume and other +members of Parliament, and aided to a large extent by Lord Brougham, +succeeded in procuring the appointment of a Committee of the House of +Commons to inquire into the existing King's Printers' Patent for printing +Bibles and Acts of Parliament, the period for the renewal of which was +near at hand. The principle upon which the patent was originally granted +appeared to be _correctness secured only by protection_--a fallacy which +the voluminous evidence of the Committee most completely exposed. The +late Alderman Besley, a typefounder, and a great friend of John Childs, +as well as Robert Childs, practical printers, gave conclusive evidence on +this head, and the result was that, although the patent was renewed for +thirty years, instead of sixty as before, the Scriptures were sold to the +public at a greatly reduced price, and the trade in Bibles, though +nominally protected, has ever since been practically free. + +Nor did Mr. Childs' labours end here. In Scotland the right of printing +Bibles had been granted exclusively to a company of private persons, +Blaire and Bruce, neither of whom had any practical knowledge of the art +of printing, or took any interest in the different editions of the Bible. +The same men also had the supplying all the public revenue offices of +Government with stationery, by which means they enjoyed an annual profit +of more than 6,000 pounds a year. When the Government, in an economical +mood, ordered them to relinquish the latter contract, not only were they +compensated for the loss, but were continued in their vested rights as +regards Bible-printing. In Scotland there was no one to interfere with +their rights. In England patents had been given not only to the firm of +Messrs. Strahan, Eyre and Spottiswoode, but to each of the two +Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. Up to 1821 the Bibles of the +English monopolists came freely into Scotland, but then a prohibition, +supported by decisions in the Court of Sessions and the House of Lords, +was obtained. In 1824 Dr. Adam Thompson, of Coldstream, and three +ministers were summoned to answer for the high crime and misdemeanour of +having, as directors of Bible societies, delivered copies of an edition +of Scriptures which had been printed in England, but which the Scotch +monopolists would not permit to circulate in Scotland. Bible societies +in Scotland had received, in return for their subscription to the London +society, copies of an octavo Bible in large type, to which the Scotch +patentees had no corresponding edition, and which was much prized by the +aged. And it was because Dr. Thompson and others helped to circulate it, +as agents of the London Bible Society, that they were proceeded against. +The Scotch Bible, in consequence of the monopoly, was as badly printed as +the English one. In order to show how monopoly had failed to secure good +work, a gentleman sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury an enormous list +of errors which he had found in the Oxford Nonpareil Bible. In an old +Scotch edition the apostle is made to say, 'Know ye not that the +righteous shall _not_ inherit the kingdom of God?' In another edition +'The four beasts of the Apocalypse' are '_sour_ beasts.' Dr. Lee, +afterwards Principal of Edinburgh University, felt deeply the injustice +done by the monopoly, and the heavy taxation consequently imposed upon +the British and Foreign Bible Society; but he was a man of the study +rather than of the street. Yet in 1837 the monopoly, powerfully defended +as it was by Sir Robert Inglis, who dreaded cheap editions of the Word of +God, as necessarily incorrect and leading to wickedness and infidelity of +all kinds, fell, and it was to John Childs, of Bungay, that in a great +measure the fall was due, while owing to the repeated labours of Dr. Adam +Thompson and others, we got cheaper Bibles and Testaments on the other +side of the Tweed. + +If you turn to the life of Dr. Adam Thompson, of Coldstream, the man who +had the most publicly to do with the fall of the monopoly, there can be +no doubt on this head. Though specially interested in the English +patents, Mr. Childs was aware that the one for Scotland fell, to be +renewed sooner by twenty years, and he kept dunning Joseph Hume on the +subject, who, Radical Reformer, at that time had his hands pretty full. +Mr. Childs had got so far as to have his Committee, and to get the +evidence printed. What was the next step? Dr. Thompson's biographer +shall tell us. 'Mr. Childs had been looking out for a Scottish +Dissenting minister of proved ability, zeal, and influence, who should +feel the immense and urgent importance of the question, and after +mastering the unjust principles and the injurious results of the +monopoly, should testify to these before the Committee, in a weighty and +pointed manner, and effectively bring them also before the ministers and +people of Scotland. He fixed upon Dr. Thompson, and the letter in which +he wrote to the Doctor to prepare for becoming a witness was the +beginning of a ten years' copious correspondence, the first in a series +of many hundreds of very lengthy letters, in which Mr. Childs, with great +shrewdness, sagacity, and vigour, and with perfect confidence of always +being in the right, acted as universal censor, pronouncing oracularly +upon all ecclesiastical and political men and organs, expressing +unqualified contempt for the House of Lords, and very small satisfaction +with the House of Commons, showing no mercy to Churchmen, and little but +asperity to Dissenters, and denouncing all British journals as base or +blind except the _Nonconformist_.' Only two of these letters are +published in Dr. Thompson's biography. I give one, partly because it is +interesting, and partly because it is characteristic. Unfortunately, of +all John Childs' letters to myself, written in a fine, bold hand, exactly +reproduced by his son and grandson, so that I could never tell one from +the other, I have preserved none. Childs thus wrote to Dr. Thompson, +July 15th, 1839: + + 'MY DEAR FRIEND, + + 'You will be happy to know that I went into Newgate this morning with + my friend Ashurst, and heard their pardon read to the Canadians. + They were released this afternoon, and Mr. Parker and Mr. Wixon have + been dining with me, and are gone to a lodging, taken for them by Mr. + A., where they may remain till their departure on Wednesday. I have + just sent to Mr. Tidman to inform him they will worship God and + return thanks in his place to-morrow, if all be well. How + wonderfully God has appeared for these people! My dear friend, when + I first saw them in January all things appeared to be against them, + but all has been overruled for good. + + 'At the time you left on Monday evening, Lord John was making known + to the House of Commons, in your own words, the plan proposed by + yourself, and adopted by him, to my amazement. Most heartily do I + congratulate you on the termination of the event, so decidedly + honourable to yourself in every way. I do not expect you will + approve of all that I have done, but I felt it to be my duty to + address a letter to the _Pilot_ on the subject, calling attention to + the liberty taken with you, and the manner in which you were + humbugged when in concert with the London societies, and the absolute + triumph of your cause when conducted with single-handed integrity, + intelligence, and energy. If it shall happen that you do not approve + of all I have said, I am sure you ought, because without you, and + with you, if you had left it to the fellows here, Scotland's + Dissenters would have now appeared the degraded things which, on the + Bible subject, the English Dissenters have appeared in my eyes for + some years past. It is due to you. I was fairly rejoiced when I saw + Lord John's declaration, because I could see from his answer to Sir + James Graham that he meant the thing should be done. Scotland ought + to have a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving, and as I said to a + friend to whom I wrote in Edinburgh, "You ought to have a + monument--the Thompson monument." "That, sir," the guide would say, + "is erected to honour a man by whose honest energy and zeal Scotland + was freed from the most degrading tyranny--that of a monopoly in + printing the Word of God." The tablet should bear that memorable + sentence of yours on the first day of your examination, "All + monopolies are bad." Of all monopolies religious monopolies are the + worst, and of all religious monopolies a monopoly of the Word of God + is the most outrageous.' Alas! I have heard nothing of the Thompson + monument. + +Such a man was John Childs. One more busy in body and brain I never +knew. That he was disposed to be cynical was natural. Most men who see +much of the world, and who do not wear coloured glasses, are so. Take +the history of the Bible monopoly. The work of its abolition was +commenced by John Childs, of Bungay, carried on and completed as far as +Scotland was concerned by Dr. Adam Thompson, while the British public in +its usual silliness awarded 3,000 pounds to Dr. Campbell, on the plea--I +quote the words of the late Dr. Morton Brown, of Cheltenham--that, 'God +gave the honour very largely to our friend, Dr. Campbell, to smite this +bloated enemy of God and man full in the forehead.' The bloated enemy, +as regards Scotland, was dead before Dr. Campbell had ever penned a line. +As regards England, I believe it still exists. + +It must have been about 1837 that the name of John Childs, of Bungay, was +made specially notorious by reason of his refusal to pay Church-rates, +and when he had the honour of being the first person imprisoned for their +non-payment. He was proceeded against in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and +as his refusal to pay was solely on conscientious grounds, he did not +contest the matter. The result was, he was sent to Ipswich Gaol for the +non-payment of a rate of 17s. 6d., the animus of the ecclesiastical +authorities being manifested by the endorsement of the writ, 'Take no +bail.' It was the first death-blow to Church-rates. The local +excitement it created was intense and unparalleled. In the House of +Commons Sir William Foulkes presented several petitions from Norfolk, and +Mr. Joseph Hume several from Suffolk, on the subject. One entire sitting +of the House of Commons was devoted to the Bungay Martyr, as Sir Robert +Peel ironically termed him. The Bungay Martyr had however, right on his +side. It was found that a blot had been hit, and it had to be removed. + +The excitement produced by putting Mr. Childs into gaol was intense at +that time all over the land. 'I beg to inform you,' wrote a Halesworth +Dissenter, Mr. William Lincoln, to the editor of the _Patriot_, at that +time the organ of Dissent, 'that my highly-esteemed and talented friend, +Mr. John Childs, of Bungay, has just passed through this town, in custody +of a sheriff's officer, on his way to our county gaol, by virtue of an +attachment, at the suit of Messrs. Bobbet and Scott, churchwardens of +Bungay, for non-payment of 17s. 6d. demanded of him as a Church-rate, and +subsequent refusal to obey a citation for appearance at the Bishop's +Court.' Naturally the writer remarked: 'It will soon be seen whether +proceedings so well in harmony with the days of fire and faggot are to be +tolerated in this advanced period of the nineteenth century.' When, in +due time, Mr. Childs obtained his release, the event was celebrated at +Bungay in fitting style. I find in a private diary the following note: +'This day week was a grand day at Bungay. I heard there were not less +than six or seven thousand people there to welcome his return, and the +request of the police, that the greatest order might be observed, was +fully acted up to. Miss C. did not enter Bungay with her father. I +suppose when she found so great a multitude of horsemen, gigs, +pedestrians and banners, they thought it better for the young lady and +the younger children to retire to the close carriages. Mr. C. during his +imprisonment had letters from all parts of the kingdom.' I remember the +leading Dissenters came to Bungay with a piece of plate, to present to +Mr. Childs, to commemorate his heroism. A dinner was given by Mr. Childs +in connection with the presentation. At that dinner, lad as I was, I was +permitted to be present. I had never seen anything so grand or stately +before; and that was my first interview with John Childs, a dark, +restless, eagle-eyed man, whom I was to know better and love more for +many a long day. I took to Radical writing, and nothing could have +pleased John Childs better. I owed much to his friendship in after-life. + +In 1833 the Church-rate question was originally raised in Bungay, and +many of the Dissenters refused to pay. The local authorities at once +took high ground, and put twelve of the recusants into the Ecclesiastical +Court. They caved in, leaving to John Childs the honour of martyrdom. +At the time of Mr. Childs' imprisonment he had recently suffered from a +severe surgical operation, and it was believed by his friends impossible +that he could survive the infliction of imprisonment. The Rev. John +Browne writes: 'A committee very generously formed at Ipswich undertook +the management of his affairs, and when they learned at the end of eleven +days' imprisonment that he had undergone a most severe attack, indicating +at least the possibility of sudden death, they sent a deputation to the +Court to pay the sum demanded. The Court, however, required, as well as +the money, the usual oath of canonical obedience, and this Mr. Childs +refused to give. He was told by his friends that he would surely die in +prison, but his reply was, 'That is not my business.' But it seems so +much had been made of the matter by the newspapers that Mr. Childs was +released without taking the oath. Charles Childs, the son, followed in +his father's steps. At Bungay the Churchmen seemed to have determined to +make Dissenters as uncomfortable as possible. Actually five years after +they had thrown the father into prison, the churchwardens proceeded +against the son, having been baffled in repeated attempts to distrain +upon his goods, and cited him into the Ecclesiastical Court, where it +took two and a half years to determine whether the sum of three shillings +and fourpence was due. At the end of that time the judge decided it was +not, and the churchwardens had to pay Mr. Childs' costs as well as their +own, which in the course of time amounted to a very respectable sum. +Charles Childs, who died suddenly a few years since, and who never seemed +to me to have aged a day since I first knew him, was truly a chip of the +old block. He was much in London, as he printed quite as much as his +father for the leading London publishers. An enlightened patriot, he was +in very many cases successful in resisting the obstacles raised from time +to time by party spirit or Church bigotry. On more than one occasion he +conducted a number of his workmen through an illegally-closed path, and +opened it by the destruction of the fences, repeated appeals to the +persistent obstructions having proved unavailing. He was a man of +scholarly and literary attainments, a clever talker, well able to hold +his own, and during the Corn Law and Currency agitation he contributed +one or more articles on these subjects to the _Westminster Review_, then +edited by his friend, the late General Perronet Thompson, a very foremost +figure in Radical circles forty years ago, always trying to get into +Parliament--rarely succeeding in the attempt. 'How can he expect it,' +said Mr. Cobden to me one day, 'when, instead of going to the principal +people to support him, he finds out some small tradesman--some little +tailor or shoemaker--to introduce him?' Once upon a time the _Times_ +furiously attacked Charles Childs. His reply, which was able and +convincing, was forwarded, but only procured admission in the shape of an +advertisement, for which Mr. Childs had to pay ten pounds. The corner of +East Anglia of which I write rarely produced two better men than the +Childs, father and son. They are gone, but the printing business still +survives, though no longer carried on under the well-known name. By +their noble integrity and public spirit they proved themselves worthy of +a craft to which light and literature and leading owe so much. It is to +such men that England is under lasting obligations, and one of the +indirect benefits of a State Church is that it gives them a grievance, +and a sense of wrong, which compels them to gird up their energies to act +the part of village Hampdens or guiltless Cromwells. All the manhood in +them is aroused and strengthened as they contend for what they deem right +and just, and against force and falsehood. Poets, we are told, by one +himself a poet, + + 'Are cradled into poetry by wrong; + They learn in suffering what they teach in song.' + +Nonconformists have cause especially to rejoice in the bigotry and +persecution to which they have been exposed, since it has led them by a +way they knew not, to become the champions of a broader creed and a more +general right than that of which their fathers dreamed. It is easy to +swim with the stream; it requires a strong man to swim against it. Two +hundred years of such swimming had made the Bungay Nonconformists strong, +and gave to the world two such exceptionally sturdy and strengthful men +as John and Charles Childs. I was proud to know them as a boy; in +advancing years I am prouder still to be permitted to bear this humble +testimony to their honest worth. It is because Nonconformity has raised +up such men in all parts of the land, that a higher tone has been given +to our public life, that politics mean something more than a struggle +between the ins and the outs, and that 'Onward' is our battle-cry. + +Of the young men more or less coming under the influence of the Childs's, +perhaps one of the most successful was the late Bernard Bolingbroke +Woodward, Librarian to her Majesty. When I first knew him he was in a +bank at Norwich. Thence he passed to Highbury College, and in due time, +after he had taken his B.A. degree, settled as the Independent minister +at Wortwell, near Harleston, in Norfolk. There he became connected with +John Childs, and, amidst much hard work, edited for the firm a new +edition of 'Barclay's Universal English Dictionary.' In 1860, on the +death of Mr. Glover, who had for many years filled the post of Librarian +to the Queen at Windsor Castle, Mr. Woodward's name was mentioned to the +Prince, in reply to inquiries for a competent successor. Acting on the +advice of a friend at head-quarters, Mr. Woodward forwarded to Prince +Albert the same printed testimonials which he had sent in when he was a +candidate for the vacant secretaryship of a large and popular society, +and to those alone he owed his appointment to the office of Librarian to +the Queen. An interview took place at Windsor Castle, which was highly +satisfactory; but before the appointment was finally made, Mr. Woodward +informed Her Majesty and the Prince that there was one circumstance which +he had omitted to mention, and which might disqualify him for the post. +'Pray, what is that disqualification?' asked the Prince. 'It is,' +replied Mr. Woodward, 'that I have been educated for, and have actually +conducted the services of an Independent congregation in the country.' +'And why should that be thought to disqualify you?' asked the Prince. +'It does nothing of the sort. If that is all, we are quite satisfied, +and feel perfectly safe in having you for a librarian.' Am I not +justified in saying that at one time Bungay influences reached far and +near? + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +A CELEBRATED NORFOLK TOWN. + + +Great Yarmouth Nonconformists--Intellectual life--Dawson Turner--Astley +Cooper--Hudson Gurney--Mrs. Bendish. + +When David Copperfield, Dickens tells us, first caught sight of Yarmouth, +it seemed to him to look rather spongy and soppy. As he drew nearer, he +remarks, 'and saw the whole adjacent prospect, lying like a straight, low +line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound or so might have +improved it, and also that if the land had been a little more separated +from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite so much mixed +up, like toast-and-water, it would have been much nicer.' He adds: 'When +we got into the street, which was strange to me, and smelt the fish, and +pitch, and oakum, and tallow, and saw the sailors walking about, and the +carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I had done so +busy a place injustice.' In this opinion his readers who know Yarmouth +will agree. Brighton and Hastings and Eastbourne might envy Yarmouth its +sandy beach, where you can lead an amphibious life, watching the +fishing-smacks as they come to shore with cargoes often so heavy as to be +sold for manure; watching the merchant-ships and yachts that lie securely +in the Roads, or the long trail of black smoke of Scotch or northern +steamers far away; watching the gulls ever skimming the surface of the +waves; or the children, as they build little forts and dwellings in the +sand to be rudely swept to destruction by the advancing tide. In the +golden light of summer, how blue is the sky, how green the sea, how +yellow the sand, how jolly look the men and handsome the women! What +health and healing are in the air, as it comes laden with ozone from the +North Sea! You have the sea in front and on each side to look at, to +walk by, to splash in, to sail on. The danger is, that you grow too fat, +too ruddy, too hearty, too boisterous. As we all know, Venus was born +out of the sea, and out there on that eastern peninsula, of which +Yarmouth is the pride and ornament, there used to flourish bonny lasses, +as if to show that the connection between the ocean and lovely woman is +as intimate as of yore. Yarmouth and Lowestoft owe a great deal to the +Great Eastern Railway, which has made them places of health-resort from +all parts of England; and truly the pleasure-seeker or the holiday-maker +may go farther and fare worse. + +I was a proud boy when first I set foot in Yarmouth. How I came to go +there I can scarcely remember, but it is to be presumed I accompanied my +father on one of those grand occasions--as far as Nonconformist circles +are concerned--when the brethren met together for godly comfort and +counsel. It is true Wrentham was in Suffolk, and Yarmouth was in +Norfolk, but the Congregational Churches of that quarter had always been +connected by Christian fellowship and sympathy, and hence I was taken to +Yarmouth--at that time far more like a Dutch than an English town--and +wonderful to me was the Quay, with its fine houses on one side and its +long line of ships on the other--something like the far-famed Bompjes of +Rotterdam--and the narrow rows in which the majority of the labouring +classes were accustomed to live. 'A row,' wrote Charles Dickens, 'is a +long, narrow lane or alley, quite straight, or as nearly so as may be, +with houses on each side, both of which you can sometimes touch with the +finger-tips of each hand by stretching out your arms to their full +extent. Many and many a picturesque old bit of domestic architecture is +to be hunted up among the rows. In some there is little more than a +blank wall for the double boundary. In others the houses retreat into +busy square courts, where washing and clear-starching are done, and +wonderful nasturtiums and scarlet-runners are reared from green boxes +filled with that scarce commodity, vegetable mould. Most of these rows +are paved with pebbles from the beach, and to traverse them a peculiar +form of low cart, drawn by a single horse, is employed.' This to me was +a great novelty, as with waggons and carts I was familiar, but not with a +Yarmouth cart--now, I find, replaced by wheelbarrows. In Amsterdam, at +the present day, you may see many such quaint old rows. But in Amsterdam +you have an evil-smelling air, while in Yarmouth it is ever fresh and +crisp, and redolent, as it were, of the neighbouring sea. The +market-place and the big church were at the back of this congeries of +quays and rows, and the sea and the old pier were at quite a respectable +distance from the town. I fancy the Yarmouth of the London bathers has +now extended down to the sandy beach, and the rough and rude old pier has +given place to one better adapted to the wants and requirements of an +increasingly well-to-do community. Far more Dutch than English was the +Yarmouth of half a century ago, I again say. + +As to the Yarmouth Independent parson, I shall never forget him. He was +a very big man, with great red cheeks that hung over his collar like +blown bladders, and was always on stilts. He preached in a big +meeting-house, now no more, the pillars of which intercepted alike the +view and the sound. One winter evening he was holding forth, in his +usual heavy style, to a few good people--with whom, evidently, all +pleasure was out of the question--who came there, as in duty bound, and +sat like martyrs all the while, and all were as grave as the preacher, +when a wicked boy rushed in and, in a hurried manner, called out, 'Fire! +fire!' The effect, I am told, was electrical. For once the good parson +was in a hurry, and moved as quickly and spoke as rapidly as his fellows; +but never had there been so much excitement in his chapel since he had +been its pastor. Once, I remember, he came to town, and dropped in at +the close of a party rather convivially inclined, in the Old London +Coffee House. As the reverend gentleman advanced to greet his friends, a +London lawyer, with all the impudence of his class, muttered, in a +whisper intended to be heard, and which was heard, by everyone, 'Yarmouth +bloater.' The good man said nothing, but it was evident he thought all +the more, as the group were more or less tittering over the fitness of +the comparison. The lawyer who made the remark was also the son of a +London minister, and, therefore, might have been expected to have known +better. I fear the Yarmouth minister never forgave him. Well, it only +served him right, as he had a horrible way of making young people very +uncomfortable. 'Well, Master James,' said he to me on one occasion, when +all the brethren had come to dine at Wrentham, and when I was admitted, +in conformity with the golden maxim in all well-regulated family circles, +that little children were to be seen and not heard (perhaps in our day +the fault is too much in an opposite direction), 'can you inform me which +is the more proper form of expression--a pair of new gloves, or a new +pair of gloves?' Of course I gave the wrong answer, as I blushed up to +the ears at finding myself the smallest personage in the room, publicly +appealed to by the biggest. He meant well, I dare say. His only object +was to draw me out; but the question and the questioner gave me a bad +quarter of an hour, and I never got over the unpleasant sensation of +which he had unconsciously been the originator in my youthful breast. + +At that time Yarmouth people were supposed to be a little superior. They +were well-to-do, and lived in good style, and, as was to be expected, +considering the sanitary advantages of the situation, were in good health +and spirits. They got a good deal of their intellectual character from +Norwich, which at the time set the fashion in such matters. In 1790 two +societies were established in that city for the private and amicable +discussion of miscellaneous questions. One of these, the Tusculan, seems +to have devoted the attention of its members exclusively to political +topics; while the Speculative, although it imposed no restrictions on the +range of inquiry, was of a more philosophical character. William Taylor +was a member of both, and it is difficult to say whether he distinguished +himself most by his ingenuity in debate, by the novelty of the +information which he brought to bear on every point, or by the lively +sallies of imagination with which he at once amused and excited his +hearers. The papers read by himself embraced an infinite variety of +subjects, from the theory of the earth, then unillumined by the +disclosures of modern geologists, to the most elaborate and refined +productions of its rational tenants, and he was seldom at a loss to place +on new ground or in a fresh light the matter of discussion introduced by +others. Writers of every tongue, studied by him with observant +curiosity, stored his retentive memory with materials ready to be applied +on every occasion, moulded by his Promethean talent into the most +animated and alluring forms. As a speaker and converser he was eminently +characterized by a constant flow of brilliant ideas, by a rapid +succession of striking images, and by a never-failing copiousness of +words, often quaint, but always correct. A similar society was formed at +Yarmouth, under the auspices of Dr. Aiken, at which William Taylor also +occasionally attended. The Rev. Thomas Compton has given the following +description of these visits: 'We were, moreover, sometimes gratified by +the presence of our literary friends from Norwich. I have there +repeatedly listened to the mild and persuasive eloquence of the late Dr. +Enfield. A gentleman, too, still living, who has lately added to his +literary fame by a biographical work of high repute (I scarcely need add +that I allude to Mr. W. Taylor) would sometimes instruct us by his +various and profound knowledge, or amuse us with his ingenious +paradoxes.' When we recollect how at this time the poetical puerilities +of Bath Easton flourished in the West, we may claim that Norwich and +Yarmouth, if not as favoured by fashion, had at any rate a claim to +intellectual reputation at least quite equal to that city of the _ton_. +Dr. Sayers, whose biography William Taylor had written, and whose +'Dramatic Sketches of Northern Mythology' had created a great sensation +at the time, was of Yarmouth extraction. + +The Rev. Mr. Compton writes: 'In Yarmouth, where I lived at this time, +and where Lord Chedworth was accustomed to pay an annual visit, there was +then a society of gentlemen who met once a fortnight for the purpose of +amicable discussion. Our members--alas! how few remain--were of all +parties and persuasions, and some of them of very distinguished +attainments. A society thus constituted was in those days as pleasant as +it was instructive. The most eager disputation was never found to +endanger the most perfect goodwill, nor did any bitter feuds arise from +this entire freedom of opinion till the prolific period of the French +Revolution. On this subject our controversies became very impassioned. +The present Sir Astley Cooper, then a very young man, was accustomed to +pass his vacations with his most excellent father, Dr. Cooper, a name +ever to be by me beloved and revered. It was the amusement of our young +friend to say things of the most irritating nature, I believe--like Lady +Florence Pemberton in the novel--merely to see who would make the ugliest +face. Thus circumstanced, it was not in my philosophy to be the coolest +of the party.' We can well imagine the consequences. There was a row, +and the literary society came to grief. As time went on matters became +worse instead of better, and the town was split up into parties--Liberal +or the reverse, Church or Dissent, but all of one mind as regards their +views being correct; and as to the weakness or wickedness of persons who +thought otherwise. The evil of this spirit knew no bounds, and the +demoralizing effect it produced was especially apparent at election +times. When Oldfield wrote his 'Origin of Parliaments,' the town, he +tells us, was under the influence of the Earl of Leicester, and was for +many years represented by some of his Lordship's family. The right of +election was in the burgesses at large, of whom there were at that time +one thousand. The Reform Bill did little to improve the state of +affairs; it led to greater bribery and corruption and intimidation than +ever, and now, as a Parliamentary borough, Yarmouth has ceased to exist. +'Sugar,' it seems, was the slang term used for money, and the honest +voters were too eager to get it. Alas! in none of our seaport towns is +the standard of morality very high. Yarmouth, at any rate, is not worse +than Deal. In old days the excitement of a Yarmouth election much +affected our village. It lasted some days. The out-voters were brought +from the uttermost parts of the earth. As there were no railways, +stage-coaches were hired to bring them down from town; and when they +changed horses at Wrentham, quite a crowd would assemble to look at the +flags, and the free and independents on their way to do their duty, +overflowing with enthusiasm and beer. + +Sir Astley Cooper was much connected with Yarmouth in his young days, +when his father was the incumbent of the parish church. Some of his +boyish pranks were peculiar. Here is one of them: 'Having taken two +pillows from his mother's bed, he carried them up the spire of Yarmouth +Church, at a time when the wind was blowing from the north-east; and as +soon as he had ascended as high as he could, he ripped them open, and, +shaking out their contents, dispersed them in the air. The feathers were +carried away by the wind, and fell far and wide over the surface of the +market-place, to the great astonishment of a large number of persons +assembled there. The timid looked upon it phenomenon predictive of some +calamity; the inquisitive formed a thousand conjectures; while some, +curious in natural history, actually accounted for it by a gale of wind +in the north blowing wild-fowl feathers from the island of St. Paul's.' +On another occasion he got into an old trunk, which the family had agreed +to get rid of as inconvenient in the house. In this case he had to pay +the penalty, when he emerged from the chest in the carpenter's shop. The +men, who had complained terribly of its weight, were not inclined to +allow young Astley to get off free. One of Astley's tricks had, however, +a good motive, as it was intended to cure an old woman of her besetting +sin--a tendency to take a drop too much. In order to cure the old woman +of this weakness, he dressed himself as well as he could to represent the +sable form of his satanic majesty. Alas! instead of being surprised, the +old lady was too far-gone for that, and listened with tipsy gravity to +the distinguished visitor's discourse. In her case it was true, as Burns +wrote: + + 'Wi' tipenny we fear nae evil; + Wi' usquebae we'll face the deevil.' + +One of his tricks nearly led to unpleasant consequences. Whilst out +shooting one day, near Yarmouth, he killed an owl--a bird familiarly +known in Yarmouth by the sobriquet of 'Brother Billy.' Having arrived at +home, he went up into his mother's room, with the bird concealed behind +his coat, and, assuming a countenance full of fear and sorrow, exclaimed, +'Mother, mother, I've shot my brother Billy!' but the alarm and distress +instantly depicted on the distracted countenance of his parent induced +him as quickly as possible to pull the owl from under his coat. This at +once exposed the truth and allayed the apprehensions of his mother's +mind, but the effects of the shock it caused did not so immediately pass +away. Dr. Cooper determined to punish his son, and he therefore confined +him, according to his usual mode of correction, in his own house. Astley +was, however, but little disposed to remain passive in his imprisonment, +and in the wantonness of his ever-active disposition amused himself by +climbing up the chimney, and having at length reached the summit, +endeavoured, by imitating the well-known tone of the chimney-sweeper, and +calling out as lustily as he could, 'Sweep, sweep!' to attract the +attention of the people below. Even on his father the incorrigible lad +seems on more than one occasion to have tried his little game. One day, +while the worthy Doctor was marrying a couple in the church, Master +Astley concealed himself in a turret close by the altar, and, imitating +his father's voice, repeated in a subdued tone the words of the +marriage-service as the ceremony proceeded, to the consternation of his +father, who said that he had never observed an echo in that place before. +Once or twice the lad's life was in peril, as when his foot slipped on +the top of the church, and he was unpleasantly suspended for some time +between the rafters of the ceiling and the floor of the chancel. On +another occasion he had a narrow escape from drowning. It seems that on +the Yare are little boats out together very slightly, for the purpose of +carrying a man, his gun, and dog over the shallows of Braydon, in pursuit +of the flights of wild-fowl which at certain seasons haunt these shoals. +When the boat is thus loaded, it only draws two or three inches of water, +and is quite unfit for sea. Young Astley nearly lost his life in +attempting to take one of these boats out to open sea. In this way young +Astley Cooper, from his fearless and enterprising disposition, soon +became a sort of leader of the Yarmouth boys, and at their head, for a +time, seems to have devoted himself to every kind of amusement within his +reach--riding, boating, fishing, and not unfrequently sports of a less +harmless character, such as breaking lamps and windows, ringing the +church bells at all hours, disturbing the people by frequent alterations +of the church clock, so that if any mischief were committed it was sure, +says his admiring biographer, to be set down to him. + +The two men who shed most literary fame on the Yarmouth of my childhood +were Dawson Turner and Hudson Gurney, who in this respect resembled each +other, that they were both bankers and both antiquarians more or less +distinguished. Dawson Turner was a man of middle height and of saturnine +aspect, who had the reputation of being a hard taskmaster to the ladies +of his family, who were quite as intelligent and devoted to literature as +himself. He published a 'Tour in Normandy'--at that time scarcely anyone +travelled abroad--and much other matter, and perhaps as an +autograph-collector was unrivalled. Most of his books, with his notes, +more or less valuable, are now in the British Museum. Sir Charles Lyell, +when a young man, visited the Turner family in 1817, and gives us a very +high idea of them all. 'Mr. Turner,' he says, in a letter to his father, +'surprises me as much as ever. He wrote twenty-two letters last night +after he had wished us "Good-night." It kept him up till two o'clock +this morning.' Again Sir Charles writes: 'What I see going on every hour +in this family makes me ashamed of the most active day I ever spent at +Midhurst. Mrs. Turner has been etching with her daughters in the parlour +every morning at half-past six.' Of Hudson Gurney in his youth we get a +flattering portrait in one of the charming 'Remains of the Late Mrs. +Trench,' edited by her son, Archbishop of Dublin. Writing from Yarmouth +in 1799, she says: 'I have been detained here since last Friday, waiting +for a fair wind, and my imprisonment would have been comfortless enough +had it not have been for the attention of Mr. Hudson Gurney, a young man +on whom I had no claims except from a letter of Mr. Sanford's, who, +without knowing him, or having any connection with him, recommended me to +his care, feeling wretched that I should be unprotected in the first part +of my journey. He has already devoted to me one evening and two +mornings, assisted me in money matters, lent me books, and enlivened my +confinement to a wretched room by his pleasant conversation. Mr. Sanford +having described me as a person travelling about _for her health_, he +says his old assistant in the Bank fancied I was a decrepit elderly lady +who might safely be consigned to his youthful partner. His description +of his surprise thus prepared was conceived in a very good strain of +flattery. He is almost two-and-twenty, understands several languages, +seems to delight in books, and to be uncommonly well informed.' Little +credit, however, is due to Mr. Hudson Gurney for his politeness in this +case. The lovely and lively widow--she had married Colonel St. George at +the age of eighteen, and the marriage only lasted two or three years, the +Colonel dying of consumption--must have possessed personal and mental +attractions irresistible to a cultivated young man of twenty-two. Had +she been old and ugly, it is to be feared his business engagements would +have prevented the youthful banker devoting much time to her ladyship's +service. + +Yarmouth is intimately connected with literature and the fine arts. It +was off Yarmouth that Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked; and the testimony +he bears to the character of the people shows how kindly disposed were +the Yarmouth people of his day. 'We,' he writes, 'got all safe on shore, +and walked afterwards on foot to Yarmouth, where, as unfortunate men, we +were used with great humanity, not only by the magistrates of the town, +who assigned us good quarters, but also by particular merchants and +owners of ships, and had money given us, sufficient to carry us either to +London or back to Hull, as we thought fit.' It was from Yarmouth that +Wordsworth and Coleridge sailed away to Germany, then almost a _terra +incognita_. Leman Blanchard was born at Yarmouth, as well as Sayers, the +first, if not the cleverest, of our English caricaturists. One of the +most brilliant men ever returned to Parliament was Winthrop Mackworth +Praed, M.P. for Yarmouth, whose politics as a boy I detested as much as +in after-years I learned to admire his genius. One of the most fortunate +men of our day, Sir James Paget, the great surgeon, was a Yarmouth lad, +and the See of Chester was filled by an accomplished divine, also a +Yarmouth lad. Southey, when at Yarmouth, where his brother was a student +for some time, was so much struck with the uniqueness of the epitaphs in +the Yarmouth Church, that he took the trouble to copy many of them. One +was as follows: + + 'We put him out to nurse; + Alas! his life he paid, + But judge not; he was overlaid.' + +And hence it may be inferred that in Yarmouth the custom of baby-farming +has long flourished. Possibly thence it may have extended itself to +London. Amongst the truly great men who have lived and died in Yarmouth, +honourable mention must be made of Hales, the Norfolk Giant. In times +past soldiers and sailors and royal personages were often to be seen at +Yarmouth. It was at Yarmouth the heroes, returning from many a distant +battle-field, often landed. Nelson on one occasion--that is, after the +affair of Copenhagen--when he landed, at once made his way to the +hospital to see his men. To one of them, who had lost his arm, he said, +'There, Jack, you and I are spoiled for fishermen.' + +A good deal of Puritanism seems to have come into England by way of +Yarmouth. In Queen Elizabeth's time, 300 Flemings settled there, who had +fled from Popery and Spain in their native land. In Norwich the Dutch +Church remains to this day. Some of them seem to have been the friends +and teachers of the far-famed, and I believe unjustly maligned, Robert +Browne. In Norfolk the seed fell upon good soil. While sacerdotalism +was more or less being developed in the State Church, the Norfolk men +boldly protested against Papal abominations, as they deemed them, and +swore to maintain the gospel of Geneva and Knox. One of the men +imprisoned when Bancroft was Archbishop of Canterbury, for attending a +conventicle, was Thomas Ladd, 'a merchant of Yarmouth.' The writ ran: +'Because that, on the Sabbath days, after the sermons ended, sojourning +in the house of Mr. Jachler, in Yarmouth, who was late preacher in +Yarmouth, joined with him in repeating the substance and heads of the +sermons that day made in the church, at which Thomas Ladd was usually +present.' In 1624 the penal laws for suppressing Separatists were +strictly enforced in Yarmouth, and one of the teachers of a small society +of Anabaptists was cast into prison, and the Bishop of Norwich wrote a +letter of thanks to the bailiffs for their activity in this matter, which +is preserved to this day. But, nevertheless, people still continued to +worship God according to the dictates of conscience; we find the Earl of +Dorset in his reply to the town of Yarmouth, as to the way in which the +town should be governed, adds: 'I should want in my care of you if I +should not let you know that his Majesty is not only informed, but +incensed against you for conniving at and tolerating a company of +Brownists among you. I pray you remember there was no seam in the +Saviour's garment.' Bridge was the founder of the Yarmouth +Congregational Church, somewhere about the time of the commencement of +the Civil War. The people declared for the Parliament. Colonel Goffe +was one of its representatives in the House of Commons. All along, the +town seems to have been puritanically inclined, and to have been in this +matter more independent than neighbouring towns. At one time they were +so tolerant that the Independents seem to have worshipped in one end of +the church while the regular clergyman performed the service in the +other; but that did not last long, and when the Independents had a place +of worship of their own, they were not a little troubled by Friends and +Papists claiming for themselves the liberty the Independents had sought +and won. In 1655 the peace of the Church was disturbed by Quaker +doctrines. It appears two females, members of the Church, had joined +them, and refused to return. We read: 'The messenger appointed to visit +May Rouse, brought in an account of her disowning and despising the +Church; she would not come at all unless she had a message from the +Spirit moving her.' She came, however, a week after (December 11), but +by reason of the cold weather was desired to come in again the next +Tuesday. She did so, and gave in these two reasons why she forsook the +Church: 1. Because the doctrine of the Gospel of Faith was not holden +forth; 2. Because there wanted the right administration of baptism. + +In 1659 the Church at Yarmouth, feeling the times to be full of trouble +and of peril, said: + +'1. We judge a Parliament to be expedient for the preservation of the +peace of these nations; and withal, we do desire that all due care be +taken that the Parliament be such as may preserve the interests of Christ +and His people in these nations. + +'2. As touching the magistrates' power in matters of faith and worship, +we have declared our judgments in our late (Free Savoy) confession, and +though we greatly prize our Christian liberties, yet we profess our utter +dislike and abhorrence of a universal toleration, as being contrary to +the mind of God in His Word. + +'3. We judge that the taking away of tithes for the maintenance of +ministers until as full a maintenance be equally secured and as legally +settled, tends very much to the destruction of the ministry, and the +preaching of the Gospel in these nations. + +'4. It is our desire that countenance be not given unto, nor trust +reposed in, the hand of Quakers, they being persons of such principles as +are destructive to the Gospel, and inconsistent with the peace of modern +societies.' + +In five years the Yarmouth people had a Roland for their Oliver; the King +had got his own again, and he and the Parliament of the day looked upon +the Independents or Presbyterians as mischievous as the Quakers; and as +to tithes, they were quite as much resolved, the only difference being +that King and Parliament insisted on their being paid to Episcopalians +alone. In 1770 Lady Huntingdon writes: 'Success has crowned our labours +in that wicked place, Yarmouth.' + +Mrs. Bendish, in whom the Protector was said to have lived again, was +quite a character in Yarmouth society. Bridget Ireton, the granddaughter +of the Protector, married in 1669 Mr. Thomas Bendish, a descendant of Sir +Thomas Bendish, baronet, Ambassador from Charles I. to the Sultan. She +died in 1728, removing, however, in the latter years of her life to +Yarmouth. Her name stands among the members of the church in London of +which Caryl had been pastor, and over which Dr. Watts presided. To her +the latter addressed at any rate one copy of verses to be found in his +collected works. She recollected her grandfather, and standing, when six +years old, between his knees at a State Council, she heard secrets which +neither bribes nor whippings could extract from her. Her grandfather she +held to be a saint in heaven, and only second to the Twelve Apostles. +Asked one day whether she had ever been at Court, her reply was, 'I have +never been at Court since I was waited upon on the knee.' Yet she +managed to dispense with a good deal of waiting, and never would suffer a +servant to attend her. God, she said, was a sufficient guard, and she +would have no other. She is described as loquacious and eloquent and +enthusiastic, frequenting the drawing-rooms and assemblies of Yarmouth, +dressed in the richest silks, and with a small black hood on her head. +When she left, which would be at one in the morning, perched on her +old-fashioned saddle, she would trot home, piercing the night air with +her loud, jubilant psalms, in which she described herself as one of the +elect, in a tone more remarkable for strength than sweetness. In the +daytime she would work with her labourers, taking her turn at the +pitchfork or the spade. The old Court dresses of her mother and Mrs. +Cromwell were bequeathed by her to Mrs. Robert Luson, of Yarmouth, and +were shown as recently as 1834, at an exhibition of Court dresses held at +the Somerset Gallery in the Strand. As was to be expected, Mrs. Bendish +was enthusiastic in the cause of the Revolution of 1688, and the printed +sheets relating to it were dropped by her secretly in the streets of +Yarmouth, to prepare the people for the good time coming. Her son was a +friend of Dr. Watts as well as his mother. He died at Yarmouth, +unmarried, in the year 1753, and with him the line of Bendish seems to +have come to an end. Another daughter of Ireton was married to Nathaniel +Carter, who died in 1723, aged 78. His father, John Carter, was +commander-in-chief of the militia of the town in 1654. He subscribed the +Solemn League and Covenant, being then one of the elders of the +Independent congregation. He was also bailiff of the town, and an +intimate friend of Ireton. He died in 1667. On his tombstone we read: + + 'His course, his fight, his race, + Thus finished, fought, and run, + Death brings him to the place + From whence is no return.' + +He lived at No. 4, South Quay, and it was there, so it is said, that the +resolve was made that King Charles should die. + +He is gone, but his room still remains unaltered--a large wainscoted +upper chamber, thirty feet long, with three windows looking on to the +quay, with carved and ornamented chimney-piece and ceiling. A great +obscurity, as was to be expected, hangs over the transaction, as even now +there are men who shrink from lifting up a finger against the Lord's +anointed. Dinner had been ordered at four, but it was not till eleven, +that it was served, and that the die had been cast. The members of the +Secret Council, we are told, 'after a very short repast, immediately set +off by post--many for London, and some for the quarters of the army.' +Such is the account given in a letter, written in 1773, by Mr. Mewling +Luson, a well-known resident in Yarmouth, whose father, Mr. William +Luson, was nearly connected the Cromwell family. Nathaniel Carter, the +son-in-law of Ireton, was in the habit of showing the room, and relating +the occurrence connected with it, which happened when he was a boy. +Cromwell was not at that council. He never was in Yarmouth; but that +there was such consultation there is more than probable. Yarmouth was +full of Cromwellites. In the Market Place, now known as the Weavers' +Arms, to this day is shown the panelled parlour whence Miles Corbet was +used to go forth to worship in that part of the church allotted to the +Independents. Miles Corbet was the son of Sir Thomas Corbet, of +Sprouston, who had been made Recorder of Yarmouth in the first year of +Charles, and who was one of the representatives of the town in the Long +Parliament. The son was an ardent supporter of the policy of Cromwell, +and, like him, laboured that England might be religious and free and +great, as she never could be under any king of the Stuart race; and he +met with his reward. 'See, young man,' said an old man to Wilberforce, +as he pointed to a figure of Christ on the cross, 'see the fate of a +Reformer.' It was so emphatically with Miles Corbet. Under the date of +1662 there is the following entry in the church-book: + + '1662.--Miles Corbet suffered in London.' + +He was a member of the church there, and was one of the judges who sat on +the trial of King Charles I. His name stands last on the list of those +who signed the warrant for that monarch's execution. Corbet fled into +Holland at the Restoration, with Colonels Okey and Barkstead. George +Downing--a name ever infamous--had been Colonel Okey's chaplain. He +became a Royalist at the Restoration, and was despatched as Envoy +Extraordinary into Holland, where, under a promise of safety, he +trepanned the three persons above named into his power, and sent them +over to England to suffer death for having been members of the Commission +for trying King Charles I. For this service he was created a baronet. +The King sent an order to the Sheriffs of London on April 21, 1662, that +Okey's head and quarters should have Christian burial, as he had +manifested some signs of contrition; but Barkstead's head was directed to +be placed on the Traitor's Gate in the Tower, and Corbet's head on the +bridge, and their quarters on the City gates. + +Foremost amongst the noted women of the Independent Church must be +mentioned Sarah Martin, of whose life a sketch appeared in the _Edinburgh +Review_ as far back as 1847. A life of her was also published by the +Religious Tract Society. Sarah, who joined the Yarmouth church in 1811, +was born at Caistor. From her nineteenth year she devoted her only day +of rest, the Sabbath, to the task of teaching in a Sunday-school. She +likewise visited the inmates of the workhouse, and read the Scriptures to +the aged and the sick. But the gaol was the scene of her greatest +labours. In 1819, after some difficulty, she obtained admission to it, +and soon seems to have acquired an extraordinary influence over the minds +of the prisoners. She then gave up one day in the week to instruct them +in reading and writing. At length she attended the prison regularly, and +kept an exact account of her proceedings and their results in a book, +which is now preserved in the public library of the town. As there was +no chaplain, she read and preached to the inmates herself, and devised +means of obtaining employment for them. She continued this good work +till the end of her days in 1843, when she died, aged fifty-three. A +handsome window of stained glass, costing upwards of 100 pounds, raised +by subscription, has been placed to her memory in the west window of the +north aisle of St. Nicholas Church. But her fame extends beyond local +limits, and is part of the inheritance of the universal Church. It was +in Mr. Walford's time that Sarah Martin commenced her work. Mr. Walford +tells us, in his Autobiography, that the Church had somewhat degenerated +in his day, that the line of thought was worldly, and not such as became +the Gospel. It is clear that in his time it greatly revived, and, even +as a lad, the intelligence of the congregation seemed to lift me up into +quite a new sphere, so different were the merchants and ship-owners of +Yarmouth from the rustic inhabitants of my native village. In this +respect, if I remember aright, the family of Shelley were particularly +distinguished. One dear old lady, who lived at the Quay, was +emphatically the minister's friend. She had a nice house of her own and +ample means, and there she welcomed ministers and their wives and +children. It is to be hoped, for the sake of poor parsons, that such +people still live. I know it was a great treat to me to enjoy the +hospitality of the kind-hearted Mrs. Goderham, for whose memory I still +cherish an affectionate regard. To live in one of the best houses on the +Quay, and to lie in my bed and to see through the windows the masts of +the shipping, was indeed to a boy a treat. + +A little while ago I chanced to be at Norwich, when the thought naturally +occurred to me that I would take a run to Yarmouth--a journey quickly +made by the rail. In my case the journey was safely and expeditiously +accomplished, and I hastened once more to revisit the scenes and +associations of my youth. Alas! wherever I went I found changes. A new +generation had arisen that knew not Joseph. The wind was howling down +the Quay; the sand was blown into my mouth, my nose, my ears; I could +scarcely see for the latter, or walk for the former; but, nevertheless, I +made my way to the pier. Only one person was on it, and his back was +turned to me. As he stood at the extreme end, with chest expanded, with +mouth wide open, as if prepared to swallow the raging sea in front and +the Dutch coast farther off, I thought I knew the figure. It was a +reporter from Fleet Street and he was the only man to greet me in the +town I once knew so well. Yes; the Yarmouth of my youth was gone. Then +a reporter from Fleet Street was an individual never dreamt of. And so +the world changes, and we get new men, fresh faces, other minds. The +antiquarian Camden, were he to revisit Yarmouth, would not be a little +astonished at what he would see. He wrote: 'As soon as the Yare has +passed Claxton, it takes a turn to the south, that it may descend more +gently into the sea, by which means it makes a sort of little tongue or +slip of land, washt on one side by itself, on the other side by the sea. +In this slip, upon an open shore, I saw Yarmouth, a very neat harbour and +town, fortified both by the nature of the place and the contrivance of +art. For, though it be almost surrounded with water, on the west with a +river, over which there is a drawbridge, and on either side with the sea, +except to the north, where it is joined to the continent; yet it is +fenced with strong, stately walls, which, with the river, figure it into +an oblong quadrangle. Besides the towers upon these, there is a mole or +mount, to the east, from whence the great guns command the sea (scarce +half a mile distant) all round. It has but one church, though very large +and with a stately high spire, built near the north gate by Herbert, +Bishop of Norwich.' In only one respect the Yarmouth of to-day resembles +that of Camden's time. Then the north wind played the tyrant and plagued +the coast, and it does so still. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +THE NORFOLK CAPITAL. + + +Brigg's Lane--The carrier's cart--Reform demonstration--The old +dragon--Chairing M.P.'s--Hornbutton Jack--Norwich artists and +literati--Quakers and Nonconformists. + +Many, many years ago, when wandering in the North of Germany, I came to +an hotel in the Fremden Buch, of which (Englishmen at that time were far +more patriotic and less cosmopolitan than in these degenerate days) an +enthusiastic Englishman had written--and possibly the writing had been +suggested by the hard fare and dirty ways of the place: + + 'England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.' + +Underneath, a still more enthusiastic Englishman had written: 'Faults? +What faults? I know of none, except that Brigg's Lane, Norwich, wants +widening.' For the benefit of the reader who may be a stranger to the +locality, let me inform him that Brigg's Lane leads out of the fine +Market Place, for which the good old city of Norwich is celebrated all +the world over, and that on a recent visit to Norwich I found that the +one fault which could be laid at the door of England had been +removed--that Brigg's Lane had been widened--that, in fact, it had ceased +to be a lane, and had been elevated into the dignity of a street. + +My first acquaintance with Norwich, when I was a lad of tender years and +of limited experience, was by Brigg's Lane. I had reached it by means of +a carrier's cart--the only mode of conveyance between Southwold, +Wrentham, Beccles and Norwich--a carrier's cart with a hood drawn by +three noble horses, and able to accommodate almost any number of +travellers and any amount of luggage. As the driver was well known to +everyone, there was also a good deal of conversation of a more or less +friendly character. The cart took one day to reach Norwich--which was, +and it may be is, the commercial emporium of all that district--and +another day to return. The beauty of such a conveyance, as compared with +the railway travelling of to-day, was that there was no occasion to be in +a flurry if you wanted to travel by it. Goldsmith--for such was the +proprietor and driver's name--when he came to a place was in no hurry to +leave it. All the tradesmen in the village had hampers or boxes to +return, and it took some time to collect them; or messages and notes to +send, and it took some time to write them; and at the alehouse there was +always a little gossip to be done while the horses enjoyed their pail of +water or mouthful of hay. Even at the worst there was no fear of being +left behind, as by dint of running and holloaing you might get up with +the cart, unless you were very much behind indeed. But you may be sure +that when the day came that I was to visit the great city of Norwich I +was ready for the carrier's cart long before the carrier's cart was ready +for me. Why was it, you ask, that the Norwich journey was undertaken? +The answer is not difficult to give. The Reform agitation at that time +had quickened the entire intellectual and social life of the people. At +length had dawned the age of reason, and had come the rights of man. The +victory had been won all along the line, and was to be celebrated in the +most emphatic manner. We Dissenters rejoiced with exceeding joy; for we +looked forward, as a natural result, to the restoration of that religious +equality in the eye of the law of which we had been unrighteously +deprived, and in consequence of which we had suffered in many ways. We +joined, as a matter of course, in the celebration of the victory which we +and the entire body of Reformers throughout the land had gained; and how +could that be done better than by feeding the entire community on old +English fare washed down by old English ale? And this was done as far as +practicable everywhere. For instance, at Bungay there was a public feast +in the Market Place, and on the town-pump the Messrs. Childs erected a +printing-press, which they kept hard at work all day printing off papers +intended to do honour to the great event their fellow-townsmen were +celebrating in so jovial a manner. In Norwich the demonstration was to +be of a more imposing character, and as an invitation had come to the +heads of the family from an old friend, a minister out of work, and +living more or less comfortably on his property, it seemed good to them +to accept it, and to take me with them, deeming, possibly, that of two +evils it was best to choose the least, and that I should be safer under +their eye at Norwich than with no one to look after me at home. At any +rate, be that as it may, the change was not a little welcome, and much +did I see to wonder at in the old Castle, the new Gaol, the size of the +city, the extent of the Market Place, the smartness of the people, and +the glare of the shops. It well repaid me for the ride of twenty-six +miles and the jolting of the carrier's cart along the dusty roads. + +As I look into the mirror of the past, I see, alas! but a faded picture +of that wonderful banquet in Norwich to celebrate Reform. There was a +procession with banners and music, which seemed to me endless, as it +toiled along in the dust under the fierce sun of summer, the spectators +cheering all the way. There were speeches, I dare say, though no word of +them remains; but I have a distinct recollection of peeping into the +tents or tent, where the diners were at work, and of receiving from some +one or other of them a bit of plum-pudding prepared for that day, which +seemed to me of unusual excellence. I have a distinct recollection also +of the fireworks in the evening, the first I had ever seen, on the Castle +plain, and of the dense crowd that had turned out to see the sight; but I +can well remember that I enjoyed myself much, and that I was awfully +tired when it was all over. + +Another memory also comes to me in connection with the old Dragon,--not +of Revelation, but of Norwich--a huge green monster, which was usually +kept in St. Andrew's Hall, and dragged out at the time of city +festivities. Men inside of it carried it along the street, and the sight +was terrible to see, as it had a ferocious head and a villainous tail, +and resembled nothing that is in the heaven above or the earth beneath or +the waters under the earth. I fancy, however, since the schoolmaster has +gone abroad, that kind of dragon has ceased to roar. I think it was at a +Norwich election that I saw it for the first and the only time, and it +followed in the procession formed to chair the Members--the Members being +seated in gorgeous array on chairs, borne on the heads of people, and +every now and then, much to the delight of the mob, though I should +imagine very little to his own, the chair, with the Member in it, was +tossed up into the air, and by this means it was supposed the general +public were able to get a view of their M.P. and to see what manner of +man he was. It was in some such way that I, as a lad, realized, as I +never else should have done, the red face and the pink-silk stockings of +the Hon. Mr. Scarlett, the happy candidate who pretended to enjoy the +fun, as with the best grace possible under the circumstances he smiled on +the ladies in the windows of the street, as he was borne along and bowed +to all. From my recollection of the chairing I saw that time, I am more +inclined to admire the activity of Wilberforce, of whom we read, when +elected for Hull, 'When the procession reached his mother's house, he +sprang from the chair, and, presenting himself with surprising quickness +at a projecting window--it was that of the nursery in which his childhood +had been passed--he addressed the populace with such complete effect that +he was afterwards able to decide the election of its successor.' At +Norwich the Hon. Mr. Scarlett did well in not attempting a similar +display of agility. Perhaps, however, it is quite as well that we have +got rid of the chairing and the humour--Heaven help us!--to which it gave +rise on the part of an English mob. + +There was a delightful flavour of antiquity about the Norwich of that +day--its old fusty chapels and churches, its old bridges and narrow +streets. All the people with whom I came into contact on that festival +seemed to me well stricken in years. It was not so very long since, old +Hornbutton Jack had been seen threading his way along its ancient +streets. With a countenance much resembling the portraits of Erasmus, +with gray hair hanging about his shoulders, with his hat drawn over his +eyes and his hands behind him, as if in deep meditation; John Fransham, +the Norwich metaphysician and mathematician, might well excite the +curiosity of the casual observer, especially when I add that he was +bandy-legged, that he was short of stature, that he wore a green jacket, +a broad hat, large shoes, and short worsted stockings. A Norwich weaver +had helped to make Fransham a philosopher. Wright said Fransham could +discourse well on the nature and fitness of things. He possessed a +purely philosophical spirit and a soul well purified from vulgar errors. +Fransham made himself famous in his day. There is every reason to +believe that he had been for some time tutor to Mr. Windham. He is once +recorded to have spent a day with Dr. Parr. Many of his pupils became +professional men; with one of them, Dr. Leeds, the reader of Foote's +comedies, if such a one exists, may be acquainted. The tutor and his +pupil, as Johnny Macpherson and Dr. Last, were actually exhibited on the +stage. But to return to Norwich antiquities. I have a dim memory of +some old place where the Dutch and Huguenot refugees were permitted to +meet for worship, and even now I can recognise there the possibility of +another Sir Thomas Browne--unless the Norwich of my boyhood has undergone +the destructive process we love to call improvement--not even disturbed +in his quiet study by the storm of civil war, inditing his thoughts as +follows: 'That crystal is nothing else but ice strongly congealed; that a +diamond is softened or broken by the blood of a goat; that bays preserve +from the mischief of lightning and thunder; that the horse hath no gall; +that a kingfisher hanged by the bill showeth where the wind lay; that the +flesh of peacocks corrupteth not;' and so on--questions, it may be, as +pertinent as those learnedly discussed in half-crown magazines at the +present day. + +As a boy, I was chiefly familiar with Norwich crapes and bombazines and +Norwich shawls, which at that time were making quite a sensation in the +fashionable world. It was at a later time that I came to hear of Old +Crome and the Norwich school. Of him writes Mr. Wedmore, that 'he died +in a substantial square-built house, in what was a good street then, in +the parish of St. George, Colegate, having begun as a workman, and ended +as a bourgeois. He was a simple man, of genial company. To the end of +his life he used to go of an evening to the public-house as to an +informal club. In the privileged bar-parlour, behind the taps and +glasses, he sat with his friends and the shopkeepers, talking of local +things. But it is not to be supposed that because his life was from end +to end a humble one, though prosperous even outwardly after its kind, +Crome was deprived of the companionship most fitted to his genius, the +stimulus that he most needed. The very existence of the Norwich Society +of Artists settles that question. The local men hung on his words; he +knew that he was not only making pictures, but a school. And in the +quietness of a provincial city a coterie had been formed of men bent on +the pursuit of an honest and homely art, and of these he was the chief.' +Dying, his last words were, 'Hobbema, oh, Hobbema, how I loved thee!' In +my young days Mr. John Sell Cotman chiefly represented Norwich, although +in later times he became connected with King's College, London. A lady +writes to me: 'I think it was in the summer of 1842 Mr. Cotman came down +to Norwich to visit his son John, who at that time was occupying a house +on St. Bennet's Road. He visited us at Thorpe several times, and was +unusually well and in good spirits, with sketchbook or folio always in +hand. His father and sisters, too, were then living in a small house at +Thorpe, and from the balcony of their house, which looked over the valley +of the Wensum, he made one of his last interesting sketches, twelve of +which, after his death, the following year, were selected by his sons for +publication.' + +Evelyn gives us a pleasant picture of Norwich when he went there 'to see +that famous scholar and physitian, Dr. T. Browne, author of the "Religio +Medici" and "Vulgar Errors," etc., now lately knighted.' Evelyn +continues: 'Next morning I went to see Sir Thomas Browne, with whom I had +corresponded by letter, though I had never seen him before, his whole +house and garden being a Paradise and cabinet of rarities, and that of +the best collection, especially medals, books, plants and natural things. +Amongst other curiosities, Sir Thomas has a collection of all the eggs of +all the foule and birds he could procure; that country, especially the +promonotary of Norfolck, being frequented, as he said, by severall kinds, +which seldom or never go further into the land, as cranes, storkes, +eagles, and a variety of water-foule. He led me to see all the +remarkable places of this ancient citty, being one of the largest and +certainly, after London, one of the noblest of England, for its venerable +cathedrall, number of stately churches, cleannesse of the streetes and +building of flints so exquisitely headed and squared, as I was much +astonished at; but he told me they had lost the art of squaring the +flints, in which at one time they so much excelled, and of which the +churches, best houses, and walls are built.' Further, Evelyn tells us: +'The suburbs are large, the prospect sweete with other amenities, not +omitting the flower-gardens, in which all the inhabitants excel. The +fabric of stuffs brings a vast trade to this populous towne.' + +Long has Norwich rejoiced in clever people. In the life of William +Taylor, one of her most distinguished sons, we have a formidable array of +illustrious Norwich personages, in whom, alas! at the present time the +world takes no interest. Sir James Edward Smith, founder and first +President of the Linnaean Society, ought not to be forgotten. Of Taylor +himself Mackintosh wrote: 'I can still trace William Taylor by his +Armenian dress, gliding through the crowd in Annual Reviews, Monthly +Magazines, Athenaeums, etc., rousing the stupid public by paradox, or +correcting it by useful and seasonable truth. It is true that he does +not speak the Armenian or any other tongue but the Taylorian, but I am so +fond of his vigour and originality, that for his sake I have studied and +learned the language. As the Hebrew is studied by one book, so is the +Taylorian by me for another. He never deigns to write to me, but in +print I doubt whether he has many readers who so much understand, relish, +and tolerate him, for which he ought to reward me by some of his +manuscript esoteries.' More may be said of William Taylor. It was he +who made Walter Scott a poet. Taylor's spirited translation of Burger's +'Leonore' with the two well-known lines-- + + 'Tramp, tramp along the land they rode, + Splash, splash along the sea,' + +opened up to Scott a field in which for a time he won fame and wealth. + +Of Mrs. Taylor, wife of the grandson of the eminent Hebraist, Mackintosh +declared that she was the Madame Roland of Norwich. We owe to her Mrs. +Austen and Lady Duff Gordon. Mr. Reeve, the translator of De +Tocqueville's 'Democracy,' has preserved the memory of his father, Dr. +Henry Reeve, by the republication of his 'Journal of a Tour on the +Continent.' Let me also mention that Dr. Caius, the founder of Caius +College, Cambridge, was a Norwich man. + +To Noncons Norwich offers peculiar attractions. We have in Dr. +Williams's library 'The Order of the Prophesie in Norwich'; and Robinson, +the leader of the Pilgrim Fathers, had a Norwich charge. Even in a later +day some of the Norwich divines had a godly zeal for freedom, worthy of +Milton himself, and on which the Pilgrim Fathers would have smiled +approval. It is told of Mark Wilks, the brother of Matthew, and the +grandfather of our London Mark Wilks, that when a deputation went from +Norwich during the Thelwall and Horne Tooke trials, when, if the +Castlereagh gang had had their will, there would have been found a short +and easy way with the Dissenters, and came back on the Sunday morning, +entering the place after the service had commenced, that he called out, +'What's the news?' as he saw them enter. 'Acquitted,' was the reply. +'Thank God!' said the parson, as they all joined in singing + + 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow.' + +It is a fact that Wilks's first sermon in the Countess of Huntingdon's +Chapel at Norwich was from the text, 'There is a lad here with five +barley loaves and a few small fishes.' Let me tell another story, this +time in connection with that Old Meeting which has so much to attract the +visitor at Norwich. It had a grand old man, William Youngman, amongst +its supporters; I see him now, with his choleric face, his full fat +figure, his black knee-breeches and silk stockings, his gold-headed cane. +He was an author, a learned man, as well as a Norwich merchant, the very +Aristarchus of Dissent--a kind-hearted, hospitable man withal, if my +boyish experience may be relied on. One Sunday there came to preach in +the Old Meeting a young man named Halley from London, who lived to be +honoured as few of our Dissenting D.D.'s have been. He was young, and he +felt nervous as he looked from the pulpit on the austere critic in his +great square pew just beneath. Well, thought the young preacher, a +sermon on keeping the Sabbath will be safe, and he selected that for his +morning discourse. The service over, up comes the grand old man. 'The +next time, young man, you preach, preach on something you understand;' +and, having said so, he bought a pennyworth of apples of a woman in the +street, leaving the young man to digest his remarks as best he could. +Again the service was to be carried on. The young man was in the pulpit, +the grand old man below. There was singing and prayer, but no sermon, +the young man having bolted after opening the service. I like better the +picture of Norwich I get in Sir James Mackintosh's Life, where Basil +Montague tells us how he and Mackintosh, when travelling the Norfolk +circuit, always hastened to Norwich to spend their evenings in the circle +of which Mrs. Taylor was the attraction and the centre. The wife of a +Norwich tradesman, we see her sitting sewing and talking in the midst of +her family, the companion of philosophers, who compared her to Lucy +Hutchinson, and a model wife. Far away in India Sir James writes to her: +'I know the value of your letters. They rouse my mind on subjects which +interest us in common--friends, children, literature, and life. Their +moral tone cheers and braces me. I ought to be made permanently happy by +contemplating a mind like yours; which seems more exclusively to derive +its gratifications from its duties than almost any other.' It was in the +Norwich Octagon that these Taylors worshipped. Their Unitarianism seemed +to have affected them more favourably than it did Harriet Martineau, +whose family also attended there. I remember Edward Taylor, who was the +Gresham Professor of Music. But theologically, I presume, the palm of +excellence in connection with the Octagon is to be awarded to Dr. Taylor, +the great Hebrew scholar. He wrote to old Newton: 'I have been looking +through my Bible, and can't find your doctrine of the Atonement.' 'Last +night I could not see to get into bed,' replied old Newton, 'because I +found I had my extinguisher on the candle. Take off the extinguisher, +and then you will see.' + +Leaving theology, let us get up on the gray old castle, which is to be +turned into a museum, and look round on the city lying at our feet. +Would you have a finer view? Cross the Yare and walk up the new road +(made by the unemployed one hard winter) to Mousehold Heath, and after +you have done thinking of Kitt's rebellion--an agrarian one, by-the-bye, +and worth thinking about just at this time--and of the Lollards, who were +burnt just under you, look across to the city in the valley, with its +heights all round, more resembling the Holy City, so travellers say, than +any other city in the world. In the foreground is the cathedral, right +beyond rises the castle on the hill; church spires, warehouses, public +buildings, private dwellings, manufactories, chimneys' smoke, complete +the landscape fringed by the green of the distant hills. There are a +hundred thousand people there--to be preached to and saved. + +Windham was rather hard on the Norwich of his day. In his diary, in +1798, he records a visit to Norwich, of which city he was the +representative. On October 9 he dined at the Swan--'dinner, like the +sessions dinner, but ball in the evening distinguished by the presence of +Mrs. Siddons.' On the 10th he dined at the Bishop's--'A party, of, I +suppose, fifty, chiefly clergy. I felt the same enjoyment that I +frequently do at large dinners--they afford, in general, what never fails +to be pleasant--solitude in a crowd.' On the 11th he writes: 'Dined with +sheriffs at King's Head. Robinson, the late sheriff, was there, and much +as he may be below his own opinion of himself, he is more to talk to than +the generality of those who are found on those occasions. I could not +help reflecting on the very low state of talents or understanding in +those who compose the whole, nearly, of the society of Norwich. The +French are surely a more enlightened and polished people.' Perhaps +Windham would have fared better had he dined with some of the leading +Dissenters. Few of the clergy of East Anglia at that time would have +been fitting company for the friend of Johnson and Burke. In Norwich, +Mr. Windham often managed to make himself unpopular. For instance, +towards the end of the session of 1788, Mr. Windham called the attention +of Government to a requisition from France, which was then suffering the +greatest distress from a scarcity of grain. The object of this +requisition was to be supplied with 20,000 sacks of flour from this +country. So small a boon ought, he thought, to be granted from motives +of humanity; but a Committee of the House of Commons having decided +against it, the Ministers, though they professed themselves disposed to +afford the relief sought for, could not, after such a decision, undertake +to grant it upon their own responsibility. The leading part which Mr. +Windham took in favour of this requisition occasioned, amongst some of +his constituents at Norwich, considerable clamour. He allayed the storm +by a private letter addressed to those citizens of Norwich who were most +likely to be affected by a rise in the price of provisions; but the fact +that Norwich should thus have backed up the inhuman policy of refusing +food to France showed how strong at that time was the force of passion, +and how hard it is to break down hereditary animosity. As a further +illustration of manners and habits of the East Anglian clergy, let me +mention that when, in 1778, Windham made the speech which pointed him out +to be a man of marked ability in connection with the call made on the +country for carrying on the American War, one of the Canons of the +cathedral, and a great supporter of the war, exclaimed: 'D--n him! I +could cut his tongue out!' + +In my young days, in serious circles, there was no name dearer than that +of Joseph Gurney--a fine-looking man with a musical voice, always ready +to aid with money, or in other ways, all that was right and good, or what +seemed to him such. In the 'Memorials of a Quaker Lady' he is described +thus: 'He sat on the end seat of the first cross-form, and both preached +and supplicated. I was very much struck with him. His fine person, his +beautiful dark, glossy hair, his intelligent, benign, and truly amiable +countenance, made a deep impression upon me. And as he noticed me most +kindly, as I was introduced to him by Elizabeth Fry, as the little girl +his sister Priscilla wanted to bring to England, I felt myself greatly +honoured.' The Gurneys have an ancient lineage, and had their home in +Gourney, in Upper Normandy. One of them, of course, fought in the ranks +of the winners at the battle of Hastings. Another was a crusader. +Another had done good service at Acre, as a follower of Richard of the +Lion Heart. When the main line came to an end, one branch settled in +Norfolk. Gurney's Bank at Norwich was one of the institutions of the +city, and was as famous in my day as at a later time was the great house +of Overend and Gurney, which, when it fell, created a panic in financial +circles all the world over. + +At Earlham, the home of the Gurneys, we learn how much may be done by a +family, and how widespread its influence for good or evil may become. +Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton certainly stands foremost, not alone amongst the +East Anglians, but the philanthropists of later years. At the age of +sixteen young Buxton went to Earlham as a guest. His biographer writes: +'They received him as one of themselves, early appreciating his masterly, +though still uncultivated mind; while, on his side, their cordial and +encouraging welcome seemed to draw out all his latent powers. He at once +joined with them in reading and study, and from this visit may be dated a +remarkable change in the whole tone of his character; he received a +stimulus not merely in the acquisition of knowledge, but in the formation +of studious habits and intellectual tastes. Nor could the same influence +fail of extending to the refinement of his disposition and manners.' At +that time Norwich--the Buxtons being witnesses--was distinguished for +good society, and Earlham was celebrated for its hospitality. Mr. +Gurney, the father, belonged to the Society of Friends, but his family +was not brought up with any strict regard to its peculiarities. He put +little restraint on their domestic amusements, and music and dancing were +among their favourite recreations. The third daughter, Mrs. Fry, had, +indeed, united herself more closely with the Society of Friends; but her +example had not then been followed by any of her brothers and sisters. +'I know,' wrote Sir Thomas, in later years, 'no blessing of a temporal +nature--and it is not only temporal--for which I ought to render so many +thanks as my connection with the Earlham family. It has given a colour +to my life. Its influence was most positive, and pregnant with good at +that critical period between school and manhood. They were eager to +improve; I caught the infection. I was resolved to please them, and in +the college at Dublin, at a distance from all my friends and all control, +their influence and the desire to please them kept me hard at my books, +and sweetened the task they gave. The distinctions I gained at college +(little valuable as distinctions, but valuable because habits of +industry, perseverance and resolution were necessary to attain +them)--these boyish distinctions were exclusively the result of the +animating passion in my mind to carry back to them the prizes which they +prompted and enabled me to win.' + +Wilberforce, when he was staying at Lowestoft in 1816, wrote: 'I am still +full of Earlham and its excellent inhabitants. One of our great +astronomers stated it as probable there may be stars whose light has been +travelling to us from the Creation, and has not yet reached our little +planet. In the Earlham family a new constellation has broken in upon us, +for which you must invent a name, as you are fond of star-gazing, and if +it indicates a little monstrosity (as they are apt to give the collection +of stars the names of strange creatures--dragons, bears, etc.), the +various stars of which the Earlham assemblage is made,' continues +Wilberforce, 'will include also much to be respected and loved.' At that +time Mrs. Opie was one of the Norwich stars. Caroline Fox, who went to +dine with her described her as in great force and really jolly. 'She is +enthusiastic about Father Mathew, reads Dickens voraciously, takes to +Carlyle, but thinks his appearance rather against him--talks much and +with great spirit of people, but never ill-naturedly.' + +'Norwich,' as described by Camden, 'on account of its wealth, +populousness, neatness of buildings, beautiful churches, with the number +of them--for it has a matter of fifty parishes--as also the industry of +its citizens, loyalty to their Prince, is to be reckoned among the most +considerable cities in Britain. It was fortified with walls that have a +great many turrets and eleven gates.' Camden, quoting one writer after +another, adds the eulogy of Andrew Johnston, a Scotchman, as follows: + + 'A town whose stately piles and happy seat + Her citizens and strangers both delight; + Whose tedious siege and plunder made her bear + In Norman battles an unhappy share, + And feel the sad effects of dreadful war. + These storms o'erblown, now blest with constant peace, + She saw her riches and her trade increase. + State here by wealth, by beauty yet undone, + How blest if vain excess be yet unknown! + So fully is she from herself supplied + That England while she stands can never want a head.' + +From Norwich went Robinson to help to build up in Amsterdam that Church +of the Pilgrim Fathers which was to be in its turn the mother of a great +Republic such as the world had never seen. He has been styled the Father +of Modern Congregationalism; be that as it may, when he bade farewell in +that quaint old harbour, Delfhaven--which looks as if not a brick or a +building had been touched since--he was doing a work from which neither +himself nor those who stood with him could ever have expected such +wonderful results. That emigration to Holland in Wren's time was a great +loss of money and men to England, and was an indication of Nonconformist +strength which wise Churchmen would have conciliated rather than driven +to extremities. 'In sooth it was,' wrote Heylin, 'that the people in +many great trading towns which were near the sea, having long been +discharged of the bond of ceremonies, no sooner came to hear the least +noise of a conformity, but they began to spurn against it; and when they +found that all their striving was in vain, that they had lost the comfort +of their lecturers and that their ministers began to shrink at the very +name of a visitation, it was no hard matter for those ministers and +lecturers to persuade them to remove their dwellings and transport their +trades.' 'The sun of heaven,' say they, 'doth shine as comfortably in +other places; the Sun of Righteousness much brighter.' 'Better to go and +dwell in Goshen, find it where we can, than tarry in the midst of such an +Egyptian darkness as is now falling on the land.' One of the preachers +who gave that advice and acted in accordance with it was William Bridge, +M.A. Against him Wren was so furious that he fled to Holland and settled +down as one of the pastors of the church at Rotterdam. In 1643 we find +him pastor of the church at Norwich and Yarmouth, and one of the Assembly +of Divines. In 1644 the church was separated--a part meeting at Yarmouth +and a part at Norwich. This was done on the advice of Mr. John Phillip, +of Wrentham--a godly minister of great influence in his denomination in +his day. + +As was to be expected, I was taken to the Old Meeting House at Norwich, +where many learned men had preached, and where many men almost as learned +listened. The gigantic pews, in which a small family might have lived, +filled me with amazement. And equally appalling to me was the +respectability of the people, of a very different class from that of our +Wrentham chapel. Close by was the Octagon Chapel, where the Unitarians +worshipped, equally impressive in its respectability. But what struck me +most was the new and fashionable Baptist chapel of St. Mary's, where the +venerable and learned Kinghorn preached--a great Hebrew scholar and the +champion of strict communion--against Robert Hall, and other degenerate +Baptists, who were ready to admit to the Lord's Table any Christians, +whether properly baptized--that is, by immersion when adults--or merely +sprinkled as infants. Up to this day I confound the worthy man with John +the Baptist, probably because he looked so lank and long and lean. He +was a man of singularly precise habits, so much so that I heard of an old +lady who always regulated her cooking by his daily walk, putting the +dumplings into the pot to boil when he went, and taking them out when he +returned. I could write much about him, but _cui bono_? who cares about +a dead Baptist lion? Not even the Baptists themselves. On going into +their library in Castle Street the other day, to look at Kinghorn's life, +I found no one had taken the trouble to cut the pages. In the front +gallery of St. Mary's, Mr. Brewer, the Norwich schoolmaster, had sittings +for the boys of his school, including his own sons, who, at King's +College and elsewhere, have done much to illustrate our national history +and literature. If I remember aright, one of the congregation was a +jolly-looking old gentleman who, as Uncle Jerry, laid the foundation of a +mustard manufactory, which has placed one of the present M.P.'s for +Norwich at the head of a business of unrivalled extent. When Mr. +Kinghorn died, his place was taken by Mr. Brock, better known as Dr. +Brock, of Bloomsbury Chapel, London. Under Mr. Brock's preaching the +reputation of St. Mary's Chapel was increased rather than diminished. As +a young man himself at that time, he was peculiarly attractive to the +young, and the singing was very different from the rustic psalmody of my +native village, in spite of the fact that we had a bass-viol at all +times, and on highly-favoured occasions such an array of flutes and +clarionets as really astonished the natives and delighted me. + +But to return to the Old Meeting. Calamy writes of one of the Norwich +ministers, of the name of Cromwell, that 'he enjoyed but one peaceable +day after his settlement, being on the second forced out of his +meeting-house, the licenses being called in, and then for nine years +together he was never without trouble. Sometimes he was pursued with +indictments at sessions, at assizes, and then with citations of the +ecclesiastical courts; and at other times feigned letters, rhymes or +libels were dropped in the streets or church and fathered upon him, so +that he was forced to make his house his prison. At length that was +broken open, and he absconded into the houses of his friends, till he +contracted his old disease' a second time. It is said that he was +invited on one occasion to dine with Bishop Reynolds, when several young +clergy were present. When Mr. Cromwell retired, the Bishop rose and +attended him, and then a general laugh ensued. On his return his +lordship rebuked his guests for their unmannerly conduct, and told them +that Mr. Cromwell had more solid divinity in his little finger than all +of them had in their bodies. It must be remembered that, like most of +the early Independent ministers, Mr. Cromwell had a University training; +and even in my young days the respect shown to a learned ministry kept up +not a little of the high standard which had been laid down by the fathers +and founders of Dissent. In these more degenerate days it is to be +questioned whether as much can be said. The Old Meeting House at Norwich +was finished as far back as 1643. The only pastor of the church who was +not an author was the Rev. Dr. Scott, who died in 1767. In the Octagon +Chapel the preachers had been still more distinguished. One of them was +the Rev. Dr. Taylor, author of the famous Hebrew Concordance, which was +published in two volumes folio, and was the labour of fourteen years. He +left Norwich to become tutor at the newly-erected Academy at Warrington; +but his son, Mr. Edward Taylor, the Gresham Professor of Music, was often +a visitor at Wrentham, where he had a little property, which he valued, +as it gave him a vote. Another of the preachers at the Octagon was the +Rev. R. Alderson, who afterwards became Recorder of Norwich. The Mr. +Edward Taylor of whom I have just written was baptized by him. One day, +being under examination as a witness in court, Alderson questioned him as +to his age. 'Why,' said Taylor, a little nettled, 'you ought to know, +for you baptized me.' 'I baptized you!' exclaimed Alderson. 'What do +you mean?' The Recorder never liked to be reminded of his having been a +preacher. The Marchioness of Salisbury is of this family. Perhaps, of +these Unitarian preachers, one of the most distinguished was Dr. William +Enfield, whose 'Speaker' was one of the books placed in the hands of +ingenuous youth, and whose 'History of Philosophy' was one of the works +to be studied in their riper years. Norwich, indeed, was full of learned +men. Its aged Bishop, Bathurst, was the one voter for Reform, much to +the delight of William IV., who said that he was a fine fellow, and +deserved to be the helmsman of the Church in the rough sea she would soon +have to steer through. His one offence in the eyes of George III. was +that he voted against the King--that is, in favour of justice to the +Catholics. With such a Bishop a Reformer, no wonder that all Norwich +went wild with joy when the battle of Reform was fought and won. Bishop +Stanley, who succeeded, was also in his way a great Liberal, and invited +Jenny Lind to stay with him at the palace. I often used to see him at +Exeter Hall, where his activity as a speaker afforded a remarkable +contrast to the quieter style of his more celebrated son. + +Accidentally looking into the life of Bishop Bathurst, I find printed in +the Appendix some interesting conversations at Earlham, where Joseph John +Gurney lived. On one occasion, when Dr. Chalmers was staying there, +Joseph John Gurney writes: 'W. Y. breakfasted with us, and with his usual +strong sense and talent called forth the energies of Chalmers' mind. +They conversed on the subject of special Providence, and of the unseen +yet unceasing superintendence of the Creator of all the events which +occur in this lower world. Said W. Y.: "Mr. Barbauld, the husband of the +authoress, was once a resident in my house. He was a man of low opinions +in religion, and denied the agency of an unseen spirit on the mind of +man." I remarked that when the mind was determined to a certain right +action by a combination of circumstances productive of the adequate +motives, and meeting from various quarters precisely at the right point +for the purpose in view, this was in itself a sufficient evidence of an +especial Providence, and might be regarded as the instrumentality through +which the Holy Spirit acts. Mr. Barbauld admitted the justice of this +argument.' Again I read: 'W. Y. supported the doctrine that nature is +governed through the means of general laws--laws which broadly and +obviously mark the wisdom and benevolence of God.' One extract more: 'W. +Y. expressed his admiration of the masterly manner in which Dr. Chalmers, +in his "Bridgewater Treatise," has fixed on the atheist a moral +obligation to inquire into the truth of religion; but, said he, might not +the disciples of Irving, by the same rule, oblige us to an inquiry into +the supposed evidences of their favourite doctrine that Christ is about +to appear and to reign personally on earth? Might not even the Mahometan +suppose in the Christian a similar necessity as it relates to the +pretensions of the false prophet?' If Joseph Gurney sent for W. Y. to +converse with Dr. Chalmers as a genial spirit, surely the name of one so +honourable and of one so friendly both to my father and myself should not +be omitted. W. Y. loved a joke. He was very stout, and wore tight black +knee breeches with shoes and silk stockings. I remember how he made me +laugh one day as he described what happened to his knee-breeches as he +stooped to tie up his shoes ere attending a place of worship. To cut a +long story short, I may add W. Youngman did not go to church that day. +Originally I think he was a dyer. + +Harriet Martineau, as all the world knows, was born at Norwich. In her +somewhat ill-natured autobiography she writes: 'Norwich, which has now no +social claims to superiority at all, was in my childhood a rival of +Lichfield itself, in the time of the Sewards, for literary pretensions +and the vulgarity of pedantry. William Taylor was then at his best, when +there was something like fulfilment of his early promise, when his +exemplary filial duty was a fine spectacle to the whole city, and before +the vice which destroyed him had coarsened his morale and destroyed his +intellect. During the war it was a great distinction to know anything of +German literature, and in Mr. Taylor's case it proved a ruinous +distinction. He was completely spoiled by the flatteries of shallow men, +pedantic women, and conceited lads.' Yet this man was the friend of +Southey and opened up a new world to the English intellect, and perhaps +in days to come will have a more enduring reputation than Harriet +Martineau herself. The lady does not err on the side of good nature in +her criticism. All she can say of Dr. Sayers is: 'I always heard of him +as a genuine scholar, and I have no doubt he was superior to his +neighbours in modesty and manners. Dr. Enfield, a feeble and superficial +man of letters, was gone also from the literary supper-table before my +time. There was Sir James Smith, the botanist, made much of and really +not pedantic and vulgar like the rest, but weak and irritable. There was +Dr. Alderson, Mrs. Opie's father, solemn and sententious and eccentric in +manner, but not an able man in any way;' and thus the leading lights of +Norwich are contemptuously dismissed. 'The great days of the Gurneys +were not come yet. The remarkable family from which issued Mrs. Fry and +Priscilla and Joseph John Gurney were then a set of dashing young people, +dressed in gay riding habits and scarlet boots, as Mrs. Fry told us +afterwards, and riding about the country to balls and gaieties of all +sorts. Accomplished and charming young ladies they were; and we children +used to overhear some whispered gossip about the effects of their charms +on heart-stricken young men; but their final characteristics were not yet +apparent.' + +It is to a Norwich man that we owe the publication of Hansard's +Parliamentary Debates. Luke Hansard, to whom they owe their name, was +born in Norwich, 1725, was trained as a printer, went to London with but +a guinea in his pocket, was employed by Hughes, the printer of the House +of Commons, succeeded to the business and became widely known for his +despatch and accuracy in printing Parliamentary papers and debates. He +died in 1828, but the business was continued by his family, and to refer +to Hansard became the invariable custom when an M.P. was to be condemned +out of his own mouth--as Hansard was supposed never to err. Recently +Hansard has been carried on by a company, but the old name still remains. + +Dr. Stoughton has in vain, in a number of the _Congregationalist_, +attempted to record the memory of a man well known and much honoured in +his day--the Rev. John Alexander, of Norwich. The portrait is a failure. +It gives us no idea of the man with his rosy face, his curly black hair, +his merry, twinkling eye, his joyous laugh, when mirth befitted the +occasion, or his tender sympathy where pain and sorrow and distress had +to be endured. Mr. Alexander's jubilee was celebrated in St. Andrew's +Hall in 1867, when the Mayor and a crowd of citizens did him honour, and +a sum of money for the purchase of an annuity was presented, thus +obviating the necessity of doing to him as on one occasion he in his +humorous way suggested should be done with old ministers when past +work--that they should be shot. In 1817 Mr. Alexander had come to +Norwich to preach in the old Whitfield Tabernacle in place of Mr. Hooper, +one of the tutors at Hoxton Academy. When I went to Norwich he had built +a fine chapel in Prince's Street, and amongst the hearers was Mr. Tillet, +then in a lawyer's office, a young man famous for his speeches at the +Mechanics' Institute and in connection with a literary venture, the +_Norwich Magazine_, not destined to set the Thames on fire; latterly an +M.P. for Norwich and proprietor and editor, I believe, of one of the most +popular of East Anglian journals, the _Norfolk News_. It was in Prince's +Street Chapel I first learned to realize how influential was the +Nonconformist public, of which I frankly admit in our little village, +with Churchmen all round, I had but a limited idea. It seemed to me that +we were rather a puny folk, but at Norwich, with its chapels and pastors +and people, I saw another sight. There was the Rev. John Alexander, with +an overflowing audience on the Sunday and an active vitality all the +week, now dining at the palace with the Bishop or breakfasting at Earlham +with the Gurneys, now meeting on terms of equality the literati of the +place (at that time Mrs. Opie was still living near the castle, and Mr. +Wilkins was writing his life of the far-famed Norwich doctor, the learned +and ingenious author of the 'Religio Medici'), now visiting the afflicted +and the destitute, now carrying consolation to the home of the mourner. +John Alexander was a man to whom East Anglian Nonconformity owes much. +In the old city there was a good deal of young intelligence, and a good +deal of it amongst the Noncons. Dr. Sexton was one of the Old Meeting +House congregation, as was Lucy Brightwell, a lady not unknown to the +present generation of readers. To a certain extent a Noncon. is bound to +be more or less intelligent. He finds a great State Establishment of +religion wherever he goes. It enjoys the favour of the Court. It is +patronized by the aristocracy. It enlists among its supporters all who +wish to rise in the world or to make a figure in society. By means of +the endowed schools of the land, it offers to the young, even of the +humblest birth, a chance of winning a prize. Conform, it says, and you +may be rich and respectable. It was said of a late Bishop of Winchester +that he would forgive a man anything so long as he were but a good +Churchman, and even now one meets in society with people who regard a +Dissenter as little better than a heathen or a publican. A man who can +thus voluntarily place himself at a disadvantage, to a certain extent, +must have exercised his intellect and be ready to give a reason for the +faith that is in him. Naturally, men are of the religion of the country +in which they are born--Roman Catholics in Italy, Mahometans in Turkey, +Buddhists in the East. It requires more power and strength of mind and +decision of character to dissent from the Church of the State than to +support it. 'How was it,' asked Dr. Storrar, Chairman of the Convocation +of the University of London, the other day, 'that the lads educated at +Mill Hill Grammar School had done so well at Cambridge and Oxford?' The +reply, said the Doctor, was--I don't give his words, merely the idea--to +be found in the fact that a couple of centuries ago there were men of +strong intellect and tender consciences who refused to renounce their +opinions at the command of a despotic power. They had been succeeded by +their sons with the same quickness of intellect and conscience. +Generations one after another had come and gone, and the children of +these old Nonconformists thus came to the school with an hereditary +intelligence, destined to win in the gladiatorship of the school, the +college, or the world. + +Let me now give an anecdote of Dr. Bathurst, the Lord Bishop of Norwich, +too good to be lost. It is told by Sir Charles Leman, who described him +in 1839 as gradually converting his enemies into friends by his uniform +straightforwardness and enlarged Christian principle. One of his clergy, +who had been writing most abusively in newspapers, had on one occasion +some favour to solicit, which he did with natural hesitation. The Bishop +promised all in his power and in the kindest manner, and when the +clergyman was about to leave the room he suddenly turned with, 'My lord, +I must say, however, I much regret the part I have taken against you; I +see I was quite in the wrong, and I beg your forgiveness.' This was +readily accorded. 'But how was it,' the clergyman continued, 'you did +not turn your back on me? I quite expected it.' 'Why, you forget that I +profess myself a Christian,' was the reply. + +Of a later Bishop--Stanley--whom I can well remember, a dark, energetic +little man, making a speech at Exeter Hall, we hear a little in Caroline +Fox's memories of old friends. In 1848 she writes: 'Dined very +pleasantly at the palace; the Bishop was all animation and good humour, +but too unsettled to leave any memorable impression. I like Mrs. Stanley +much--a shrewd, sensible, observing woman. She told me much about her +Bishop, how very trying his position was on first settling at Norwich; +for his predecessor was an amiable, indolent old man, who let things take +their course, and a very bad course too, all which the present man has to +correct as way opens, and continually sacrifice popularity to a sense of +right.' + +The following anecdote of Miss Fox and her friends calling at a cottage +in the neighbourhood of Norwich is too good to be lost. 'A young woman,' +she writes, 'told us that her father was nearly converted, and that a +little more teaching would complete the business,' adding, 'He quite +believes that he is lost, which is, of course, a great consolation to the +old man.' That story is racy of the soil. It is in that way the East +Anglian peasantry who have any religion at all talk; they have no hope of +a man who does not feel that he is lost. Well, there are many ways to +heaven, and that must comfort some of us who still believe that man was +made in the image of his Maker, a little lower than the angels, crowned +with glory and honour, and not destined to an eternity of misery for the +sins of a day. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +THE SUFFOLK CAPITAL. + + +The Orwell--The Sparrows--Ipswich notabilities--Gainsborough--Medical +men--Nonconformists. + +Those who imagine Suffolk to be a flat and uninteresting county, with no +charms for the eye and no associations worth speaking of, are much +mistaken. There are few lovelier rivers in England than the Orwell, on +which Ipswich stands, up which river the fiery Danes used to sail to +plunder all the country round, and on the banks of which Gainsborough +learned to love Nature and draw her in all her charms. The town itself +stands in a valley, but it has gradually crept up the hills on each side, +so that almost everywhere you have a pleasing prospect and breathe a +bracing air. A few miles, or, rather, a short walk, brings you to +Henley, which has the reputation of being the highest land in Suffolk, +and on the other side there is a railway that connects Ipswich with +Felixstowe, just as the Crystal Palace is connected with the City. +Ipswich may claim to be the most prosperous and enterprising of all the +Suffolk towns. It goes with the times. Its citizens are active and +pushing men of business, and have enlightened ideas as well. They are +also Liberal in politics and practical in religion, and are never behind +in coming forward when there is a chance of benefiting themselves or +their fellow-creatures. And yet Ipswich has a history as long as the +dullest cathedral town. It was a place of note during the existence of +the Saxon Heptarchy. Twice it had the honour of publicly entertaining +King John; and there is a tradition that in the curious and +beautifully-ornamented house in the Butter Market--formerly the residence +of Mr. Sparrow, the Ipswich coroner, whose old family portraits, +including one of the Jameses, presented to an ancestor of the family, +filled me not a little with youthful wonder--Charles II. was secreted by +one of the Sparrows of that day, when he came to hide in Ipswich after +the battle of Worcester. 'The house is now a shop,' but, observes Mr. +Glyde, a far-famed local historian, 'a concealed room in the upper story +of the house, which was discovered during some alterations in 1801, is +well adapted for such a purpose.' And, at any rate, the gay and +graceless monarch, in search of a hiding-place, might have gone farther +and fared worse. Be that as it may, Ipswich can rejoice in the fact that +it was the birthplace of Cardinal Wolsey; and that he was one of the +first educational reformers of the day must be admitted, at any rate, in +Ipswich, of which, possibly, he would have made a second Cambridge. +Alas! of his efforts in that direction, the only outward and visible sign +is the old gateway in what is called College Street, which remains to +this day. Ipswich fared well in the Elizabethan days, when her Gracious +Majesty condescended to visit the place. Sir Christopher Hatton, the +dancing Lord Chancellor, who led the brawls, when + + 'The seals and maces danced before him,' + +lived in a house near the Church of St. Mary-le-Tower. Sir Edward Coke +resided in a village not far off, and in 1597 the M.P. for Ipswich was no +other than the great Lord Bacon, who by birth and breeding was +emphatically a Suffolk man. From Windham's diary, it appears that at +Ipswich that distinguished statesman experienced a new sensation. In +1789 he writes: 'Left Ipswich not till near twelve. Saw Humphries there, +and was for the first time entertained with some sparring; felt much +amused with the whole of the business.' + +In the early part of the present century Miss Berry, on returning from +one of her Continental trips, paid Ipswich a visit, having landed at +Southwold. 'Appearance of Ipswich very pretty in descending towards it,' +is the entry in her diary. About the same time Bishop Bathurst made his +visitation tour, and he writes to one of his lady correspondents: 'You +will be glad that, during the three weeks I passed in Suffolk, I did not +meet a single unpleasant man, nor experience a single unpleasant +accident.' With the name of the Suffolk hero Captain Broke, of the +_Shannon_. (I can well remember the Shannon coach--which ran from +Yoxford to London--the only day-coach we had at that time), Ipswich is +inseparably connected. He was born at Broke Hall, just by, and there +spent the later years of his life. Another of our naval heroes, Admiral +Vernon, the victor of Porto Bello, resided in the same vicinity. At one +time there seems to have been an attempt to connect Ipswich with the Iron +Duke. In the memoir of Admiral Broke we have more than one reference to +the Duke's shooting in that neighbourhood, and actually it appears that, +unknown to himself, he was nominated as a candidate to the office of High +Steward. Ipswich, however, preferred a neighbour, in the shape of Sir +Robert Harland. At a later day the office was filled by Mr. Charles +Austin, the distinguished writer on Jurisprudence. + +One of the celebrated noblemen who lived in Ipswich was Lord Chedworth. +He wore top-boots, and wore them till they were not fit to be seen. When +new boots were sent home he was accustomed to set them on one side, and +get his manservant to wear them a short time to prepare them for his own +feet. Sometimes the man would tell his lordship that he thought the +boots were ready, but his lordship would generally reply, 'Never mind, +William; wear them another week.' While at Ipswich his lordship was +frequently consulted, owing to his legal attainments and well-known +generous disposition, by tradesmen and people in indigent circumstances. +The applicants were ushered into the library, where, surrounded by books, +they found his lordship. The chairs and furniture of the room, like his +lordship's clothes, had not merely seen their best days, but were +comparatively worthless, and the old red cloak which invariably enveloped +his shoulders made him look more like a gipsy boy than a peer of the +realm. His lordship's legacies to Ipswich ladies and others, especially +of the theatrical profession, were of the most liberal character. + +Ipswich in its old days had its share of witches. One of the most +notorious of them was Mother Hatheland, who in due course was tried, +condemned and executed. From her confession in 1645 it appears 'the said +Mother Hatheland hath been a professor of religion, a constant hearer of +the Word for these many years, yet a witch, as she confessed, for the +space of nearly twenty years. The devil came to her first between +sleeping and waking, and spake to her in a hollow voice, telling her that +if she would serve him she would want nothing. After often solicitations +she consented to him. Then he stroke his claw (as she confessed) into +her hands, and with her blood wrote the covenant.' Now, as the writer +gravely remarks, the subtlety of Satan is to be observed in that he did +not press her to deny God and Christ, as he did others, because she was a +professor, and he might have lost all his hold by pressing her too far. +Satan appears to have provided her with three imps, in the shape of two +little dogs and a mole. + +As the home of Gainsborough Ipswich has enduring claims on the English +nation and on lovers of art and artists everywhere. That must have been +a Suffolk man who passed the following criticism on Gainsborough's +celebrated picture of 'Girl and Pigs,' of which Sir Joshua Reynolds +became the purchaser at one hundred guineas, though the artist asked but +sixty: 'They be deadly like pigs; but who ever saw pigs feeding together, +but one on 'em had a foot in the trough?' Gainsborough had an +enthusiastic attachment to music. It was the favourite amusement of his +leisure hours, and his love for it induced him to give one or two +concerts to his most intimate acquaintances whilst living in Ipswich. He +was a member of a musical club, and painted some of the portraits of his +brother members in his picture of a choir. Once upon a time, +Gainsborough was examined as a witness on a trial respecting the +originality of a picture. The barrister on the other side said: 'I +observe you lay great stress on a painter's eye; what do you mean by that +expression?' 'A painter's eye,' replied Gainsborough, 'is to him what +the lawyer's eye is to you.' As a boy at the Grammar School of his +native town, it is to be feared he loved to play truant. One day he went +out to his usual sketching haunts to enjoy the nature which he loved +heartily, previously presenting to his uncle, who was master of the +school, the usual slip of paper, 'Give Tom a holiday,' in which his +father's handwriting was so exactly imitated that not the slightest +suspicion of the forgery ever entered the mind of the master. Alas! +however, the crime was detected, and his terrified parent exclaimed in +despair, 'Tom will one day be hanged.' When, however, he was informed +how the truant schoolboy had employed his truant hours, and the boy's +sketches were laid before him, forgetful of the consequences of forgeries +in a commercial society, he declared, with all the pride of a father, +'Tom will be a genius,' and he was right. + +Worthy Mr. Pickwick seems to have known Ipswich about the same time as +myself. 'In the main street of Ipswich,' wrote the biographer of that +distinguished individual, 'on the left-hand side of the way, a short +distance after you have passed through the open space fronting the Town +Hall, stands an inn known far and wide by the appellation of the Great +White Horse, rendered the more conspicuous by a stone statue of some +rapacious animal, with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an +insane carthorse, which is elevated above the principal door. The Great +White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood in the same degree as a prize +ox, a county paper chronicled turnip, or unwieldy pig, for its enormous +size. Never were such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such clusters +of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens for eating +or sleeping in, beneath any one roof as are collected together between +the four walls of the Great White Horse of Ipswich.' This was the great +hotel of the Ipswich of my youth. As regards hotels, Ipswich has not +improved, but in every other way it has much advanced. One of the old +inns has been turned into a fine public hall, admirably adapted for +concerts and public meetings. The new Town Hall, Corn Exchange, and +Post-office are a credit to the town. The same may be said of the new +Museum and the Grammar School and the Working Men's College and that +health resort, the Arboretum; while by means of the new dock ships of +fifteen hundred tons burden can load and unload. Nowadays everybody says +Ipswich is a rising town, and what everyone says must be right. The +Ipswich people, at any rate, have firmly got that idea into their heads. +Its fathers and founders built the streets narrow, evidently little +anticipating for Ipswich the future it has since achieved. The Ipswich +of to-day is laid out on quite a different scale. It has a tram road +service evidently much in excess of the present population, and as you +wander in the suburbs you come to a sign-post bearing the name of a +street in which not even the enterprise of the speculative builder has +been able at present to plant a single dwelling. When Ipswich has +climbed up its surrounding hills, and taken up all the building sites at +present in the market, it will be a goodly and gallant town, almost +fitted to invite the temporary residence of holiday-making Londoners who +are fond of the water. At all times it is a pretty sail to Harwich and +thence to Felixstowe, that quiet watering-place, a seaside residence that +has still a pleasant flavour of rusticity about it, with a fine crisp +sea-sand floor for a promenade. + +When I was a boy Ipswich was resorted to by Londoners in the summer-time. +As an illustration, I give the case of Mr. Ewen, one of the deacons of +the Weigh House Chapel, when the Rev. John Clayton was the pastor. In +his memories of the Clayton family, the Rev. Dr. Aveling writes of Mr. +Ewen, that 'he was so sensitively conscientious in the discharge of his +official duties at the Weigh House, that he was never absent from town on +the days when the Lord's Supper was administered, and when he was +expected to assist in the administration of the elements. His London +residence was in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but having a house and property in +the town of Ipswich, he passed his summer months there. Yet so intent +was he upon duly filling his place in the sanctuary of God, that he +regularly travelled by post-chaise once in every month, and returned in +the same manner, that he might be present, together with his pastor and +the brethren, at the table of the Lord. The length and the expense of +the journey (and travelling was not then what it is now) did not deter +him from what he at least deemed to be a matter of Christian obligation.' +Dr. Aveling is quite right when he tells us travelling is not what it +was. It took almost a day to go from Ipswich to London when I was a boy, +and now the journey is done by means of the Great Eastern Railway in +about an hour and a half. It seems marvellous to one who, like myself, +remembers well the past, to leave Liverpool Street at 5.0 p.m. precisely, +and to find one's self landed safe and well in Ipswich soon after +half-past six. The present generation can have no conception of +travelling in England in the olden time. + +There were some wonderful old Radicals in Ipswich, though it was, and is, +the county town of the most landlord-ridden district in England. Some of +them got the great Dan O'Connell to pay the town a visit, and some of +them nobly stood by old John Childs when he became famous all the world +over as the Church-rate martyr. The lawyers and the doctors were mostly +Tories, but the tradesmen and the merchants were not a little leavened +with the leaven of Dissent. Mr. Hammond was, however, a Liberal surgeon, +and as such flourished. His Whig principles, writes Mr. Glyde, brought +him many patients, and his skill and sound qualities retained them. Dr. +Garrord, the well-known London practitioner, was an apprentice of Mr. +Hammond's; and this reminds me that among the Ipswich men who have risen +is Mr. Sprigg, the Premier of Cape Colony when Sir Bartle Frere was at +the head of affairs there. The father of Mr. Sprigg was the respected +pastor of a Baptist chapel in the town. The only Ipswich minister whom I +can remember was the Rev. Mr. Notcutt, who preached in the leading +Independent chapel, now pulled down to make way for a much more +attractive building. All I can recollect about him is, that once, when a +lad, I fainted away when he was preaching. No sermon ever affected me so +since; and that effect was due, it must be confessed, not to the +preacher, who seemed to me rather aged and asthmatic, but to the heat of +the place, in consequence of the crowd attracted to the meeting-house on +some special occasion. + +But to return to the doctors. Of one of them, who was famed for his love +of bleeding his patients, not metaphorically, but in the old-fashioned +way, with the lancet, it is recorded that on the occasion of his taking a +holiday two of his patients died. Lamenting the fact to a friend, the +following epigram was the result: + + 'B--- kills two patients while from home away-- + A clever fellow this same B---, I wot; + If absent thus his patients he can slay, + How he must kill them when he's on the spot!' + +Perhaps one of the noted physicians of my boyhood was Mr. Stebbing. 'He +was once,' writes Mr. Glyde, 'called in to see one of the Ipswich +Dissenting ministers, who had taken life very easily, and had grown +corpulent. After examining the patient and hearing his statement as to +bodily state, he replied: "You've no particular ailment; mind and keep +your eyes longer open, and your mouth longer shut, and you will do very +well in a short time."' On another occasion a raw and very poor-looking +young fellow called upon him for advice. The doctor told him to go home +and eat more pudding, adding, 'That's all you want; physic is a very good +thing for one to live by, but a precious bad thing for you to take.' One +of the Ipswich characters of my boyhood, of whom Mr. Glyde has preserved +an anecdote, was old Tuxford, the veterinary surgeon. He used to declare +that he never took more than one meal a day--a breakfast; but when asked +of what that consisted, he said, 'A pound of beefsteak, seven eggs, three +cups of tea, and a quartern of rum.' It may also be mentioned that +before Mrs. Garrett Anderson was born, Ipswich had a lady physician in +the person of Miss Stebbing, daughter of the doctor to whom I have +already referred. 'She was,' says one who knew her well, 'a woman of +general education, with more than ordinary tact and discernment, combined +with the true womanly power of analyzing and observing. She had good +physical powers, and, like her worthy father, was somewhat pungent in her +remarks and eccentric in her habits. She entered the ranks as a medical +practitioner during her father's life. The benefit of his advice so +aided her perceptive powers as to make her quite an expert in various +ways, and she continued to practise long after his decease, occasionally +attending males as well as females. Her knowledge of midwifery caused a +large number of ladies to engage her services. + +Of the Radicals of Ipswich, the only one with whom I came into contact +was Mr. John King, the proprietor and editor of what was then, at any +rate, a far-famed journal--the _Suffolk Chronicle_. Astronomy was his +hobby, and he had ideas on the subject which, unfortunately, I failed to +catch. He had built himself an observatory, if I remember aright, at his +residence on Rose Hill, where he would sweep the heavens nightly, to see +what could be seen. He was a Radical of the old type, a tall, dark, +bilious-looking man, a little hard and dry, perhaps, who seemed to think +that it was no use to throw pearls before swine, and to serve up for the +chaw-bacons a too rich intellectual treat, and his policy was a +successful one. Priest-ridden as Suffolk was, the _Suffolk Chronicle_ +was the leading paper of the county, and had a large circulation, and, +let me add, did good service in its day. Now I find Ipswich rejoices in +a well-conducted daily journal, the _East Anglian Times_, which I hear, +and am glad to hear, is a fine property, and I see all the leading towns +in Suffolk have a paper to themselves, even if they can't get up a decent +paragraph of local news--and some of them I know, from my experiences of +Suffolk life, are quite unequal to that--once a week. The plan is to +have some sheets already printed in London, at some great establishment, +whence perhaps a hundred little towns are supplied, and then the local +news and advertisements are added on, and Little Pedlington has its +_Observer_, and Eatanswill its _Gazette_. When I was a boy, such a thing +was out of the question, as to each paper a fourpenny-halfpenny stamp was +attached. As the stamps had to be paid for in advance, and as, besides, +there was an eighteen-penny duty on every advertisement, it was not quite +such an easy matter to run a paper then as it has since become. I fancy +the old-established journals suffered much by the change, which +completely revolutionized the newspaper trade; at any rate, so far as the +country was concerned. In this connection, let me add that it was to an +Ipswich journalist we owe the establishment of penny readings on anything +like a large and successful scale. They were originated by Mr. Sully, at +that time the proprietor and editor of the _Ipswich __Express_, a paper +intended to steer between the ferocious Toryism of the _Ipswich Journal_, +and the equally ferocious Radicalism of the _Suffolk Chronicle_. As was +to be expected, the attempt did not succeed. As in love and in war, so +in politics and theology, moderation is a thing hateful to gods and men. +The electioneering annals of Ipswich can testify to that fact. I have a +dim recollection of an election petition which ended in Sir Fitzroy +Kelly's admitting that he had stated what was not true, but he did it as +a lawyer, not as a gentleman, and in sending one of the finest old +gentlemen I ever knew to gaol, because he would not tell what he knew of +the matter. There was not much half-and-half work in the Ipswich +politics of my young days. + +When people fight fiercely in politics, it is natural to expect an equal +earnestness in religious matters. It was so emphatically with respect to +the Ipswich of the past. 'The Reformed religion, after those fiery days +of persecution,' writes John Quick, 'was now revived, and flourished +again in the country, under the auspicious name of our English Deborah, +Queen Elizabeth; and Ipswich, the capital town of Suffolk, was not more +famous for its spacious sheds, large and beautiful buildings, rich and +great trade, and honourable merchants, both at home and abroad, than it +was for its learned and godly ministers and its religious intolerants.' +Of the godly ministers, one of the most famous was Samuel Ward, who was +buried in St. Mary-le-Tower Church. In 1666 he preached a sermon at St. +Paul's Cross. But he meddled with politics. For instance, in 1621 he +published a caricature picture, entitled 'Spayne and Rome Defeated.' It +is thus described: The Pope and his Council are represented in the centre +of the piece, and beneath, on one side the Armada, and on the other the +Gunpowder Treason. Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, complained of it as +insulting to his master. Ward was placed in custody. Being +Puritanically inclined, he was, in addition, prosecuted in the Consistory +Court of Norwich by Bishop Harsnet for Nonconformity. Ten years later, +when 600 persons were contemplating a removal from Ipswich to New +England--as a place where they could worship God without fear of priest +or king--the blame was cast by Laud on Ward. Rushworth informs us that +the charges laid against him were that he preached against the common +bowing at the name of Jesus and against the King's 'Book of Sports,' and +further said that the Church of England was ready to ring changes in +England, and that the Gospel stood on tiptoe as ready to be gone; and for +this he was removed from his lectureship and sent to gaol. John Ward, +his brother, Rector of St. Clement's, was a member of the Assembly of +Divines, and was called to preach two sermons before the House of +Commons, for which he received the thanks of the House. At that time we +find a reference to Ipswich as a place which 'the Lord hath long made +famous and happy as a valley of Gospel vision.' Such places, alas! seem +to have been commoner formerly than they are now. + +One of the Congregational churches of Ipswich, at any rate, has very +interesting historical associations. 'Salem Chapel,' writes the Rev. +John Browne, in his 'History of Congregationalism in Suffolk and +Norfolk,' 'stands in St. George's Lane, opposite the place where St. +George's Chapel formerly stood, where Bilney was apprehended when +preaching in favour of the Reformation, and where he so enraged the monks +that they twice plucked him out of the pulpit.' The last time I was at +Ipswich I saw bricklayers at work at the old Presbyterian church in St. +Nicholas Street, which it would be a pity to see modernized, being such a +fine illustration of the old-fashioned Dissenting Meeting-house, before +it became the fashion to have a taste and to build Gothic chapels in +which it is difficult to see or hear, and the only advantage of which is +that they are an exact copy of the steeple-houses against which at one +time Nonconformist England waged remorseless war. One of the pastors of +this congregation removed to Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds, where he succeeded +Dr. Priestley; another was the author of a 'History and Description of +Derbyshire'; while one of the supplies was the Rev. Robert Alderson, +afterwards of the Octagon Chapel, Norwich, who ultimately became a lawyer +and Recorder of Norwich. Perhaps one of the most singular scenes +connected with Dissenting chapels in Ipswich was that which took place in +the old chapel in Tackard, now Tacket, Street. In 1766 the minister +there was the Rev. Mr. Edwards, who, it appears, was sent for to the gaol +to see two men who had been found guilty of house-breaking, and who, +according to the law as it then stood, were to be hung. Mr. Edwards did +so, and stayed with them two hours. As the result of this visit they +were brought to a penitent state of mind. They had heard that Mr. +Edwards had prepared a sermon for them and desired them to attend. This +was a mistake, but notwithstanding they obtained permission to go to the +chapel, where Mr. Edwards was conducting a church meeting. A report of +the purpose got abroad, and many persons came to the meeting, upon which +it was thought most proper that the church business should be laid aside, +and that Mr. Edwards should go into the pulpit. This he did, and after +singing and prayer the prisoners came in with their shackles and fetters +on. Mr. Edwards, in describing the scene, says: + +'Many were moved at the sight. As for myself, I was obliged for some +time to stop to give vent to tears. When I recovered I gave out part of +a hymn suitable to the occasion, then prayed. The subject of discourse +was, "This is a faithful saying," and the poor prisoners shed abundance +of tears while I was explaining the several parts of the text, and +especially when I turned and addressed myself immediately to them. The +house was thronged, and I suppose not a dry eye in the whole +place--nothing but weeping and sorrow; and the floods of tears which +gushed from the eyes of the two prisoners were very melting.' + +The good man continues: 'When we had concluded I went and spoke some +encouraging words by way of supporting them under their sorrow. They +then desired I should see them in the evening, which I did, and called +upon Mr. Blindle on the way; the old gentleman went along with me to the +prison, and was one who prayed with them with much fervour and +enlargement of heart. We spent nearly two hours with them, and a crowd +of people were present.' On another occasion we find an American Indian +preaching in the pulpit--a novelty in 1767. He came over with a Dr. +Whitaker, of Norwich, in America, to collect money for the education and +conversion of Indians, and at Tackard Street the people raised the very +respectable sum of 80 pounds for the purpose. In 1561 Queen Elizabeth +paid Ipswich a visit. At that time the place was a little too Protestant +for her. Strype writes: 'Here Her Majesty took a great dislike to the +impudent behaviour of most of the ministers and readers, there being many +weak ones among them, and little or no order observed in the public +service, and few or none wearing the surplice, and the Bishop of Norwich +was thought remiss, and that he winked at schismatics. But more +particularly she was offended with the clergy's marriage, and that in +cathedrals and colleges there were so many wives and children and widows +seen, which, she said, was contrary to the intent of the founders, and so +much tending to the interruption of the studies of those who were placed +there. Therefore she issued an order to all dignitaries, dated August 9, +at Ipswich, to forbid all women to the lodgings of cathedrals or +colleges, and that upon pain of losing their ecclesiastical promotion.' +From this it is clear that when Elizabeth was Queen there was little +chance of the Women's Rights Question finding a favourable hearing. The +Queen was succeeded by monarchs after her own heart. In 1636 Prynne +published his 'Newes from Ipswich,' 'discovering certain late detestable +practices of some domineering Lordly Prelates to undermine the +established doctrine and discipline of our Church, extirpate all orthodox +sincere preachers and preaching of God's Word, usher in popery, idolatry +and superstition.' For this publication Prynne was sentenced to be fined +5,000 pounds to the King, to lose the remainder of his ears, to be +branded on both cheeks, and to be perpetually imprisoned in Carnarvon +Castle. At that time the Ipswich people were far too Liberal for the +powers existing. Ipswich news nowadays is little calculated to displease +anyone, and governments and kings are less prone to take offence at the +exercise of free thought and free speech. + +Ipswich people make their way. Miss Reeve--who wrote the 'Old English +Baron,' a popular tale years ago--was the daughter of the Rev. William +Reeve of St. Nicholas Church. Another Ipswich lady, Mrs. Keeley, who +lives on in her grand old age, was certainly one of the most popular +performers of her day. + +Two hundred years ago, no city man was better known than Thomas Firmin, +who was born at Ipswich, described in his biography as 'a very large and +populous town in the county of Suffolk,' in 1632. He was of Puritan +parentage, and bound apprentice in the city of London, and then began +business as a linen-draper on the modest capital of 100 pounds. In a +little while he married and was enabled to dispense a generous +hospitality, seeking all opportunities of becoming acquainted with +persons of worth, whether foreigners or his fellow-countrymen. Amongst +his special friends were Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, and Archbishop +Tillotson, at that time the afternoon lecturer at St. Lawrence's. During +the time of the plague he managed to secure work for the London poor, and +after the fire he erected a warehouse on the banks of the Thames, where +coal and corn were sold at cost price. In 1676 he built a great factory +in Little Britain, for the employment of the needy and industrious in the +linen manufacture; he also relieved poor debtors in prison. The great +work of his later years was in connection with the Blue Coat School. He +was also one of the Governors of St. Thomas's Hospital, which he did much +to rescue from the wretched condition in which he found it. When the +French refugees, in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, +were driven over to this country, Firmin exerted himself powerfully on +their behalf, and sent some of them to Ipswich to engage in manufacturing +there. He also had a good deal to do with Ireland, when, as now, the +country was torn by contending factions. At a large expense he also +educated many boys and set them up in trade. He was also one of the +first of the avowed and ardent friends and advocates of a free thought, +of which there were few supporters in England at that day--even among the +countrymen of Milton and John Locke. Unitarians were rare in the days +when Firmin proclaimed himself one. Altogether he was one of the best +men of his age, and well deserved to be buried in Christchurch, Newgate, +among the Bluecoat School boys, to whom he had ever been such a friend, +and to have the memorial pillar erected in his honour by Lady Clayton in +Marden Park, Surrey. It is to be hoped that the memorial remains, +though, alas! the noble mansion at one time inhabited by Wilberforce, and +where the great philanthropist's celebrated son, the Bishop of Oxford was +born, and where I have spent more than one pleasant day when Sir John +Puleston lived there, has been since burnt down. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +AN OLD-FASHIONED TOWN. + + +Woodbridge and the country round--Bernard Barton--Dr. Lankester--An old +Noncon. + +The traveller as he leaves the English coast for Antwerp or Rotterdam or +the northern ports of Germany, may remember that the last glimpse of his +native land is the light from Orford Ness, which is a guiding star to the +mariner as he ploughs his weary way along the deep. Of that part of +Suffolk little is known to the community at large. When I was a boy it +was looked upon as an _ultima Thule_, where the people were in a +primitive state of civilization; where shops and towns and newspapers and +good roads were unknown; where traditions of smuggling yet remained. Few +ever went into that region, and those who did, when they returned, did +not bring back with them encouraging reports. Barren sandy moors, along +which the bitter east wind perpetually blew, fatal alike to vegetation +and human life, were the chief characteristics of a district the natives +of which were not rich, at any rate as regards this world's goods. +Orford, like Dunwich, was once a place of some importance. 'A large and +populous town with a castle of reddish stone,' writes Camden, but in his +time a victim of the sea's ingratitude; 'which withdraws itself little by +little, and begins to envy it the advantages of a harbour.' In the time +of Henry I., writes Ralph de Coggeshall, when Bartholomew de Glanville +was Governor of its castle, some fishermen there caught a wild man in +their nets. 'All the parts of his body resembled those of a man. He had +hair on his head, a long-peaked beard, and about the breast was exceeding +hairy and rough. But at length he made his escape into the sea, and was +never seen more,' which was a pity, as undoubtedly he was the 'missing +link.' Besides, as Camden remarks, the fact was a confirmation of what +the common people of his time remarked. 'Whatever is produced in any +part of nature is in the sea,' and shows 'that not all is fabulous what +Pliny has written about the Triton on the coasts of Portugal, and the sea +man in the Straits of Gibraltar.' Nor is that the only wonder connected +with the district. Close by is Aldborough, where the poet Crabbe learned +to become, as Byron calls him, + + 'Nature's sternest painter, but the best;' + +and as Camden writes, 'Hard by, when in the year 1555 all the corn +throughout England was choakt in the ear by unseasonable weather, the +inhabitants tell you that in the beginning of autumn there grew peas +miraculously among the rocks, and that they relieved the dearth in those +parts. But the more thinking people affirm that pulse cast upon the +shore by shipwreck used to grow there now and then, and so quite exclude +the miracle.' At the present the crag-beds are the most interesting +feature to the visitor, especially if he be of a geological turn. These +are so rich in fossil shells that you may find some of the latter in +almost every house in Ipswich. The Coralline Crag is the oldest bed; but +this formation does not occur in an undisturbed state, except in +Sudbourne Park and about Orford. A drive thither from Ipswich, through +Woodbridge, conveys the traveller through some of the loveliest scenery +in Suffolk, and the numerous exposures of Coralline Crag in Sudbourne +Park, which is about two miles from Orford, will amply repay the +traveller, on account of the number of fossils which he can there obtain, +and the ease with which he can extract them. In this neighbourhood live +the far-famed Garrett family, one of whom, as Mrs. Dr. Anderson, is well +known in London society, as is also her sister, Mrs. Fawcett, the wife of +the late popular M.P. for Hackney. Close by is Leiston Abbey, originally +one of Black Canons, consisting of several subterranean chapels, various +offices and a church, which appears to have been a handsome structure, +faced with flint and freestone. The interior was plain and undecorated, +yet massive. A large extent of the neighbouring fields was enclosed with +walls, which have been demolished, as was to be expected, for the sake of +the materials. We hear much of the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee. On +her eastern coast England has her dead cities. Dunwich, of which I have +already spoken, is one. Orford, now known solely by its lighthouse, is +another; Blythburgh, in the church of which is the tomb of Anna, King of +the East Angles, who was slain in 654, is a third. Like Tyre and Sidon, +these places had their merchant princes, who lived delicately, and whose +ships traded far and near. It is said incorrectly of Love, that it + + 'At sight of human ties + Spreads its soft wings and in a moment flies.' + +The remark is truer of commerce, which is a law to itself, and which +defies Acts of Parliament and royal patronage. Hence it is the east +coast of Suffolk is so rich in melancholy remains of ancient cities, now +given over to decay. In my young days the chief town of this district +was Woodbridge. Manufactories were then unknown. The steam-engine had +not then been utilized for the everyday use of man, and farmers, +peasants, coal and corn merchants, solely inhabited the district, and in +Woodbridge especially the latter rose and flourished for a time. + +How it was, I know not, but nevertheless such was the fact, that the +Ipswich of my youthful days seemed to have little, if any, literary +associations connected with it. The celebrated Mr. Fulcher published his +'Ladies' Pocket-book' at Sudbury, which had a great reputation in its +day, and for which very distinguished people used to write. It was, in +fact, more of an annual than a pocket-book, and was patronized +accordingly. Then there was James Bird, living at Yoxford, 'the garden +of Suffolk,' as it was called. Woodbridge had a still higher reputation. +James Bird kept a shop, and was supposed to be a Unitarian; but Bernard +Barton was in a bank, and, besides, he was a Quaker, and Quakers all the +world over are, or were, famous for their goodness and their wealth. The +fame of the Quaker-poet conferred quite a literary reputation on the +district, and the more so as no one at that time associated Quakerism +with literary faculty in any way. Now and then, it is true, the +Stricklands talked of a charming young Quaker, who indeed once or twice +called at our house to see Susanna when she was staying there; but Allan +Ransome--for it is to him I refer--did not pursue literature or poetry to +any great extent, and instead preferred to develop the manufacture of +agricultural implements--a manufacture which, carried on under the same +name, is now one of the chief industries of the busy and thriving town of +Ipswich, and employs quite a thousand men. Woodbridge then bore away the +palm from the county capital, as the home of literature and poetry and +romance. As a town, it is more prettily situated than are most East +Anglian villages and towns. The principal thoroughfare, as you rode +through it by one of the Yarmouth coaches, that connected it at that time +with the Metropolis, was long and narrow. If you turned off to the right +you came to the Market-place, where were the leading shops. On your left +you reached the Quay and the river, where a few coasters were employed, +chiefly in the coal and corn trade. In our time Woodbridge has done its +duty to the State. Dr. Edwin Lankester the well-known coroner for +Middlesex, came from Melton, close by, the High Street of which gradually +terminates in the Woodbridge thoroughfare; and the lately deceased Lord +Hatherley, one of England's most celebrated lawyers, was educated in that +district, and took his wife from the same happy land. The body of the +late Lord Hatherley, the great Whig Lord Chancellor, we were told the +other day, was interred in the family vault of Great Bearings, Suffolk. +His mother was a Woodbridge lady, a Miss Page. Lord Hatherley's father +was the far-famed Liberal Alderman, Sir Matthew Wood, for many years M.P. +for the City of London, and Queen Caroline's trusted friend and +counsellor. Lord Hatherley married, in 1830, Charlotte, the only +daughter of the late Major Edward Moore, of Great Bealings, Suffolk, but +was left a widower in 1878. He devoted much time to religious work, so +long as he had the strength to undertake it. He was the author of a work +entitled 'The Continuity of Scripture, as declared by the Testimony of +Our Lord and the Evangelists and the Apostles', which has passed through +three or four editions. He was created an Hon. D.C.L. of Oxford in 1851, +was an Hon. Student of Christ Church, Oxford, a Governor of the +Charterhouse, and a member of the Fishmongers' Company, of which his +father had at one time been Prime Warden. Major Moore himself was a +great authority on Suffolk literature and antiquities, and published more +than one book--now very scarce--on the interesting theme. + +As to Dr. Lankester, all Woodbridge was scandalized when it was announced +that he was articled to a medical man. 'What, make a doctor of him!' +said the local gossips at the time. 'They had much better make a butcher +of him.' And not a little were the good people astonished when he came +to town, and was signally successful as a medical lecturer, and as an +advocate of the sanitary principles which in our day have come to be +recognised as essential to the welfare of the State. Dr. Lankester was +in great request as a writer on medical subjects in a popular manner, and +did undoubtedly much good in his day. A good many genteel people lived +in the neighbourhood of Woodbridge, and it had a society to which it can +lay no claim at the present time. Edward Fitzgerald, the friend of +Thackeray and Carlyle, himself an author of no mean repute, lived close +by. + +That genteel people should have pitched their tents in or around +Woodbridge is not much to be wondered at, as the neighbourhood was +certainly attractive and convenient at the same time. The scenery around +is as interesting as any that could be found, at any rate, in that part +of England. The drive from Tuddenham to Woodbridge, says Mr. Taylor, in +his 'Ipswich Handbook,' is perhaps unequalled in Suffolk. On the road +you pass through the villages of Little and Great Bealings, and if you +are on the look-out for spots which an artist would love to study, you +may make a very short detour to Playford. The churches, both of Little +and of Great Bealings, are very ancient, and well deserve a visit; but +the Woodbridge Road itself passes through some very pretty scenery. +Rushmere Heath, in the early summer time, when the gorse is in bloom, is +one mass of yellow, in the cleared spaces of which may usually be seen a +gipsy encampment. The gibbet once stood on this heath, and in former +times it seems to have been the place where executions usually took +place. It was here that in 1783 a woman, named Bedingfield, was burnt +for murdering her husband. In the early part of this century, when there +were many alarms as to a French invasion, and it was the firm belief of +the old ladies that one fine morning Bony would land upon our shores, and +carry them all away captive, many were the reviews of soldiers held there +by the Duke of Cambridge--whose house has been pointed out to me at +Woodbridge--and the Duke of Kent. At that time it was the fashion to +exercise the volunteers on a Sunday, a practice which would not be +sanctioned in our more religious age. It is a beautiful ride through +Kesgrave. Dense plantations abound on both sides, and in May the chorus +of nightingales is described as something wonderful. In the word +'Kesgrave' we have an allusion to the barrows or tumuli to be seen on +Kesgrave Heath. There are several of these erections remaining to this +day, and perhaps tradition is warranted in speaking of the spot as the +site whereon the Danes and Saxons met in deadly fight. It is certain +that the former frequently came up the Deben and the Orwell. At +Martlesham you see a creek, richly wooded on both sides, which flows up +from the River Deben. It is a striking object at high water, but by no +means so striking as the sign of the village public-house--the head of a +huge wooden lion painted with the brightest of reds. It was originally +the figure-head of a Dutch man-of-war, one of the fleet defeated at the +famous battle of Sole Bay. Be that as it may, no sign is better known +than that of Martlesham Red Lion. 'As red as Martlesham Lion' is still a +common figure of speech throughout East Suffolk, and I am glad to see +that in the beautiful East Anglian etchings of Mr. Edwards, a Suffolk +lawyer, who turned artist, Martlesham Red Lion has justice done to it at +last. + +Woodbridge, which the guide-book in 1844 described as a thriving town and +port--I question whether it is thriving now--is situated on the western +bank of the Deben, about nine miles above the mouth of the river, and +about eight miles to the north of Ipswich. In Domesday Book the place is +called Udebridge, of which its present name is no doubt a corruption. +Mr. William White, whom I have already quoted, says: 'Fifty years ago +only one daily coach and a weekly waggon passed through the town to and +from London; but more than twelve conveyances (coaches, omnibuses and +carriers' waggons) now pass daily between the hours of six in the morning +and twelve at noon, and persons may travel from Woodbridge to London in a +few hours for ten shillings, instead of paying three times that amount, +and being thirteen hours on the road, as was formerly the case.' The +railway has now rendered it possible for people to travel at a quicker +speed and at a cheaper rate. In London we have a Woodbridge Street, in +the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell Green, which points to a connection +between the poorer part of the City and the picturesque Suffolk town on +the banks of the Deben, and this gives me occasion to speak of Thomas +Seckford, Esq., one of the masters of the Court of Requests, and Surveyor +of the Court of Wards and Liveries in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He +was not less distinguished in the profession of the law than in the other +polite accomplishments of the age in which he lived, and to his patronage +of his servant, Christopher Saxton, the public were indebted for the +first set of county maps, which were engraved by his encouragement and at +his request. He represented Ipswich in three Parliaments, and died +without issue in 1588, aged seventy-two. In Woodbridge his name is +perpetuated by a handsome pile of buildings known as the Seckford +Almshouses and Schools, to which the property in Clerkenwell is devoted. +At the time of his decease that property produced about 112 pounds a +year; in 1768 it was said to be of the yearly value of 563 pounds. In +1826 an Act of Parliament was obtained to enable the governors of the +almshouses to grant building and other leases, to take down many of the +old buildings, to erect new premises, and repair and alter old ones, and +to lay out new streets on the charity estate in Clerkenwell, and, in +consequence, we find in 1830 the estate producing a rental of more than +3,000 pounds a year. In 1844 the yearly rental had risen to 4,000 +pounds. Since then it has much increased, and all this is devoted to the +benefit of the Woodbridge poor. + +In 1806 Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet, came to live at Woodbridge. +When fourteen years old he was apprenticed to Mr. Samuel Jessup, a +shopkeeper in Halstead, Essex. 'There I stood,' he writes, 'for eight +years behind the counter of the corner shop at the top of Halstead Hill, +kept to this day (November 9, 1828) by my old master and still worthy +uncle, S. Jessup.' In Woodbridge he married a niece of his old master, +and went into partnership with her brother as corn and coal merchant. +But she died in giving birth to the Lucy Barton whose name still, unless +I am mistaken, adorns our literature. Bernard gave up business and +retired into the bank of the Messrs. Alexander, where he continued for +forty years, working within two days of his death. He had always been +fond of books, and was one of the most active members of a Woodbridge +Book Club, and had been in the habit of writing and sending to his +friends occasional copies of verse. In 1812 he published his first +volume, called 'Metrical Effusions,' and began a correspondence with +Southey. A complimentary copy of verses which he had addressed to the +author of the 'Queen's Wake,' just then come into notice, brought him +long and vehement letters from the Ettrick--letters full of thanks to +Barton and praises of himself, and a tragedy 'that will astonish the +world ten times more than the "Queen's Wake,"' to which justice could not +be done in Edinburgh, and which Bernard Barton was to try to get +represented in London. In 1825 one of Bernard's volumes of poems had run +into a fifth edition, and of another George IV. had accepted the +dedication. Thus prompted to exertion, he worked too hard; banking all +day and writing poetry all night were too much for him. Lamb, however, +cheered up the dyspeptic poet. 'You are too much apprehensive about your +complaint,' he wrote. 'I know many that are always writing of it and +live on to a good old age. I knew a merry fellow--you partly know him, +too--who, when his medical adviser told him he had drunk all _that part_, +congratulated himself, now his liver was gone, that he should be the +longest liver of the two.' Southey wrote in a soberer vein. 'My friend, +go to bed early; and if you eat suppers, read afterwards, but never +compose, that you may lie down with a quiet intellect. There is an +intellectual as well as a religious peace of mind, and without the former +be assured there can be no health for a poet.' + +At times Bernard Barton seems to have been troubled about money matters. +On one occasion he appears to have made up his mind to have done with +banking and devote himself to literature. 'Keep to your bank,' wrote +Lamb, 'and the bank will keep you. Trust not to the public: you may +hang, starve, drown yourself, for anything that worthy personage cares. +I bless every star that Providence, not seeing good to make me +independent, has seen it next good to settle me on the stable foundation +of Leadenhall. Sit down, good B. B., in the banking office. What! is +there not from six to eleven p.m. six days in the week? and is there not +all Sunday?' Fortunately for B. B., friends came to his rescue. A few +members of his Society, including some of the wealthier of his own +family, raised among them 1,200 pounds for his benefit. The scheme +originated with Joseph John Gurney, of Norwich, and in 1824 when the +money was collected, it was felt that 1,200 pounds was a great deal for a +poet to receive. Bernard Barton's daughter married a Suffolk gentleman, +well-to-do in the world, but the lady and gentleman had not congenial +minds, and parted almost as soon as the honeymoon was over. + +B. B. was a great correspondent. As a banker's clerk, necessarily his +journeys were few and far between. Once or twice he visited Charles +Lamb. He once also met Southey at Thomas Clarkson's, at Playford Hall, +perhaps the most picturesque old house in East Anglia, where the latter +resided, and of which I have a distinct recollection, as, on the terrace +before the moat with which it was surrounded, I once saw the venerable +philanthropist and his grandchildren. Now and then B. B. also visited +the Rev. Mr. Mitford at Benhall, a village between Woodbridge and +Saxmundham, who was then engaged in editing the Aldine edition of the +English Poets. But B. B.'s correspondents were numerous. Poor, +unfortunate L. E. L. sent him girlish letters. Mrs. Hemans was also a +correspondent, as were the Howitts and Mrs. Opie and Dr. Drake, of +Hadley, whose literary disquisitions are now, alas! forgotten; and poor +Charles Lloyd, whose father wrote of his son's many books 'that it is +easier to write them than to gain numerous readers.' Dr. Bowring and +Josiah Conder were also on writing terms with the Quaker poet. His +excursions, his daughter tells us, rarely extended beyond a few miles +round Woodbridge, to the vale of Dedham, Constable's birthplace and +painting-room; or to the neighbouring seacoast, including Aldborough, +doubly dear to him from its association with the memory and poetry of +Crabbe. Once upon a time he dined with Sir Robert Peel, when he had the +pleasure of meeting Airy, the late Astronomer Royal, whom he had known as +a lad at Playford. The dinner with Sir Robert Peel ended satisfactorily, +as it resulted in the bestowal by the Queen on the poet of a pension of +100 pounds a year. He was now beyond the fear of being tempted to commit +forgery, and being hung in consequence--a possibility, which was the +occasion of one of Lamb's wittiest letters. The gentle Elia made merry +over the chance of a Quaker poet being hung. + +Amiable and liberal as was Bernard Barton, he could and did strike hard +when occasion required. In East Anglia, when I was a lad, there was a +great deal of intolerance--almost as much as exists in society circles at +the present day--and that is saying a great deal. Churchmen, in their +ignorance, were ready to put down Dissent in every way, and occasionally, +by their absurdity, they roused the righteous ire of the Quaker poet. +One of them, for instance, had said at a public meeting: 'This was the +opinion he had formed of Dissenters, that they were wolves in sheep's +clothing.' Whereupon B. B. wrote: + + 'Wolves in sheep's clothing! bitter words and big; + But who applies them? first the speaker scan; + A suckling Tory! an apostate Whig! + Indeed a very silly, weak young man! + + 'What such an one may either think or say, + With sober people matters not one pin; + In _their_ opinion his own senseless bray + Proves _him_ the ASS WRAPT IN A LION'S SKIN!' + +Better is the following address to a certain Dr. E.: + + 'A bullying, brawling, champion of the Church, + Vain as a parrot screaming on her perch; + And like that parrot screaming out by rote, + The same stale, flat, unprofitable note; + Still interrupting all debate + With one eternal cry of "Church and State!" + With all the High Tory's ignorance increased, + By all the arrogance that makes the priest; + One who declares upon his solemn word + The Voluntary system is absurd; + He well may say so, for 'twere hard to tell + Who would support him did not law compel.' + +A prophet, it is said, is not honoured in his own country. Bernard +Barton was happily the rare exception that proves the rule. I remember +being at the launching of a vessel, bought and owned by a Woodbridge man, +called the _Bernard Barton_; it was the first time I had ever seen a ship +launched, and I was interested accordingly. The ultimate fate of the +craft is unknown to history. On one occasion she was reported in the +shipping list amongst the arrivals at some far-off port as the _Barney +Burton_. Such is fame! + +Of his local reputation Bernard was not a little proud. His little town +was vain of him. It was something to go into the bank and get a cheque +cashed by the poet. The other evening I went to the house of a +Woodbridge man who has done well in London, and lives in one of the few +grand old houses which yet adorn Stoke Newington Green--just a stone's +throw from where Samuel Rogers dwelt--and there in the drawing-room were +Bernard Barton's own chair and cabinet preserved with as much pious care +as if he had been a Shakespeare or a Milton. Bernard Barton made no +secret of his vocation, and when the time had come that he had delivered +himself of a new poem, it was his habit to call on one or other of his +friends and discuss the matter over a bottle of port--port befitting the +occasion; no modern liquor of that name-- + + 'Not such as that + You set before chance comers, + But such whose father grape grew fat + On Lusitanian summers.' + +And then there was a good deal of talk, as was to be expected, on things +in general, for B. B. loved his joke and was full of anecdote--anecdote, +perhaps, not always of the most refined character. But what could you +expect at such happy times from a man brimful of human nature, who had to +pose all life under the double weight of decorum imposed on him, in the +first place as a Quaker, and in the second place as a banker's clerk? + +Bernard Barton, as I recollect him, was somewhat of a dear old man--short +in person, red in face, with dark brown hair. He was, as I have said, a +clerk in a bank, but his poetry had elevated him, somehow, to the rank of +a provincial lion, and at certain houses, where the dinner was good and +the wine was ditto, he ever was a welcome guest. I dined with him at the +house of a friend in Woodbridge, and it seemed to me that he cared more +for good feeding and a glass of wine and a pinch of snuff than the sacred +Nine. Of course at that time I had not been educated up to the fitting +state of mind with which the philosopher of our day proceeds to the +performance of the mysteries of dinner. Dining had at that time not been +elevated to the rank of a science, to the study of which the most acute +intellects devote their highest energies; nor had flowers then been +invoked to lend an additional grace to the dining-table. Besides, +dinners such as Mr. Black gives at Brighton, scientific dinners, such as +those feasts with which Sir Henry Thompson regales his friends, were +unknown. Nevertheless, now and then we managed to dine comfortably off +roast beef or lamb, a slice of boiled or roast fowl, a bit of +plum-pudding or fruit tart, a crust of bread and cheese, with--tell it +not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askalon--sherry and Madeira +at dinner, and a few glasses of fine old fruity port after. Some +Shakespearian quotations--unknown to me then, for Shakespeare was little +quoted in purely evangelical circles, either in Church or Dissent--a +reference to Sir Walter Scott's earlier German translations, formed about +the sum and substance of the conversation which took place between the +poet and my host; all the rest was principally social gossip and an +exchange of pleasantries between the poet and his friend, whom he +addressed familiarly as 'mine ancient.' It was a great treat to me, of +course, to dine with Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet. Once upon a time a +Quaker minister had come to Woodbridge on a preaching tour, and all the +Quakers, male and female, small and great, rich and poor, were ranged +before him. When Bernard Barton was announced, the good old man said, +'Barton--Barton--that's a name I don't recollect.' The bearer of the +name replied it would be strange if he did, seeing that they had never +met before. Suddenly looking up, the minister exclaimed, 'Art thou the +versifying man?' Unlike the venerable stranger, I had no need to ask the +question, as in my mother's album there was more than one letter from the +genial B. B. + +I can well recall the room in which I dined with the poet. My host had +come into a handsome fortune by marrying a wealthy widow--one of the +possibilities of a Dissenting minister's situation--and he had retired +from the ministry to cultivate literature and literary men. As I think +of that room and that dinner, I am reminded of the wonderful contrast +effected within the last age. At that time the dinner-table presented a +far less picturesque appearance than it does now. We had always pudding +before meat; the latter was solid, and in the shape of a joint. Nor was +it handed round by servants, but carved by the host or his lady. Silver +forks were unknown, and electro-plate had not then been invented. +Vegetables, also, were deficient as regards quantity and quality compared +with the supply at a respectable dinner nowadays. In manners the change +is equally remarkable. It was said of a nobleman, a personal friend of +George III., and a model gentleman of his day, that he had made the tour +of Europe without ever touching the back of his travelling carriage. +That includes an idea of self-denial utterly unknown to all the young +people of to-day. The study now is how to make our houses more +comfortable, and to furnish them most luxuriously. Then, perhaps, there +was but one sofa in the house, and that was repellent rather than +attractive. Easy-chairs were few and far between. Lounging of any kind +was out of the question. In the drawing-room, the furniture was of the +same uncomfortable description, and there were none of the modern +appliances which exist to make ladies and gentlemen happy. Couches, +antimacassars, photographs, were unknown. One picture invariably to be +seen was a painting of a favourite steed, with the owner looking at it in +a state of intense admiration; and a few family portraits might be +ostentatiously displayed. As to pianos, there never was but one in the +house; and a billiard-table would have been considered as the last refuge +of human depravity. In sitting-rooms and bedrooms and passages there was +a great deficiency of carpets and of oilcloth. But furniture was +furniture then, and could stand a good deal of wear and tear; while as to +the spare bed in the best room, with its enormous four posts and its +gigantic funereal canopy and its heavy curtains, through which no breath +of fresh air could penetrate, all I can say is that people slept in it +and survived the operation--so wonderfully does nature adapt itself to +circumstances the most adverse. + +This reference to Bernard Barton reminds me of a portrait he has left in +one of his pleasant letters of a Suffolk yeoman, a class of whose virtues +I can testify from personal experience. 'He was a hearty old yeoman of +eighty-six, and had occupied the farm in which he lived and died about +fifty-five years. Social, hospitable, friendly, a liberal master to his +labourers, a kind neighbour, and a right merry companion within the +limits of becoming mirth. In politics a stanch Whig, in his theological +creed as sturdy a Dissenter; yet with no more party spirit in him than a +child. He and I belonged to the same book-club for about forty years. +. . . Not that he greatly cared about books or was deeply read in them, but +he loved to meet his neighbours and get them round him on any occasion or +no occasion at all. As a fine specimen of the true English yeoman, I +have met with few to equal, if any to surpass him, and he looked the +character as well as he acted it, till within a few years, when the +strong man was bowed by bodily infirmity. About twenty-six years ago, in +his dress costume of a blue coat and yellow buckskins, a finer sample of +John Bullism you would rarely see. It was the whole study of his long +life to make the few who revolved round him in his little orbit as happy +as he seemed to be himself. Yet I was gravely queried when I happened to +say that his children had asked me to write a few lines to his memory, +whether I could do this in keeping with the general tone of my +poetry--the speaker doubted if he was a decidedly pious character! He +had at times in his altitude been known to vociferate a song, of which +the chorus was certainly not teetotalism: + + '"Sing old Rose, and burn the bellows, + Drink and drive dull care away."' + +Bernard Barton goes on to describe the deceased yeoman as a diligent +attendant at the meeting-house, a frequent and serious reader of the +Bible, and the head of an orderly and well-regulated house. He is +described as knowing Dr. Watts' hymns almost by heart, and as singing +them on Sunday at meeting with equal fervour and unction. Bernard Barton +feared in 1847--the date of his epistle--the breed of such men was dying +out. It is to be feared in East Anglia the race is quite extinct. In +our meeting-house at Wrentham, when I was a lad, there were several such. +I am afraid there is not one there now. The sons and daughters have left +the old rustic houses, and gone out into the world. They have become +respectable, and go to church, and have lost a good deal of the vigour +and independence of their forefathers. In all the East Anglian +meeting-houses fifty years ago such men abounded. Of a Sunday, with +their blue coats and kerseymere knee-breeches, and jolly red laces, they +looked more like country squires than common farmers. They drove up to +the meeting-house yard with very superior gigs and cattle. In their +houses creature comforts of all known kinds were to be found. Tea--a +hearty meal, not of mere bread-and-butter, but of ham and cake as +well--was served up in the parlour, with a glass or two of real +home-brewed ale, amber-coloured, of a quality now unknown, and which was +wonderfully refreshing after a long walk or drive. Then, if it were +summer, there was a stroll in the big garden, well planted with +fruit-trees and strawberry-beds, and adorned with flowers--old-fashioned, +perhaps, but rich, nevertheless, in colour and perfume. In one corner +there was sure to be an arbour, all covered with honeysuckle, such as +Izaak Walton himself would have approved; and there, while the seniors +over their long pipes discussed politics and theology, and corn and +cattle, the younger ones would make their first feeble efforts, all +unconsciously, perhaps, to conjugate the verb 'to love.' Outside the +church organizations these old yeomen lived and died. There was a +flavour of the world about them. They would dine at market ordinaries, +and perhaps would stop an hour in the long room of the public-house, +where they put up their horses, to smoke a pipe and take a drop of +brandy-and-water for the good of the landlord. Now and then--sometimes +to the sorrow of their wives, who were often church-members--they would +join, as I have indicated, in a song of an objectionable character when +severely criticised. Perhaps their parson would be much exercised on +their behalf; but surely the noble spirit of humanity in these old +yeomen, at any rate, was as worthy of admiration as the Puritanic faith +of the past--or as the honest doubt of the present age. If I mistake +not, the fine old yeoman to whom Bernard Barton referred lived not far +from Seckford Hall. + +Woodbridge has some claim to consideration from the Nonconformist point +of view. In 1648 a schoolmistress, Elizabeth Warren, published a +pamphlet, 'The Old and Good Way Vindicated, in a Treatise, wherein Divers +Errours, both in Judgment and Practice incident to these Declining Days, +are Unmasked for the Caution of humble Christians.' From the same town +also there issued 'The Preacher Sent: a Vindication of the Liberty of +Public Preaching by Some Men not Ordained.' The author of this book, or +one of the authors of it, was the Rev. Frederick Woodall, the first +pastor of the Free Church--'a man of learning, ability, and piety, a +strict Independent, zealous for the fifth monarchy, and a considerable +sufferer after his ejectment.' He had, we are told, to contend with a +tedious embarrassment, through the persecuting spirit that for many years +prevailed, and considerably cramped the success of his ministry. +Woodbridge is one of the churches which Mr. Harmer refers to in his +'Miscellaneous Works,' as being rigidly Congregationalist, and which +conducted its affairs rather according to the heads of Savoy Confession +than the heads of Agreement. When I was a boy the pastor was a Mr. +Pinchback, who seems to have been a worthy successor of godly men, +equally attractive and successful. He had previously settled at Ware. +It is recorded of the good divine that on one occasion he had to leave +his wife at the point of death, as it seemed, to go to chapel. In the +course of the service he mentioned the fact of her illness, and announced +in consequence that he would preach her funeral sermon on the following +Sunday. But when the following Sunday came the lady was better, and +lived for many years to assist her husband in his godly work. In the +rural districts the Baptists flourished immensely. + +At Grundisburgh there preached for many years to a large congregation a +worthy man of the name of Collins, who was one of the leading lights of +the body which rejoiced in a John Foreman and a Brother Wells. People +who live in London cannot have forgotten Jemmy Wells, of the Surrey +Tabernacle, and his grotesque and telling anecdotes. One can scarcely +imagine how people could ever believe the things Wells used to say as to +the Lord's dealings with him; but they did, and his funeral--in South +London, at any rate--was almost as numerously attended as that of Arthur, +Duke of Wellington. I expect high-and-dry Baptists have been not a +little troublesome in their day, and in East Anglia they were more +numerous than in London. It may be that they have helped to weaken +Dissent in that part of the world. Men of independent intellect must +have been not a little shocked by that unctuous familiarity with God and +the devil which is the characteristic of that class. On a Sunday morning +Jemmy Wells, as his admirers called him, would describe in the most +graphic manner what the devil had said to him in the course of the week; +and on one memorable occasion, at any rate, described with much force the +shame he felt at having to tell the gentleman in black that his people's +memories, unfortunately, were somewhat remiss in the matter of pew-rents. +Brother Collins avoided such flights, but he was an attractive preacher +to all the country round, nevertheless. Truly such a one was needed in +that district. At Rendham, a village near Saxmundham, lived a godly +minister of the Church of England. In 1844, speaking to a friend of the +writer, he said that when he came into the county, between thirty and +forty years before, there was only one other clergyman and himself +between Ipswich and Great Yarmouth who preached the Gospel, and that +sometimes the squire of the parish would hold up his watch to him to bid +him close his sermon. In some places where he went to preach he had to +have a body-guard to prevent his being mobbed and pelted with rotten eggs +on account of his evangelical principles. + + + + +CHAPTER X. +MILTON'S SUFFOLK SCHOOLMASTER. + + +Stowmarket--The Rev. Thomas Young--Bishop Hall and the Smectymnian +divines--Milton's mulberry-tree--Suffolk relationships. + +'My father destined me,' writes John Milton, in his 'Defensio Secunda,' +'while yet a little boy, for the study of humane letters, which I served +with such eagerness that, from the twelfth year of my age, I scarcely +ever went from my lessons to bed before midnight, which, indeed, was the +first cause of injury to my eyes, to whose natural weakness there were +also added frequent headaches; all which not retarding my natural +impetuosity in learning, he caused me to be instructed both at the +Grammar School and under other masters at home.' Of the latter, the best +known was the Rev. Thomas Young, the Puritan minister, of Stowmarket, +Suffolk. + +It is generally claimed for Young that he was an East Anglian. Professor +Masson has, however, settled the question that he was a Scotchman, of the +University of Aberdeen. Be that as it may, like most Scotchmen, he made +his way to England, and was employed by Mr. Milton, the scrivener of +Bread Street, to teach his gifted son. As he seems to have been married +at the time, it is not probable that he resided with his pupil, but only +visited him daily. Never had master a better pupil, or one who rewarded +him more richly by the splendour of his subsequent career. The poet, +writing to him a few years after he ceased to be his pupil, speaks of +'the incredible and singular gratitude he owed him on account of the +services he had done him,' and calls God to witness that he reverenced +him as his father. In a Latin elegy, after implying that Young was +dearer to him than Socrates to Alcibiades, or than the great Stagyrite to +his generous pupil, Alexander, he goes on to say: 'First, under his +guidance, I explored the recesses of the Muses, and beheld the sacred +green spots of the cleft summit of Parnassus and quaffed the Pierian +cups, and, Clio favouring me, thrice sprinkled my joyful mouth with +Castalian wine;' from which it is clear that Young had done his duty to +his pupil, and that the latter ever regarded him with an affection as +beautiful as rare. Never did a Rugby lad write of Arnold as Milton of +Thomas Young. How long the latter's preceptorship lasted cannot be +determined with precision. 'It certainly closed,' writes Professor +Masson, in that truly awful biography of his, 'when Young left England at +the age of thirty-five, and became pastor of the congregation of British +merchants settled at Hamburg.' + +As one of the leaders of the Presbyterian party, Dr. Thomas Young became +Vicar of Stowmarket in due time. He was one of the Smectymnian divines. +As it is not every schoolboy who knows what the term means, let me +explain who they were. Two or three hundred years ago people were much +more controversial than they are now, and very fierce was the battle on +the subject of the relative claims, from a Scriptural point of view, of +Prelacy or Presbytery. One of the most distinguished champions of the +former was Dr. Hall, Bishop of Norwich--a simple, godly, learned man, who +deserves to be held in remembrance, if only for the way in which he got +married. 'Being now settled,' he writes, 'in that sweet and civil county +of Suffolk, the uncouth solitariness of my life, and the extreme +incommodity of that single housekeeping, drew my thoughts, after two +years, to condescend to the necessity of a married state, which God no +less strangely provided for me; for walking from the church on Monday, in +the Whitsun week, with a grave and reverend minister, I saw a comely and +modest gentlewoman standing at the door of that house where we were +invited to a wedding-dinner, and inquiring of that worthy friend whether +he knew her, "Yes," quoth he, "I know her well, and have bespoken her for +your wife." When I further demanded an account of that answer, he told +me she was the daughter of a gentleman whom he much respected--Mr. George +Whinniff, of Brettenham; that out of an opinion he had of the fitness of +that match for me he had already treated with her father about it, whom +he found very apt to entertain it. Advising me not to neglect the +opportunity, and not concealing the just praises of the modesty, piety, +good disposition, and other virtues that were lodged in that seemly +presence, I listened to the motion as sent from God, and at last, upon +due prosecution, happily prevailed, enjoying the comfortable society of +that meet-help for the space of forty-nine years.' A young clergyman so +good and amiable ought to have fared better as regards the days in which +his lot was passed. Hall should have lived in some theological Arcadia. +As it was, he had to fight much and suffer much. In those distracted +times he was all for peace. When the storm was brewing in Church and +State, which for a time swept away Bishop and King, he published--but, +alas! in vain--his 'Via Media.' 'I see,' he wrote, 'every man to rank +himself unto a side, and to draw in the quarrel he affecteth. I see no +man either holding or joining their hands for peace.' Bishop Hall was +the most celebrated writer of his time in defence of the Church of +England. Archbishop Laud got him to write on 'The Divine Right of +Episcopacy,' nor could he have well placed the subject in abler hands. +This was followed, after Laud had fallen, with 'An Humble Remonstrance to +the High Court of Parliament,' in which treatise he vindicated the +antiquity of liturgies and Episcopacy with admirable skill, meekness, and +simplicity, yet with such strength of argument that five Presbyterian +divines clubbed their wits together to frame an answer. These +Presbyterian ministers were--Stephen Marshal, then lecturer at St. +Margaret's, whom Baillie terms the best of the preachers in England; +Edmund Calamy, who had long been a celebrated East Anglian preacher, +first at Swaffham, then at Bury St. Edmunds, who, as we all know, refused +a bishopric when offered him, and whom, therefore, at any rate, his +adversaries must allow to have been sincere; Thomas Young, Matthew +Newcomen, and William Spurstow. To this reply was given the name of +Smectymnuus--a startling word, as Calamy calls it, made up of the initial +letters of these names. This work, which was published in 1641, gave, +says Dr. M'Crie, the first serious blow to Prelacy. It was composed in a +style superior to that of the Puritans in general, and was, by the +confession of the learned Bishop Wilkins, a capital work against +Episcopacy. Dr. Kippis says, 'This piece is certainly written with great +fierceness and asperity of language,' and quotes, as evidence, some +strong things said against the practice of the prelates. But Neal, who +has given a long account of the work, states that, if the rest of the +clergy had been of the same temper and spirit with Bishop Hall, the +controversy between him and the Smectymnian divines might have been +compromised. + +Stowmarket, as I have said, had the honour of being placed under the +pastoral care of one of these Smectymnian divines. He came there in +March, 1628, on the presentation of Mr. John Howe, a gentleman then +residing in the town, and a man of wealth, whose ancestors had been great +cloth-manufacturers in that place and neighbourhood. Since the time of +Edward III. the cloth manufacture had been very active in Suffolk, and it +is little to the credit of its merchants that we find them, in 1522, +petitioning for the repeal of a royal law which inflicted a penalty +against those who sold cloth which, when wetted, shrunk up, on the plea +that, as such goods were made for a foreign market, the home-consumer was +not injured. Stowmarket, when I was a lad, had reached its climax in a +pecuniary sense. In the early part of the present century it was spoken +of as a rising town. Situated as it was in the centre of the county, it +was a convenient mart for barley, and great quantities of malt were made. +Its other manufactures were sacking, ropes, and twine. Its tanneries +were of a more recent date, as also its manufactory of gun-cotton, +connected with which at one time there was an explosion of a most fatal +and disastrous character. In 1763 it was connected with Ipswich by means +of a canal, which was a great source of prosperity to the town. Up to +the time of the great Reform Bill, it was the great place for county +meetings, and for the nomination of the county representatives. In our +day it has a population of 4,052. When I was a lad it was one of the +first towns to welcome the Plymouth Brethren into Suffolk, and they are +there still. The Independent Chapel for awhile suffered much from them. +The pastor was a very worthy but somewhat dry preacher. His favourite +quotation in the pulpit, when he would describe the attacks of the enemy +of God and man, was + + 'He worries whom he can't devour + With a malicious joy.' + +Suffolk had its great lawyers as well as Norfolk. The first to head the +list is Ranulph de Glanville, a man of great parts, deep learning, for +the times, eminent alike for his legal abilities and energetic mind. He +was said, by one account, to have been born at Stowmarket. It is certain +he founded Leiston Abbey, near Aldborough, and Bentley Priory. As Chief +Justice under Henry II. he naturally was no favourite with Richard I., +who deprived him of his office and made use of his wealth. He lived, +however, to accompany Richard to the Holy Land, and died at the siege of +Acre. His treatise on our laws is one of the earliest on record. It +must be remembered also that Godwin, the author of 'Political Justice,' +and 'Caleb Williams,' a novel still read--the husband of one gifted +woman, and the father of another--was at one time an Independent minister +at Stowmarket. + +But to return to Dr. Young. He, like Mr. Newcomen, had become an East +Anglian, and Smectymnuus may therefore more or less be said to have an +East Anglian original. As the living of Stowmarket was at that time +worth 300 pounds a year, and as 300 pounds a year then was quite equal to +600 pounds a year now, Dr. Young must have been in comfortable +circumstances while at Stowmarket. A likeness of him is hung up, or was +preserved, in Stowmarket Vicarage. 'It,' wrote an old observer, +'possesses the solemn, faded yellowness of a man much given to austere +meditation, yet there is sufficient energy in the eye and mouth to show, +as he is preaching in Geneva gown and bands, that he is a man who could +write and think, and speak with great vigour.' One of Milton's +biographers terms him, contemptuously, a Puritan who cut his hair short. +The Rev. Mr. Hollingsworth writes that it is an error to suppose that +Young remained long as chaplain to merchants abroad. 'He must have +remained generally in constant residence, because we possess his +signature to the vestry accounts, in a curious quarto book, which +contains the annual accounts of Stow upland Parish for eighty-four years. +At the parish meetings, and at the audit of each year's accounts Vicar +Young presided, with some exceptions, from the year 1629 to 1655, and his +autograph is attached to each page.' As an author, Dr. Young had +distinguished himself before he appeared as one of the Smectymnians. In +1639, while the Stuarts and the Bishops were doing all they could to +break down the sanctity of the Sabbath, and to make it a day of vulgar +revelry and rustic sport, Dr. Young published a thin quarto in Latin, +entitled 'Dies Dominica,' containing a history of the institution of the +Sabbath, and its vindication from all common and profane uses. There is +no place of publication named, the signature is feigned, 'Theophilus +Philo Kunaces Loncardiensis,' and in the copy reserved at Stowmarket is +added, in characters by no means unlike that of the handwriting of the +Vicar himself, 'Dr. Thos. Young, of Jesus.' The tractate is described as +a very elaborate and learned compilation from the Fathers upon the +sanctity of the Sabbath. A spirit of laborious and determined energy +pervades it, nor is it unworthy the abilities and erudition of the +author. The work was written at Stowmarket, and may have been published +in Ipswich. Its paper and type are coarse; the name of the author was +concealed, because at that time a man who reverenced the Sabbath had a +good chance of being brought before the Star Chamber, and of being +roughly treated by Archbishop Laud, as an enemy to Church and State. +About ten years before, Dr. Young had heard how, for writing his plea +against Prelacy, Dr. Alexander Leighton had been cast into Newgate, +dragged before the Star Chamber, where he was sentenced to have his ears +cut off, to have his nose slit, to be branded in the face, to stand in +the pillory, to be whipped at the post, to pay a fine of 10,000 pounds, +and to suffer perpetual imprisonment. Dr. Young might well shrink from +exposing himself to similar torture. But Dr. Young had other warnings, +and much nearer home. + +Dr. Young, like most of the men of that time, persecuted witches. These +latter were supposed to have existed in great numbers, and a roving +commission for their discovery was given to one Matthew Hopkins, of +Manningtree, in Essex, to find them out in the eastern counties and +execute the law upon them. It was a brutal business, and Hopkins +followed it for three or four years. He proceeded from town to town and +opened his courts. Stowmarket was one of the places he visited. The +Puritans are said to have hung sixty witches in Suffolk, but the Puritans +were not alone responsible. It is a fact that, up to fifty years ago two +supposed witches lived in Stowmarket. + +Dr. Young escaped the Star Chamber, but, like most good men who would be +free at that time he had to fly his native land for awhile. Milton +refers to this exile in his Latin elegy: + + 'Meantime alone + Thou dwellest, and helpless on a soil unknown, + Poor, and receiving from a foreign hand + The aid denied thee in thy native land.' + +It seems from this that the living at Stowmarket was under sequestration. +A little while after Young is back in Stowmarket, and Milton thus +describes his daily life--a personal experience of the poet's, not a +flight of fancy: + + 'Now, entering, thou shalt haply seated see + Besides his spouse, his infants on his knee; + Or, turning page by page with studious look + Some bulky paper or God's holy Book.' + +Good times came to Dr. Young. The seed he had sown bore fruit. For +awhile England had woke up to attack the Stuart doctrine of royal +prerogative in Church and State. The men of Suffolk had been the +foremost in the fight, and in 1643 we find the Doctor in Duke's Place, +London. A sermon was preached by him before the House of Commons, and +printed by order of the House. A Stowmarket Rector speaks of it +naturally as a very prolix, learned, somewhat dull and heavy effort to +encourage them to persevere in their civil war against the King; but he +has the grace to add: 'There is much less of faction in it than many +others, and it is rather the production of a contemplative than of an +active partisan.' 'One of his examples,' writes Mr. Hollingsworth, 'is +from 2 Sam. xiii. 28, where the command of Absalom was to kill Amnon: +"Could the command of a _mortal man_ infuse that courage and valour into +the hearts _of his servants_ as to make them adventure upon a _desperate_ +design? And shall not the command of the _Almighty God_ raise up the +hearts of His people employed by Him in any work to which _He_ calls +them, raise up their hearts in following at His command!"' The Doctor +had not cleared himself of all the errors of his times. He urged on his +hearers, by the example of the Emperors, the necessity of maintaining the +doctrine of the Trinity uncorrupt, by the aid of the civil power. He +urged, however, on them personal holiness, in order that the reformation +of the Church might be more easily accomplished. The two legislative +enactments he wished them to pass were to confer a power upon the +Presbyterian clergy to exclude men from the Sacrament, and enforce a +better observance of the Sabbath-day. The sermon is scarce, but is bound +up with others in the Library at Cambridge, preached at the monthly fasts +before the House of Commons. + +In the library of the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, where assuredly +the portrait of the Stowmarket Rector should find a place, there is a +copy of this sermon, which was preached at the last solemn fast. +February 28, 1643, with the notice that 'It is this day ordered by the +Commoners' House of Parliament that Sir John Trevor and Mr. Rous do from +this House give thanks to Mr. Young for the great paines hee tooke in the +sermon hee preached that day at the intreaty of the said House of Commons +at St. Margaret's, Westminster, it being the day of publike humiliation, +and to desire him to print this sermon;' which accordingly was done, +under the title of 'Hope's Encouragement.' The motto on the outside was: +'Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, and +entereth into that which is within the veil.' The sermon was printed in +London for Ralph Smith, at the sign of the Bible, in Cornhill, near the +Royal Exchange. In his sermon the preacher took for his text: 'Be of +good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that wait upon +the Lord.' The three propositions established are: First, that God's +people are taught by the Lord in all their troubles to wait patiently on +Him. The second is that such as wait patiently upon the Lord must rouse +themselves with strength and courage to further wait upon Him; and that, +thirdly, when God's people wait upon Him, He will increase their courage. +The preacher quotes the Hebrew and Augustine, and reasons in a most +undeniable manner in support of his propositions; but above all things he +is practical. 'The work you are now called on to do,' he says to the +M.P.'s, 'is a work of great concernment. It is the purging of the Lord's +floor. As it hath reference both to the Church and the Commonwealth, a +work sure enough to be encountered with great opposition. Yet I must say +it is a work with the managing whereof God hath not so honoured others +which have gone before you in your places, but hath reserved it to make +you the instruments of His glory in advancing it, and that doth much add +unto your honour. Was it an honour to the Tyrians that they were counted +amongst the builders of the Temple when Hiram sent to Solomon things +necessary for that work? How, then, hath God honoured you, reserving to +you the care of re-edifying His Church (the throne of the living God) and +the repairing of the shattered Commonwealth, so far borne down before He +raised you to support it, that succeeding ages may with honour to your +names, say, "This was the Reforming Parliament," a work which God, by His +blessing on your unwearied pains, hath much furthered already, whilst He, +by you, hath removed the rubbish that might hinder the raising up of that +godly structure appointed and prescribed by the Lord in His Word.' They +were to stick to the truth, contended the preacher, quoting the edict of +the Emperor Justinian in the Arian controversy, and the reply of Basil +the Great to the Emperor's deputy: 'That none trained up in Holy +Scriptures would suffer one syllable of Divine truth to be betrayed; but +were ready, if it be required, to suffer any death in the defence +thereof.' People, he maintained, are ever carried on by the example of +their governors. 'How,' he asks, 'was the Eastern Empire polluted with +execrable Arianism, whilst yet the Western continued in the truth? The +historians give the reason of it. Constantine, an Arian, ruled in the +East when at the same time Constans and Constantius, sons to Constantine +the Great, treading in the steps of their pious father, adhered to the +truth professed by him, and so did as far ennoble the Western Empire with +the truth as the other did defile the Eastern with his countenancing of +error and heresy.' The preacher here asks his hearers to make no laws +against religion and piety, and 'recall such as have been made in time of +ignorance against the same, and study to uphold and maintain such +profitable and wholesome laws as have been formerly enacted for God and +His people. Improve what was well begun by others before you, and not +perfected by them.' Under this latter head he dwelt on the possible +abuse of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and the irreligious +profanation of the Lord's Day. + +In 1643 the Earl of Manchester ejected many of the Royalist clergymen +from their livings who were scandalous ministers. Dr. Sterne having been +deprived of the mastership of Jesus College, Cambridge, the Stowmarket +Vicar was placed there in his stead. He held the situation till 1654, +when, on his refusal of the engagement, Government deprived him of his +office. At the time the sermon was preached Dr. Young was one of the +far-famed Assembly of Divines which met in Henry VII.'s chapel in +accordance with the Solemn League and Covenant, which proposed three +grand objects: 'To endeavour the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy +superstition, heresy, and profaneness; to endeavour the preservation of +the reformed religion in Scotland and the reformation of religion in the +kingdoms of England and Ireland in doctrine, worship, discipline, and +government according to the Word of God and the example of the best +Reformed Church; and to endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the +three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in +religion--confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for +worship and catechizing; that we and our posterity after us may as +brethren live in faith and love, and that the Lord may delight to dwell +in the midst of us.' A clause was inserted to the effect that it was +English prelacy which they contemned; and thus modified, after all due +solemnities, and with their right hands lifted to heaven, was the Solemn +League and Covenant sworn to by the English Parliament and by the +Assembly of Divines in St. Margaret's Church, September 25, 1643. It +was, writes a Presbyterian divine, too much the creature of the Long +Parliament who convoked the meeting, selected the members of Assembly, +nominated its president, prescribed its bye-laws, and kept a firm hold +and a vigilant eye on all their proceedings. Still, with all these +drawbacks, it must be admitted that Parliament could hardly have made a +selection of more pious, learned, and conscientious men. The Assembly +consisted of men nominated by the members for each county sending in +suitable names. The two divines appointed for Suffolk were Mr. Thomas +Young, of Stowmarket, and Mr. John Phillips, of Rentall. The Vicar, it +is said, sometimes acted as chairman, but this, as Mr. Hollingsworth +remarks, is doubtful. + +Mr. Young's claim to fame rests on something greater than his sermon, or +his position in the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, or his mastership +of Jesus College. He was, as we have said, Milton's schoolmaster. The +poet tells us: + + ''Tis education forms the common mind; + Just as a twig is bent the tree's inclined.' + +If so, much of Milton's piety and lofty principle and massive learning +must have come to him from the Stowmarket Vicar. In our day there is +little chance of a young scholar becoming imbued with Miltonian ideas on +the subject of civil and religious liberty. That sublime genius which +was to sing in immortal verse of + + 'Man's first disobedience, and the fruit + Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste + Brought death into the world, and all our woe,' + +must have owed much to Dr. Young--a debt which the poet acknowledged, as +we have already seen, in no niggardly way. Amongst Milton's Latin +letters is the following, which has been translated by Professor Masson +thus: 'Although I had resolved with myself, most excellent preceptor, to +send you a certain small epistle composed in metrical numbers, yet I did +not consider that I had done enough unless I also wrote something in +prose: for, truly, the singular and boundless gratitude of my mind which +your deserts justly claim from me was not to be expressed in that cramped +mode of speech, straitened by fixed feet and syllables, but in a free +oration--nay, rather, if it were possible, in an Asiatic exuberance of +words. To express sufficiently how much I owe you, were a work far +greater than my strength, even if I should call into play all those +commonplaces of argument which Aristotle or that dialectician of Paris +(Ramus) has collected, or even if I should exhaust all the fountains of +oratory. You complain as justly that my letters have been to you very +few and very short; but I, on the other hand, do not so much grieve that +I have been remiss in a duty so pleasant and so enviable, as I rejoice, +and all but exult, at having such a place in your friendship, as that you +should care to ask for frequent letters from me. That I should never +have written to you for over more than three years, I pray you will not +misconceive, but, in accordance with your wonderful indulgence and +candour, put the more charitable construction on it; for I call God to +witness how much, as a father, I regard you, with what singular devotion +I have always followed you in thought, and how I feared to trouble you +with my writings. In sooth, I make it my first care, that since there is +nothing else to commend my letters, that their rarity may commend them. +Next, as out of that most vehement desire after you which I feel, I +always fancy you with me, and speak to you, and beheld you as if you were +present, and so, as always happens in love, soothe my grief by a certain +vain imagination of your presence, it is, in truth, my fear, as soon as I +meditate sending you a letter, that it should suddenly come into my mind +by what an interval of earth you are distant from me, and so the grief of +your absence, already nearly lulled, should grow fresh and break up my +sweet dream. The Hebrew Bible, your truly most acceptable gift, I have +already received. These lines I have written in London, in the midst of +town distractions, not, as usual, surrounded by books; if, therefore, +anything in this epistle should please you less than might be, and +disappoint your expectations, it will be made up for by another more +elaborate one as soon as I have returned to the haunts of the Muses.' + +When the above letter was written, Milton had become a Cambridge student, +where he was to experience a new kind of tutor. Milton could not get on +with Chappell as he did with Young. The tie between the Stowmarket Vicar +and the poet was of a much more cordial character. + +Again the poet appears to have forwarded the following letter to the +Stowmarket Vicarage. It is to be feared that few such precious epistles +find their way there now. Milton writes to the Doctor: 'On looking at +your letter, most excellent preceptor, this alone struck me as +superfluous, that you excused your slowness in writing; for though +nothing could come to me more desirable than your letters, how could I or +ought I to hope that you should have so much leisure from serious and +more sacred affairs, especially as that is a matter entirely of kindness, +and not at all of duty? That, however, I should suspect that you had +forgotten me, your so many recent kindnesses to me would by no means +allow. I do not see how you could dismiss out of your memory one laden +with so great benefits by you. Having been invited by you to your part +of the country, as soon as spring has a little advanced I will gladly +come to enjoy the delights of the year, and not less of your +conversation, and will then withdraw myself from the din of town to your +Stoa of the Iceni, as to that most celebrated porch of Zeno or the +Tusculan Villa of Cicero, where you with moderate means, but regal +spirit, like some Serranus or Curius, placidly reign in your little farm, +and contemning fortune, hold as it were a triumph over riches, ambition, +pomp, luxury, and whatever the herd of man admire and are amazed by. But +as you have deprecated the blame of slowness, you will also, I hope, +pardon me the fault of haste; for having put off this letter, I preferred +writing little, and that rather in a slovenly manner, to not writing at +all. Farewell, much-to-be respected Sir.' + +The question is, Did Milton carry out this intention, and pay Stowmarket +a visit? Professor Masson thinks he may have been there in the memorable +summer and autumn of 1630. The Rev. Mr. Hollingsworth, the Stowmarket +historian argues that it is not unlikely that several, if not many, +visits, extending over a period of thirty years, while the tutor held the +living, were made by the poet to the place. Tradition has constantly +associated his name with the mulberry-trees of the Vicarage, which he +planted, but of these only one remains. 'This venerable relic of the +past,' continues the Vicar, 'is much decayed, and is still in vigorous +bearing. Its girth, before it breaks into branches, is ten feet, and I +have had in one season as much as ten gallons from the pure juices of its +fruits, which yields a highly flavoured and brilliant-coloured wine.' It +stands a few yards distant from the oldest part of the house, and +opposite the windows of an upstair double room, which was formerly the +sitting-parlour of the Vicar, and where, it is to be believed, the poet +and his friend had many a talk of the way to advance religion and liberty +in the land, to remove hirelings out of the Church, and to abolish the +Bishops. There too, perhaps, might have come to the guest visions of +'Paradise Lost.' In his first work Milton throws out something like a +hint of the great poem which he was in time to write. 'Then, amidst,' to +quote his own sonorous language, 'the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, +_someone_ may, perhaps, be heard offering in high strains, in new and +lofty measures, to sing and celebrate Thy Divine mercies and marvellous +judgments in this land throughout all ages.' We can easily believe how, +in the Stowmarket Vicarage, the plan of the poet may have been talked +over, and the heart of the poet encouraged to the work. Regarding Young +as Milton did, we may be sure that he would have been only too glad to +listen to his suggestions and adopt his advice. There must have been a +good deal of plain living and high thinking at the Stowmarket Vicarage +when Milton came there as an occasional guest. This is the more probable +as Milton's earliest publications were in support of the views of +Smectymnian divines. His friendship for Young probably led him into the +field of controversy, for he owns that he was not disposed to this manner +of writing 'wherein, knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial +power of nature to another task, I have the use, as I may account, but of +my left hand.' It is a fact that Milton was thus drawn into the +controversy, and what more natural than that he should have been induced +to do so by the Stowmarket Vicar in the Stowmarket Vicarage? The poet's +family were familiar with that part of Suffolk, and his brother, Sir +Christopher, who was a stanch Royalist and barrister, lived at Ipswich, +but twelve miles off. He went to see Milton, and Milton might have +visited Ipswich and Stowmarket at the same time. Be that as it may, +tradition and probability alike justify the belief that Milton came to +Stowmarket, and that he went away all the wiser and better, all the +stronger to do good work for man and God, for his age and all succeeding +ages. Young, as it may be inferred, was held in high honour by his +friends. He was spoken of by two neighbouring ejected Rectors as the +reverend, learned, orthodox, prudent, and holy Dr. Young. When he died, +an epitaph was inscribed with some care by a friendly hand, and an +unwilling admission is made of the opposition he had encountered. It is +now illegible, and some of its lines appear to have been carefully +erased--by some High Church chisel, probably. But the following copy was +made when the epitaph was fresh and legible: + + 'Here is committed to earth's trust + Wise, pious, spotlesse, learned dust, + Who living more adorned the place + Than the place him. Such was God's grace.' + +Is the verse of this epitaph from Milton's pen or not? Mr. Hollingsworth +writes: 'The probability is quite in favour that the pupil should write +the last memorial of one whom he so highly honoured and loved as his old +master. Nor is the verse itself, with the exception of the last line, +unlike the character of Milton's poetry, and this last may have been +mutilated and rendered inharmonious by the action of the stone-cutter, +who also confused the death of the father and son.' It is pleasant to +think, not only that Milton now and then came to the Stowmarket Vicarage, +but that in the church itself there is a slight record of his poetical +fame. Let me add, as a further illustration of the connection of the +great poet with the county of Suffolk, that I am informed one of the +family of the Meadowses, of Witnesham, was for a time one of his +secretaries. + +Young died, aged sixty-eight, in the year 1655, when Milton was fully +embarked in public life, when he could spare but little time; but we may +be sure that he would be the last at that time of life to forget all that +he owed to his tutor Young. Wife and son had predeceased the Vicar. It +seems as if there was no one left but the poet to record on the marble in +the middle aisle, in front of the present reading-desk, the virtues of a +character which had long exercised so beneficial an influence on his own, +and which he had loved so well. Milton's regret for the loss of such a +guide, philosopher, and friend must have been lasting and sincere. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +IN CONSTABLE'S COUNTY. + + +East Bergholt--The Valley of the Stour--Painting from nature--East +Anglian girls. + +Charles Kingsley was wont to glorify the teaching of the hills, and to +maintain that the man of the mountain is more imaginative and poetical +than the man of the plain. There are many Scotch people, mostly those +born in the Highlands, who tell us much the same. If the theory be +true--and I am not aware that it is--the exceptions are striking and +many. Lincolnshire is rather a flat country, but it gave us (I can never +bring myself to call him Lord) Alfred Tennyson. Many of our greatest +poets and artists were cockneys; and Constable, that sweet painter of +cornfields and shady lanes and quiet rivers, used to say that the scenes +of his boyhood made him a painter. I was one autumn in Constable's +county, and I do not wonder at it. It is a wonderful district. I trod +all the while, it seemed to me, on enchanted ground: in the gilded mist +of autumn, with its river and its marsh lands, where the cows lazily +fed--or got under the pollards to be out of the way of the flies--where +laughing children swarmed along the hedges in pursuit of the ripe +blackberry, where every cottage front was a thing of beauty, with its ivy +creeping up the roof or over the wall; while the little garden was a mass +of flowers. We expected to see the old gods and goddesses again to +participate in the joyousness of an ancient mirth. + +Nor was it altogether a flat land, sacred to fat cattle and wheat and +turnips. All round me were the elements of romance. At one end of the +Vale of Dedham is a hill whence you may look all along the valley +(Constable has made it the subject of one of his pictures) as far as +Harwich; and as I lingered by the Stour--the river which divides Essex +and Suffolk--East Bergholt, clothed with woods and crowned with a church, +in which there is a stained-glass window put up in honour of Constable, +and a baptismal font, the gift of Constable's brother, unfolded to my +wondering eye all her rural charms. There are people who love to climb +hills; I hate to do so. It is all vanity and vexation of spirit; when +you get to the top of one hill the chances are all you see is another +hill, to the top of which you will have to climb. Give me a country +lane, with its luxuriant hedges, its shady trees, its flowers, its +richness of greensward, its pigs and poultry and farmyard; there is +poetry in such nooks and corners of the earth, as Burns and Bloomfield +and Gerald Massey found. No wonder the place made Constable an artist, +and an artist whose name will not speedily pass away. My dear sir or +madam, the next time you are on your way from London to Ipswich, don't +rush along at express speed; get out at Ardleigh, make your way to the +Vale of Dedham, then walk along the Stour, and cross it by a couple of +rustic bridges, and you are at East Bergholt, in Suffolk, where Constable +was born, and if you do so you will bless me evermore. Then, if you +like, rejoin the train at Manningtree, and resume your journey. Few East +Anglians even are aware of the wealth of beauty in that quiet corner. +'The beauty of the surrounding scenery,' writes Constable's biographer, +'its gentle declivities, its luxuriant meadows, flats sprinkled with +flocks and herds, its well-cultivated Uplands, its woods and rivers, with +mansions scattered, and churches, farms, and picturesque cottages--all +impart to this spot an amenity and elegance hardly anywhere else to be +found.' + +The Constables have been long in the district. The grandfather was a +farmer at a village close by. The father, who was well-to-do, purchased +a water-mill at Dedham and two windmills at East Bergholt, where he +lived. The great artist, his son John, was born in the last century, and +was educated at Lavenham and the Dedham Grammar School, and when the lad +had reached sixteen or seventeen became addicted to painting, his studio +being in the house of a Mr. John Dunthorne, a painter and glazier, with +whom he remained on terms of the greatest intimacy for many years. The +father would fain have made the son a farmer. He preferred to be a +miller, and in his young days was known in the district as the handsome +miller. His windmills, when he took to painting, were wonderful, and +well deserved the criticism of his brother, who used to say, 'When I look +at a windmill painted by John, I see that it will go round, which is not +always the case with those of other artists,' for the simple reason that +John knew what he was about, which the others did not. Again, his +industrial career helped him in another way. A miller learns to study +the clouds, and Constable's clouds were exceptionally life-like and real. +The handsome young miller soon acquired artistic friends, one of them +being Sir George Beaumont, the guide, philosopher, and friend of most of +the geniuses of that time. Said another to him, 'Do not trouble yourself +about inventing figures for a landscape; you cannot remain an hour in a +spot without the appearance of some living thing, that will in all +probability better accord with the scene and the time of day than any +invention of your own.' After a visit to his artist friends in London, +he resumed his mill life, and in 1779 he finally commenced his artistic +career, and painted all the country round. His studies were chiefly +Dedham, East Bergholt, the Valley of the Stour, and the neighbouring +village of Stratford. At Stoke Nayland he painted an altar-piece for the +church. There is also another altar-piece in a neighbouring church, but +his altar-pieces are not known or treasured like his other works. + +Cooper tells a good story of Constable. One day Stodart, the sculptor, +met Fuseli starting forth with an old umbrella. 'Why do you carry the +umbrella?' asked the sculptor. 'I am going to see Constable,' was the +reply, 'and he is always painting rain.' One can only remark that, if +Constable was always painting rain, he always did it well. + +Another good story was told Redgrave by Lee. 'I hear you sell all your +pictures,' said Constable to the younger landscape-painter. 'Why, yes,' +said Lee; 'I'm pretty fortunate. Don't you sell yours?' 'No,' said +Constable, 'I don't sell any of my pictures, and I'll tell you why: when +I paint a _bad_ picture I don't like to part with it, and when I paint a +_good_ one I like to keep it.' It is well known that one year when +Constable was on the Council of the Royal Academy, one of his own +pictures was passed by mistake before the judges. 'Cross it,' said one. +'It won't do,' said another. 'Pass on,' said a third. And the carpenter +was just about to chalk it with a cross, when he read the name of 'John +Constable.' Of course there were lame apologies, and the picture was +taken from the condemned heap and placed with the works of his brother +Academicians. But after work was over Constable took the picture under +his arm, and, despite the remonstrance of his brother colleagues, marched +off with it, saving: 'I can't think of its being hung after it has been +fairly turned out. The work so condemned was the 'Stream bordered in +with Willows,' now in the South Kensington Museum. Leslie once remarked +to Redgrave that he would give any work he had painted for it, so warmly +did he admire it. + +'Constable is the best landscape-painter we have,' wrote Frith to his +mother in 1835. 'He is a very merry fellow, and very rich. He told us +an anecdote of a man who came to look at his pictures; he was a gardener. +One day he called him into his painting-room to look at his pictures, +when the man made the usual vulgar remarks, such as, "Did you do all +this, sir?" "Yes." "What, all this?" "Yes." "What, frame and all?" +At last he came to an empty frame that was hung against the wall without +any picture in it, when he said to Constable, "But you don't call this +picture quite finished, do you, sir?" Constable said that quite sickened +him, and he never let any ignoramuses ever see his pictures again, or +frames either.' + +Constable's great merits, writes Mr. Frith, were first recognised in +France, with the result upon French landscape art that is felt at the +present time. His advice to Frith was: 'Never do anything without nature +before you if it be possible to have it. See those weeds and the dock +leaves? They are to come into the foreground of this picture. I know +dock leaves pretty well, but I should not attempt to introduce them into +a picture without having them before me.' + +Constable died very suddenly in 1837. His fame, now that he is dead, is +greater than when he was alive. His work abides in all its strength. + +There is little in East Bergholt to remind one of Constable, where his +reputation remains as that of a genial and kindly-hearted man; but the +landscape in all its essential features remains the same. The house in +which he was born was pulled down in 1841, which is a great pity, as it +is described as a large and handsome mansion. But I never saw a small +village with so many attractive residences, though why anybody should +live in any of them I could not, for the life of me, understand. Yet +there they were, quite a street of them, all in beautiful order, as if +they were the residences of wealthy citizens in the suburbs of a busy +town. They ought to have been filled with handsome girls, as Charles +Kingsley tells us East Anglia is famed for the beauty of its women; all I +can say, however, is that I saw none of them, or any sign of life +anywhere, beyond the inevitable tradesmen's carts. Independently of +Constable, East Bergholt claims to be worth a pilgrimage for its rustic +beauty, which, however, becomes tame and common as you get away from it. +The church is old, and has a history--of little consequence, however, to +anyone now. One of its rectors was burned at Ipswich in Queen Mary's +reign. His name, Samuel, ought to be preserved by a Church which, till +lately, had few martyrs of its own. East Bergholt has also a +Congregational and Primitive Methodist chapel, and a colony of +Benedictine nuns, driven away from France by the great Revolution. We +are a hospitable people, and we are proud to be so, but have we not just +at this time too many refugee nuns and monks in our midst? + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +EAST ANGLIAN WORTHIES. + + +Suffolk cheese--Danes, Saxons, and Normans--Philosophers and +statesmen--Artists and literati. + +Abbo Floriacencis, who flourished in the year A.D. 910, describes East +Anglia as 'very noble, and particularly because of its being watered on +all sides. On the south and east it is encompassed by the ocean, on the +north by the moisture of large and wet fens which, arising almost in the +heart of the island, because of the evenness of the ground for a hundred +miles and more, descend in great rivers into the sea. On the west the +province is joyned to the rest of the island, and, therefore, may be +entered (by land); but lest it should be harassed by the frequent +incursions of the enemy it is fortifyed with an earthen rampire like a +high wall, and with a ditch. The inner parts of it is a pretty rich +soil, made exceeding pleasant by gardens and groves, rendered agreeable +by its convenience for hunting, famous for pasturage, and abounding with +sheep and all sorts of cattle. I do not insist upon its rivers full of +fish, considering that a tongue as it were of the sea itself licks it on +one side, and on the other side the large fens make a prodigious number +of lakes two or three miles over. These fens accommodate great numbers +of monks with their desired retirement and solitude, with which, being +enclosed, they have no occasion for the privacy of a wilderness.' Before +the monks came the place was held by the Iceni--a stout and valiant +people, as Tacitus describes them. In the time of the Heptarchy, King +Uffa was their lord and master. In later times Suffolk, when explored by +Camden, was celebrated for its cheeses, which, to the great advantage of +the inhabitants, were bought up through all England, nay, in Germany +also, with France and Spain, as Pantaleon Medicus has told us, who +scruples not to set them against those of Placentia both in colour and +taste. To the Norfolk people, it must be admitted, Camden gives the +palm. The goodness of the soil of that country, he argues, 'may be +gathered from hence, that the inhabitants are of a bright, clear +complexion, not to mention their sharpness of wit and admirable quickness +in the study of our common law. So that it is at present, and always has +been, reputed the common nursery of lawyers, and even amongst the common +people you shall meet with a great many who (as one expresses it), if +they have no just quarrel, are able to raise it out of the very quirks +and niceties of the law.' In our time it is rather the fashion to run +down the East Anglians, yet that they have done their duty to their +country no one can deny. 'They say we are Norfolk fules,' said a waiter +at a Norfolk hotel, to me, a little while ago; 'but I ain't ashamed of my +county, for all that.' Why should he be, the reader naturally asks? + +The Saxons of East Anglia gave the name of England to this land of ours; +but before this time East Anglia had attained, by means of its sons and +daughters, to fame far and near. If we may believe Gildas, a Christian +church was planted in England in the time of Nero. Claudia, to whom Paul +refers in Philippians and Timothy, was a British lady of great wit and +greater beauty, celebrated by the poet Martial. She may have been +converted by Paul, argued the Rev. Mr. Hollingsworth, a local historian, +Rural Dean and Rector of Stowmarket; nor is it at all improbable, he +adds, 'that Claudia, the British beauty, may have been an Iceni, or East +Anglian lady, as her brilliant complexion, for which so many in these +counties are celebrated, had caused a vivid feeling of sensation and +curiosity and envy even among the haughty dames of the imperial city of +Rome.' The Romans were glad to make terms with the Iceni till the +unfortunate Boadicea perished in the revolt which she had so rashly +raised. The Saxons came after the Romans, and took possession of the +land. Saxon proprietors compelled the people, whose lives they spared, +to till the very lands on which their fathers had lived under the Roman +Government or their own chiefs. Pagan worship was reintroduced; but when +Sigberht, the son of Redwald, King of East Anglia, reigned, he sent to +France for Christian ministers, and one of them, Felix, a Burgundian, +landed at Felixstowe, and there commenced his Christian labours. Felix +was held in high repute by the Bishops in other parts of the kingdom. +His opinions were quoted and revered. The diocese was large, and the +fourth Bishop divided it into two parts, the second Bishop being planted +at North Elmham, in Norfolk. In 955 the see was again united, when +Erfastus, the twenty-second Bishop, removed to Thetford. A little while +after the Bishop's residence was removed to Norwich, and there it has +ever since remained; but the land was not long permitted to remain in +peace. In 870 a large party of Danes marched from Lincolnshire into +Suffolk, defeated King Edmund, near Hoxne, and, as he would not become an +idolater, shot him to death with arrows. Bury St. Edmunds still +preserves the name and fame of one of the most illustrious of our +Anglo-Saxon martyrs. King Alfred, with a policy worthy of his sagacity, +made Guthrum, the Danish governor of Suffolk, a Christian, and continued +him in his rule. The Danes in East Anglia were then an immense army, and +thus at once they were turned from foes into friends. Guthrum was +baptized, and it is to be hoped was all the better for it. At any rate, +he returned to Suffolk and divided many of the estates which had been +held by Saxon proprietors killed in war. He died in peace, and had a +fitting funeral at Hadleigh. The children of those Danish soldiers were +dangerous friends, and too frequently betrayed the Saxons. Blood is +thicker than water, and as each succeeding band of Danish adventurers +landed on our eastern coast, they were welcomed by such followers of +Guthrum as had settled in Suffolk as friends and allies. Nevertheless, +the Danes found the conquest of the island impossible. Divine +Providence, Mr. Hollingsworth tells us, did not suffer the Saxon race to +be vanquished by those who were connected with them by blood. +Nevertheless, the struggle was long and severe. The two races were +equally matched in courage, but the Saxon surpassed his foe in that +stern, unyielding endurance which enabled him to resist every defeat and +prepare again for the contest. The whole surface of the country became +studded with entrenchments, moats, and mounds, within whose line the +harassed Saxon defended his property and all he valued in his home. +History begins, as far as England is practically concerned, with the +Norman Conquest. It was then the Norsemen, blue-eyed, fair-haired, the +finest blood in Europe, planted themselves in Norfolk and Suffolk, and +brought with them feudalism and civilization. It was in 787 that, +according to the Saxon Chronicle, they first reached England; but it was +not till William the Conqueror made the land his own that they settled as +English lords, and divided between them the land in which their rapacious +forefathers had won many a precious treasure. + + 'The red gold and the white silver + He covets as a leech does blood,' + +wrote an old poet of the Norseman. + +Let us take, as an illustration of the county, a Norfolk family. In +Westminster Abbey there is monument to Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, who was +buried in the ruined chancel of the little church at Overstrand, near +Northrepps, 'a droll, irregular, unconventional-looking place,' as +Caroline Fox calls it, where he loved at all times to live, and where he +retired to die. The family from which Sir Thomas descended resided, +about the middle of the sixteenth century, at Sudbury, in Suffolk. It +was while at Earlham that he made his debut as a public speaker at one of +the earlier meetings of the Norfolk Bible Society. In the winter of 1817 +he went over to France with some of the Gurneys and the Rev. Francis +Cunningham, who was anxious to establish a Bible Society in Paris. He +was also anxious to inquire into the way in which the gaols at Antwerp +and Ghent were conducted. On his return he examined minutely into the +state of the London gaols, and, to use his own expression, his inquiries +developed a system of folly and wickedness which surpassed belief. In +the following year he published a work entitled 'An Inquiry whether Crime +be Produced or Prevented by our Present System of Penal Discipline,' +which ran through six editions, and tended powerfully to create a proper +public feeling on the subject. In 1819 we find him in Parliament +seconding Sir James Mackintosh in his efforts to promote a reform of our +criminal law--then the most sanguinary in Europe. One of his earliest +efforts was to get the House to abolish the burning of widows in India; +and in 1821 he received from Wilberforce the command to relieve him of a +responsibility too heavy for his advancing years and infirmities--the +care of the slave: a holy enterprise for which Mr. Buxton had been +qualifying himself by careful thought and study, and which he was spared +to carry to a successful end. At first he resided at Cromer Hall, an old +seat of the Windham family, which no longer exists, having been pulled +down and replaced by a modern residence. It was situated about a quarter +of a mile from the sea, but sheltered from the north winds by closely +surrounding hills and woods, and with its old buttresses, gables, and +porches clothed with roses and jessamine, and its famed lawn, where the +pheasants came down to feed, had a peculiar character of picturesque +simplicity. The interior corresponded with its external appearance, and +had little of the regularity of modern building. One attic chamber was +walled up, with no entrance save through the window: and at different +times large pits were discovered under the floor or in the thick +walls--used, it was supposed, in old times by the smugglers of the coast. +There is much picturesque scenery around Cromer, and large parties were +often made up for excursions to Sherringham--one of the most beautiful +spots in all the eastern counties, to the wooded dells of Felbrigg and +Runton, or to the rough heath ground by the beach beacon. One who was a +frequent guest at Cromer Hall wrote: 'I wish I could describe the +impression made upon me by the extraordinary power of interesting and +stimulating others which was possessed by Sir Fowell Buxton some thirty +years ago. In my own case it was like having powers of thinking, powers +of feeling, and, above all, the love of true poetry suddenly aroused +within me, which, though I had possessed them before, had been till then +unused. From Locke "On the Human Understanding," to "William of +Deloraine, good at need," _he_ woke up in me the sleeping principle of +taste, and, in giving me such objects of pursuit, has added immeasurably +to the happiness of my life.' On a Sunday afternoon, we are told, his +large dining-hall was filled with a miscellaneous audience of fishermen +and neighbours, as well as of his own household, to whom he would read +the Bible, commenting on it at the same time. Very simple and beautiful +seems to us that far-away Norfolk life; except that his hospitalities +were more bounded by want of room, his life at Northrepps was much the +same as it had been at Cromer Hall. It is one of the pleasures of my +life that I have heard Sir Thomas speak. In modern England the influence +of the Buxton family and name is yet a power. + +Having already alluded to the Windhams and Felbrigg, it remains to say +that the last of that illustrious line died in 1810. Felbrigg was +purchased by the Windhams as far back as 1461. The public life of +Windham, the statesman, may be considered as having commenced in 1783, +when he undertook the office of Principal Secretary to Lord Northington, +who was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The great Marquis of +Lansdowne, when he was last at Felbrigg, in 1861, said Mr. Windham had +the best Parliamentary address of any man he had ever seen, which was +enhanced by the grace of his person and the dignity of his manners. +Still more glowing was the testimony borne to Mr. Windham by Earl Grey +when he heard of his death. A mere glance at his diary is sufficient to +convince us that Windham, when in London, mixed with the first men and +women of his time. The late Lord Chief Justice Scarlett, on being asked +by his son-in-law to name the very best speech he had heard during his +life, and that which he thought most worthy of study, answered, without +hesitation, 'Windham's speech on the Law of Evidence.' In a conversation +with Lord Palmerston, Pitt observed of Windham: 'Nothing can be so +well-meaning or eloquent as he is. His speeches are the finest +productions possible of warm imagination and fancy.' In 1800 we read in +the Malmesbury Diaries that old George III. had meant Windham to be his +First Minister. As a friend of Burke and Johnson, Windham's name will +not easily fade away. It is to him we owe the most pathetic account of +the closing hours of the Monarch of Bolt Court. + +Sir Cloudesley Shovel may well claim to be one of Norfolk's heroes. Born +in an obscure village, an apprentice to a shoemaker, he obtained rank and +fame as one of Queen Anne's most honoured Admirals. It is denied that he +was in very humble circumstances, and it is a fact that his original +letters were so well worded as to indicate that he had received a fair +education. At any rate, he went to sea at ten years old with his friend +Sir John Hadough; and although not a cabin-boy in the modern acceptation +of that term, he undertook his captain's errands, swimming on one +occasion through the enemy's fire with some despatches for a distant +ship, carrying the papers in his mouth, displaying a courage worthy of +admiration. He distinguished himself in the Battle of Bantry Bay. As an +enemy of France and Spain, he triumphed in many a fierce fight. +Returning home flushed with victory, his ship and all on board were lost +on the Scilly Isles in an October gale. Some uncertainty hangs over his +last moments. It is asserted that he swam to shore alive, and that he +was put to death for the sake of his ring of emeralds and diamonds. An +ancient woman is stated to have confessed as much. For the honour of +human nature, we would fain believe the story to be untrue. A still +greater Norfolk hero was Lord Nelson, who is buried in St. Paul's +Cathedral. 'My principle,' said Nelson, on one occasion, 'is to assist +in driving the French to the devil, and in restoring peace and happiness +to mankind.' Whether he succeeded as regards the former we are not in a +position to state; but peace and happiness, alas! are still far from +being the common property of mankind. The rectory house at Burnham +Thorpe, where Nelson was born, exists no longer. Sir Cloudesley Shovel +lived in a castellated stone house in the small agricultural village of +Cockthorpe, originally fortified as a defence against the incursions of +smugglers. A room in this house, entered by a doorway arched over with +stone, is shown, which is still called by the villagers Sir Cloudesley's +drawing-room. + +A chapter might be written about the Norfolk Cokes. Sir Edward Coke, the +great lawyer, was buried at Tittleshale, in Norfolk. The well-known +Coke, the distinguished agriculturist, inhabited that splendid Holkham, +the fame of which exists in our day. It was begun by Lord Leicester in +1734, and finished by his Countess in 1764. Blomefield, the well-known +Norfolk historian, speaks of it as a noble, stately, and sumptuous +palace. Lord Coke and Lord Burlington were men of similar tastes and +pursuits, and were diligent students of classical and Italian art. The +Holkham Library still contains treasures rich and rare. Many of the +latter formed part of the library of Sir Edward Coke; the title-page of +the first edition of the 'Novum Organum,' published in 1620, bears the +design of a ship passing through the Pillars of Hercules into an +undulating sea. The Holkham copy is adorned by the inscription, 'Ex dono +auctoris.' + +Above the ship, in the handwriting of Coke, is the couplet: + + 'It deserveth not to be read in schools, + But to be freighted in the ship of fools.' + +Thomas Shadwell, the Poet Laureate and historiographer of William III., +was a Norfolk man. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. It is said by +Noble that he was an honest man. Of course he was. Chalmers accuses him +of indecent conversation, or Lord Rochester would not have said that he +had more wit and humour than any other poet. I am afraid he confers +little honour on his native county. 'Others,' wrote Dryden in one of his +satires, + + 'To some faint meaning make pretence, + But Shadwell never deviates into sense.' + +Sir Robert Walpole, who saved England from wooden shoes and slavery, was +of a Norfolk family, yet flourishing; as are the Townshends, to whom we +owe the introduction of the turnip. Norfolk also can boast of Sir Thomas +Gresham and Sir Francis Walsingham. In Norfolk was born that 'great +oracle of law, patron of the Church, and glory of England,' as Camden +calls him, Sir Henry Spelman. At Bickling, in the same county, was born +that ill-starred Anne Boleyn, of whom it is written that + + 'Love could teach a monarch to be wise, + And Gospel light first beamed from Boleyn's eyes.' + +In the same neighbourhood, also, was born John Baconthorpe, the resolute +doctor, of whom Pantias Pansa has written: 'This one resolute doctor has +furnished the Christian religion with armour against the Jews stronger +than that of Vulcan.' Pansa was a Norfolk man, and so was the great +botanist Sir W. Hooker. + +Who has not heard of Lynn, in Norfolk, where, when Eugene Aram was the +usher, + + 'Four-and-twenty happy boys + Came bounding out of school'? + +It was in that old town Fanny Burney, the friend of Mrs. Thrale and Dr. +Johnson, the author of novels like 'Evelina,' which people even read +nowadays, was born on the 13th of June, 1752. She grew up low of +stature, of a brown complexion. One of her friends called her the dove, +which she thought was from the colour of her eyes--a greenish-gray; her +last editor thinks it must have been from their kind expression. She was +very short-sighted, like her father. In her portrait, taken at the age +of thirty, merriment seems latent behind a demure look. At any rate, her +countenance was what might be called a speaking one. 'Poor Fanny!' said +her father, 'her face tells what she thinks, whether she will or no. I +long to see her honest face once more.' 'Poor Fanny' lived to a good old +age, and her gossiping diary is a mine of wealth as regards the Royal +Family, and Johnson, and Mrs. Thrale, and the cleverest men and women of +her time. + +Thomas Bilney, one of our Protestant martyrs, was a Norfolk man. It was +a Norfolk knight, Sir Thomas Erpingham, who gave signal for the archers +at Agincourt. Shakespeare refers to him in his 'King Henry V.' as +follows: + + 'KING.--Good-morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham; + A good soft pillow for that good white head + Were better than a churlish turf of France. + + 'ERP.--Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me better, + Since I may say, now lie I like a king.' + +Many East Anglians helped to win the battle of Agincourt. The Earl of +Kimberley still bears Agincourt on his shield. + +Let us now pass over into Suffolk. It is worth asking how Suffolk came +to earn the nickname of Silly Suffolk. 'Silly,' say the learned, is +derived from the German _selig_, meaning 'holy or blessed,' and is said +to have been applied to Suffolk on account of the number of beautiful +churches it contains; Suffolk, at any rate, is silly no longer. In the +present day it shows to advantage, if we may judge by the enterprise and +public spirit of such a town as Ipswich, for instance. Not long since, +as I landed on the docks at Hamburg, I had the pleasure of seeing some +dozen or more steam ploughs and agricultural implements waiting to be +transported into the interior. The ploughs and implements bore +well-known Suffolk names, such as Garrett and Sons or Ransomes, Sims and +Jefferies, and were open manifestations of Suffolk skill and energy, and +ability to hold its own against all comers. Amongst the women of the +present generation, where are to be met the superiors of Mrs. Garrett +Anderson or of Mrs. Fawcett, widow of the distinguished statesman, and +mother of a sweet girl-graduate who has beaten all the men at her +University? I was the other day at Haverhill, where Mr. D. Gurteen still +lives to enjoy, at the ripe old age of eighty-three, the fruits of an +energy on his part which has raised Haverhill from a village of paupers +into a flourishing community, whose manufactures are to be met with all +over the land. One day, as I was walking along Gray's Inn Road, a fine, +well-built man stopped me to ask me if I remembered him. When he +mentioned his name I did directly. He was of the poorest of the poor in +his home at Wrentham. He had done well in London. 'You know, sir,' he +said, 'how poor our family was. Well, I had enough of poverty, and I +made up my mind to come to London and be either a man or a mouse.' + +In the London of to-day the heads of some of our greatest establishments +are Suffolk men. We all know the stately pile in Holborn, once +Meekings', now Wallis's, where all the world and his wife go to buy. Mr. +Wallis hails from Stowmarket, and the man who fits up London shops in the +most tasty style, Mr. Sage, of Gray's Inn Road, was a Suffolk carpenter, +who, when out of work, with his last guinea got some cards printed, one +of which got him a job, which ultimately led on to fame and fortune. + +No, Suffolk has long ceased to be silly. It must have deserved the title +in the days which I can remember when a Conservative M.P., amidst +enthusiastic cheering, at Ipswich, intimated that it was quite as well +the sun and moon were placed high up in the heavens, else + + 'Some reforming ass + Would soon propose to pluck them down + And light the world with gas.' + +One of the oddest, most attractive, and most original women of the last +century was Elizabeth Simpson, a Suffolk girl, who ran away from her +home, where she was never taught anything, at the age of sixteen, to make +her fortune, and to win fame. In both cases she succeeded, though not so +soon as she could have wished. Failing to touch the hard heart of the +manager of the Norwich Theatre, a Welshman of the name of Griffiths, she +packed up her things in a bandbox, and, good-looking and audacious, +landed herself on the Holborn pavement. 'By the time you receive this,' +she wrote to her mother, 'I shall leave Standingfield perhaps for ever. +You are surprised, but be not uneasy; believe the step I have undertaken +is indiscreet, but by no means criminal, unless I sin by not acquainting +you with it. I now endure every pang, am not lost to every feeling, on +thus quitting the tenderest and best of parents, I would say most +beloved, too, but cannot prove my affection, yet time may. To that I +must submit my hope of retaining your regard. The censures of the world +I despise, as the most worthy incur the reproaches of that. Should I +ever think you will wish to hear from me I will write.' A pretty, +unprotected, unknown girl of sixteen, in London, had, we can well +believe, no easy time of it. Strangers followed her in the street, +people insulted her in the theatre, suspicious landladies looked her up. +Happily, a brother-in-law met her in a penniless state and took her home. +Unhappily, at his house she met Inchbald, an indifferent and badly-paid +actor. They were immediately married, and the girl rejoiced to think +that she was an actress, and about to realize the ambition of her youth. +It was no small part which the Suffolk girl felt herself qualified to +fill. On the 4th of September, 1772, she made her debut as Cordelia to +her husband's Lear. In 1821 Mrs. Inchbald, famed for her 'simple story,' +which took the town by storm, was buried in Kensington Churchyard. But +before she got there she had to endure much. At that time theatrical +performers were much worse paid than they are now, when, as Mr. Irving +tells us, any decent-looking young man, with a good suit of clothes, can +command his five or six pounds a week. Mrs. Inchbald and her husband had +to drink of the cup of poverty, and its consequent degradation, to the +dregs. On one occasion they took it into their heads to go to France, +believing that they could make money--he by painting, she by writing. +The scheme, as was to be expected, did not answer, and they were landed +on their return somewhere near Brighton, in the September of 1776, +literally without a crust of bread. On one occasion it was stated that +they dined off raw turnips, stolen from a field as they wandered past. +Next year, however, the world began to mend so far as they were +concerned. + +At Manchester they met the Siddonses and J. P. Kemble, and one result of +that meeting was peace and prosperity. At this time also the lady's +husband died, and that was no great loss, as the lady was far too +independent for a wife. Yet, if the great Kemble had proposed to her, as +she used to tell Fanny Kemble, she would have jumped at him. To the last +her habits of life were most penurious. She spent nothing on dress, she +was indifferent in the matter of eating and drinking, and when she was +making as much as from 500 to 900 pounds by a new play, in order to save +a trifle she would sit in the depth of winter without a fire. Only fancy +any of our later lady-novelists thus ascetic and self-denying. The idea +is absurd. She was to the last what Godwin described her, a mixture of +lady and milkmaid. And yet the lady had ambition. She had an idea that +she might be Lady Bunbury. However, she marred her chance, at the same +time missing a rich Mr. Glover, who offered a marriage settlement of 500 +pounds a year. Mrs. Inchbald, however, well knew how to take care of +herself. No one better. She had learned the art in rather a hard +school, and, besides, she knew how to take care of her poor relations. +None of her sisters seem to have done well, and she had to aid them all. + +Sudbury was the birthplace of that William Enfield, whose 'Speaker' was +the terror and delight of more than one generation of England's ingenuous +youth. Lord Chancellor Thurlow, of the rugged eyebrows and the savage +look, and fellow-clerk with the poet Cowper, was born at Ashfield, an +obscure village not far off. Robert Bloomfield, who wrote the 'Farmer's +Boy,' came from Honington, where his mother kept a village school, and +where he became a shoemaker. Capel Loft, an amiable gentleman of +literary sympathies and pursuits, and Bloomfield's warmest friend, +resided at Troston Hall, in the immediate neighbourhood of Honington. At +one time there was no writer better known than John Lydgate, called the +Monk of Bury, born at the village of Lydgate, in 1380. 'His language,' +writes a learned critic, 'is much less obsolete than Chaucer's, and a +great deal more harmonious.' Stephen Gardener, Bishop of Winchester, and +an enemy to the Reformation, was born at Bury. At Trinity St. Martin +lived Thomas Cavendish, the second Englishman who sailed round the globe. +Admiral Broke, memorable for his capture of the _Chesapeake_, when we +were at war with America, was born at Nacton. The great non-juring +Archbishop Sancroft was born at Fressingfield, where he retired to die, +and where he is buried under a handsome monument. The great scholar, +Robert Grossetete, Bishop of Lincoln, was born at Stradbrook. Of him +Roger Bacon wrote that he was the only man living who was in possession +of all the sciences. Wycliff, on innumerable occasions, refers to him +with respect. Arthur Young, the celebrated agriculturist, some of whose +sentences are preserved as golden ones--especially that which says, 'Give +a man the secure possession of a rock, and he will make a garden of +it'--and whose valuable works, I am glad to see, are republished, was +born and lived near Bury St. Edmunds. Echard, the historian, was born at +Barsham, in 1671. Porson was a Norfolk lad. + +Sir Thomas Hanmer was one of the most independent men that ever sat for +the county of Suffolk. Mr. Glyde, of Ipswich, terms him the Gladstone of +his age. Pope appears to stigmatize him as a Trimmer, + + 'Courtiers and patrols in two ranks divide; + Through both he passed, and bowed from side to side.' + +His garden at Mildenhall was celebrated for the quality of its grapes, +and Sir Thomas used to send every year hampers filled with these grapes, +and carried on men's shoulders, to London for the Queen. That stubborn +Radical and Freethinker, Tom Paine, was born at Thetford. Sir John +Suckling, a Suffolk poet, has written, at any rate, one verse never +excelled: + + 'Her feet beneath her petticoat, + Like little mice, stole in and out, + As if they feared the light. + But oh, she dances such a way, + No sun upon an Easter day + Is half so fine a sight.' + +England has in all parts of the world sons and daughters who have +deserved well of the State, and not a few of them are East Anglians by +birth and breeding. May their fame be cherished and their examples +followed by their successors in that calm, quiet, Eastern land--far from +the madding crowd--where the roar and rush of our modern life are almost +unknown--where farmers weep and wail but look jolly nevertheless! + + * * * * * + + THE END. + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST ANGLIA*** + + +******* This file should be named 30717.txt or 30717.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/7/1/30717 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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