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-The Project Gutenberg eBook, Lancashire, by Leo H. (Leo Hartley) Grindon
-
-
-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: Lancashire
-       Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes
-
-
-Author: Leo H. (Leo Hartley) Grindon
-
-
-
-Release Date: August 26, 2012  [eBook #40584]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-
-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LANCASHIRE***
-
-
-E-text prepared by sp1nd, Matthew Wheaton, and the Online Distributed
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-
-LANCASHIRE
-
-[Illustration: EMIGRANTS AT LIVERPOOL]
-
-
-LANCASHIRE
-
-Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes
-
-by
-
-LEO H. GRINDON
-
-Author of
-'The Manchester Flora'; 'Manchester Banks and Bankers';
-'Life, Its Nature, Varieties, and Phenomena'; etc.
-
-With Many Illustrations
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-London
-Seeley and Co., Limited
-Essex Street, Strand
-1892
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE
-
-
-The following Chapters were written for the _Portfolio_ of 1881, in
-which they appeared month by month. Only a limited space being allowed
-for them, though liberally enlarged whenever practicable, not one of
-the many subjects demanding notice could be dealt with at length.
-While reprinting, a few additional particulars have been introduced;
-but even with these, in many cases where there should be pages there
-is only a paragraph. Lancashire is not a county to be disposed of so
-briefly. The present work makes no pretension to be more than an index
-to the principal facts of interest which pertain to it, the details,
-in almost every instance, still awaiting the treatment they so well
-deserve. If I have succeeded in marking out the foundations for a
-superstructure to be raised some day by an abler hand, I shall be
-content. It is for every man to begin something, to the best of his
-power, that may be useful to his fellow-creatures, though it may not
-be permitted to him to enjoy the greater pleasure of completing it.
-
-Some of the commendations passed upon Lancashire may seem to come of
-the partiality of a man for his own county. It may be well for me to
-say that, although a resident in Manchester for forty years, my native
-place is Bristol.
-
-    LEO GRINDON.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
-       I. LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COUNTY
-      II. LIVERPOOL
-     III. THE COTTON DISTRICT AND THE MANUFACTURE OF COTTON
-      IV. MANCHESTER
-       V. MISCELLANEOUS INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS
-      VI. PECULIARITIES OF CHARACTER, DIALECT, AND PASTIMES
-     VII. THE INLAND SCENERY SOUTH OF LANCASTER
-    VIII. THE SEASHORE AND THE LAKE DISTRICT
-      IX. THE ANCIENT CASTLES AND MONASTIC BUILDINGS
-       X. THE OLD CHURCHES AND THE OLD HALLS
-      XI. THE OLD HALLS (_continued_)
-     XII. THE NATURAL HISTORY AND THE FOSSILS
-
-
-
-
-LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-
-    EMIGRANTS AT LIVERPOOL _By G. P. Jacomb Hood_
-    SHIPPING ON THE MERSEY _By A. Brunet-Debaines_
-    AMERICAN WHEAT AT LIVERPOOL
-    RAN AWAY TO SEA
-    ST. NICHOLAS CHURCH, LIVERPOOL _By H. Toussaint_
-    THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, LIVERPOOL
-    ST. GEORGE'S HALL, LIVERPOOL
-    THE EXCHANGE, LIVERPOOL _By R. Kent Thomas_
-    WIGAN
-    WARRINGTON
-    THE DINNER HOUR
-    PAY-DAY IN A COTTON MILL _By G. P. Jacomb Hood_
-    IN A COTTON FACTORY
-    MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL
-    ST. ANNE'S SQUARE, MANCHESTER
-    TOWN HALL, MANCHESTER _By T. Riley_
-    DEANSGATE, MANCHESTER
-    IN THE WIRE WORKS
-    MAKING COKE
-    SMELTING
-    GLASS-BLOWING _By G. P. Jacomb Hood_
-    ON THE BRIDGEWATER CANAL _By G. P. Jacomb Hood_
-    ON THE BRIDGEWATER CANAL
-    BLACKSTONE EDGE
-    THE LAKE AT LITTLEBOROUGH
-    WATERFALL IN CLIVIGER
-    IN THE BURNLEY VALLEY
-    THE RIBBLE AT CLITHEROE
-    CONISTON _By David Law_
-    NEAR THE COPPER MINES, CONISTON
-    LANCASTER _By David Law_
-    CLITHEROE CASTLE
-    FURNESS ABBEY
-    FURNESS ABBEY _By R. Kent Thomas_
-    DARCY LEVER, NEAR BOLTON
-    SPEKE HALL _By T. Riley_
-    HALE HALL
-    HALL IN THE WOOD _By R. Kent Thomas_
-    HOGHTON TOWER
-    STONYHURST _By R. Kent Thomas_
-
-
-
-
-LANCASHIRE
-
-
-
-
-I
-
-LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COUNTY
-
-
-Directly connected with the whole world, through the medium of its
-shipping and manufactures, Lancashire is commercially to Great Britain
-what the Forum was to ancient Rome--the centre from which roads led
-towards every principal province of the empire. Being nearer to the
-Atlantic, Liverpool commands a larger portion of our commerce with
-North America even than London: it is from the Mersey that the great
-westward steamers chiefly sail. The biographies of the distinguished
-men who had their birthplace in Lancashire, and lived there always,
-many of them living still, would fill a volume. A second would hardly
-suffice to tell of those who, though not natives, have identified
-themselves at various periods with Lancashire movements and
-occupations. No county has drawn into its population a larger number
-of individuals of the powerful classes, some taking up their permanent
-abode in it, others coming for temporary purposes. In cultivated
-circles in the large towns the veritable Lancashire men are always
-fewer in number than those born elsewhere, or whose fathers did not
-belong to Lancashire. No trifling item is it in the county annals that
-the immortal author of the _Advancement of Learning_ represented, as
-member of Parliament, for four years (1588-1592) the town which in
-1809 gave birth to William Ewart Gladstone, and which, during the
-boyhood of the latter, sent Canning to the House of Commons.[1] In
-days to come England will point to Lancashire as the cradle also of
-the Stanleys, one generation after another, of Sir Robert Peel, John
-Bright, and Richard Cobden. The value to the country of the several
-men, the soundness of their legislative policy, the consistency of
-their lines of reasoning, is at this moment not the question. They are
-types of the vigorous constructive genius which has made England great
-and free, and so far they are types of the aboriginal Lancashire
-temper. Lancashire has been the birthplace also of a larger number of
-mechanical inventions, invaluable to the human race; and the scene of
-a larger number of the applications of science to great purposes, than
-any other fragment of the earth's surface of equal dimensions. It is
-in Lancashire that we find the principal portion of the early history
-of steam and steam-engines, the first railway of pretension to
-magnitude forming a part of it. The same county had already led the
-way in regard to the English Canal system--that mighty network of
-inland navigation of which the Manchester Ship Canal, now in process
-of construction, will, when complete, be the member wonderful above
-all others. No trivial undertaking can that be considered; no distrust
-can there be of one in regard to its promise for the future, which has
-the support of no fewer than 38,000 shareholders. Here, too, in
-Lancashire, we have the most interesting part of the early history of
-the use of gas for lighting purposes. In Lancashire, again, were laid
-the foundations of the whole of the stupendous industry represented in
-the cotton-manufacture, with calico-printing, and the allied arts of
-pattern design. The literary work of Lancashire has been abreast of
-the county industry and scientific life. Mr. Sutton's _List of
-Lancashire Authors_, published in 1876, since which time many others
-have come to the front, contains the names of nearly 1250,
-three-fourths of whom, he tells us, were born within the
-frontiers--men widely various, of necessity, in wit and aim, more
-various still in fertility, some never going beyond a pamphlet or an
-"article,"--useful, nevertheless, in their generation, and deserving a
-place in the honourable catalogue. Historians, antiquaries, poets,
-novelists, biographers, financiers, find a place in it, with scholars,
-critics, naturalists, divines. Every one acquainted with books knows
-that William Roscoe wrote in Liverpool. Bailey's _Festus_, one of the
-most remarkable poems of the age, was originally published in
-Manchester. The standard work upon British Bryology was produced in
-Warrington, and, like the life of Lorenzo de Medici, by a
-solicitor--the late William Wilson. Nowhere in the provinces have
-there been more conspicuous examples of exact and delicate
-philosophical and mathematical experiment and observation than such as
-in Manchester enabled Dalton to determine the profoundest law in
-chemistry; and Horrox, the young curate of Hoole, long before, to be
-the first of mankind to watch a transit of Venus, providing thereby
-for astronomers the means towards new departures of the highest
-moment. During the Franco-Prussian war, when communication with the
-interior of Paris was manageable only by the employment of
-carrier-pigeons and the use of micro-photography, it was again a
-Lancashire man who had to be thanked for the art of concentrating a
-page of newspaper to the size of a postage-stamp. Possibly there were
-two or three contemporaneous inventors, but the first to make
-micro-photography--after the spectroscope, the most exquisite
-combination of chemical and optical science yet introduced to the
-world--public and practical, was the late Mr. J. B. Dancer, of
-Manchester.
-
-    [1] _Vide_ Blue Book, 1878, Part I. p. 423. The first return of
-    Bacon for St. Albans was not until 1601. Roger Ascham, whose
-    influence upon education was even profounder than Bacon's, sat
-    for another Lancashire town--Preston--in the Parliament of 1563.
-
-Generous and substantial designs for promoting the education of the
-people, and their enjoyment,--habits also of thrift and of
-self-culture, are characteristic of Lancashire. Some have had their
-origin upon the middle social platform; others have sprung from the
-civilised among the rich.[2] The Co-operative system, with its varied
-capacities for rendering good service to the provident and careful,
-had its beginning in Rochdale. The first place to copy Dr. Birkbeck's
-Mechanics' Institution was Manchester, in which town the first
-provincial School of Medicine was founded, and which to-day holds the
-headquarters of the Victoria University. Manchester, again, was the
-first town in England to take advantage of the Free Libraries Act of
-1850, opening on September 2d, 1852, with Liverpool in its immediate
-wake. The Chetham Free Library (Manchester) had already existed for
-200 years, conferring benefits upon the community which it would be
-difficult to over-estimate. Other Lancashire towns--Darwen, Oldham,
-Southport, and Preston, for example, have latterly possessed
-themselves of capital libraries, so that, including the fine old
-collection at Warrington, the number of books now within reach of
-Lancashire readers, _pro rata_ for the population, certainly has no
-parallel out of London. An excellent feature in the management of
-several of these libraries consists in the effort made to attain
-completeness in special departments. Rochdale aims at a complete
-collection of books relating to wool; Wigan desires to possess all
-that has been written about engineering; the Manchester library
-contains nearly eight hundred volumes having reference to cotton. In
-the last-named will also be found the nucleus of a collection which
-promises to be the finest in the country, of books illustrative of
-English dialects. The Manchester libraries collectively, or Free and
-Subscription taken together, are specially rich in botanical and
-horticultural works--many of them magnificently illustrated and
-running to several volumes--the sum of the titles amounting to
-considerably over a thousand. Liverpool, too, is well provided with
-books of this description, counting among them that splendid
-Lancashire work, Roscoe's _Monandrian Plants_, the drawings for which
-were chiefly made in the Liverpool Botanic Garden--the fourth founded
-in England, or first after Chelsea, Oxford, and Cambridge, and
-specially interesting in having been set on foot, in 1800, by Roscoe
-himself.
-
-    [2] It is necessary to say the "civilised," because in
-    Lancashire, as in all other industrial communities, especially
-    manufacturing ones, there are plenty of selfish and vulgar rich.
-
-The legitimate and healthful recreation of the multitude is in
-Lancashire, with the thoughtful, as constant an object as their
-intellectual succour. The public parks in the suburbs of many of the
-principal Lancashire towns, with their playgrounds and gymnasia, are
-unexcelled. Manchester has no fewer than five, including the recent
-noble gift of the "Whitworth." Salford has good reason to be proud of
-its "Peel Park." Blackburn, Preston, Oldham, Lancaster, Wigan,
-Southport, and Heywood have also done their best.
-
-In Lancashire have always been witnessed the most vigorous and
-persistent struggles made in this country for civil and political
-liberty and the amendment of unjust laws. Sometimes, unhappily, they
-have seemed to indicate disaffection; and enthusiasts, well-meaning
-but extremely unwise--so commonly the case with their class--have
-never failed to obtain plenty of support, often prejudicial to the
-very cause they sought to uphold. But the ways of the people,
-considered as a community, deducting the intemperate and the zealots,
-have always been patriotic, and there has never been lack of
-determination to uphold the throne. The modern Volunteer movement, as
-the late Sir James Picton once reminded us, may be fairly said to have
-originated in Liverpool; the First Lancashire Rifles, which claims to
-be the oldest Volunteer company, having been organised there in 1859.
-In any case the promptitude of the act showed the vitality of that
-fine old Lancashire disposition to defend the right, which at the
-commencement of the Civil Wars rendered the county so conspicuous for
-its loyalty. It was in Lancashire that the first blood was shed on
-behalf of Charles the First, and that the last effort, before
-Worcester, was made in favour of his son--this in the celebrated
-battle of Wigan Lane. It was the same loyalty which, in 1644,
-sustained Charlotte de la Tremouille, Countess of Derby, in the famous
-three months' defence of Lathom House, when besieged by Fairfax.
-Charlotte, a lady of French extraction, might quite excusably be
-supposed to have had less care for the king than an Englishwoman. But
-she was now the wife of a Lancashire man, and that was enough for her
-heart; she attuned herself to the Earl's own devotedness, became
-practically a Lancashire woman, and took equal shares with him in his
-unflinching fervour. The faithfulness to great trusts which always
-marks the noble wife, however humble her social position, however
-exalted her rank and title, with concurrent temptations to wrongdoing,
-doubtless lay at the foundation of Charlotte's personal heroism. But
-it was her pasturing, so to speak, in Lancashire, which brought it up
-to fruition. Of course, she owed much to the fidelity of her
-Lancashire garrison. Without it, her own brave spirit would not have
-sufficed. Lancashire men have always made good soldiers. Several were
-knighted "when the fight was done" at Poitiers and Agincourt. The
-Middleton archers distinguished themselves at Flodden. The gallant
-47th--the "Lancashire Lads"--were at the Alma, and at Inkerman formed
-part of the "thin red line." There is equally good promise for the
-future, should occasion arise. At the great Windsor Review of the
-Volunteers in July 1881, when 50,000 were brought together, it was
-unanimously allowed by the military critics that, without the
-slightest disrespect to the many other fine regiments upon the ground,
-the most distinguished for steadiness, physique, and discipline, as
-well as the numerically strongest, was the 1st Manchester. So striking
-was the spectacle that the Queen inquired specially for the name of
-the corps which reflected so much honour upon its county. In the
-return published in the General Orders of the Army, February 1882, it
-is stated that the 2d Battalion of the South Lancashire had then
-attained the proud distinction of being its "best signalling corps."
-The efforts made in Lancashire to obtain changes for the better in the
-statute-book had remarkable illustration in the establishment of the
-Anti-Corn-Law League, the original idea of which was of much earlier
-date than is commonly supposed, having occupied men's minds, both in
-Manchester and Liverpool, as far back as the year 1825. The celebrated
-cry six years later for Reform in the representation was not heard
-more loudly even in Birmingham than in the metropolis of the cotton
-trade.
-
-The pioneers of every kind of religious movement have, like the
-leaders in civil and political reform, always found Lancashire
-responsive; and, as with practical scientific inventions, it is to
-this county that the most interesting part of the early history of
-non-conforming bodies very generally pertains. George Fox, the founder
-of the "Society of Friends," commenced his earnest work in the
-neighbourhood of Ulverston. "Denominations" of every kind have also in
-this county maintained themselves vigorously, and there are none which
-do not here still exist in their strength. The "Established Church,"
-as elsewhere, holds the foremost place, and pursues, as always, the
-even tenour of its way. During the forty-three years that Manchester
-has been the centre of a diocese, there have been built within the
-bishopric (including certain rebuildings on a larger scale) not fewer
-than 300 new churches. The late tireless Bishop Fraser "confirmed"
-young people at the rate of 11,000 every year. The strength of the
-Wesleyans is declared by their contributions to the great Thanksgiving
-Fund, which amounted, on 15th November 1880, to nearly a quarter of
-the entire sum then subscribed, viz. to about £65,000 out of the
-£293,000. They possess a college at Didsbury; not far from which, at
-Withington, the Congregationalists likewise have one of their own. The
-long standing and the power of the Presbyterians is illustrated in
-their owning the oldest place of worship in Manchester next to the
-"Cathedral,"--the "chapel" in Cross Street,--a building which dates
-from the early part of the sixteenth century. The sympathy of
-Lancashire with the Church of Rome has been noted from time
-immemorial;--perhaps it would be more accurately said that there has
-been a stauncher allegiance here than in many other places to
-hereditary creed. The Catholic diocese of Salford (in which Manchester
-and several of the neighbouring towns are included) claimed in 1879 a
-seventh of the entire population.[3] Stonyhurst, near Clitheroe, is
-the seat of the chief provincial Jesuit college. Lastly, it is an
-interesting concurrent fact, that of the seventy Societies or
-congregations in England which profess the faith called the "New
-Jerusalem," Lancashire contains no fewer than twenty-four.
-
-    [3] Namely, 209,480 Catholic, as against 1,437,000 non-Catholic.
-
-The historical associations offered in many parts of Lancashire are by
-no means inferior to those of other counties. One of the most
-interesting of the old Roman roads crosses Blackstone Edge. Names of
-places near the south-west coast tell of the Scandinavian Vikings. In
-1323 Robert Bruce and his army of Scots ravaged the northern districts
-and nearly destroyed Preston. The neighbourhood of that town witnessed
-the Stuart enterprise of 1715, and of Prince Charles Edward's march
-through the county in 1745 many memorials still exist.
-
-The ruins of two of the most renowned of the old English abbeys are
-also here--Whalley, with its long record of benevolence, and Furness,
-scarcely surpassed in manifold interest even by Fountains. One of the
-very few remaining examples of an ancient castle belongs to the famous
-old town from which John o' Gaunt received his title.[4] Parish
-churches of remote foundation, with sculptures and lettered monuments,
-supply the antiquary with pleasing variety. Old halls are numerous;
-and connected with these, with the abbeys, and other relics of the
-past, we find innumerable entertaining legends and traditions, often
-rendered so much the more attractive through preserving, in part, the
-county speech of the olden time, to be dealt with by and by.
-
-    [4]     ..."Next to whom
-        Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster."
-                      _King Henry VI._, Part 2d, ii. 2.
-
-    The _first_ Duke of Lancaster was Henry, previously Earl of
-    Derby, whose daughter Blanche was married by John of Gaunt, the
-    latter succeeding to the title.
-
-In the sports, manners, and customs which still linger where not
-superseded by modern ones, there is yet further curious material for
-observation, and the same may be said of the recreations of the staid
-and reflecting among the operative classes. It is in Lancashire that
-"science in humble life" has always had its most numerous and
-remarkable illustrations. Natural history, in particular, forms one of
-the established pastimes in the cotton districts and among the men who
-are connected with the daylight work of the collieries. Many of the
-working-men botanists are banded into societies or clubs, which often
-possess libraries, and were founded before any living can remember.
-Music, especially choral and part-singing, has been cultivated in
-Lancashire with a devotion equalled only perhaps in Yorkshire, and
-certainly nowhere excelled. Both the air and the words of the most
-popular Christmas hymn in use among Protestants, "Christians, awake!"
-were composed within the sound, or nearly so, of the Manchester old
-church bells. The verses were written by Dr. Byrom, of stenographic
-fame;[5] the music, which compares well with the "Adeste Fideles"
-itself,--the song of Christmas with other communions,--was the
-production of John Wainwright. On a lower level we find the far-famed
-Lancashire Hand-bell Ringers. The facilities provided in Lancashire
-for self-culture have already been spoken of. That private education
-and school discipline are effective may be assumed, perhaps, from the
-circumstance that in October 1880 the girl who at the Oxford Local
-Examinations stood highest in all England belonged to Liverpool.
-
-    [5] Originally published in the _Manchester Mercury_, 19th
-    October 1752.
-
-Not without significance either is it that the coveted distinction of
-"Senior Wrangler" was won by a Lancashire man on five occasions within
-the twenty years ending February 1881. Three of the victors went up
-from Liverpool, one from Manchester, and one from the Wigan
-grammar-school. Lancashire may well be proud of such a list as this;
-feeling added pleasure in knowing that the gold medal, with prize of
-ten guineas, offered by the Council of Trinity College, London, for
-the best essay on "Middle-class Education, its Influence on Commercial
-Pursuits," was won in 1880 by a Lancashire lady--Miss Agnes Amy
-Bulley, of the Manchester College for Women.
-
-The list of artists, chiefly painters, identified with the county
-appears from Mr. Nodal's researches to be not far short of a hundred,
-the earliest having been Hamlet Winstanley, of Warrington, where he
-died in 1756. Many of his productions, family portraits and views in
-the neighbourhood, are contained in the Knowsley collection. Two of
-these Lancashire artists--Joseph Farrington, R.A., and William
-Green--were among the first to disclose the beauties of the Lake
-District, by means of lithography or engraved views prepared from
-their drawings. Farrington's twenty views appeared in 1789. Green's
-series of sixty was issued from Ambleside in 1814. A very curious
-circumstance connected with art in its way, is that Focardi's
-well-known droll statuette, "The Dirty Boy," was produced in
-Lancashire! Focardi happened to be in Preston looking for employment.
-Waiting one morning for breakfast, and going downstairs to ascertain
-the cause of the delay, through a half-open door he descried the
-identical old woman and the identical dirty boy! Here at last was a
-subject for his chisel. He got £500 for the marble, and the purchasers
-acknowledge that it was the most profitable investment they ever made.
-
-The scenery presented in many portions of the county vies with the
-choicest to be found anywhere south of the Tweed. The artist turns
-with reluctance from the banks of the Lune and the Duddon. The largest
-and loveliest of the English lakes, supreme Windermere, belongs
-essentially to Lancashire: peaceful Coniston and lucid Esthwaite are
-entirely within the borders, and close by rise some of the loftiest of
-the English mountains. The top of "Coniston Old Man"--_alt maen_, or
-"the high rock"--is 2577 feet above the sea. The part which contains
-the lakes and mountains is detached, and properly belongs to the Lake
-District, emphatically so called, being reached from the south only by
-passing over the lowermost portion of Westmoreland, though accessible
-by a perilous way, when the tide is out, across the Morecambe sands.
-Still it is Lancashire, a circumstance often surprising to those who,
-very naturally, associate the idea of the "Lakes" with the homes of
-Southey and Wordsworth, with Ambleside, and Helvellyn, and Lodore.
-
-The geological character of this outlying piece being altogether
-different from that of the county in general, Lancashire presents a
-variety of surface entirely its own. At one extremity we have the
-cold, soft clay so useful to brickmakers; on reaching the Lakes we
-find the slate rocks of the very earliest ages. Much of the eastern
-edge of the county is skirted by the broad bare hills which constitute
-the central vertebræ of the "backbone of England," the imposing
-"Pennine range," which extends from Derbyshire to the Cheviots, and
-conceals the three longest of the English railway tunnels, one of
-which both begins and ends in Lancashire. The rock composing them is
-millstone-grit, with its customary gray and weather-beaten crags and
-ferny ravines. Plenty of tell-tale gullies declare the vehemence of
-the winter storms that beat above, and in many of these the rush of
-water never ceases. Those who seek solitude, the romantic, and the
-picturesque, know these hills well; in parts, where there is moorland,
-the sportsman resorts to them for grouse.
-
-In various places the rise of the ground is very considerable, far
-greater than would be anticipated when first sallying forth from
-Manchester, though on clear days, looking northwards, when a view can
-be obtained, there is pleasant intimation of distant hills. Rivington
-Pike, not far from Bolton, is 1545 feet above the sea-level. Pendle,
-near Clitheroe, where the rock changes to limestone, is 1803. The
-millstone-grit reappears intermittently as far as Lancaster, but
-afterwards limestone becomes predominant, continuing nearly to the
-slate rocks. It is to the limestone that Grange, one of the prettiest
-places in this part of the country, owes much of its scenic charm as
-well as salubrity. Not only does it give the bold and ivied tors which
-usually indicate calcareous rock. Suiting many kinds of ornamental
-trees, especially those which retain their foliage throughout the
-year, we owe to it in no slight measure the innumerable shining
-evergreens which at Grange, even in mid-winter, constantly tempt one
-to exclaim with Virgil, when caressing his beloved Italy, "Hic ver
-assiduum!"
-
-The southernmost part of the county has for its surface-rock chiefly
-the upper new red sandstone, a formation not favourable to fine
-hill-scenery, though the long ridges for which it is distinguished, at
-all events in Lancashire and Cheshire, often give a decided character
-to the landscape. The highest point in the extreme south-west, or near
-Liverpool, occupied by Everton church, has an elevation of no more
-than 250 feet, or less than a tenth of that of "Coniston Old Man."
-Ashurst, between Wigan and Ormskirk, and Billinge, between Wigan and
-St. Helens, make amends, the beacon upon the latter being 633 feet
-above the sea. The prospects from the two last named are very fine.
-They are interesting to the topographer as having been first resorted
-to as fit spots for beacons and signal-fires when the Spanish Armada
-was expected, watchers upon the airy heights of Rivington, Pendle, and
-Brown Wardle, standing ready to transmit the news farther inland. It
-is interesting to recall to mind that the news of the sailing of the
-Armada in the memorable July of 1588 was brought to England by one of
-the old Liverpool mariners, the captain of a little vessel that
-traded with the Mediterranean and the coast of Africa.
-
-Very different is the western margin of this changeful county, the
-whole extent from the Mersey to Duddon Bridge being washed by the
-Irish Sea. But, although maritime, it has none of the prime factors of
-seaside scenery,--broken rocks and cliffs,--not, at least, until after
-passing Morecambe Bay. From Liverpool onwards there is only level
-sand, and, to the casual visitor, apparently never anything besides;
-for the tide, which is swift to go out, recedes very far, and seldom
-seems anxious to come in. Blackpool is exceptional. Here the roll of
-the water is often glorious, and the dimples in calm weather are such
-as would have satisfied old Æschylus. On the whole, however, the coast
-must be pronounced monotonous, and the country that borders on it
-uninteresting. But whatever may be wanting in the way of rocks and
-cliffs, the need is fully compensated by the exceeding beauty in parts
-of the sandhills, especially near Birkdale and St. Anne's, where for
-miles they have the semblance of a miniature mountain range.
-Intervening there are broad, green, peaty plateaux, which, becoming
-saturated after rain, allow of the growth of countless wild-flowers.
-Orchises of several sorts, the pearly grass of Parnassus, the pyrola
-that imitates the lily of the valley--all come to these wild sandhills
-to rejoice in the breath of the ocean, which, like that of the
-heavens, here "smells wooingly." Looking seawards, though it is seldom
-that we have tossing surge, there is further compensation very
-generally in the beauty of sunset--the old-fashioned but inestimable
-privilege of the western coast of our island--part of the "daily
-bread" of those who thank God consistently for His infinite bounty to
-man's soul as well as body, and which no people in the world command
-more perfectly than the inhabitants of the coast of Lancashire. Seated
-on those quiet sandhills, on a calm September evening, one may often
-contemplate on the trembling water a path of crimson light more
-beautiful than one of velvet laid down for the feet of a queen.
-
-At the northern extremity of the county, as near Ulverstone, there are
-rocky and turf-clad promontories; but even at Humphrey Head, owing to
-the flatness of the adjacent sands, there is seldom any considerable
-amount of surf.
-
-The most remarkable feature of the sea-margin of Lancashire consists
-in the number of its estuaries. The largest of these form the outlets
-of the Ribble and the Wyre, at the mouth of the last of which is the
-comparatively new port of Fleetwood. The estuary of the Mersey (the
-southern shore of which belongs to Cheshire) is peculiarly
-interesting, on account of the seemingly recent origin of most of the
-lower portion. Ptolemy, the Roman geographer, writing about A.D. 130,
-though he speaks of the Dee and the Ribble, makes no mention of the
-Mersey, which, had the river existed in its present form and width, he
-could hardly have overlooked.[6] No mention is made of it either in
-the Antonine Itinerary; and as stumps of old oaks of considerable
-magnitude, which had evidently grown _in situ_, were not very long ago
-distinguishable on the northern margin when the tide was out, near
-where the Liverpool people used to bathe, the conclusion is quite
-legitimate that the level of the bed of the estuary must in the Celtic
-times, at the part where the ferry steamers go, have been much higher,
-and the stream proportionately narrow, perhaps a mere brook, with
-salt-marshes right and left. "Liverpool" was originally the name,
-simply and purely, of the estuary, indicating, in its derivation, not
-a town, or a village, but simply water. How far upwards the brook,
-with its swamp or morass, extended, it is not possible to tell, though
-probably there was always a sheet of water near the present Runcorn.
-Depression of the shore, with plenty of old tree-stumps, certifying an
-extinct forest, is plainly observable a few miles distant on the
-Cheshire coast, just below New Brighton.
-
-    [6] Unless, possibly, as contended by Mr. T. G. Rylands in the
-    _Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society's Proceedings_
-    for 1878, vol. xvii. p. 81, following Horsley and Keith
-    Johnston, Pliny intended the Mersey by his "Belisama." But West,
-    Professor William Smith, and authors in general, consider that
-    the "Belisama" was the modern Ribble.
-
-In several parts of Lancashire, especially in the extreme south-east,
-the surface is occupied by wet and dreary wastes, composed of peat,
-and locally called "mosses." That they have been formed since the
-commencement of the Christian era there can be little doubt, abundance
-of remains of the branches of trees being found near the clay floor
-upon which the peat has gradually arisen. The most noted of these
-desolate flats is that one called Chat, or St. Chad's Moss, the scene
-of the special difficulty in the construction of the original
-Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Nothing can exceed the dismalness of
-the mosses during nine or ten months of the year. Absolutely level,
-stretching for several miles, treeless, and with a covering only of
-brown and wiry scrub, Nature seems expiring in them. June kindly
-brings a change. Everything has its festival some time. For a
-short period they are strewed with the summer snow of the
-cotton-sedge,--the "cana" of Ossian, "Her bosom was whiter than the
-down of cana"; and again, in September, they are amethyst-tinted for
-two or three weeks with the bloom of the heather. During the last
-quarter of a century the extent of these mosses has been much reduced,
-by draining and cultivation at the margins, and in course of time they
-will probably disappear.
-
-Forests were once a feature of a good part of Lancashire. Long
-subsequently to the time of the Conquest, much of the county was still
-covered with trees. The celebrated "_Carta de Foresta_," or "Forest
-Charter," under which the clearing of the ground of England for
-farming purposes first became general and continuous, was granted only
-in the reign of Henry III., A.D. 1224, or contemporaneously with the
-uprise of Salisbury Cathedral, a date thus rendered easy of
-remembrance.
-
-Here and there the trees were allowed to remain; and among these
-reserved portions of the original Lancashire "wild wood" it is
-interesting to find West Derby, the "western home of wild animals,"
-thus named because so valuable as a hunting-ground.[7] No forest, in
-the current sense of the word, has survived in Lancashire to the
-present day. Even single trees of patriarchal age are almost unknown.
-Agriculture, when commenced, proceeded vigorously, chiefly, however,
-in regard to meadow and pasture; cornfields have never been either
-numerous or extensive, except in the district beyond Preston called
-the Fylde--an immense breadth of alluvial drift, grateful in almost
-all parts for good farming.
-
-    [7] Retained to this day as the name of one of the principal
-    Lancashire "Hundreds," it is West Derby which gives title to the
-    Earls of the house of Stanley, and not, as often supposed, the
-    city in the midland counties.
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-LIVERPOOL
-
-
-The situation of this great city is in some respects one of the most
-enviable in the country. Stretching along the upper bank of an
-unrivalled estuary, 1200 yards across where narrowest, and the river
-current of which flows westwards, it is near enough to the sea to be
-called a maritime town, yet sufficiently far inland never to suffer
-any of the discomforts of the open coast. Upon the opposite side of
-the water the ground rises gently. Birkenhead, the energetic new
-Liverpool of the last fifty years, covers the nearer slopes; in the
-distance there are towers and spires, with glimpses of trees, and even
-of windmills that tell of wheat not far away.
-
-Liverpool itself is pleasantly undulated. Walking through the busy
-streets there is constant sense of rise and fall. An ascent that can
-be called toilsome is never met with; nor, except concurrently with
-the docks, and in some of the remoter parts of the town, is there any
-long continuity of flatness.
-
-[Illustration: SHIPPING ON THE MERSEY]
-
-Compared with the other two principal English seaports, London and
-Bristol, the superiority of position is incontestable. A town situated
-upon the edge of an estuary must needs have quite exceptional
-advantages. London is indebted for its wealth and grandeur more to its
-having been the metropolis for a thousand years than to the service
-directly rendered by the Thames; and as for Bristol, the wonder is
-that with a stream like the Avon it should still count with the trio,
-and retain its ancient title of Queen of the West. Away from the
-water-side, Liverpool loses. There are no green downs and "shadowy
-woods" reached in half-an-hour from the inmost of the city, such as
-give character to Clifton; nor, upon the whole, can the scenery of the
-neighbourhood be said to present any but the very mildest and simplest
-features. Only in the district which includes Mossley, Allerton,
-Toxteth, and Otterspool, is there any approach to the picturesque.
-Hereabouts we find meadows and rural lanes; and a few miles up the
-stream, the Cheshire hills begin to show plainly. Yet not far from the
-Prince's Park there is a little ravine that aforetime, when farther
-away from the borough boundaries, and when the name was given, would
-seem to have been another Kelvin Grove,--
-
-    "Where the rose, in all its pride,
-    Paints the hollow dingle side,
-    And the midnight fairies glide,
-          Bonnie lassie, O!"
-
-Fairyland, tram-cars, and the hard facts of a great city, present few
-points of contact--Liverpool contrives to unite them in "Exchange to
-Dingle, 3d. inside." Among the dainty little poems left us by Roscoe,
-who was quick to recognise natural beauty, there is one upon the
-disappearance of the brooklet which, descending from springs now dried
-up, once babbled down this pretty dell with its tribute to the river.
-
-To the stranger approaching Liverpool by railway, these inviting bits
-of the adjacent country are, unfortunately, not visible. But let him
-not murmur. When, after passing through the town, he steps upon the
-Landing-stage and looks out upon the heaving water, with its countless
-craft, endless in variety, and representing every nation that
-possesses ships, he is compensated. The whole world does not present
-anything in its way more abounding with life. A third of a mile in
-length, broad enough for the parade of troops, imperceptibly
-adjusting itself to every condition of the tide, the Liverpool
-Landing-stage, regarded simply as a work of constructive art, is a
-wonderful sight. It is the scene of the daily movement of many
-thousands of human beings, some departing, others just arrived; and,
-above all there is the many-hued outlook right and left.
-
-[Illustration: AMERICAN WHEAT AT LIVERPOOL]
-
-Thoroughly to appreciate the nobleness, the capacities, and the use
-made of this magnificent river, a couple of little voyages should be
-undertaken: one towards the entrance, where the tall white shaft of
-the lighthouse comes in view; the other, ascending the stream as far
-as Rock Ferry. By this means the extent of the docks and the magnitude
-of the neighbouring warehouses may in some degree be estimated. Up the
-river and down, from the middle portion of the Landing-stage, without
-reckoning Birkenhead, the line of sea-wall measures more than six
-miles. The water area of the docks approaches 270 acres; the length of
-surrounding quay-margin is nearly twenty miles. The double voyage
-gives opportunity also for observation of the many majestic vessels
-which are either moving or at anchor in mid-channel. Merchantmen
-predominate, but in addition there are almost invariably two or three
-of the superb steamers which have their proper home upon the
-Atlantic, and in a few hours will be away. The great Companies whose
-names are so familiar--the Cunard, the Allan, the White Star, the
-Inman, and five or six others--despatch between them no fewer than ten
-of these splendid vessels every week, and fortnightly two extra, the
-same number arriving at similar intervals. Columbus's largest ship was
-about ninety tons; the steamers spoken of are mostly from 2000 to 5000
-tons; a few are of 8000 or 9000 tons. Besides these, there are the
-South Americans, the steamers to the East and West Indies, China,
-Japan, and the West Coast of Africa, the weight varying from 1500 to
-4000 tons, more than fifty of these mighty vessels going out every
-month, and as many coming in. The total number of ships and steamers
-actually _in_ the docks, Birkenhead included, on the 6th of December
-1880 was 438.
-
-A fairly fine day, a sunshiny one if possible, should be selected for
-these little voyages, not merely because of its pleasantness, but in
-order to observe the astonishing distance to which the river-life
-extends. Like every other town in our island, Liverpool knows full
-well what is meant by fog and rain. "Some days must be dark and
-dreary." At times it is scarcely possible for the ferry-boats to find
-their way across, and not a sound is to be heard except to convey
-warning or alarm. But the gloomy hours, fortunately, do not come
-often. The local meteorologists acknowledge an excellent average of
-cheerful weather,--the prevailing kind along the whole extent of the
-lower Lancashire coast, the hills being too distant to arrest the
-passage of the clouds,--and the man who misses his boat two or three
-times running must indeed be unlucky. Happily, these uncertainties
-and vexations of the bygones, actual and possible, have now been
-neutralised, say since 20th January 1886, by the construction of the
-Cheshire Lines tunnel under the river.
-
-[Illustration: RAN AWAY TO SEA]
-
-Nothing, on a fine day, can be more exhilarating than three or four
-hours upon the Mersey. Liverpool, go where we may, is, in the better
-parts, a place emphatically of exhilarations. The activity of the
-river-life is prefigured in the jauntiness of the movement in the
-streets; the display in the shop-windows, at all events where one has
-to make way for the current of well-dressed ladies which at noon adds
-in no slight measure to the various gaiety of the scene, is a constant
-stimulus to the fancy--felt so much the more if one's railway ticket
-for the day has been purchased in homely Stockport, or dull Bury, or
-unadorned Middleton, or even in thronged Manchester. Still it is upon
-the water that the impression is most animating. High up the river,
-generally near the Rock Ferry pier, a guardship is stationed--usually
-an ironclad. Beyond this we come upon four old men-of-war used as
-training-ships. The _Conway_, a naval school for young officers,
-accommodates 150, including many of good birth, who pay £50 a-year
-apiece. The _Indefatigable_ gives gratuitous teaching to the sons of
-sailors, orphans, and other homeless boys. The _Akbar_ and the
-_Clarence_ are Reformatory schools, the first for misbehaving
-Protestant lads, the other for Catholics. The good work done by these
-Reformatories is immense. During the three years 1876 to 1878, the
-number passed out of the two vessels was 1890, and of these no fewer
-than 1420 had been converted into capital young seamen.[8]
-
-    [8] _Vide_ Mr. Inglis's Twenty-third Report to Government on the
-    Certified and Industrial Schools of Great Britain, December
-    1880.
-
-Who will write us a book upon the immeasurable _minor_ privileges of
-life, the things we are apt to pass by and take no note of, because
-"common"? Sailing upon this glorious river, how beautiful overhead the
-gleam, against the azure, of the sea-gulls! Liverpool is just near
-enough to the saltwater for them to come as daily visitants, just far
-enough for them to be never so many as to spoil the sweet charm of the
-unexpected: for the moment they make one forget even the ships. Man's
-most precious and enduring possessions are the loveliness and the
-significance of nature. Were all things valued as they deserve,
-perhaps these cheery sea-birds would have their due.
-
-The Liverpool docks are more remarkable than those even of London.
-Some of the famed receptacles fed from the Thames are more capacious,
-and the number of vessels they contain when full is proportionately
-greater than is possible in the largest of the Liverpool. But in
-London there are not so many, nor is there so great a variety of cargo
-seen upon the quays, nor is the quantity of certain imports so vast.
-In the single month of October 1880 Liverpool imported from North
-America of apples alone no fewer than 167,400 barrels. Most of the
-docks are devoted to particular classes of ships or steamers, or to
-special branches of trade. The King's Dock is the chief scene of the
-reception of tobacco, the quantity of which brought into Liverpool is
-second only to the London import; while the Brunswick is chiefly
-devoted to the ships bringing timber. The magnificent Langton and
-Alexandra Docks, opened in September 1881, are reserved for the ocean
-steamers, which previously had to lie at anchor in the channel,
-considerably to the disadvantage of all concerned, but which now enjoy
-all the privileges of the smallest craft. At intervals along the quays
-there are huge cranes for lifting; and very interesting is it to note
-the care taken that their strength, though herculean, shall not be
-overtaxed, every crane being marked according to its power, "Not to
-lift more than two tons," or whatever other weight it is adapted to.
-Like old Bristol, Liverpool holds her docks in her arms. In London, as
-an entertaining German traveller told his countrymen some fifty years
-ago, a merchant, when he wants to despatch an order to his ship in the
-docks, "must often send his clerk down by the railroad; in Liverpool
-he may almost make himself heard in the docks out of his
-counting-house."[9] This comes mainly of the town and the docks having
-grown up together.
-
-    [9] J. G. Kohl. _England, Scotland, and Ireland_, vol. iii. p.
-    43. 1844.
-
-The "dockmen" are well worth notice. None of the loading and unloading
-of the ships is done by the sailors. As soon as the vessel is safely
-"berthed," the consignees contract with an intermediate operator
-called a stevedore,[10] who engages as many men as he requires, paying
-them 4s. 6d. per day, and for half-days and quarter-days in
-proportion. Nowhere do we see a better illustration than is supplied
-in Liverpool of the primitive Judean market-places, "Why stand ye here
-all the day idle?" "Because no man hath hired us." Work enough for all
-there never is: a circumstance not surprising when we consider that
-the total number of day-labourers in Liverpool is estimated at
-30,000. The non-employed, who are believed to be always about
-one-half, or 15,000, congregate near the water; a favourite place of
-assembly appears to be the pavement adjoining the Baths. The dockmen
-correspond to the male adults among the operatives in the cotton-mill
-districts, with the great distinction that they are employed and paid
-by time, and that they are not helped by the girls and women of their
-families, who in the factories are quite as useful and important as
-the rougher sex. They correspond also to the "pitmen" of collieries,
-and to journeymen labourers in general. Most of them are Irish--as
-many, it is said, as nine-tenths of the 30,000--and as usual with that
-race of people, they have their homes near together. These are chiefly
-in the district including Scotland Road, where a very different scene
-awaits the tourist. Faction-fights are the established recreation; the
-men engage in the streets, the women hurl missiles from the roofs of
-the houses. Liverpool has a profoundly mournful as well as a brilliant
-side: Canon Kingsley once said that the handsomest set of men he had
-ever beheld at one view was the group assembled within the quadrangle
-of the Liverpool Exchange: the Income-tax assessment of Liverpool
-amounts to nearly sixteen millions sterling: the people claim to be
-"Evangelical" beyond compare; and that they have intellectual power
-none will dispute:--behind the scenes the fact remains that nowhere in
-our island is there deeper destitution and profounder spiritual
-darkness.[11] When the famished and ignorant have to be dealt with, it
-is better to begin with supply of good food than with aëriform
-benedictions. Lady Hope (_née_ Miss Elizabeth R. Cotton) has shown
-that among the genuine levers of civilisation there are none more
-substantial than good warm coffee and cocoa. Liverpool, fully
-understanding this, is giving to the philanthropic all over England a
-lesson which, if discreetly taken up, cannot fail to tell immensely on
-the morals, as well as the physical needs, of the poor and destitute.
-All along the line of the docks there are "cocoa-shops," some of them
-upon wheels, metallic tickets, called "cocoa-pennies," giving access.
-
-    [10] For the derivation of this curious word, see _Notes and
-    Queries_, Sixth Series, vol. ii. pp. 365 and 492. 1880.
-
-    [11] Vide _The Dark Side of Liverpool_, by the Rev. R. H.
-    Lundie, _Weekly Review_, 20th November 1880, p. 1113.
-
-Liverpool is a town of comparatively modern date, being far younger
-than Warrington, Preston, Lancaster, and many another which
-commercially it has superseded. The name does not occur in Domesday
-Book, compiled A.D. 1086, nor till the time of King John does even
-the river seem to have been much used. English commerce during the era
-of the Crusades did not extend beyond continental Europe, the
-communications with which were confined to London, Bristol, and a few
-inconsiderable places on the southern coasts. Passengers to Ireland
-went chiefly by way of the Dee, and upon the Mersey there were only a
-few fishing-boats. At the commencement of the thirteenth century came
-a change. The advantages of the Mersey as a harbour were perceived,
-and the fishing village upon the northern shore asked for a charter,
-which in 1207 was granted. Liverpool, as a borough, is thus now in its
-685th year. That this great and opulent city should virtually have
-begun life just at the period indicated is a circumstance of no mean
-interest, since the reign of John, up till the time of the barons'
-gathering at Runnymede, was utterly bare of historical incident, and
-the condition of the country in general was poor and depressed.
-Coeur de Lion, the popular idol, though scarcely ever seen at home,
-was dead. John, the basest monarch who ever sat upon the throne of
-England, had himself extinguished every spark of loyal sentiment by
-his cruel murder of Prince Arthur. Art was nearly passive, and
-literature, except in the person of Layamon, had no existence. Such
-was the age, overcast and silent, in which the foundations of
-Liverpool were laid: contemplating the times, and all that has come of
-the event, one cannot but think of acorn-planting in winter, and
-recall the image in _Faust_,--
-
-    "Ein Theil der Finsterniss die sich das Licht gebar."
-    (Part of the darkness which brought forth Light!)
-
-[Illustration: ST. NICHOLAS CHURCH, LIVERPOOL]
-
-The growth of the new borough was for a long period very slow. In
-1272, the year of the accession of Edward I., Liverpool consisted of
-only 168 houses, occupied (computing on the usual basis) by about 840
-people; and even a century later, when Edward III. appealed to the
-nation to support him in his attack upon France, though Bristol
-supplied twenty-four vessels and 800 men, Liverpool could furnish no
-more than one solitary barque with a crew of six. It was shortly after
-this date that the original church of "Our Lady and St. Nicholas" was
-erected. Were the building, as it existed for upwards of 400 years,
-still intact, or nearly so, Liverpool would possess no memorial of the
-past more attractive. But in the first place, in 1774, the body was
-taken down and rebuilt. Then, in 1815, the same was done with the
-tower, the architect wisely superseding the primitive spire with the
-beautiful lantern by which St. Nicholas's is now recognised even from
-the opposite side of the water. Of the original ecclesiastical
-establishment all that remains is the graveyard, once embellished with
-trees, and in particular with a "great Thorne," in summer white and
-fragrant, which the tasteless and ruthless old rector of the time was
-formally and most justly impeached for destroying "without leave or
-license." Wilful and needless slaying of ornamental trees, such as no
-money can buy or replace, and which have taken perhaps a century or
-more to grow, is always an act of ingratitude, if not of the nature of
-a crime, and never less excusable than when committed on consecrated
-ground. The dedication to St. Nicholas shows that the old Liverpool
-townsfolk were superstitious, if not pious. It is St. Nicholas who on
-the strength of the legend is found in Dibdin as "the sweet little
-cherub"--
-
-                        "that sits up aloft,
-    And takes care of the life of poor Jack."
-
-Up to 1699 the building in question was only the "chappell of
-Leverpoole," the parish in which the town lay being Walton.
-
-In 1533, or shortly afterwards, temp. Henry VIII., John Leland visited
-Liverpool, which he describes as being "a pavid Towne," with a
-castle, and a "Stone Howse," the residence of the "Erle of Derbe." He
-adds, that there was a small custom-house, at which the dues were paid
-upon linen-yarn brought from Dublin and Belfast for transmission to
-Manchester[12]. A fortunate circumstance it has always been for
-Ireland that she possesses so near and ready a customer for her
-various produce as wealthy Liverpool. Fifty years later, Camden
-describes the town as "neat and populous"--the former epithet needing
-translation; and by the time of Cromwell the amount of shipping had
-nearly doubled: the Mersey, it hardly needs saying, is the natural
-westward channel for the commerce of the whole of the active district
-which has Manchester for its centre, and the value of this was now
-fast becoming apparent. By the end of the sixteenth century south-east
-Lancashire was becoming distinguished for its productive power. A
-large and constantly increasing supply of manufactures adapted for
-export implied imports. The interests of Manchester and Liverpool soon
-declared themselves alike. Of no two places in the world can it be
-said with more truth, that they have "lived and loved together,
-through many changing years"; though it may be a question whether
-they have always "wept each other's tears." In addition to the impulse
-given to shippers by extended manufacturing, the captains who sailed
-upon the Irish Sea found in the Mersey their securest haven, the more
-so since the Dee was now silting up--a misfortune for once so favoured
-Chester which at last threw it commercially quite into the shade. The
-Lune was also destined to lose in favour: an event not without a
-certain kind of pathos, since cotton was imported into Lancaster long
-before it was brought to Liverpool. Conditions of all kinds being so
-happy, prosperity was assured. Liverpool had now only to be thankful,
-industrious, honest, and prudent.
-
-    [12] _Itinerary_, vol. vii. p. 40. Oxford, 1711.
-
-Singular to say, in the year 1635 Liverpool was not thought worthy of
-a place in the map of England. In Selden's _Mare Clausum, seu de
-Dominio Maris_ there is a map in which Preston, Wigan, Manchester, and
-Chester, are all set down, but, although the Mersey lies in readiness,
-there is no Liverpool!
-
-The period of the Restoration was particularly eventful. The Great
-Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of 1666 led to a large migration of
-Londoners into Lancashire, and especially to Liverpool, trade with the
-North American "Plantations," and with the sugar-producing islands of
-the Caribbean Sea, being now rapidly progressive. Contemporaneously
-there was a flocking thither of younger sons of country squires, who,
-anticipating the Duke of Argyll of to-day, saw that commerce is the
-best of tutors. From these descended some of the most eminent of the
-old Liverpool families. The increasing demand for sugar in England
-led, unfortunately, to sad self-contamination. Following the example
-of Bristol, Liverpool gave itself to the slave-trade, and for
-ninety-seven years, 1709 to 1806, the whole tone and tendency of the
-local sentiment were debased by it. The Roscoes, the Rathbones, and
-others among the high-minded, did their best to arouse their brother
-merchants to the iniquity of the traffic, and to counteract the moral
-damage to the community; but mischief of such a character sinks deep,
-and the lapse of generations is required to efface it entirely. Mr. W.
-W. Briggs considers that the shadow is still perceptible.[13] Politely
-called the "West India trade," no doubt legitimate commerce was bound
-up with the shocking misdeed, but the kernel was the same. It began
-with barter of the manufactures of Manchester, Sheffield, and
-Birmingham, for the negroes demanded, first, by the sugar-planters,
-and afterwards, in Virginia, for the tobacco-farms. Infamous fraud
-could not but follow; and a certain callousness, attributable in part
-to ignorance of the methods employed, was engendered even in those who
-had no interest in the results. When George III. was but newly
-crowned, slaves of both sexes were at times openly sold by
-advertisement in Liverpool! Money was made fast by the trade in human
-beings, and many men accumulated great fortunes, memorials of which it
-would not be hard to find. All this, we may be thankful, is now done
-with for ever. To recall the story is painful but unavoidable, since
-no sketch of the history of Liverpool can be complete without
-reference to it. There is no need, however, to dwell further upon it.
-Escape always from the thought of crime as soon as possible. Every
-one, at all events, must acknowledge that, notwithstanding the outcry
-by the interested that the total ruin of Liverpool, with downfall of
-Church and State, would ensue upon abolition, the town has done better
-without the slave-trade.
-
-    [13] Vide _Liverpool Mercury_, 11th December 1880.
-
-The period of most astonishing expansion has been that which, as in
-Manchester, may be termed the strictly modern one. The best of the
-public buildings have been erected within the memory of living men.
-Most of the docks have been constructed since 1812. The first
-steamboat upon the Mersey turned its paddles in 1815. The first steam
-voyage to New York commemorates 1838. In Liverpool, it should not be
-forgotten, originated directly afterwards the great scheme which gave
-rise to the "Peninsular and Oriental," upon which followed in turn the
-Suez Railway, and then the Suez Canal. The current era has also
-witnessed an immense influx into Liverpool of well-informed American,
-Canadian, and continental merchants, Germans particularly. These have
-brought (and every year sees new arrivals) the habits of thought, the
-special views, and the fruits of the widely diverse social and
-political training peculiar to the respective nationalities.
-
-[Illustration: THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, LIVERPOOL]
-
-A very considerable number of the native English Liverpool merchants
-have resided, sometimes for a lengthened period, in foreign countries.
-Maintaining correspondence with those countries, having connections
-one with another all over the world, they are kept alive to everything
-that has relation to commerce. They can tell us about the harvests in
-all parts of the world, the value of gold and silver, and the
-operation of legal enactments. Residence abroad supplies new and more
-liberal ideas, and enables men to judge more accurately. The result
-is that, although Liverpool, like other places, contains its full
-quota of the incurably ignorant and prejudiced, the spirit and the
-method of the mercantile community are in the aggregate thoughtful,
-inviting, and enjoyable. The occupations of the better class of
-merchants, and their constant consociation with one another, require
-and develop not only business powers, but the courtesies which
-distinguish gentlemen. A stamp is given quite different from that
-which comes of life spent habitually among "hands";[14] the impression
-upon the mind of the visitor is that, whatever may be the case
-elsewhere, in Liverpool ability and good manners are in partnership.
-And this not only in commercial transactions: the characteristics
-observable in office hours reappear in the privacy of home.
-
-    [14] In Liverpool, strictly speaking, there are _no_ "hands," no
-    troops of workpeople, that is to say, young and old, male and
-    female, equivalent as regards relation to employer to the
-    operatives of Oldham and Stalybridge.
-
-The description of business transacted in Liverpool is almost peculiar
-to the place. After the shipbuilders and the manufacturers of shipping
-adjuncts, chain-cables, etc., there are few men in the superior
-mercantile class who produce anything. Liverpool is a city of agents.
-Its function is not to make, but to transfer. Nearly every bale or box
-of merchandise that enters the town is purely _en route_. Hence it
-comes that Liverpool gathers up coin even when times are "bad."
-Whether the owner of the merchandise eventually loses or gains,
-Liverpool has to be paid the expenses of the passing through. Much of
-the raw material that comes from abroad changes hands several times
-before the final despatch, though not by any means through the
-ordinary old-fashioned processes of mere buying and selling. In the
-daily reports of the cotton-market a certain quantity is always
-distinguished as bought "upon speculation." The adventurous do not
-wait for the actual arrival of the particular article they devote
-their attention to. Like the Covent Garden wholesale fruitmen, who
-risk purchase of the produce of the Kentish cherry-orchards while the
-trees are only in bloom, the Liverpool cotton brokers deal in what
-they call "futures."
-
-Another curious feature is the problematical character of every man's
-day. The owner of a cotton-mill or an iron-foundry proceeds, like a
-train upon the rails, according to a definite and preconcerted plan. A
-Liverpool foreign merchant, when leaving home in the morning, is
-seldom able to forecast what will happen before night. Telegrams from
-distant countries are prone to bring news that changes the whole
-complexion of affairs. The limitless foreign connections tend also to
-render his sympathies cosmopolitan rather than such as pertain to
-old-fashioned citizens pure and simple. Once a day at least his
-thoughts and desires are in some far-away part of the globe. Broadly
-speaking, the merchants, like their ships in the river, are only at
-anchor in Liverpool. The owner of a "works" must remain with his
-bricks and mortar; the Liverpool merchant, if he pleases, can weigh
-and depart. Though the day is marked by conjecture, it is natural to
-hope for good. Hence much of the sprightliness of the Liverpool
-character--the perennial uncertainty underlying the equally
-well-marked disposition to "eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we
-die," or, at all events, may die. This in turn seems to account for
-the high percentage of shops of the glittering class and that deal in
-luxuries. Making their money in the way they do, the Liverpool people
-care less to hoard it than to indulge in the spending. How open-handed
-they can be when called upon is declared by the sums raised for the
-Bishopric and the University College. In proportion, they have more
-money than other people, the inhabitants of London alone excepted. The
-income-tax assessment has already been mentioned as nearly sixteen
-millions. The actual sum for the year ending 5th April 1876 was
-£15,943,000, against Manchester, £13,907,000, Birmingham, £6,473,884,
-London, £50,808,000. The superiority in comparison with Manchester may
-come partly, perhaps, of certain firms in the last-named place
-returning from the country towns or villages where their "works" are
-situated. Liverpool is self-contained, Manchester is diffused.
-
-[Illustration: ST. GEORGE'S HALL, LIVERPOOL]
-
-Liverpool may well be proud of her public buildings. Opinions differ
-in regard to the large block which includes the Custom-house, commonly
-called "Revenue Buildings"; but none dispute the claim of the
-sumptuous edifice known as St. George's Hall to represent the
-architecture of ancient Greece in the most successful degree yet
-attained in England. The eastern façade is more than 400 feet in
-length; at the southern extremity there is an octostyle Corinthian
-portico, the tympanum filled with ornament. Strange, considering the
-local wealth and the local claim of a character for thoroughness and
-taste, that this magnificent structure should be allowed to remain
-unfinished, still wanting, as it does, the sculptures which formed an
-integral part of Mr. Elmes' carefully considered whole. Closely
-adjacent are the Free Library and the new Art Gallery, and, in Dale
-Street, the Public Offices, the Townhall, and the Exchange, which is
-arcaded. Among other meritorious buildings, either classical or in the
-Italian palazzo style, we find the Philharmonic Hall and the Adelphi
-Hotel. The Free Library is one of the best-frequented places in
-Liverpool. The number of readers exceeded in 1880, in proportion to
-the population, that of every other large town in England where a Free
-Library exists. In Leeds, during the year ending at Michaelmas, the
-number was 648,589; in Birmingham, 658,000; in Manchester, 958,000; in
-Liverpool, 1,163,795. In the Reference Department the excess was
-similar, the issues therefrom having been in Liverpool one-half; in
-Leeds and Birmingham, two-fifths; in Manchester, one-fifth. The
-Liverpool people seem apt to take advantage of their opportunities of
-every kind. When the Naturalists' Field Club starts for the country,
-the number is three or four times greater in proportion to the whole
-number of members than in other places where, with similar objects,
-clubs have been founded. Many, of course, join in the trips for the
-sake of the social enjoyment; whether as much work is accomplished
-when out is undecided. They are warm supporters also of literary and
-scientific institutions, the number of which, as well as of
-societies devoted to music and the fine arts, is in Liverpool
-exceptionally high. At the last "Associated Soirée," the Presidents of
-no fewer than fifteen were present. Educational, charitable, and
-curative institutions exist in equal plenty. It was Liverpool that in
-1791 led the way in the foundation of Asylums for the Blind. The
-finest ecclesiastical establishment belongs to the Catholics, who in
-Liverpool, as in Lancashire generally, have stood firm to the faith of
-their fathers ever since 1558, and were never so powerful a body as at
-present. The new Art Gallery seems to introduce an agreeable prophecy.
-Liverpool has for more than 140 years striven unsuccessfully to give
-effect to the honourable project of 1769, when it sought to tread in
-the steps of the Royal Academy, founded a few months previously. There
-are now fair indications of rejuvenescence, and, if we mistake not,
-there is a quickening appreciation of the intrinsically pure and
-worthy, coupled with indifference to the qualities which catch and
-content the vulgar--mere bigness and showiness. Slender as the
-appreciation may be, still how much more precious than the bestowal of
-patronage, in ostentation of pocket, beginning there and ending there,
-which all true and noble art disdains.
-
-[Illustration: THE EXCHANGE, LIVERPOOL]
-
-Liverpool must not be quitted without a parting word upon a feature
-certainly by no means peculiar to the town, but which to the observant
-is profoundly interesting and suggestive. This consists in the through
-movement of the emigrants, and the arrangements made for their
-departure. Our views and vignettes give some idea of what may be seen
-upon the river and on board the ships. But it is impossible to render
-in full the interesting spectacle presented by the strangers who come
-in the first instance from northern Europe. These arrive, by way of
-Hull, chiefly from Sweden and Denmark, and, to a small extent, from
-Russia and Germany--German emigrants to America usually going from
-their own ports, and by way of the English Channel. Truly astonishing
-are the piles of luggage on view at the railway stations during the
-few hours or days which elapse before they go on board. While waiting,
-they saunter about the streets in parties of six or eight, full of
-wonder and curiosity, but still impressing every one with their honest
-countenances and inoffensive manners and behaviour. There are very few
-children among these foreigners, most of whom appear to be in the
-prime of life, an aged parent now and then accompanying son or
-daughter. In 1880 there left Liverpool as emigrants the prodigious
-number of 183,502. Analysis gave--English, 74,969; Scotch, 1811;
-Irish, 27,986; foreigners, 74,115.
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-THE COTTON DISTRICT AND THE MANUFACTURE OF COTTON
-
-
-First in the long list of Lancashire manufacturing towns, by reason of
-its magnitude and wealth, comes Manchester. By and by we shall speak
-of this great city in particular. For the present the name must be
-taken in the broader sense, equally its own, which carries with it the
-idea of an immense district. Lancashire, eastwards from Warrington,
-upwards as far as Preston, is dotted over with little Manchesters, and
-these in turn often possess satellites. The idea of Manchester as a
-place of cotton factories covers also a portion of Cheshire, and
-extends even into Derbyshire and Yorkshire--Stockport, Hyde,
-Stalybridge, Dukinfield, Saddleworth, Glossop, essentially belong to
-it. To all these towns and villages Manchester stands in the relation
-of a Royal Exchange. It is the reservoir, at the same time, into
-which they pour their various produce. Manchester acquired this
-distinguished position partly by accident, mainly through its very
-easy access to Liverpool. At one time it had powerful rivals in
-Blackburn and Bolton. Blackburn lost its chance through the frantic
-hostility of the lower orders towards machinery, inconsiderate men of
-property giving them countenance--excusably only under the law that
-mental delusions, like bodily ailments, are impartial in choice of
-victims. Bolton, on the other hand, though sensible, was too near to
-compete permanently, neither had it similar access to Liverpool. The
-old salerooms in Bolton, with their galleries and piazzas, now all
-gone, were ninety years ago a striking and singular feature of that
-busy hive of spinning and weaving bees.
-
-Most of these little Manchesters are places of comparatively new
-growth. A century ago nearly all were insignificant villages or
-hamlets. Even the names of the greater portion were scarcely known
-beyond the boundaries of their respective parishes. How unimportant
-they were in earlier times is declared by the vast area of many of the
-latter, the parishes in Lancashire, as everywhere else, having been
-marked out according to the ability of the population to maintain a
-church and pastor. It is not in manufacturing Lancashire as in the
-old-fashioned rural counties,--Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and appled
-Somerset,--where on every side one is allured by some beautiful
-memorial of the lang syne. "Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the
-plain" is not here. Everything, where Cotton reigns, presents the
-newness of aspect of an Australian colony. The archæological
-scraps--such few as there may be--are usually submerged, even in the
-older towns, in the "full sea" of recent building. Even in the
-graveyards, the places of all others which in their tombstones and
-inscriptions unite past and present so tenderly, the imagination has
-usually to turn away unfed. In place of yew-trees old as York Minster,
-if there be anything in the way of green monument, it is a soiled and
-disconsolate shrub from the nearest nursery garden.
-
-The situation of these towns is often pleasing enough: sometimes it is
-picturesque, and even romantic. Having begun in simple homesteads,
-pitched where comfort and safety seemed best assured, they are often
-found upon gentle eminences, the crests of which, as at Oldham, they
-now overlap; others, like Stalybridge, lie in deep hollows, or, like
-Blackburn, have gradually spread from the margin of a stream. Not a
-few of these primitive sites have the ancient character pleasingly
-commemorated in their names, as Haslingden, the "place of hazel-nuts."
-The eastern border of the county being characterised by lofty and
-rocky hills, the localities of the towns and villages are there often
-really favoured in regard to scenery. This also gives great interest
-to the approaches, as when, after leaving Todmorden, we move through
-the sinuous gorge that, bordered by Cliviger, "mother of rocks," leads
-on to Burnley. The higher grounds are bleak and sterile, but the
-warmth and fertility of the valleys make amends. In any case, there is
-never any lack of the beauty which comes of the impregnation of wild
-nature with the outcome of human intelligence. Manchester itself
-occupies part of a broad level, usually clay-floored, and with
-peat-mosses touching the frontiers. In the bygones nothing was sooner
-found than standing water: the world probably never contained a town
-that only thirty to a hundred years ago possessed so many ponds, many
-of them still in easy recollection, to say nothing of as many more
-within the compass of an afternoon's walk.
-
-Rising under the influence of a builder so unambitious as the genius
-of factories and operatives' cottages, no wonder that a very few
-years ago the Lancashire cotton towns seemed to vie with one another
-which should best deserve the character of cold, hard, dreary, and
-utterly unprepossessing. The streets, excepting the principal artery
-(originally the road through the primitive village, as in the case of
-Newton Lane, Manchester), not being susceptible of material change,
-mostly remain as they were--narrow, irregular, and close-built.
-Happily, of late there has been improvement. Praiseworthy aspirations
-in regard to public buildings are not uncommon, and even in the
-meanest towns are at times undeniably successful. In the principal
-centres--Manchester, Bolton, Rochdale, and another or two--the old
-meagreness and unsightliness are daily becoming less marked, and a
-good deal that is really magnificent is in progress as well as
-completed. Unfortunately, the efforts of the architect fall only too
-soon under the relentless influence of the factory and the foundry.
-Manchester is in this respect an illustration of the whole group; the
-noblest and most elegant buildings sooner or later get smoke-begrimed.
-Sombre as the Lancashire towns become under that influence, if there
-be collieries in the neighbourhood, as in the case of well-named
-"coaly Wigan," the dismal hue is intensified, and in dull and rainy
-weather grows still worse. On sunshiny days one is reminded of a
-sullen countenance constrained to smile against the will.
-
-[Illustration: WIGAN]
-
-A "Lancashire scene" has been said to resolve into "bare hills and
-chimneys"; and as regards the cotton districts the description is,
-upon the whole, not inaccurate. Chimneys predominate innumerably in
-the landscape, a dark pennon usually undulating from every
-summit--perhaps not pretty pictorially, but in any case a gladsome
-sight, since it means work, wages, food, for those below, and a fire
-upon the hearth at home. Though the sculptor may look with dismay upon
-his ornaments in marble once white as a lily, now under its visitation
-gray as November, never mind--the smoke denotes human happiness and
-content for thousands: when her chimneys are smokeless, operative
-Lancashire is hungry and sad.
-
-In the towns most of the chimneys belong to the factories--buildings
-of remarkable appearance. The very large ones are many storeys high,
-their broad and lofty fronts presenting tier upon tier of monotonous
-square windows. Decoration seems to be studiously avoided, though
-there is often plenty of scope for inexpensive architectural effects
-that, to say the least, would be welcome. Seen by day, they seem
-deserted; after dark, when the innumerable windows are lighted up,
-the spectacle changes and becomes unique. Were it desired to
-illuminate in honour of a prince, to render a factory more brilliant
-from the interior would be scarcely possible. Like all other great
-masses of masonry, the very large ones, though somewhat suggestive of
-prisons, if not grand, are impressive. In semi-rural localities, where
-less tarnished by smoke, especially when tolerably new, and not
-obscured by the contact of inferior buildings, they are certainly very
-fine objects. The material, it is scarcely needful to say, is red
-brick.
-
-All the towns belonging to the Manchester family-circle present more
-or less decidedly the features mentioned. They differ from one another
-not in style, or habits, or physiognomy; the difference is simply that
-one makes calico, another muslins, and that they cover a less or
-greater extent of ground. The social, moral, and intellectual
-qualities of the various places form quite another subject of
-consideration. For the present it must wait; except with the remark
-that a Lancashire manufacturing town, however humble, is seldom
-without a lyceum, or some similar institution; and if wealthy, is
-prone to emulate cities. Witness the beautiful Art Exhibition held not
-long ago at Darwen!
-
-[Illustration: WARRINGTON]
-
-The industrial history of the important Lancashire cotton towns,
-although their modern development covers less than ninety years, dates
-from the beginning of the fourteenth century. As early as A.D. 1311,
-temp. Edward II., friezes were manufactured at Colne, but, as
-elsewhere in the country, they would seem to have been coarse and of
-little value. "The English at that time," says quaint old Fuller,
-"knew no more what to do with their wool than the sheep that weare it,
-as to any artificial curious drapery." The great bulk of the native
-produce of wool was transmitted to Flanders and the Rhenish provinces,
-where it was woven, England repurchasing the cloth. Edward III.,
-allowing himself to be guided by the far-reaching sagacity of his wise
-queen, Philippa, resolved that the manufacture should be kept at home.
-Parties of the Flemish weavers were easily induced to come over, the
-more so because wretchedly treated in their own country. Manchester,
-Bolton, Rochdale, and Warrington, were tenanted almost immediately,
-and a new character was at once given to the textile productions both
-of the district and the island in general. Furness Abbey was then in
-its glory; its fertile pastures supplied the wants of these
-industrious people: they seem, however, not to have cared to push
-their establishments so far, keeping in the south and east of the
-county, over which they gradually spread, carrying, wherever they
-went, the "merry music of the loom." The same period witnessed the
-original use of coal--again, it is believed, through the advice of
-Philippa; the two great sources of Lancashire prosperity being thus in
-their rise contemporaneous. The numerous little rivers and waterfalls
-of East Lancashire contributed to the success of the new adventurers.
-Fulling-mills and dye-works were erected upon the margins: the
-particular spots are now only conjectural; mementoes of these ancient
-works are nevertheless preserved in the springing up occasionally, to
-the present day, on the lower Lancashire river-banks, of plants
-botanically alien to the neighbourhood. These are specially the
-fullers' teasel, _Dipsacus fullonum_, and the dyers' weed, _Reseda
-luteola_, both of which were regularly used, the refuse, with seeds,
-cast into the stream being carried many miles down and deposited where
-the plants now renew themselves. The retention of their vitality by
-seeds properly ripened, when buried too deep for the operation of the
-atmosphere, sunshine, and moisture, all at once, is well known to
-naturalists, as well as their germination when brought near enough to
-the surface of the ground. This ancient woollen manufacture endured
-for quite 300 years. Cotton then became a competitor, and gradually
-superseded it; Rochdale and a few other places alone vindicating the
-old traditions.
-
-The Flemings also introduced the national _sabots_, from which have
-descended the wooden clogs heard in operative Lancashire wherever
-pavement allows of the clatter, only that while the _sabots_ were
-wholly wooden, with a lining of lambskin, the Lancashire clogs have
-leathern tops.
-
-In the writings of the period before us, and in others long
-afterwards, the Flemings' woollens are called "cottonnes," a
-circumstance which has led to much misapprehension as to the date of
-the original use in England of cotton _ipsissima_. In 1551-52, temp.
-Edward VI., an "Acte" passed for the making of "woollen clothe"
-prescribes the length and breadth of "all and everie cottonnes called
-Manchester, Lancashire, and Cheshire cottonnes." Leland, in the
-following reign, mentions in similar phrase, that "divers villagers in
-the moores about Bolton do make cottons." Genuine cotton fabrics
-manufactured abroad were known in England, no doubt, though the raw
-material had not been seen. Chaucer habits his Knight in "fustian," a
-word which points to Spain as the probable source. The truth as
-regards the "cottonnes" would seem to be that certain woollens were
-made so as to resemble cotton, and called by the same name, just as
-to-day certain calicoes have the look of linen given to them, and are
-sold as "imitation Irish," and as gloves made of the skins of
-uncertain animals are passed off as "French kid"; unless, indeed, as
-conjectured by some, the word "cottonnes" was a corruption of
-"coatings."
-
-The employment of cotton for manufacturing in England is mentioned
-first in 1641, when it was brought to London from Cyprus and Smyrna.
-The word "cotton" itself, we need hardly say, is of oriental origin,
-taking one back to India, the old-world birthplace of the plant. Used
-there as the clothing material from time immemorial, it is singular
-that the movement westward should have been so slow. The people who
-introduced it, practically, to Europe, were the Moors, who in the
-tenth century cultivated cotton in old Granada, simultaneously with
-rice, the sugar-cane, and the orange-tree, all brought by themselves
-from Asia. In those days Moslems and Christians declined to be
-friendly, and thus, although the looms were never still, the
-superabundance of the manufacture went exclusively to Africa and the
-Levant. The cotton-plant being indigenous also to Mexico and the West
-Indies, when commerce arose with the latter, Cyprus and Smyrna no
-longer had the monopoly. Precise dates, however, are wanting till the
-first years of the eighteenth century, when the United States and the
-Mersey of to-day had their prototype in Barbadoes and the Lune,
-already mentioned as having been a cotton port long anterior to
-Liverpool. Lancaster city itself is not accessible by ships. The
-cotton was usually landed on the curious _lingula_ which juts into the
-Irish Sea where the estuary disappears, and hither the country people
-used to come to wonder at it.[15] The first advertisement of a sale of
-cotton in Liverpool appeared in November 1758, but thirty years after
-that Lancaster was still the principal Lancashire seat of import. One
-of the most distinguished of the "Lancashire worthies," old Mr. John
-Blackburne, of Orford Mount, near Warrington, an enthusiastic
-gardener, cultivated the cotton-plant so successfully that he was able
-to provide his wife with a muslin dress, worn by her on some state
-occasion in or about 1790, the material derived wholly from the
-greenhouse he loved so fondly. Strange that, except occasionally in
-an engine-room, we scarcely ever see the cotton-plant in the county it
-has filled with riches--the very place where one would expect to find
-it cherished. How well would it occupy a few inches of the space so
-generally devoted to the pomps and vanities of mere colour-worship!
-Apart from the associations, it is beautiful; the leaves resemble
-those of the grape-vine; the flowers are like single yellow roses.
-There never was a flood without its ark. One man a few years ago did
-his part with becoming zeal--the late Mr. R. H. Alcock, of Bury.
-Lancashire, it may be allowed here to remind the reader, is the only
-manufacturing district in England which depends entirely upon foreign
-countries for the supply of its raw material. One great distinction
-between England and other countries is that the latter send away the
-whole, or very much, of their natural produce, usually as gathered
-together, England importing it and working it up. How terribly the
-dependence in question was proved at the time of the Federal and
-Confederate war, all who were cognisant of the great Cotton-famine
-will remember. Next in order would come sugar and timber, a dearth of
-either of which would unquestionably be disastrous; but not like want
-of cotton in Lancashire--the stranding of a whole community.
-
-    [15] _Vide_ the _Autobiography of Wm. Stout_, the old Quaker
-    grocer, ironmonger, and general merchant of Lancaster. He
-    mentions receiving cotton from Barbadoes in 1701, and onwards to
-    1725, when the price advanced "from 10d. to near 2s. 1d. the
-    lb."
-
-The Lancashire cotton towns owe their existence essentially to the
-magic touch of modern mechanical art. During all the long procession
-of centuries that had elapsed since the time of the "white-armed"
-daughter of Alcinous, her maidens, and their spinning-wheels, and of
-the swarthy weavers of ancient Egypt, the primeval modes of
-manufacture had been followed almost implicitly. The work of the
-Flemings themselves was little in advance of that of the Hebrews under
-Solomon. In comparison with that long period, the time covered by the
-change induced by machinery was but a moment, and the growth of the
-weaving communities, compared with that of previous times, like a
-lightning-flash. The movement commenced about 1760. Up till long after
-the time of Elizabeth, the staple manufacture of Lancashire, as we
-have seen, was woollen. Flax, in the sixteenth century, began to be
-imported largely, both from Ireland and the Continent, and when cotton
-at last arrived the two materials were combined. Flax was used for the
-"warp" or longitudinal threads, which in weaving require to be
-stronger than the "woof," while cotton was employed only for the
-latter--technically the "weft."
-
-Fabrics composed wholly of cotton do not appear to have been made in
-Lancashire before the time of George II., Bolton leading the way with
-cotton velvets about 1756. The cotton weft was spun by the people in
-their own cottages, chiefly by the women, literally the "spinsters" of
-the family, representative eighteen centuries afterwards, of the good
-housewife of the _Æneid_ and of the still older one in the Book of
-Proverbs, though as the years rolled on so greatly did the demand
-increase that every child had work of one kind or another. Thus began
-"infant labour," afterwards so much abused. The employment of children
-over thirteen in the modern factory is quite a different thing. Placed
-under legal restrictions, it is a blessing alike to themselves and to
-their parents, since if not there, the children now earning their
-bread would be idling, and probably in mischief. Those, it has been
-well said, who have to live by labour should early be trained to
-labour. Diligent as they were, the spinsters could not produce weft
-fast enough for the weavers. Sitting at their looms, which were also
-in the cottages, thoughtful men pondered the possibilities of quicker
-methods. Presently the dream took shape, and from the successive
-inventions of Whyatt, Kay, Highs, and Hargreaves, emerged the
-famous "spinning-jenny,"[16] a machine which did as much work in the
-same time as a dozen pair of hands. Abreast of it came the
-warping-mill, the carding-engine, and the roving-frame: the latter
-particularly opportune, since the difficulty had always been to
-disentangle the fibres of the cotton prior to twisting, and to lay
-them exactly parallel. Arkwright now came on the scene. He himself
-never invented anything; but he had marvellous powers of combination,
-such as enabled him to assimilate all that was good in the ideas of
-other men, and to give them unity and new vitality. The result was
-machinery that gave exquisite evenness and attenuation to the
-"rovings," and a patent having been granted 15th July 1769, Arkwright
-is properly regarded as the founder of the modern modes of
-manufacture. Arkwright possessed, in addition, a thoroughly feminine
-capacity for good management and perseverance, with that most
-excellent adjunct, the art of obtaining ascendancy over capitalists.
-Among the immediate results were the disuse of linen warp, the new
-frames enabling cotton warp to be made strong enough; and the
-concentration of all the early processes, spinning included, in
-special buildings, with employment of horse or water-power. The
-weaving, however, long remained with the cottagers, and survives to a
-slight extent even to the present day. The Lancashire cotton
-manufacture, strictly so called, is thus very little more than a
-century old. No further back than in 1774, fabrics made wholly of
-cotton were declared by statute to have been "lately introduced," and
-a "lawful and laudable manufacture."
-
-    [16] That the spinning-jenny was so named after a wife or
-    daughter of one of the inventors is fable. The original wheel
-    was the "jenny," a term corresponding with others well known in
-    Lancashire,--the "peggy" and the "dolly,"--and the new
-    contrivance became the "_spinning_-jenny."
-
-[Illustration: THE DINNER HOUR]
-
-The following year, 1775, saw the perfecting of Crompton's celebrated
-"mule," which produced, at less expense, a much finer and softer yarn
-than Arkwright's machine. It was specially suitable for muslins; and
-from this date most assuredly should be reckoned the elevation of the
-manufacture to its highest platform. Like the jenny, it was used at
-first in private houses, but a nobler application was close at hand--a
-new revolution--the superseding of hand, and horse, and water power,
-all at one moment, by steam. Had the former remained the only
-artificial sources of help--even supposing rivers and brooks not
-subject to negation by drought, the cotton manufacture must needs have
-been confined within narrow limits, and the greatest conceivable
-supply of the raw material would not have altered the case. Steam,
-which, like Lord Chatham, "tramples upon impossibilities," at once
-gave absolute freedom; and manufacturing, in the space of thirty
-years, eclipsed its history during 3000. The "mule" was now
-transferred to the mill, and the factory system became complete.
-Power-looms were first employed in Manchester in 1806. Stockport
-followed, and by degrees they became general, improvements going on up
-till as late as 1830, when the crowning triumph of cotton machinery
-was patented as the "self-acting mule." The pride of Lancashire, it
-must be remembered, consists, after all, not in the delicacy and the
-beauty of its cottons, for in these respects India has not yet been
-out-run; but in the rapidity, the cheapness, and the boundless
-potentialities of the manufacture, which enable it to meet, if called
-upon, the requirements of every nation in the world. While any human
-creature remains imperfectly clad, Lancashire still has its work to
-do. To be entrusted with this great business is a privilege, and in
-the honourable execution consists its true and essential glory.
-"Over-production," while any are naked, is a phrase without meaning.
-That which wants correcting is deficient absorption.
-
-[Illustration: PAY-DAY IN A COTTON MILL]
-
-Reviewing the whole matter, the specially interesting point--rendered
-so through inciting to profoundest reflection--is that those poor and
-unlettered men--Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, and the others--were
-the instruments, under Providence (for such things do not happen
-fortuitously), by which the world became possessed of an entirely new
-industrial power, fraught with infinite capacities for promoting human
-welfare; and which, in its application, introduced quite new styles of
-thinking and reasoning, and gave new bias to the policy of a great
-nation. Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, had no prescience of what
-would come of their efforts. In no part of the transformation was
-there any precedent or example; it had neither lineage nor
-inheritance; it was anticipated in momentousness only by the
-inventions of Caxton and Gioia;[17] and if in our own day the electric
-telegraph and the telephone reveal natural laws scarcely
-distinguishable from those of miracle, it may still be questioned if
-these latter discoveries surpass in intrinsic value the three or four
-that gave life to the modern cotton manufacture.
-
-    [17] Inventor of the mariners' compass.
-
-The interior of a great cotton factory, when at work, presents a
-spectacle altogether unimaginable. The vast area of the rooms, or
-"flats," filled in every part with machinery, admits of no comparison
-with anything else in England, being found in the factory alone. A
-thousand great iron frames, exquisitely composite, and kept
-fastidiously clean, some by self-acting dusters, are in simultaneous
-movement, the arms of some rising and falling, while parts of others
-march in and out, and to and fro, giving perfect illustrations of
-order, reciprocal adaptation, and interdependence, and seeming not
-only alive, but conscious. Nothing is more striking, perhaps, than to
-watch the shuttles as they dart alternately right and left, every
-movement meaning an added thread to the beautiful offspring. The poets
-are supposed by some to concern themselves only with fiction. Men and
-women who write verses are poets only when they deal with truth,
-though presented in the garb of fable; and assuredly, for a poet's
-theme, there is nothing to excel a skilfully conducted human
-manufacture. Erasmus Darwin, it will be remembered, describes the
-whole series of processes in connection with cotton as observed by him
-in Arkwright's original factory upon the Derwent.
-
-A common practice is to have the looms in a "shed" upon the surface of
-the ground. To be as near the earth as possible is a desire no less
-with the spinner, who, like the weaver, finds the lower atmospheric
-conditions much more favourable to his work than the upper. In any
-case, where the power-looms are, long lines of slender pillars support
-the roof, presenting an unbroken and almost endless perspective; and
-between the machinery and the ceiling, connected with the horizontal
-shafts which revolve just below it, are innumerable strong brown
-leather straps that quiver as they run their courses. According to the
-department we may be in, either threads or coils of cotton whiter than
-pearl, and of infinite number, give occupation to those thousand
-obedient and tireless slaves--not of the ring or the lamp, but of the
-mighty engine that invisibly is governing the whole; and in attendance
-are men and women, boys and girls, again beyond the counting. Their
-occupations are in no degree laborious: all the heavy work is done by
-the steam-engine; muscular power is not wanted so much as delicacy and
-readiness of hand and finger. Hence in the factory and the cotton-mill
-there is opportunity for those who are too weak for other vocations.
-Machinery in all cases has the merit of at once increasing the
-workman's wages and lessening his fatigue. The precision in the
-working of the machinery enforces upon those who attend to it a
-corresponding regularity of action. There is no re-twisting or
-re-weaving; everything, if done at all, must be done properly and at
-the proper moment. Apart from its being a place wherein to earn
-creditably the daily bread, if there be anything in the world which
-conduces pre-eminently to the acquisition of habits such as lie at the
-foundation of good morals,--order, care, cleanliness, punctuality,
-industry, early rising,--assuredly it is the wholesome discipline of
-the well-ordered cotton factory. Whatever may befall _outside_, there
-is nothing deleterious _inside_; the personal intercourse of the
-people employed is itself reduced to a minimum; if they corrupt one
-another, it is as people _not_ in factories do. In the rooms and
-"sheds" devoted to weaving, the rattle of the machinery forbids even
-conversation, except when the voice is adjusted to it. In the quieter
-parts the girls show their contentedness not infrequently by singing--
-
-    "The joyful token of a happy mind."
-
-[Illustration: IN A COTTON FACTORY]
-
-"How often," says the type of the true Lancashire poet, most genial of
-his race,--the late Edwin Waugh,--"how often have I heard some fine
-psalm-tune streaming in chorus from female voices when passing
-cotton-mills at work, and mingling with the spoom of thousands of
-spindles." That the girls in particular are not unhappy is shown by
-their preference of the cotton-mill to domestic service. Their health
-is as good as that of any other class of operatives; and though they
-have to keep upon their feet, it is not for so long a time as young
-women in city shops. Of course there is a shadowy side to life
-identified with the factory. The hands do not live in Elysium, any
-more than the agricultural labourer does in Arcadia. The masters, as
-everywhere else, are both good and bad: in the aggregate they are no
-worse than their fellows in other places, and to expect them to be
-better would be premature. In case of grievance or abuse there is an
-"inspector" to apply to for remedy. The wages are as good as those
-earned by any other large class of English work-people; and if the
-towns in which so many abide are unlovely, the Lancashire
-cotton-operatives at all events know little or nothing of the vice and
-filth of metropolitan St. Giles'.
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-MANCHESTER
-
-
-The writer of the entertaining article in the _Cornhill_ for February
-1880 upon "The Origin of London" shows that had the choice of the best
-site for a capital to be made _now_, and for the first time, the
-selection would naturally fall upon south-east Lancashire, and on the
-particular spot covered by modern Manchester. Geographically, as the
-author points out, it is the centre of the three kingdoms; and its
-advantageousness in regard to commerce, all things considered, is
-paramount. These facts alone suffice to give interest to the locality;
-and that the town itself should have acquired the importance now
-possessed, in some respects almost metropolitan, looks not so much
-like accident or good fortune as the fulfilment of a law of Nature.
-The locality in question is by no means picturesque. The ground, as
-said before, is, on the Cheshire side, and westwards, nearly level,
-the country being here bordered by the Mersey, a river, as Pennant
-long ago remarked, utterly devoid along its course of the charms
-usually identified with fairly broad and winding streams. At Northen
-there are some pleasant shaded pathways, with willows and poplars like
-those upon which _OEnone_ was carved; but the bank, if much above
-the level, is artificial, the original having been raised with a view
-to protecting the adjacent fields from inundation in time of floods,
-such as occur not infrequently--the Mersey being formed in the
-beginning by the confluence of several minor streams, which gather
-their waters from the moors and the Derbyshire hills, and are apt to
-be well filled and of rapid movement.
-
-At a few miles' distance in other directions, or receding from the
-Mersey, the ground becomes slightly elevated, and in parts agreeably
-broken, as at Prestwich, and near Heywood, where there are numberless
-little dells and ravines, ferny and full of trees. These are a
-pleasant change after the flatness on the Cheshire side, but are too
-far away to be called Manchester. To the Mersey Manchester makes no
-claim: three other rivers are distinctly its own--the Irwell, which
-divides the town from Salford, with its tributaries, the Medlock, and
-the Irk; and of these, though the colour is inexpressible, unless we
-go to mythology for a term, it is proud, since no three rivers in the
-world do harder work. All three pass their earlier life in valleys
-which in the bygones must have been delightful, and in some parts
-romantic. Traditions exist to this day of the times when in their
-upper reaches they were "silver-eddied." For a long distance before
-entering, and all the way while passing through, they have now for
-many years been converted into scavengers; the trout, once so
-plentiful, are extinct; there are water-rats instead. This, perhaps,
-is inevitable in a district which, though once green and tranquil, has
-been transformed into an empire of workshops.
-
-The Manchester rivers do not stand alone in their illustration of what
-can be accomplished by the defiling energy of "works." In the strictly
-manufacturing parts of South Lancashire it would be difficult to find
-a single watercourse of steady volume that any longer "makes music
-with the enamelled stones." The heroine of Verona[18] would to-day be
-impelled less to poetical similes than to epitaphs; no sylvan glade,
-however hidden, if there be water in it, has escaped the visitation of
-the tormentors. Are we then to murmur?--to feel as if robbed? By no
-means. Nothing can be regretful that is inseparable from the
-conditions of the industry and the prosperity of a great nation. The
-holidays will be here by and by. A couple of hours' railway journey
-enables any one to listen to the "liquid lapse" of streams clear and
-bright as Cherith. Everything lovely has its place of safety
-somewhere. However doleful the destiny of the South Lancashire
-streams, a thousand others that can never be sullied await us at a
-little distance.
-
-    [18] _Two Gentlemen_, ii. 7.
-
-Little can be said in praise of the Manchester climate, and that
-little, it must be confessed, however reluctantly, is only negative.
-The physicians are not more prosperous than elsewhere, and the work of
-the Registrar-general is no heavier. On the other hand, the peach and
-the apricot cannot ripen, and there is an almost total absence of the
-Christmas evergreens one is accustomed to see in the southern
-counties--the ilex to wit, the bay, the arbutus, and the laurustinus.
-In the flourishing of these consists the true test of geniality of
-climate; rhododendrons and gay flower-gardens, both of which
-Manchester possesses in plenty, certify nothing. Not that the climate
-is positively cold, though as a rule damp and rainy. Snow is often
-seen in the Midlands when in Manchester there is none. The special
-feature, again negative, is deficiency of bright, warm, encouraging
-sunshine. Brilliant days come at times, and sultry ones; but often for
-weeks together, even in summer, so misty is the atmosphere that where
-the sun should be in view, except for an hour or two, there is only a
-luminous patch.
-
-The history of Manchester dates, the authorities tell us, from the
-time of the "ancient Britons." There is no need to go so far back. The
-genuine beginnings of our English cities and large towns coincide with
-the establishment of the Roman power. They may have been preceded in
-many instances by entrenched and perhaps rudely ramparted clusters of
-huts, but it is only upon civilisation that a "town" arises. Laying
-claim, quite legitimately, to be one of the eight primitive Lancashire
-towns founded by Agricola, A.D. 79, its veritable age, to be exact, is
-1812 years, or nearly the same as that of Warrington, where the
-invaders, who came from Chester, found the river fordable, as declared
-in the existing name of the Cheshire suburb, and where they fixed
-their original Lancashire stronghold. What is thought to have happened
-in Manchester during their stay may be read in Whitaker. The only
-traces remaining of their ancient presence are some fragments of the
-"road" which led northwards over the present Kersal Moor, and which
-are commemorated in the names of certain houses at Higher Broughton.
-The fact in the local history which connects the living present with
-the past is that the De Traffords of Trafford Hall possess lands held
-by their ancestor in the time of Canute. How it came to pass that the
-family was not displaced by some Norman baron, an ingenious novelist
-may be able perhaps to tell. Private policy, secret betrothals,
-doubtless lay in the heart of as many adjustments of the eleventh
-century as behind many enigmas of the nineteenth. The Traffords reside
-close to "Throstlenest," a name occurring frequently in Lancashire,
-where the spirit of poetry has always been vigorous, and never more
-marked than in appellations having reference to the simple beauty of
-unmolested nature. At Moston there is also Throstle-glen, one of the
-haunts, half a century ago, of Samuel Bamford. At the time spoken of
-the county was divided into "tithe-shires." The "Hundred of Salford"
-was called "Salford-shire," and in this last was included Manchester;
-so that whatever dignity may accrue therefrom belongs properly to the
-town across the river, which was the first, moreover, to be
-constituted a free borough, receiving its charter in the time of
-Henry III., who died in 1272, whereas the original Manchester charter
-was not granted till 1301. To all practical intents and purposes, the
-two places now constitute a social and commercial unity. Similar
-occupations are pursued in both, and the intercourse is as constant as
-that of the people who dwell on the opposite sides of the Thames.
-
-The really important date in the history of Manchester is that of the
-arrival of the Flemish weavers in the reign of Edward III. Though
-referable in the first instance, as above mentioned, to the action of
-the king and the far-seeing Philippa, their coming to Manchester seems
-to have been specially promoted by the feudal ruler of the time--De la
-Warre, heir of the De Grelleys, and predecessor of De Lacy--men all of
-great distinction in old Manchester records. Leading his retainers to
-the field of battle, De la Warre literally, when all was over, turned
-the spear into the pruning-hook, bringing home with him some of these
-industrious people, and with their help converting soldiers into
-useful artisans. A wooden church had been erected at a very early
-period upon the sandstone cliff by the river, where the outlook was
-pleasant over the meadows and the arriving Irk. By 1422, so much had
-the town increased, it sufficed no longer, and then was built the
-noble and beautiful "old church," the "cathedral" of to-day, the body
-of which is thus now nearly 470 years old.[19]
-
-    [19] The original tower remained till 1864, when, being
-    considered insecure, it was taken down, and the existing
-    _facsimile_ erected in its place.
-
-Up till 1656 the windows of this fine church, in conformity with the
-first principles of all high-class Plantagenet and Tudor
-ecclesiastical architecture, were coloured and pictorial; the design
-being that they should represent to the congregation assembled inside
-some grand or touching Scripture incident, making palpable to the eye
-what the ear might be slow to apprehend. In the year mentioned they
-were broken to pieces by the Republicans, one of the reasons, perhaps,
-why the statue of Cromwell--the gloomy figure in the street close
-by--has been so placed as for the ill-used building to be behind it.
-While the church was in its full beauty the town was visited by
-Leland, who on his way through Cheshire passed Rostherne Mere,
-evidently, from his language, as lovely then as it is to-day:
-
-    "States fall, arts fade, but Nature doth not die!"
-
-"Manchestre," he tells us, was at that period (temp. Henry VIII.) "the
-fairest, best-builded, quikkest, and most populous Tounne of
-Lancastreshire" (v. 78). Whatever the precise comparative meaning
-of "fairest and best-builded," there can be no doubt that in Leland's
-time, and for a long subsequent period, Manchester was rich in houses
-of the Elizabethan type, including many occupied by families of note.
-The greater number of these would be "magpie," or wood and plaster
-fronted, in black and white, the patterns, though simple, often very
-ingenious, as indicated in relics which have only lately disappeared,
-and in the old country halls of the same period still perfect, which
-we shall come to by and by. The style of the inferior kind is shown in
-an old tavern, the "Seven Stars," in Withy-grove.
-
-[Illustration: MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL]
-
-At the commencement of the Civil Wars Manchester was important enough
-to be a scene of heavy contest. The sympathies of the town, as a
-whole, were with the Parliament; not in antagonism to royalty, but
-because of the suspicion that Charles secretly befriended Popery. It
-was the same belief which estranged Bolton--a place never in heart
-disloyal, so long as the ruler does his own part in faithfulness and
-honour. Standing in the Cathedral graveyard, it is hard to imagine
-that the original of the bridge now called the "Victoria" was once the
-scene of a deadly struggle, troops filling the graveyard itself.
-Here, however, it was that the severest assault was made by the
-Royalists, unsuccessfully, as were all the other attacks, though
-Manchester never possessed a castle, nor even regularly constructed
-fortifications.
-
-The town was then "a mile in length," and the streets were "open and
-clean." Words change their meaning with lapse of time, and the visitor
-who in 1650 thus describes them may have been given a little to
-overpraise; but if Manchester deserved such epithets, alas for the
-condition of the streets elsewhere! As the town increased in size, the
-complexion may also very possibly have deteriorated. The fact remains,
-that after the lapse of another 150 years, say in 1800, it was
-inexpressibly mean and common, continuing so in a very considerable
-degree up to a period quite recent. People who know Manchester only as
-it looks to-day can form no conception of the beggarly appearance of
-most of the central part no further back than during the reign of
-George IV. Several years after he came to the throne, where Market
-Street now is, there was only a miserable one-horse lane, with a
-footpath of less than twenty-four inches. Narrow "entries" led to
-adjacent "courts." Railed steps led down to cellars, which were used
-for front parlours. The shops were dark and lowbrowed; of ornament
-there was not a scrap. Mosley Street, King Street, and one or two
-others comparatively modern, presented, no doubt a very decided
-contrast. Still it was without the slightest injustice that so late as
-in or about 1845 Mr. Cobden described Manchester as the shabbiest city
-in Europe for its wealth. That the town needed some improvement is
-indicated rather suggestively by the fact, that between 1832 and 1861
-the authorities paved, drained, and flagged the footways of no fewer
-than 1578 streets, measuring upwards of sixty miles in length. Many of
-them, certainly, were new, but the great mass of the gracious work was
-retrospective. These matters are worth recalling, since it is only by
-comparison with the past that modern Manchester can be appreciated.
-
-Shortly after the Restoration there was a considerable influx, as into
-Liverpool, from the surrounding country; and by 1710 again had the
-population so much increased that a second church became necessary,
-and St. Anne's was erected, cornfields giving place to the "Square."
-St. Anne's being the "new" church, the existing one was thenceforwards
-distinguished as the "old."[20] Commerce shortly afterwards received
-important stimulus by the Irwell being made navigable to its point of
-confluence with the Mersey, and by the erection of the original
-Manchester Exchange. In 1757 Warrington, the first town in Lancashire
-to publish a newspaper, was imitated in the famous old _Manchester
-Mercury_. Then came the grand inventions above described, upon which
-quickly arose the modern cotton manufacture. In 1771 a Bank and
-Insurance Office were found necessary, and in less than a year
-afterwards the renowned "Jones Loyds" had its beginning. Social and
-intellectual movements were accelerated by the now fast developing
-Manchester trade. Liverpool had founded a Subscription Library in
-1758: Manchester followed suit in 1765. In 1781 a Literary and
-Philosophical Society was set on foot, and in 1792 Assembly Rooms were
-built.
-
-    [20] St. Anne's was so named in compliment to the queen then on
-    the throne. "St. Ann's," like "Market-_street_ Lane," came of
-    carelessness or something worse. The thoroughfare so called was
-    properly Market-_stead_ Lane--_i.e._ the lane leading to the
-    Market-place.
-
-[Illustration: ST. ANNE'S SQUARE, MANCHESTER]
-
-New streets were now laid out,--to-day, so vast has been the
-subsequent growth, embedded in the heart of the town,--the names often
-taken from those of the metropolis, as Cannon Street, Pall Mall,
-Cheapside, and Spring Gardens, and at a little later period Bond
-Street and Piccadilly. Factories sprang up in not a few of the
-principal thoroughfares: perhaps it would be more correct to say that
-the building of factories often led to the formation of new streets.
-The kind of variety they conferred on the frontages is declared to the
-present day in Oxford Road. Similar buildings, though not so large,
-existed till very lately where now not a vestige of them remains. The
-"Manchester and Salford Bank" occupies the site of a once important
-silk-mill. Gathering round them the inferior class of the
-population,--the class unable to move into more select neighbourhoods
-when the town is relished no longer,--it is easy to understand how, in
-most parts of Manchester that are fifty years old, splendour and
-poverty are never far asunder. In London, Bath, Leicester, it is
-possible to escape from the sight of rags and squalor: in Manchester
-they are within a bow-shot of everything upon which the town most
-prides itself. The circumstance referred to may be accounted for
-perhaps in part by the extreme density of the population, which
-exceeds that of all other English manufacturing towns, and is
-surpassed only in Liverpool.[21] Manchester, it may be added, has no
-"court-end." When the rich took flight they dispersed themselves in
-all directions. They might well depart. The reputation of Manchester
-in respect of "smuts," that, like the rain in Shelley, are "falling
-for ever," is only too well deserved; and, despite of legal
-enactments, it is to be feared is inalienable.
-
-    [21] The population per statute acre of the towns referred to,
-    and of one or two others, which may be usefully put in contrast,
-    is as follows:
-
-    Liverpool    106
-    Manchester    85
-    Plymouth      54
-    London        49
-    Bristol       49
-    Birmingham    48
-    Salford       38
-    Oldham        26
-    Nottingham    18
-    Sheffield     16
-    Leeds         15
-    Norwich       12
-
-Architecturally, modern Manchester takes quite a foremost place among
-the cities by reason of its two great achievements in Gothic--the
-Assize Courts and the new Town-hall. Classical models were followed up
-till about 1860, as in the original Town-hall (1822-25)--now the City
-Free Library; the Royal Institution, the Concert Hall (1825-30), and
-the Corn Exchange--one of the happiest efforts of a man of real
-ability, the late Mr. Lane. The new Exchange also presents a fine
-example of the Corinthian portico. After Mr. Lane, the town was
-fortunate in possessing Mr. Walters, since it was he who introduced
-artistic details into warehouse fronts, previously to his time bald
-and vacant as the face of a cotton-mill. Very interesting examples of
-the _primitive_ Manchester warehouse style are extant in Peel Street
-and thereabouts. Manchester is now employed in rebuilding itself, to a
-considerable extent, under the inspiration received originally from
-Mr. Walters, and here and there very chastely. Would that his impress
-could have been seen upon the whole of the newly-contrived. We should
-then have been spared the not uncommon spectacle of the grotesque, to
-say nothing of the grimaces of the last few years. It is not to be
-overlooked that the whole of the improvement in Manchester street
-architecture has been effected since 1840. Four-fifths of all the
-meritorious public buildings, the modern banks also, and nearly all
-the ecclesiastical architecture that deserves the name, may be
-referred to the same period. The Assize Courts and the new Town-hall
-are both from designs by Mr. Waterhouse completed. The former were in
-1866, but not used till July 1868, three months after which time the
-first stone was laid of the superb pile in Albert Square. The gilt
-ball at the apex of the tower, 286 feet high, was fixed 4th January
-1876. The dimensions may be imagined from the number of separate
-apartments (314), mostly spacious, and approached, as far as possible,
-by corridors, which are as well proportioned as elaborate in finish.
-The cost up to 15th September 1877, when much remained to be done,
-including nearly the whole of the internal decoration, was £751,532.
-In designing the coloured windows, Mr. Waterhouse is said to have had
-the assistance of a lady. Without pressing for the secret, it is
-undeniable that the tints are blended with a sense of delicate harmony
-purely feminine. Some people prefer the Assize Courts--a glorious
-building, peculiarly distinguished for its calmness. Structures of
-such character cannot possibly correspond. Perhaps it may be allowed
-to say that the Assize Courts seem to present in greater perfection
-the unity of feeling indispensable to all great works of art, however
-varied and fanciful the details. Due regard being paid to the
-intrinsic fitness of things and their moral significance, which in
-Art, when aspiring to the perfect, should always be a prime
-consideration, it may be inquired, after all, whether Gothic is the
-legitimate style for municipal offices. We cannot here discuss the
-point. Liverpool would have to be heard upon the other side. Better,
-in any case, to have a Gothic town hall than to see churches and
-chapels copy the temples devoted a couple of thousand years ago to the
-deities of pagan Greece and Rome. It is not pleasant on a Sunday
-forenoon to be reminded of Venus, Apollo, and Diana. The new Owens
-College buildings, Oxford Road, are early fourteenth century Gothic,
-and when complete will present one of the finest groups of the kind in
-England. The architect (Mr. Waterhouse), it has been well said, has
-here, as elsewhere, "not fettered himself with ancient traditions, but
-endeavoured to make his learning a basis rather than a limit of
-thought." A great treat awaits the stranger also in the Catholic
-"Church of the Holy Name," a few steps beyond the Owens College. For a
-passer-by to help noting the beautiful western front and the maze of
-lofty buttresses and pinnacles is impossible. Ornament has been
-expended with a lavish but not indiscriminate profusion, the general
-effect being one of perfect symmetry--a character possessed equally by
-the interior. The style is geometric Gothic of the thirteenth century,
-to the capacities of which, all will acknowledge, Mr. Hanson has done
-full justice. The very gracefully designed Tudor buildings at Old
-Trafford, well known as the Asylums for the Blind and the Deaf and
-Dumb, were erected in 1838.
-
-[Illustration: TOWN HALL, MANCHESTER]
-
-Manchester is much less of a manufacturing town at present, in
-proportion to its extent and the entire breadth of its business life,
-than when the cotton trade was young. Now, as described in the
-preceding chapter, the towns and villages outside are all devoted to
-spinning and weaving. While Liverpool is one great wharf, the middle
-of Manchester is one great warehouse--a reservoir for the production
-of the whole district. The trade falls under two principal heads--the
-Home and the Export. In either case, the produce of the looms,
-wherever situate, is bought just as it flows from them--rough, or,
-technically, "in the grey." It is then put into the hands of
-bleachers, dyers, or printers, according to requirement, and
-afterwards handed to auxiliaries called "makers-up." Very interesting
-is it to observe, in going through a great warehouse, not only how
-huge is the quantity waiting transfer, but how differently the various
-fabrics have to be folded and ornamented so as to meet the taste of
-the nations and foreign countries they are intended for. Some prefer
-the absolutely plain; others like little pictures; some want bright
-colours, and embellishment with gold and silver. The uniformity of the
-general business of Manchester allowed of agreement, in November 1843,
-to shut all doors upon Saturdays at one o'clock. The warehouse
-half-holiday movement soon became universal, and now, by four or five
-p.m. on Saturdays large portions of the middle of the town are as
-quiet as upon Sundays.
-
-The composition of the Manchester community is extremely
-miscellaneous. A steady influx of newcomers from all parts of Great
-Britain--Scotland very particularly--has been in progress for eighty
-or ninety years, and seems likely to continue. Not very long ago the
-suburb called Greenheys was regarded as a German colony. Many
-Levantine Greeks have also settled in Manchester, and of Jews the
-estimated number is ten thousand. Notwithstanding the influence which
-these newcomers have almost necessarily, though undesignedly, brought
-to bear upon the general spirit of the town, the original Lancashire
-character is still prominent, though greatly modified, both for the
-better and the worse. Primitive Lancashire is now confined perhaps to
-Rossendale, where, after all, it would be felt that Manchester is the
-better place to live in. The people were distinguished of old by
-industry and intense frugality, the women in particular being noted
-for their thrift. They were enterprising, vigilant, shrewd, and
-possessed of marvellous aptitude for business; they had judgment, and
-the capacity for minute and sleepless care which is quite as needful
-as courage to success in life, and which to many a man has been better
-capital to start with than a well-filled purse. Hence the countless
-instances in South Lancashire of men who, additionally fortunate in
-being born at the favourable moment, though at first earning wages of
-perhaps fifteen shillings a-week as porters or mill-hands, rose by
-degrees to opulence, and in many cases laid the foundation of families
-now in the front rank of local importance. Considering the general
-history, it is easy to understand why carriage-heraldry, except of
-the worthless purchaseable kind, is scanty; and not difficult either
-to account for the pervading local shyness as to pedigrees and
-genealogies. Curiously in contrast, one of the very rare instances of
-an untitled family having supporters to the heraldic shield is found
-in Ashton-under-Lyne, Mr. Coulthart the banker being entitled to them
-by virtue of descent from one of the ancient Scottish kings. To a
-Lancashire magnate of the old school it was sufficient that he was
-_himself_. The disposition is still locally vigorous, and truly many
-of the living prove that to be so is a man's recommendation. None of
-the excellent attributes possessed by, for instance, the original
-Peels and Ainsworths, have disappeared, though it cannot be denied
-that in other cases there has been inheritance of the selfish habits,
-contracted ideas, and coarsely-moulded character, so often met with in
-men who have risen from the ranks. Given to saying and doing the
-things natural to them, no people were ever more devoid than the
-genuine Lancashire men, as they are still, of frigid affectations, or
-less given to assumption of qualities they did not possess. If
-sometimes startled by their impetuosities, we can generally trust to
-their candour and whole-heartedness, especially when disposed to be
-friendly, the more so since they are little inclined to pay
-compliments, and not at all to flatter.
-
-[Illustration: DEANSGATE, MANCHESTER]
-
-That men of small beginnings, and who have had little or no education,
-are apt, on becoming rich, to be irritable, jealous, and overbearing,
-is true perhaps everywhere; in Lancashire it has been observed with
-satisfaction that the exceptions are more numerous than the rule.
-Whatever the stint and privations in the morning of life, these, it
-has been again observed, have seldom led to miserly habits when old.
-Most of the modern Lancashire wealthy (or their fathers, at all
-events, before them) began with a trifle. Hence the legitimate pride
-they take in their commercial belongings--a genuine Lancashire man
-would rather you praised his mill or warehouse than his mansion. So
-far from becoming miserly, no one in the world deteriorates less. Most
-Lancashire capitalists are well aware that it is no credit to a man of
-wealth to be in arrears with the public, and when money is wanted for
-some noble purpose are quick in response. This, however, represents
-them but imperfectly. Of a thousand it might be said with as much
-truth as of the late Sir Benjamin Heywood, the eminent Manchester
-banker, "He dared to trust God with his charities, and without a
-witness, and _risk the consequences_." So much for the Lancashire
-heart; though on many of its excellent attributes, wanting space, we
-have not touched. The prime characteristic of the _head_ seems to
-consist, not in the preponderance of any particular faculty, but in
-the good working order of the faculties in general; so that the whole
-can be brought to bear at once upon whatever is taken in hand.[22]
-
-    [22] For delineations of local and personal character in full we
-    look to the novelists. After supreme _Scarsdale_, and the
-    well-known tales by Mrs. Gaskell and Mrs. Banks, may be
-    mentioned, as instructive in regard to Lancashire ways and
-    manners, _Coultour's Factory_, by Miss Emily Rodwell, and the
-    first portion of Mr. Hirst's _Hiram Greg_. Lord Beaconsfield's
-    admirable portrait of Millbank, the Lancashire manufacturer,
-    given in _Coningsby_ in 1844, had for its original the late Mr.
-    Edmund Ashworth of Turton, whose mills had been visited by the
-    author, then Mr. Disraeli, the previous year.
-
-The Lancashire man has plenty of faults and weaknesses. His energy is
-by no means of that admirable kind which is distinguished by never
-degenerating into restlessness; neither in disputes is he prone to
-courtly forbearance. Sincerity, whether in friend or foe, he admires
-nevertheless; whence the exceptional toleration in Lancashire of all
-sorts of individual opinions. Possessed of good, old-fashioned
-common-sense, when educated and reflective he is seldom astray in his
-estimate of the essentially worthy and true; so that, however novel
-occasionally his action, we may be pretty sure that underneath it
-there is some definite principle of equity. Manchester put forth the
-original programme of the "free and open church" system; and from one
-of the suburbs came the first cry for the enfranchisement of women.
-Lancashire, if nothing else, is frank, cordial, sagacious, and given
-to the sterling humanities of life. These always revolve upon Freedom,
-whence, yet again in illustration of the Lancashire heart, the
-establishment of the Society (original in idea, if not unique) for the
-Preservation of Ancient Footpaths.[23] The large infusion of the
-German element has been immensely beneficial, not only in relation to
-commerce, but to the general culture of the town. It is owing in no
-slight degree to the presence of educated Germans that the Manchester
-"shippers," in their better portion, now resemble the corresponding
-class in Liverpool. The change for the better, since the time when
-Coleridge met with his odd reception, is quite as marked, no doubt,
-among the leaders of the Home commerce, in whose ranks are plenty of
-peers of the Liverpool "gentlemen." Records of the past are never
-without their interest. During the siege, the command of the defence
-was in the hands of Colonel Rosworm, a celebrated German engineer,
-who, when all was over, considered himself ill-used, and published a
-pamphlet complaining of the town's injustice, enumerating the
-opportunities he had had of betraying it to the Royalists, and of
-dividing the inhabitants against themselves. "But then," he adds, "I
-should have been a Manchester man, for never let an unthankful one, or
-a promise-breaker, bear another name!" On the titlepage of "The Pole
-Booke for Manchester, 22d May 1690," an old list of the inhabitants,
-printed by the Chetham Society, the aforetime owner has written,
-"Generation of vipers!"
-
-    [23] Founded in 1826. See the interesting particulars in Mr.
-    Prentice's _Historical Sketches and Personal Recollections_, pp.
-    289-295. 1851.
-
-Manchester is now, like Liverpool, if not a school of refinement, one
-of the principal seats of English culture. It possesses not fewer than
-ten or twelve fine libraries, including the branches of the City Free
-Library, established under Mr. Ewart's Act, which last are available
-on Sundays, and are freely used by the class of people the opening was
-designed to benefit. The staff of assistants at the City Library and
-its branches consists very largely of young women. There is another
-first-class Free Library in Salford, with, in the same building, a
-Free Gallery of Paintings, and a well-arranged and thoroughly useful
-museum. The "Athenæum" provides its members with 60,000 newspapers per
-annum, and, in addition, 9500 weekly, and 500 monthly and quarterly
-magazines. Societies devoted to science, literature, and the fine
-arts exist, as in Liverpool, in plenty. The exhibitions of paintings
-at the Royal Institution have always been attractive, and never more
-so than during the last few years, when on Sunday afternoons they have
-been thrown open to the public _gratis_. The "School of Design,"
-founded in October 1838, now called the "School of Art," recently
-provided itself with a proper home in Grosvenor Square. There is also
-a society expressly of "Women Painters," the works of many of whom
-have earned honourable places. In addition to its learned societies,
-Manchester stands alone, perhaps, among English cities in having quite
-seven or eight set on foot purely with a view to rational enjoyment in
-the fields, the observation of Nature in its most pleasing and
-suggestive forms, and the obtaining accurate knowledge of its
-details--the birds, the trees, and the wild-flowers. The oldest of
-these is the "Field-Naturalists and Archæologists," founded in 1860.
-The members of the youngest go by the name of the "Grasshoppers."
-Flower-shows, again, are a great feature in Manchester: some held in
-the Townhall, others in the Botanical Gardens. In August 1881 the
-greatest and richest Horticultural Exhibition of which there is record
-was held at Old Trafford, in the gardens, lasting five days, and with
-award in prizes of upwards of £2000. Laid out within a few yards of
-the ground occupied in 1857 by the celebrated Fine Art Treasures
-Exhibition, the only one of the kind ever attempted in England, it was
-no less brilliant to the visitor than creditable to the promoters. No
-single spot of earth has ever been devoted to illustrations so
-exquisite of the most beautiful forms of living nature, and of the
-artistic talent of man than were then brought together.
-
-Music is cultivated in Manchester with a zest quite proportionate to
-its value. The original "Gentlemen's Concert Club" was founded as far
-back as the year of alarm 1745. The local love of glees and madrigals
-preserves the best traditions of the Saxon "glee-men." On 10th March
-1881 the veteran Charles Hallé, who quite recently had been earning
-new and glorious laurels at Prague, Vienna, and Pesth, led the _five
-hundredth_ of his great concerts in the Free-trade Hall. "Our town,"
-remarked the _Guardian_ in its next day's report of the proceedings,
-"is at present the city of music _par excellence_ in England.... The
-outside world knows three things of Manchester--that it is a city of
-cotton, a city of economic ideas, and a city of music. Since then the
-old character has been more than well sustained. Cobden was perhaps
-the first who made all the world see that Manchester had a turn for
-the things of the mind as well as for the production of calico and the
-amassing of money. Similarly, Mr. Hallé has made it evident to all the
-world that there is in Manchester a public which can appreciate the
-best music conveyed in the best way." It is but fair to the sister
-city to add that the first musical festival in the north of England
-was held in Liverpool in 1784, and that the erection of St. George's
-Hall had its germ in the local musical tastes and desire for their
-full expression.
-
-A good deal might be said in regard to the religious and
-ecclesiastical history of Manchester, a curious fact in connection
-with which is, that between 1798 and 1820, though the population had
-augmented by 80,000, nothing was done on their behalf by the
-Episcopate. The Wesleyan body dates from 7th May 1747, when its
-founder preached at Salford Cross--a little apartment in a house on
-the banks of the Irwell, where there were hand-looms, being
-insufficient to accommodate the congregation assembled to hear him.
-The literary history of Manchester is also well worthy of extended
-treatment; and, above all, that of the local thought and private
-spirit, the underlying current which has rendered the last sixty or
-seventy years a period of steady and exemplary advance. To some it may
-seem a mere coincidence, a part only of the general progress of the
-country; but advance, whether local or national, implies impetus
-received; and assuredly far more than simple coincidence is involved
-in the great reality that the growth of the town in all goodly
-respects, subsequently to the uprise of the cotton trade, has been
-exactly contemporaneous with the life and influence of the newspaper
-just quoted--the _Manchester Guardian_--the first number of which was
-published 5th May 1821.
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-MISCELLANEOUS INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS
-
-
-Lancashire is not only the principal seat of the English cotton
-manufacture. Over and above the processes which are auxiliary to it
-and complete it, many are carried on of a nature altogether
-independent, and upon a scale so vast as again to give this busy
-county the preeminence. The mind is arrested not more by the variety
-than by the magnitude of Lancashire work. Contemplating the
-inexpressible activity, all directed to a common end, one cannot but
-recall the famous description of the building of Carthage, with the
-simile which makes it vivid for all ages. Like all other manifold
-work, it presents also its amusing phases. In Manchester there are
-professional "knockers-up"--men whose business it is to tap at
-up-stair windows with a long wand, when the time comes to arouse the
-sleeper from his pillow.
-
-The industrial occupations specially identified with the cotton trade
-are bleaching, dyeing, and calico-printing. Bleaching, the plainest
-and simplest, was effected originally by exposure of the cloth to the
-open air and solar light. Spread over the meadows and pastures, as
-long as summer lasted, the country, wherever a "whiter" or "whitster"
-pursued his calling, was more wintry-looking in July than often at
-Christmas. The process itself was tedious, requiring incessant
-attention, as well as being liable to serious hindrance, and involving
-much loss to the merchant through the usually long delay. Above all,
-it conduced to the moral damage of the community, since the bleaching
-crofts were of necessity accessible, and furnished to the ill-disposed
-an incentive to the crime which figures so lamentably in their
-history. That changes and events, both good and evil, are prone to
-come in clusters is a very ancient matter of observation. At the
-precise moment when the ingenious machinery produced by Hargreaves,
-Arkwright, and Crompton, was developing its powers, a complete
-revolution took place in regard to bleaching. Scheele discovered that
-vegetable colours gave way to chlorine. Berthollet and Dr. Henry (the
-latter residing in Manchester) extended and perfected the application.
-By 1774 the bleaching process had been shortened one-half; the
-meadows and pastures were released; the summer sunshine fell once more
-upon verdure,
-
-    "Diffugere nives, redeunt jam gramina campis";
-
-and by about 1790 the art became what we have it to-day, one purely
-for indoors. The new method was first practised successfully in the
-neighbourhood of Bolton, which place has preserved its original
-reputation, though long since rivalled in every part of the
-cotton-manufacturing district, and often in more distant spots, a
-copious supply of clean water being indispensable, and outweighing in
-its value the advantages of proximity to town. Many successive steps
-have to be taken before perfect whiteness can be secured, these
-demanding the utmost care and the strictest order of procedure.
-Finally, unless destined for the dye-house or the print-works, the
-cloth is stiffened with starch made from wheaten flour, the
-consumption of which article is very large also in the factories,
-where it is employed to give tenacity to the yarn, reacting
-beneficially upon the agricultural interest; then, in order to give it
-the beautiful smoothness and gloss which remind one of the petals of
-the snowdrop, it is pressed between huge rollers which play against
-one another under the influence of powerful engines. On emerging from
-them it is said to have been "cylindered," or, corruptly,
-"calendered." Bleaching, it will appear from this, is a process which
-but slightly taxes human strength. Very interesting is it to note how,
-in the presence of chemistry and steam, the old word "manufacture" has
-in modern times changed its meaning. To-day the office of human
-fingers is less to "make" than to guide the forces of nature, all the
-harder work being delegated to inanimate wood and iron. The time
-ordinarily allowed for bleaching is one or two days, though, if
-needful, the entire process can be accelerated. The cost is about a
-halfpenny per yard.
-
-Dyeing is carried on in Lancashire quite as extensively as bleaching.
-Here, again, the exactest chemical knowledge is wanted. The managers
-are usually men well versed in science. A visit to an important
-dye-works always awakens the liveliest sentiments of admiration, and
-were it not for the relentless fouling of the streams which receive
-the refuse, few scenes of industry would live longer in pleasant
-memory. For although dye-works exist in towns and their suburbs, they
-are more frequently established out in the country, where there are
-babbling brooks and "shallow falls," with a view to obtaining a
-plentiful and steady supply of clean water. Factories also are
-sometimes found amid the fields, occupying quite isolated positions,
-the object being similar--the command of some definite local
-advantage. When at the foot of a hill it is interesting to observe
-that the chimney is placed half-way up the slope, a preliminary
-underground passage inducing a more powerful draught.
-
-It is in the neighbourhood of these rural establishments that the hurt
-done by manufacturing to the pristine beauty of the country becomes
-conspicuous. Near the towns the results are simply dirt, withered
-hedges, and a general withdrawal of meadow adornment. In the country
-we perceive how the picturesque becomes affected. Railways are not
-more cruel. Cotton, with all its kindliness, reverses the celestial
-process which makes the wilderness blossom as the rose. There are
-differences in degree--the upper portion of the Irwell valley, near
-Summerseat, is in a measure exceptional; but we must never expect to
-find a spot wholly devoid of illustrations of blight and mischief.
-Against the destruction of natural beauty, when works and factories
-assume the sway, of course must be set not only the employment of the
-industrious, but the enormous rise in the value of the land; since
-rise of such character is a sign of advancing civilisation, which in
-due time will more than compensate the damage. In the manufacturing
-parts of Lancashire land available for farming purposes commands ten
-times the rental of a century ago. Mr. Henry Ashworth's paper on the
-increase in the value of Lancashire property, published in 1841,
-showed that since 1692 the rise in Bolton had been six hundredfold.
-
-The highest place in the trio of beautiful arts now before us is held
-undeniably by calico-printing, since it not only "paints" the woven
-fabric "with delight," but in its power to multiply and vary the
-cheerful pictures is practically inexhaustible; thus representing, and
-in the most charming manner, the outcome of the sweet facility of the
-seasons. Next to the diversities of living flowers assuredly come the
-devices of the pattern-designer who discreetly goes to nature for his
-inspiration. Much of his work must of necessity be conventionalised,
-and some of it cannot be other than arbitrary and artificial; but
-there is no reason why, in its steadiest practice, strictly natural
-forms and colours should not always be regarded as truest and best.
-The tendency is daily more and more in this direction, so that
-calico-printing may justly anticipate a future even more
-distinguished than its present and its past. The "past," if we press
-for the birthday, is an ancient one indeed. Not to mention the
-chintzes of India, in the days of Calidasa, Pliny shows us very
-plainly that printing by means of mordants was practised in Egypt in
-the first century of the Christian era. When introduced into Western
-Europe is not known; for our present sketch it is enough that in
-England it began about A.D. 1700, coming, like many other excellent
-things, of the short-sighted efforts of selfishness, which,
-fortunately for mankind, always invites the retaliations of
-generosity. In the year mentioned, 1700, with a view to favouring the
-manufacturers of woollen and silk, the importation of prints from
-India was forbidden. Experiments were at once made with a view to
-production of similar work at home. This was soon discovered to be
-practicable, and preparations were made for printing upon a large
-scale, and at a moderate cost, when a new hindrance arose--say rather
-that the old malignant one, jealous opposition, reappeared. For a time
-this was successful, but at last the privilege to print in England was
-conceded, burdened, however, with the condition that the metropolis
-and the immediate vicinity should alone possess the right--a
-circumstance which recalls to mind the original law as to joint-stock
-banks. The monopoly wrought its own destruction, for there was one
-county at least, a despised but courageous one in the north, which was
-not likely to remain a passive spectator. Contemporaneously with the
-new bleaching process above described, contemporaneously also with the
-employment of the new cotton machinery, calico-printing obtained the
-provincial footing which from that time forwards has never ceased to
-strengthen, and which now renders Lancashire the most important
-district in the world in regard alike to the immensity of production
-and the inexpressible beauty of the workmanship. It is not too much to
-say, with an eminent author, that the calico-printing works of
-Lancashire are entitled to count with the most distinguished English
-seats of useful science, and the most interesting scenes of the
-exercise of tasteful invention. The earliest enterprise was in
-Manchester itself, in 1745, the year of the visit of Prince Charles
-and his army, the original Lancashire efforts having been made, so
-history says, by the grandfather of the late distinguished surgeon,
-Mr. Joseph Jordan. The "works" were situated on the banks of the
-Irwell, close to St. Mary's Church. Blackburn soon followed, and under
-the influence of the supreme abilities of the Peels, remained for
-many years the uncontested centre. Print-works are now met with in
-every little recess where there is supply of water, doubtless the
-first thing looked for when they were founded. The natural current
-sufficed at first; but it soon became customary to construct home or
-private reservoirs, and upon these the dependence is now essentially
-placed. No county in England needs so much water as Lancashire, and
-certainly there is not one that presents so many little bits of
-water-surface artificially prepared. It is pleasant to observe that
-the reservoirs belonging to "works," when belonging to a man of taste,
-have often been rendered extremely pretty by the introduction of
-water-lilies: flowers not only of unrivalled queenliness among
-aquatics, but distinguished among our native vegetation by the pensive
-languor always associated with the idea of the Oriental--the
-water-lilies' birthright--for, as a race, they are much more Asiatic
-than European, and by happy coincidence the most appropriate that
-could be placed there, the water-lily being the emblem not more of the
-Nile than of the Ganges.
-
-The multiplicity of the printing processes, and their complexity, call
-for many distinct buildings. Hence, when large, and isolated away in
-the country, as very generally happens, a print-works has quite the
-look of a rising village. There is a laboratory, with library, for the
-managing chemist, a suite of apartments for the designers, and a house
-and fruitful garden for the resident partner, with, in addition, not
-uncommonly, a schoolroom for the children. When the designers have
-completed their sketches, the engraver's work begins--a business in
-itself, and carried on almost exclusively in town, and especially in
-Manchester. Originally the pattern was cut upon a block of wood,
-usually sycamore, the success of the transfer to the cloth depending
-chiefly upon the dexterity of the workman. In 1785 this very primitive
-mode was superseded by "cylinder-printing," the pattern being engraved
-upon copper rollers, as many as there are colours; and though
-"block-printing" shares the unquenchable vitality of hand-loom
-weaving, the roller may now be considered universal. The employment of
-copper supplies another very interesting illustration of the resort
-made to this metal in almost every kind of high decorative art, and
-prepares us to understand the fitness of the ancient mythological use,
-and why associated with the goddess of love and beauty.
-
-These great undertakings--the bleaching, the dyeing, and the printing
-of the calico--demand steady supplies of the chemicals and other
-agents by means of which the various objects are attained. Hence in
-Lancashire the unrivalled number and extent of the manufacturing
-chemical works; and, especially in Manchester, the business,--never
-heard of in many English counties, here locally distinguished as the
-"drysalter's." The drysalter sees to the importation from foreign
-countries of the indigo, the madder, and other dye-stuffs in daily
-request; he deals also in the manifold kinds of gum constantly asked
-for, supplying himself partly from abroad, _viâ_ Liverpool, partly
-from works close by which prepare it artificially. A well-known sight
-in Manchester is that of a cartload of logs of some curious tropical
-dyewood, rudely hewn by the axe, and still retaining in the cavities
-of the bark little relics of the mosses and lichens of their native
-forest.
-
-The chemical works are located principally in the extreme south-west,
-especially near Widnes, a place which at once betrays itself to the
-passing traveller in the almost suffocating atmosphere, and the total
-extinction of the beauty of trees and hedges, spectres and gaunt
-skeletons alone remaining where once was verdure. Here we find in its
-utmost vigour the manufacture of "soda-ash" (an impure carbonate),
-and of chloride of lime, both for the use of bleachers; also, prepared
-from the first-named, "caustic soda," for the soap-boilers of
-Liverpool and Warrington; and chlorate of potash, peculiarly for the
-dyers. Nitric acid also is made in immense quantity, the basis being
-Chilian saltpetre, though for their materials for the soda-products
-the manufacturers have no need to go further than Cheshire, the supply
-of salt being drawn entirely from the Northwich mines. The discharge
-of stifling vapours was much worse before the passing of the Alkali
-Act than at present; and, curiously enough, though by no means without
-a parallel, involved positive loss to the manufacturer, who now
-manages to detain a considerable amount of good residuum previously
-wasted. The Act permits a limited quantity of noxious matter to go up
-the chimney; the stream is tested every day to see that the right is
-not abused: how terrible is the action even of that little the
-surrounding fields are themselves not slow to testify; everything,
-even in summer, looks dirty, lean, and dejected. Sulphuric acid
-is likewise manufactured on a great scale, especially at
-Newton-le-Willows, the basis (except when required to be very pure,
-when sulphur is employed) being iron pyrites imported from Spain.
-Hundreds of thousands of tons are prepared every year. There is
-probably not a single manufacturing process carried on in England in
-which chemical agency is involved which does not call for it. Hence,
-in the consumption of sulphuric acid, we have always a capital index
-to the state of trade, so far as regards appeal to the activity of the
-producing classes.
-
-In the extent of its manufacture of all the substances above
-mentioned, Lancashire is far ahead of every competitor in the world;
-Germany comes next, and then probably France.
-
-Carbolic acid is of peculiarly Lancashire origin, having been
-originally introduced commercially by the late Dr. Crace Calvert.
-Supplies are in daily request for the production of colour: the
-employment for antiseptic purposes is larger yet; the export is also
-very considerable. Other immensely important chemicals prepared in
-South Lancashire, and on a scale almost incredible,--Manchester
-helping the Widnes corner,--are sulphate of soda and sulphate of
-copper, the last-named being now in unlimited demand, not only by the
-dyers and calico-printers, but for the batteries used in electric
-telegraphy. In the presence of all this marvellous work, how quaintly
-reads the history of the Lancashire chemistry of 500 years ago. It
-had then not emerged from alchemy, which, after being forbidden by
-Henry IV., and again legalised by Henry VI., was warmly encouraged by
-the credulous Edward III., and had no devouter adherents than the
-Asshetons and the Traffords, who in their loyalty undertook to supply
-the king with silver and gold to the extent of his needs--so soon as
-the "philosopher's stone" should be discovered! Before we laugh at
-their misdirected zeal, it may be well to inquire whether the world
-has suffered more from scornful and premature rejection, or from
-honest and simple enthusiasm, such as in playing with alchemy brought
-to life the germs of the profoundest and most variously useful of the
-sciences.
-
-Though Lancashire tries no longer to transmute the baser metals into
-the precious ones by means of alchemy, it succeeds by the honester and
-less circuitous route of industry. Lead is obtained, though not in
-large quantity, at Anglezark, near Rivington Pike; and iron, in the
-excellent form of hæmatite, plentifully in the Ulverston and Furness
-district. The smelting is carried on chiefly at Barrow, where the
-business will no doubt continue to prosper, though hæmatite of late
-years has somewhat lost its ancient supremacy, methods having been
-discovered by which ores hitherto deemed inferior are practically
-changed to good and useful ones.
-
-[Illustration: IN THE WIRE WORKS]
-
-In any case the triumphs of Lancashire will continue to be shown, as
-heretofore, in her foundries and engine-works, the latter innumerable.
-Whitworth, Fairbairn, Nasmyth, are names too well known to need more
-than citation. Nasmyth's steam-hammer in itself is unique.
-Irresistible when it smites with a will, a giant in power and
-emphasis, it can assume, when it pleases, the lightsome manners of a
-butterfly. Let a lady place her hand upon the anvil, the mighty
-creature just gives it a kiss, gently, courteously, and retires. It is
-rather a misfortune for the stupendous products of the foundry and
-engine-works that, except in the case of the locomotive, as soon as
-completed they are hidden away for evermore, embedded where completely
-lost to view, and thought of as little as the human heart. Happily in
-the streets of Manchester there is frequent reminder, in the shape of
-some leviathan drawn slowly by a team of eight, ten, twelve, or even
-fourteen superb horses. Bradford, one of the suburbs of Manchester,
-supplies the world with the visible factor of its nervous
-system--those mysterious-looking threads which now everywhere show
-against the sky, and literally allow of intercourse between "Indus and
-the Pole." In addition to their manufacture of telegraph-wire, the
-Messrs. Johnson prepare the whole of what is wanted for the wire-rope
-bridges now common in America. Large quantities of wire are produced
-also at Warrington; here, however, of kinds adapted more particularly
-for domestic use. In connection with metal it is worthy also of note
-that Lancashire is the principal seat of the manufacture of the
-impregnable safes which, laughing at thieves and fire, challenge even
-the earthquake. They are made in Liverpool by Milner and Company, and
-near Bolton by the Chatwoods.
-
-Lancashire was long distinguished for its manufacture of silk, though
-it never acquired the importance held by Macclesfield. In Europe this
-beautiful art came to the front as one of the results of the later
-Crusades--enterprises which, though productive of untold suffering,
-awoke the mind of all the civilised parts of the Continent from its
-slumber of ages, enlarging the sphere of popular thought, reviving the
-taste for elegant practices forgotten since the fall of the Western
-Empire, and extending commerce and knowledge in general. To Lancashire
-men the history is thus one of special interest. Italy led the way in
-the manufacture; Spain and France soon followed, the latter acquiring
-distinction, and at the close of the sixteenth century the English
-Channel was crossed. Tyranny, as in the case of calico-printing, was
-the prime cause, the original Spitalfields weavers having been part of
-the crowd of Protestants who at that period were constrained, like the
-unhappy and forlorn in more modern times, to seek the refuge always
-afforded in our sea-girt isle.[24] James I. was so strongly impressed
-with the importance of the manufacture that, hoping to promote it at
-home, he procured many thousands of young mulberry-trees, some of
-which, or their immediate descendants, are still to be found,
-venerable but not exhausted, in the grounds and gardens of old country
-houses. The Civil Wars gave a heavy check to further progress. Little
-more was done till 1718, when a silk-mill, worked by a water-wheel,
-was built at Derby. This in time had to close its doors awhile,
-through the refusal of the King of Sardinia to permit the exportation
-of the raw material, always so difficult to procure in quantity. At
-last there was recovery; the manufacture crept into Cheshire, and at
-the commencement of the present century into Lancashire, taking root
-especially in the ancient villages of Middleton and Eccles, and
-gradually spreading to the adjacent hamlets.
-
-    [24] The late greatly respected Mr. E. R. Le Mare, who came to
-    Manchester in 1829, and was long distinguished among the local
-    silk-merchants, belonged by descent to one of these identical
-    old Huguenot families. Died at Clevedon, 4th February 1881, aged
-    eighty-four.
-
-[Illustration: MAKING COKE]
-
-The arrival was opportune, and helped to break the fall of the
-hand-loom cotton weavers, many of whom could not endure the loss of
-freedom imposed by the rules of the factory, and whose latent love of
-beauty, as disclosed in their taste for floriculture, was called forth
-in a new and agreeable manner. Silk-weaving was further congenial to
-these men in being more cleanly and less laborious than the former
-work, requiring more care and vigilance, and rather more skill, thus
-exactly suiting a race of worshippers of the auricula, the polyanthus,
-and the carnation. The auricula, locally called the "basier," a
-corruption of "bear's ear," is the subject of a charming little poem
-by one of the old Swinton weavers, preserved intact, reprinted in
-Wilkinson's _Lancashire Ballads_, and peculiarly valuable in respect
-of the light it throws upon the temperament of a simple and worthy
-race, now almost extinct. We may be allowed to quote two of the
-verses:
-
-    Come and listen awhile unto what we shall say
-    Concerning the season, the month we call May;
-    For the flowers they are springing, the birds they do sing,
-    And the basiers are sweet in the morning of May.
-
-    When the trees are in bloom, and the meadows are green,
-    The sweet-smelling cowslips are plain to be seen;
-    The sweet ties of nature we plainly do say,
-    For the basiers are sweet in the morning of May!
-
-The silk-weavers about Middleton were renowned also for their zest in
-entomology, and truly wonderful were their cabinets of Lepidoptera.
-Unfortunately, when all was prosperous, there came a change. Ever
-since 1860, the year of the new, and still current, silk-treaties with
-France, whereby its original command of the trade was restored, the
-manufacture of silk in Lancashire, and everywhere else in England, has
-been steadily and hopelessly declining; and at the present day,
-compared with half a century ago, the production is less than a tenth
-of what it was. Power-looms naturally have the preference with
-employers, since they represent invested capital; whereas the
-hand-loom weaver, if there is no work for him, has merely to be told
-so. The latter, as a consequence, is now seldom met with. The trade,
-such as remains, gathers chiefly about Leigh. Middleton, once so
-famous for its "broad silks,"--those adapted for ladies' dresses,--now
-spends its time chiefly in the preparation of "trimmings"; and
-wherever carried on the manufacture is almost wholly of the kind
-called "mixed," or cotton and silk combined, this being more in
-demand, because lower in price, though not wearing so well.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-From silk that befits empresses to hemp, the material of sackcloth,
-the way is long. But it must not be overlooked, in regard to the
-textile manufactures of Lancashire, that each extreme is familiar.
-Warrington, in the bygones, prepared more than half the entire
-quantity of sailcloth required for the navy. It was a ship laden with
-hemp from the Baltic for use in Lancashire which, touching at the Isle
-of Skye, brought the first news of Prince Charles Edward's landing
-there.
-
-Lancashire produces one-sixth of all the paper made in England. In
-other words, there are in this county about fifty of the nearly 300
-English paper-mills, including the very largest of them--Messrs.
-Wrigley and Sons', near Bury. The first to be established was
-Crompton's, at Farnworth, near Bolton, which dates from 1676, or
-exactly eighty-eight years after the building of the famous Kentish
-one referred to by Shakspere,[25] which itself followed, by just a
-century, the primeval one at Stevenage. Every description of paper,
-except that required for bank-notes, is made in Lancashire. The mills
-themselves, like the dyeworks, haunt the river-sides, though they no
-longer draw their supplies of water from the stream. Paper-works
-cannot possibly prosper if there be iron in the water they use, or
-decomposed vegetable matter. Hence in Lancashire it is now customary
-to sink wells of considerable depth, and in any case to provide for
-elaborate filtration. No spectacle in its way is more wonderful than
-that of a paper-machine at work. There is no limit to the length of
-the piece it is able to produce continuously, save that which is
-imposed by its own restricted dimensions. A roll could be made--as it
-is--of three or four miles in length, the cylinder gradually gathering
-up the pulp till it can hold no more. Very interesting also is it to
-observe the variety of material now employed. Esparto, or "Spanish
-grass," is brought to Liverpool (as to Cardiff and Newcastle) in
-exchange for coal, and wood-pulp from Norway and Sweden _viâ_ Hull.
-
-    [25] Sir John Spielman's, at Dartford.--_Vide_ 2nd Henry VI.,
-    Act iv. Scene 7.
-
-At Darwen we find the largest and most important production in England
-of the ornamental wall-papers which now take the place of the
-distemper painting of ancient Egypt, Herculaneum, and Pompeii. The
-manufacture was originally very similar to block calico-printing. In
-or about 1839 Messrs. C. & J. G. Potter introduced "rollers," with the
-additional novelty of the pattern being cut in relief; and this is
-now almost universal, the Messrs. Potter having progeny, as it were,
-all over the country, though they themselves still produce quite
-one-half of the quantity consumed. They have customers in every part
-of the civilised world, and adapt their work to the diverse and often
-fantastic tastes of all in turn, directed not uncommonly, as in the
-case of the Hindoos and the Japanese, by native designs, which they
-are required to follow implicitly.
-
-[Illustration: GLASS-BLOWING]
-
-To go further into the story of modern Lancashire manufacturing is not
-possible, since there is scarcely a British industry which in this
-county is without example, and to treat of the whole even briefly
-would require thrice the space already occupied. Among the foremost
-scenes to be described would be the plate-glass works at St. Helens;
-and the Manchester india-rubber works, the original, now sixty-seven
-years old, still carried on under the familiar name of Charles
-Macintosh & Co. The first were established in Glasgow; London, and
-then Manchester, were the next following centres, beginning with
-simple waterproof, but now producing articles of every conceivable
-variety. Thread, tape, pins, carpenters' tools, nails, screws,
-terra-cotta, bottles, aniline, soap, brass, and pewter-work, are also
-Lancashire staples. Gunpowder is manufactured near the foot of
-Windermere; and at Prescot and thereabouts the people employ
-themselves, as they have done now for nearly three centuries, in
-manufacturing the delicate "works" and "movements" required for
-watches. Not without significance either, in regard to the general
-capabilities of the county, is the preparation at Newton by Messrs.
-M'Corquodale of the whole of the requirements of the Government, both
-for home use and in India, in the way of stationery and account-books.
-For the Government alone they manufacture forty millions of envelopes
-every year. They also execute the enormous amount of printing demanded
-by the L. & N. W. Railway Company. The great ship-building works at
-Barrow now need no more than a reference. The magnificent Atlantic
-Inman steamer, the _City of Rome_, a ship with a gross tonnage of
-8400, and propelled by, upon the lowest estimate, 8500 indicated
-horse-power, was launched here in June 1881. After the ill-fated
-_Great Eastern_, this was the largest vessel then afloat. All has come
-into existence since about 1860, when the population of this
-out-of-the-way Lancashire village was under 4000, though now nearly
-50,000, a growth without parallel except in the United States.
-
-[Illustration: ON THE BRIDGEWATER CANAL]
-
-Omitting a considerable number of minor activities, there is, in
-addition to the above, the vast sphere of industry, part of the very
-life of working Lancashire, though not a manufacture, indicated by the
-little word "coal." In their value and importance the Lancashire
-collieries vie with the cotton-mills, declaring once again how close
-and constant is the dependence of the prosperity of a great
-manufacturing district upon its geology. Coalfields lying below the
-surface leave the soil above them free for the purposes of the farmer
-and the builder; in other words, for the raising of human food and the
-development of useful constructive arts. Where there is plenty of coal
-double the number of people can exist; the enormous population of
-Lancashire south of the Ribble has unquestionably come as much of its
-coalfields as of the invention of the spinning-jenny. The prevailing
-rock in this portion of Lancashire is the well-known new red
-sandstone, the same as that which overlies all our other best English
-coal deposits. Concurrently with it, and with the millstone-grit, the
-measures which have brought so much wealth to the county, extend from
-Pendleton, two miles from Manchester, to Colne in the north-east, and
-to St. Helen's in the west, many vast branches running out in various
-directions from the principal mass. What the exact thickness may be
-of course is not known, but, according to Mr. Dickinson, it may be
-estimated at 6450 feet. Some of the deepest pits in the country have
-been sunk in it, as at the Rosebridge Colliery, near Wigan, where the
-depth already reached is nearly 2500 feet, and the Ashton-moss Pit,
-near Ashton-under-Lyne, which goes still lower,--it is said to 2700
-feet,--in which case this last will be the deepest in England. The
-direction of the dip is described by the colliers in a very pretty
-way. They say it is towards "the rising sun," or "the setting sun,"
-the different points included between these opposites being similarly
-expressed by "dipping towards nine-o'clock sun," "twelve-o'clock sun,"
-and so on. The sun is thus their compass, though few men see less of
-it during their hours of labour. The neighbourhood of a colliery is
-generally well declared. Independently of the apparatus over the
-opening of the pit, there is no mistaking the significance of the row
-of neat cottages, all fashioned on the same architectural model, a few
-stray ones here and there, a trim little front garden seldom wanting,
-with close by a few shops, a school-house, a chapel, both very plain,
-and the proprietor's or agent's residence, somewhat ornate, and
-garnished with evergreen shrubs, ready always for the washing of a
-kindly shower. In many places, as at Wigan, Atherton, Tyldesley, and
-St. Helens, women, both single and married, work at the collieries,
-but only above ground, or at the bank. They are prohibited by statute
-from descending the pit, and their names and ages are all exactly
-registered. Up to the waist they are dressed like men. Above the
-knees, instead of a coat, they have a peculiarly fashioned tunic, a
-compromise between gown and jacket, by which they may be distinguished
-from afar: a limp bonnet tied under the chin protects the head, but
-never conceals the ear-rings and plaited hair. Many of these women are
-plainly equal to their masculine colleagues in physical power, yet
-they earn only two-thirds of the wages given to men. The decorum of
-their behaviour while at work is unimpeachable; on Sundays they do
-their best to dress like ladies. The Lancashire quarries are also
-remarkable, though little resorted to by the architect. Commercial
-prosperity is always most conspicuous where the buildings are
-principally not of stone, but of brick.
-
-[Illustration: ON THE BRIDGEWATER CANAL]
-
-Nothing does more to sustain and encourage the industry of a working
-population than a steady system of transit, and a well-timed delivery,
-alike of the natural products of the ground and of the articles
-manufactured. Hence the early development in Lancashire of the idea
-of the canal, and, sixty years afterwards, of that of the railway. The
-history of the Bridgewater Canal is one of the most interesting
-connected with the county enterprise, the more so since all other
-canals were imitations of it. Many, however, are not aware that the
-celebrated peer under whose dictation it was constructed--Francis
-Egerton, the third and last Duke of Bridgewater--was led to devote
-himself for solace sake to engineering through a disappointment in
-love. That women, when troubled or bereaved, should take refuge in
-works of charity, and that when wealthy they should found hospitals
-and build orphanages, is very natural, and has plenty of
-exemplification; but for a man to turn when similarly circumstanced to
-science is phenomenal, and the records of search for consolation after
-this manner would probably be sifted in vain for a parallel case.
-Several versions of the story are afloat; whichever way be the true
-one, it is beyond a doubt that one of the greatest industrial
-achievements ever witnessed in England had for its prime cause the
-caprice or the temper of the widowed Duchess of Hamilton,--to whom a
-second coronet was offered,--she who in her early days was the
-celebrated belle Elizabeth Gunning. There is a waterway of this
-description in Lancashire more remarkable in some respects even than
-the duke's canal--that one called the Leeds and Liverpool, the
-Lancashire portion of which curls round from the great seaport by way
-of Ormskirk, Southport, Wigan, Chorley, Burnley, and Colne, where the
-Yorkshire boundary is crossed. Near the towns, and especially in the
-south-west and south-east, these useful highways are dreary and
-uninteresting; but in rural districts, such as they must needs
-traverse, often for lengths of many miles, the borders sometimes
-acquire an unlooked-for picturesqueness, and are gaily dressed with
-wild-flowers. In any case they never fail in possession of the rude
-charms of the gliding boat, the slow-paced horse, and artless guide.
-The Lancashire railway system, it may be remarked, extends to within a
-trifle of 600 miles.
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-PECULIARITIES OF CHARACTER, DIALECT, AND PASTIMES
-
-
-The primitive Lancashire character--industrious, frugal, sanguine,
-persevering, inflexible in determination--has already been sketched in
-brief. Some additional features, observable more particularly among
-the operatives and away in the country, deserve notice, the more so
-since it is in a people's average temperament that the key is usually
-found to their pursuits in playtime--after the songs, the most
-interesting chapter in a local history. The sum total of the private
-morals of working Lancashire probably does not differ _pro rata_ from
-that which would be disclosed by a census of any other county. So with
-the manners and customs, for although in Lancashire the suavity of the
-South is soon missed, and though there is little touching of the hat
-or saying of "Sir," the absence of a courteous spirit is more
-apparent than real, and in any case is amply compensated by a
-thoroughness of kindly sentiment which more polished communities do
-not always share. The "factory-folk," the colliers, and others, are
-usually considered turbulent and given to outrages. They are not so by
-nature. Though often rough, self-willed, and obstinate, the working
-population as a whole is too thoroughly Saxon for the riotousness one
-looks for while in the presence of the Celt. Social conflicts, when
-they arise, are set on foot by mischief-makers and noisy idlers whose
-personal interest it is to promote antagonisms. Save for these
-veritable "disturbers of the peace" the probability is that there
-would be few or none of the "strikes" and "turn-outs" which bring so
-much misery to the unfortunate women and children who have no say in
-the matter. The people who "strike" are in the mass more to be pitied
-than held chargeable with love of disorder, for, as a rule, they have
-been cruelly misled into the notion that it is the master's interest
-to pay as little as possible for their labour, the truth being that
-for his own sake he pays them the utmost the business will justify, so
-that they shall be strong enough, healthy enough, cheerful and
-good-tempered enough, to work with a will, thus augmenting his
-personal profits. Every master of common-sense understands the
-principle, and _does_ so pay. It may be useful to remind the reader
-that the profits made by a Lancashire "cotton-lord" differ totally in
-their composition from the payment received for his work by an artist,
-a physician, or a barrister. The cotton-manufacturer's profits consist
-of an infinite number of particles, an atom per head on the work of
-500, and often 1000 assistants. To the outside and afar-off public,
-who hear of contentions over pennies, the sum seems nothing, and the
-man who refuses the penny a sordid fellow. But to the employer it very
-soon means hundreds of pounds, and represents perhaps half a year's
-income.
-
-In Lancashire, whatever may be the case elsewhere, the people who
-"strike" are deceived in no slight measure through their own honesty
-and sincerity of purpose. One of the original characteristics of the
-county is to be fair and unsuspecting; no people in the world have a
-stronger dislike of deceit; one of the reasons why a genuine
-Lancashire man can usually be trusted is, that he is so little
-inclined to overstate or misrepresent. The very circumstance that wins
-our esteem thus renders him vulnerable. Disposed to be honest
-themselves, the operatives fall so much more readily a prey to
-unscrupulous agitators. It is amusing, at the same time, to note how
-soon, when he detects an impostor, a Lancashire man will put him out
-of countenance; and how quick he is, in excellent balance, to perceive
-the meritorious, either in person or subject, and, perceiving, to
-appreciate.
-
-A remarkable instance of the promotion of strikes by mischief-makers
-occurred at the commencement of the spring of 1881, when the colliers
-stood out for six weeks, at a loss to themselves of no less than
-£250,000 in wages, such as otherwise they would have earned. The
-chairman of the London and North-Western Railway Company explained it
-at the shareholders' meeting on 24th July, pointing out at the same
-time the immense collateral harm inflicted:
-
-     "They might remember that at the beginning of the year there
-     was a settlement made with the colliers of Lancashire and their
-     employers with regard to a mutual insurance fund against
-     accident; but a Member of Parliament went down and persuaded
-     these poor, unhappy people that they had better not accept it,
-     but take care of themselves. He also persuaded them to make a
-     strike, the result of which was disaster to every one. Prices
-     did not go up, and unless prices went up wages could not; and
-     the men afterwards suffered great distress. From this cause
-     they estimated that the Company had lost traffic to the amount
-     of about £100,000."
-
-Another result was the permanent loss of an important market to the
-local colliery proprietors. Many thousands of tons of Lancashire
-steam-coal were previously being sent weekly to Birkenhead; but during
-the stoppage of the Wigan collieries the coal masters of North and
-South Wales obtained possession of the market, and the quantity now
-sent to Birkenhead is confined to only a few hundreds of tons. The
-general question as to strikes, and of the kind of grievances that may
-sometimes be not unreasonably complained of, is no doubt a very large
-and complex one. But whatever may be the case elsewhere, it is
-impossible for the "strikers" to deny that in the aggregate, and in
-the long run, the tendency of the Lancashire masters' doings is to
-create and diffuse social happiness among the employed. It is the
-master's interest that his people should be not only strong and
-healthy and good workmen, but good men. Comfortable homes are prepared
-for their families. Schools were provided by innumerable Lancashire
-masters long before they were required to do so by law. Many an
-employer is noted for the pains he takes, and the money he spends,
-with a view to the operatives' enjoyments.
-
-During the continuance of these ill-advised "strikes," and when the
-depression of trade--quite as distasteful to the master as to the
-man--involves "short time"--four or five days' work in the week, or
-even less, instead of six, another capital feature of the Lancashire
-character comes to the front. No people in the world are capable of
-profounder fortitude. Patience under suffering never fails. Though
-pinched by hunger, such is the manly and womanly pride of the
-Lancashire operatives that they care less about privations than to be
-constrained to surrender any portion, however trifling, of their
-independence. That the large-hearted and intelligent among mankind are
-always the last to complain in the hour of trial no one needs telling.
-People of this character are probably more numerous everywhere than
-may be thought, for the simple reason that they are the least likely
-to be heard of; but it is worth putting on paper that no better
-illustrations are to be found than exist in plenty in working
-Lancashire. It is refreshing also to note the hearty kindness of the
-Lancashire operatives one to another in time of distress. Not upon
-"Trades' Union" principles, but upon the broad and unselfish basis of
-strong, natural, human sympathy, familiar to the friendly visitor; and
-which, when elevated, as it often is, by religion, and warmed and
-expanded by personal affection, becomes so beautiful that in its
-presence all short-comings are forgotten. These good qualities are
-unfolded very specially on the occurrence of a terrible accident,
-such as a coal-pit explosion. In the yearning to be foremost in help
-to rescue; in the gentleness, the deference to authority, the
-obedience to discipline, the resignation then exhibited,--this last
-coming not of indifference, but of calmness,--a capacity is plainly
-shown for the highest conceivable moral development.
-
-_The Dialect._--The original county dialect of Lancashire is of
-twofold interest. Still heard among the rustics, it is peculiarly
-valuable to the student of the English language. "Our South Lancashire
-speech," says its most accomplished interpreter, "is second to none in
-England in the vestiges which it contains of the tongue of other
-days.... To explain Anglo-Saxon there is no speech so original and
-important as our own South Lancashire _patois_."[26] To the ears of
-strangers who know nothing about it the sound is often uncouth and
-barbarous. That it is far from being so is proved by the use long made
-of this dialect for lyric poetry and for tales both racy and
-pathetic.[27] There is conclusive evidence also of its sweet and
-meaningful pathos in the resorting to it in times of deep emotion by
-people of the highest culture, who then unconsciously throw aside the
-learning and the vocabulary of school and college for the simplicity
-that never fails to touch the heart. The titles of the stories hold a
-conspicuous place in Mr. Axon's list of the no fewer than 279
-publications illustrative of the general subject of the Lancashire
-dialect;[28] the literature of which, he justly remarks in the
-introduction, is richer than that of the popular speech of any other
-English county. This is so much the more noteworthy since, with the
-famous manufacturing epoch of 1785, everything belonging to primitive
-Lancashire began to experience change and decay. In a certain sense it
-may be said that the dialect has not only survived unhurt, but has
-risen, during the last thirty or forty years, to a position worthy of
-the native talent; and that the latter, in days to come, will have no
-better commemoration than the metrical literature. Two particulars at
-once arrest attention. No English dialect more abounds in interesting
-archaisms; and certainly not one is so little tainted with expressions
-of the nature of slang.[29]
-
-    [26] _On the South Lancashire Dialect_. By Thomas Heywood,
-    F.S.A. Chetham Society. Vol. lvii. pp. 8, 36.
-
-    [27] _Vide_ Mr. George Milner, "On the Lancashire Dialect
-    considered as a Vehicle for Poetry," _Manchester Literary Club
-    Papers_, vol. i. p. 20. 1875.
-
-    [28] _Vide_ Mr. George Milner, "On the Lancashire Dialect
-    considered as a Vehicle for Poetry," _Manchester Literary Club
-    Papers_, Appendix to the vol. for 1876.
-
-    [29] The modern slang of great towns is of course quite a
-    different thing from the ancient dialect of a rural population.
-    Affected misspellings, as of "kuntry" for country, are also to
-    be distinguished _in toto_ from the phonetic representation of
-    sounds purely dialectical.
-
-Rochdale occupies the centre of the most distinctively
-Lancashire-dialect region. As ordinarily employed, the phrase vaguely
-denotes the rural speech of the manufacturing districts. But beyond
-the Ribble, and more particularly beyond the Lune, there is
-unmistakable variation from the genuine Lancashire of "Tim Bobbin";
-and in Furness there is an echo of Cumberland. In genuine Lancashire
-we have first the old-accustomed permutations of the vowels. Then come
-elisions of consonants, transpositions, and condensations of entire
-syllables, whereby words are often oddly transformed. Ancient idioms
-attract us next; and lastly, there are many of the energetic old
-words, unknown to current dictionaries, which five centuries ago were
-an integral part of the English vernacular. The vowel permutations are
-illustrated in the universal "wayter," "feyther," "reet," "oi," "aw,"
-"neaw," used instead of water, father, right, I, now. "Owt" stands for
-aught, "nowt" for naught. Elisions and contractions appear in a
-thousand such forms as "dunnoyo" for "do you not," "welly" for
-"well-nigh." "You" constantly varies to thee and thou, whence the
-common "artu" for "art thou," "wiltohameh" for "wilt thou have me." A
-final _g_ is seldom heard; there is also a characteristic rejection
-of the guttural in such words as scratched, pronounced "scrat." The
-transpositions are as usual, though it is only perhaps in Lancashire
-that gaily painted butterflies are "brids," and that the little
-field-flowers elsewhere called birds' eye are "brid een."
-
-The old grammatical forms and the archaic words refer the careful
-listener, if not to the Anglo-Saxon of King Alfred, at all events to
-the _Canterbury Tales_; they take us pleasantly to Chaucer, and
-Chaucer in turn introduces us agreeably to Lancashire, where "she" is
-always "hoo," through abiding in the primitive "he, heo, hit;" and
-where the verbs still end in _n_: "we, ye, they loven," as in the
-Prologue--
-
-    "For he had geten him yet no benefice."
-
-Very interesting is it also when the ear catches the antiquated _his_
-and _it_ where to-day we say _it_ and _its_. Often supposed to
-correspond with the poetical use of "his" in personifications (often
-found in the authorised version of Scripture), the Lancashire
-employment of _his_ is in truth the common Shaksperean one, _his_ in
-the county palatine being the simple genitive of the old English
-_hit_, as in _Hamlet_, iv. 7--
-
-    "There is a willow grows aslant the brook,
-    That shows _his_ hoar leaves in the glassy stream."
-
-So with the obsolete possessive _it_. When a Lancashire woman says,
-"Come to it mammy!" how plain the reminder of the lines in _King
-John_--
-
-    Do, child, go to _it_ grandam, child;
-    Give grandam kingdom, and _it_ grandam will
-    Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig;
-    There's a good grandam.
-
-Archaic words are illustrated in many a familiar phrase. A Lancashire
-girl in quest of something "speers" for it (Anglo-Saxon _spirian_, to
-inquire). If alarmed, she "dithers"; if comely and well conducted, she
-behaves herself "farrantly"; if delicately sensitive, she is "nesh"--
-
-    It seemeth for love his herte is tendre and neshe.
-
-So when the poor "clem" for want of food--"Hard is the choice," says
-Ben Jonson, "when the valiant must eat their arms or clem." Very many
-others which, though not obsolete in polite society, are seldom heard,
-help to give flavour to this inviting old dialect. To embrace is in
-Lancashire to "clip"; to move house is to "flit"; when the rain
-descends heavily, "it teems"; rather is expressed by "lief" or
-"liefer," as in _Troilus and Cresseide_--
-
-    Yet had I levre unwist for sorrow die.
-
-_Pastimes and Recreations._--The pastimes and recreations of the
-Lancashire people fall, as elsewhere, under two distinct heads; those
-which arise upon the poetic sentiment, the love of purity, order, and
-beauty, and those which come of simple desire to be entertained. Where
-poesy has a stronghold, we have never long to wait for the "touches of
-sweet harmony"; hence a characteristic of working Lancashire,
-immemorial as to date, is devotedness to music. In all Europe it would
-be difficult to find a province where the first and finest of the fine
-arts is better understood, or more reverently practised. High-class
-sacred music--German music in particular--fills many a retired cottage
-in leisure hours with solace and joy; and very generally in villages,
-as well as in the large towns, there are clubs and societies
-instituted purely for its promotion. "On the wild hills, where whin
-and heather grow, it is not uncommon to meet working-men with their
-musical instruments on their way to take part in some village oratorio
-many miles distant.... Up in the forest of Rossendale, between Derply
-Moor and the wild hill called Swinshaw, there is a little lone valley,
-a green cup in the mountains, called Dean. The inhabitants of this
-valley are so notable for their love of music that they are known all
-through the neighbouring country as 'Th' Deign layrocks.'"[30] In
-many of the large country manufacturing establishments--the
-printworks, for instance--the operatives have regularly organised
-"bands,"--the employers giving encouragement,--the value of which, in
-regard to moral culture, is shown in the members being usually the
-trusted men.
-
-    [30] _i.e._ the larks, or singing birds, of Dean. Edwin Waugh,
-    _Sketches_, p. 199.
-
-The same primitive inclination towards the poetic would seem to
-underlie the boundless Lancashire love of flowers and gardens. Not
-that the passion is universal. The chief seat, as of the intrinsically
-best of the dialect, is the south-eastern part of the county: the
-portion abutting on Yorkshire is unfavourably cold, and though in the
-north occur fine examples of individual enthusiasm, there is little
-illustration of confederated work. Societies strong and skilful enough
-to hold beautiful exhibitions are dotted all over the congenial parts
-of the cotton district. They attend as diligently to the economic as
-to the decorative; one never knows whether most to admire the onions,
-the beans, and the celery, or the splendid asters, dahlias, and
-phloxes--in many parts there is ancient renown also for gooseberries.
-After the manner of the wise in other matters, the operative
-Lancashire gardeners, if they cannot grow the things they might
-prefer, give their whole hearts to liking those they have at command.
-The rivalry and ambition in regard to gooseberries is unique. While
-the fruit is ripening upon the bushes it is sacrilege for a stranger
-to approach within a distance of many yards. On cold and hurtful
-nights the owner sits up to watch it, like a nurse with an invalid,
-supplying or removing defence according to the conditions, and on the
-show day the excitement compares in its innocent measure with that of
-Epsom. The exhibitors gather round a table: the chairman sits with
-scales and weights before him, calling in turn for the heaviest red,
-the heaviest yellow, and so on, every eye watching the balance; the
-end of all being a bright new kettle for the wife at home.
-
-Many of the operative gardeners are assiduous cultivators of
-"alpines," the vegetable _bijouterie_ of the mountains; others are
-enamoured of ferns, and these last are usually possessed of good
-botanical knowledge. The beginning would seem to date from the time of
-Elizabeth, thus from the time of Shakspere, when other immigrations of
-the Flemish weavers took place. Things of home too dear to leave
-behind them, they brought with them their favourite flowers, the tulip
-and the polyanthus. These early growers would doubtless for a time be
-shyly looked upon as aliens. Nothing is known definitely of the work
-of the ensuing century, but there is certain proof that by 1725
-Lancashire had already become distinguished for its "florists'
-flowers," the cultivation lying almost entirely in the hands of the
-artisans, who have never for an instant slackened, though to-day the
-activity is often expressed in new directions.
-
-It is owing, without doubt, to the example of the operative Lancashire
-gardeners of the last century and a half that floriculture at the
-present moment holds equal place with classical music among the
-enjoyments also of the wealthy; especially those whose early family
-ties were favourable to observation of the early methods. More
-greenhouses, hothouses, and conservatories; more collections of
-valuable orchids and other plants of special beauty and lustre exist
-in South Lancashire, and especially in the immediate neighbourhood of
-Manchester, than in any other district away from the metropolis.
-Orchid culture was practised here, as in Macclesfield and Birmingham,
-long before what orchids are was even a question in many parts. The
-name of one of the noblest species yet discovered, the _Cattleya
-Mossiæ_, commemorates an old Liverpool merchant, Mr. John Moss, one
-of the first to grow these matchless flowers; while in that of the
-_Anguloa Clowesii_ we are reminded of the beautiful collection formed
-at Higher Broughton by the Rev. John Clowes, which, after the decease
-of the possessor, went to Kew. A very remarkable and encouraging fact
-is that orchids, the queenliest and most fragrant of indoor flowers,
-can, like auriculas, with skilful management be brought to the highest
-possible state of perfection in an atmosphere in which many plants can
-barely exist--the smoky and soot-laden one of Manchester. The proof
-was supplied by the late Dr. R. F. Ainsworth of Cliff Point, to whom
-flower-show honours were as familiar as to Benjamin Simonite of
-Sheffield, that astonishing old florist whose auriculas are grown
-where the idea of a garden seems absurd.
-
-These very practical proofs of the life and soundness of the poetic
-sentiment in working Lancashire prepare us for a county feature in its
-way quite as interesting and remarkable--the wide-spread and very
-deep-seated local taste for myth, legend, and superstition, which, in
-truth, is no other than the poetic sentiment uncultured and gone
-astray. Faith in "folklore" is by no means to be confounded with inane
-credulity. The folk-lore of a civilised nation is the _débris_ of the
-grand old spirit-worship--vague, but exquisitely picturesque, and
-figuratively significant, which, in the popular religion of the
-pre-Christian world, filled every sweet and romantic scene with
-invisible beings--Dryads, who loved the woodland; Naïads, that sported
-in the stream and waterfall; Oreads, who sat and sang where now we
-gather their own fragrant _Oreopteris_,[31] and which assigned maidens
-even to the sea--the Nereids, never yet lost. "Nothing," it has been
-well said, "that has at any time had a meaning for mankind ever
-absolutely dies." How much of the primeval faith shall survive with
-any particular race or people--to what extent it shall be
-transformed--depends upon their own culture, spiritual insight, and
-ideas of the omnipresence of the Almighty, of which the fancies as to
-the nymphs, etc., declared a dim recognition: it is affected also very
-materially by the physical character and complexion of their country.
-This has been illustrated in the completest manner as regards the
-eastern borders of Lancashire by the accomplished author of
-_Scarsdale_[32] already named: the influence of the daily spectacle of
-the wild moor, the evening walk homewards through the shadowy and
-silent ravine, the sweet mysteries of the green and ferny clough, with
-its rushing stream, all telling powerfully, he shows us with perennial
-grace, upon the imagination of a simple-hearted race, constitutionally
-predisposed towards the marvellous, and to whom it was nourishment.
-Nobody is really happy without illusions of some kind, and none can be
-more harmless than belief in the mildly supernatural. The local fairy
-tales having now been pretty well collected and classified,[33] it
-remains only to recognise their immense ethnographical value, since
-there is probably not a single legend or superstition afloat in
-Lancashire that, like an ancient coin, does not refer the curious
-student to distant lands and long past ages. Lancashire, we must
-remember, has been successively inhabited, or occupied, more or less,
-by a Celtic people,--by Romans, Danes, and Anglo-Saxons,--all of whom
-have left their footprints. No one can reside a year in Lancashire
-without hearing of its "boggarts"--familiar in another form in the
-Devonshire pixies, and in the "merry wanderer of the night," Titania's
-"sweet Puck." Absurd to the logician, the tales and the terrors
-connected with the boggarts carry with them, like all other fables, a
-profound interior truth--the truth for which, as Carlyle says, "reason
-will always inquire, while half-reason stands indifferent and mocking."
-The nucleus of the boggart idea is, that the power of the human mind,
-exercised with firmness and consistency, triumphs over all obstacles,
-and reduces even spirits to its will; while, contrariwise, the weak
-and undetermined are plagued and domineered over by the very same imps
-whom the resolute can direct and control. So with the superstitions as
-to omens. When in spring the anglers start for a day's enjoyment, they
-look anxiously for "pynots," or magpies, _one_ being unlucky, while
-_two_ portend good fortune. The simple fact, so the ornithologists
-tell us, is that in cold and ungenial weather prejudicial to sport
-with the rod, one of every pair of birds always stays in the nest,
-whereas in fine weather, good for angling, both birds come out.
-Illustrations of this nature might be multiplied a hundred-fold, and
-to unabating advantage. Time is never ill-spent upon interpretation of
-the mythic. The effort, at all events, is a kindly one that seeks--
-
-    To unbind the charms that round slight fables lie,
-    And show that truth is truest poësy.
-
-    [31] _Lastrea Oreopteris_, "sweet mountain-fern," abundant in
-    South-East Lancashire.
-
-    [32] The late Sir James Philips Kay-Shuttleworth, Bart.
-
-    [33] _Lancashire Folk-lore._ By John Harland and T. T.
-    Wilkinson. 1867.
-
-The dialect itself is full of metaphor, images of great beauty not
-infrequently turning up. Some of them seem inherited from the
-primevals. That light and sound are reciprocally representative needs,
-for instance, no saying. From the earliest ages the idea of music has
-always accompanied that of sunrise. Though to-day the heavens declare
-the glory of God silently, in the beginning "the morning stars sang
-together":--old Homer's "rosy-fingered morn" is in Lancashire the
-"skryke" or cry "of day."
-
-Though much that is deplorably brutal occurs among the lowest
-Lancashire classes, the character of the popular pastimes is in
-general free from stain; and the amusements themselves are often
-eminently interesting, since in honest and _bona fide_ rustic sports
-there is always archæology. The tales they tell of the past now
-constitute in truth the chief attraction of the older ones. The social
-influences of the railway system have told no less upon the
-village-green than on the streets of cities; any picture that may now
-be drawn must needs owe its best colours to the retrospective.
-Contemplating what remains of them, it is pleasant, however, to note
-the intense vitality of customs and ceremonials having their root in
-feelings of _reverence_; such, for example, as the annual
-"rush-bearing" still current in many parts, and not unknown even in
-the streets of modern Manchester. That in the olden time, prior to the
-introduction of carpets, the practice was to strew floors and indoor
-pavements with green rushes every one knows. Among the charges brought
-against Cardinal Wolsey was his extravagance in the too frequent and
-ostentatious spreading of clean ones. Employed also in churches and
-cathedrals on the anniversary of the feast of the saint to whom the
-building was dedicated, when renewed it was with special solemnity. In
-an age when processions full of pomp and splendour were greatly
-delighted in, no wonder that the renewal became an excuse for a showy
-pageant; and thus, although to-day we have only the rush-cart, the
-morris-dancers, the drums and trumpets, and the flags--the past, in
-association, lives over again. Small events and great ones are seldom
-far asunder. In the magnificent "rush-bearing" got up for the
-delectation of James I. when at Hoghton Tower, Sunday, 17th August
-1617, lay one of the secret causes of the Stuart downfall. Sports on
-the Sabbath day had been forbidden by his predecessor. James,
-admitting as argument that the cause of the reformed religion had
-suffered by the prohibition, gave his "good people of Lancashire"
-leave to resume them. The Puritans took offence; the wound was
-deepened by Charles; and when the time of trial came it was
-remembered.
-
-"Pace-egging" (a corruption of Pasche or Pasque-egging) is another
-immemorial Lancashire custom, observed, as the term indicates, at
-Easter, the egg taking its place as an emblem of the Resurrection.
-Perverted and degraded, though in the beginning decorous, if not
-pious, the original house-to-house visitation has long had engrafted
-upon it a kind of rude drama supposed to represent the combat of St.
-George and the Dragon--the victory of good over evil, of life over
-death. So with "Simnel-Sunday," a term derived from the Anglo-Saxon
-_symblian_, to banquet, or _symbel_, a feast, a "simnel" being
-literally "banquet-bread."[34] This corresponds with the
-Midlent-Sunday of other counties, and, particularly in Bury, is a time
-of special festivity. The annual village "wakes" observed everywhere
-in Lancashire, and equivalent to the local rush-bearings, partake, it
-is to be feared, of the general destiny of such things. Happily the
-railway system has brought with it an inestimable choice of pleasure
-for the rational. The emphatically staple enjoyment of the working
-Lancashire population to-day consists in the Whitsun-week trip to
-some distant place of wonder or wholesome gratification, the seaside
-always securing the preference. In Lancashire it is not nearly or so
-much Whitsun-Monday or Whitsun-Tuesday as the whole of the four
-following days. In the south-eastern part of the county, Manchester
-particularly, business almost disappears; and very delightful is it
-then to observe how many little parties of the toiling thrifty are
-away to North Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and even to France. The
-factory system always implies _masses_. The people work in masses, and
-suffer in masses, and rejoice in masses. In Whitsun-week, fifty miles,
-a hundred miles away, we find in a score of places five hundred,
-perhaps a thousand. There are salutary home-pleasures ready besides.
-Manchester does wisely in holding its principal flower-show during
-this great annual holiday, drawing, in fair weather, some 50,000
-visitors. The example is a good one, since with the growing
-disposition of the English people to enjoy their holidays, it behoves
-all those who have the management of places of healthy recreation to
-supply the most humanising that may be possible, and thus mitigate the
-influence of the hurtful ones. The staple game of muscular Lancashire
-was formerly that of bowls. A history of Manchester would be
-incomplete without plenty of lively chat about it; and in regard to
-the more modern pastime, the cricket match, it is no vaunt to add that
-while the chief cricketing in England lies in the hands of only nine
-out of its forty counties, the premiership has once at all events, say
-in 1879, been claimed as fairly by Lancashire as by its great rival on
-the banks of the Trent. Nottinghamshire, moreover, had held its
-position without half the difficulties in the way that Lancashire had
-to contend with.
-
-    [34] In the Anglo-Saxon version of the Old Testament there are
-    many examples of derivative words. In Exodus xxiii. 15, 16,
-    feasting-time is _symbel-tid_; xxii. 5, a feast-day is
-    _symbel-dæg_. In Psalm lxxxi. 3, we have _symelnys_, a
-    feast-day.
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-THE INLAND SCENERY SOUTH OF LANCASTER
-
-
-Scenery more diversified than that of Lancashire, taking the Duddon as
-its northern boundary, does not exist in any English county. For the
-present we shall keep to the portion south of the Lune, deferring the
-Lake District to the next chapter, to which may also be left the
-little that has to be said concerning the shore south of that river.
-The eastern parts have attractions quite as decided as those of the
-north, though of a character totally different. Every acknowledged
-element of the picturesque may be discovered there, sometimes in
-abundance. The only portion of the county entirely devoid of landscape
-beauty is that which is traversed by the Liverpool and Southport
-Railway, not unjustly regarded as the dullest in the kingdom. The best
-that can be said of this dreary district is, that at intervals it is
-relieved by the cheerful hues of cultivation.
-
-[Illustration: BLACKSTONE EDGE]
-
-From Liverpool northwards to the banks of the Ribble, excepting at
-some distance from the sea, and eastwards to Manchester, the ground is
-nearly level. Nothing must be expected where it borders upon the
-Mersey above the estuary. To quote the precise terms employed by
-Pennant, "The Mersey is by no means a pleasing water." The country
-bordering upon it, he might have added, appeals very slenderly to the
-imagination; and most assuredly, since the old topographer passed
-along, Nature has made no change for the better as regards the river,
-while man has done his best to efface any pretty features it may once
-have owned. But we have not to go far from the modern Tyre in order to
-find hills and the picturesque. Newborough and the vicinity present a
-remarkable contrast to the plains beneath. Here the country begins to
-grow really beautiful, and thenceforward it constantly improves. Some
-of the slopes are treeless, and smooth as a lawn; others are broken by
-deep and wooded glades, with streamlets bound for the Douglas (an
-affluent of the Ribble), one of the loveliest dells of the kind in
-South Lancashire occurring near Gathurst. On the summits, at Ashurst
-particularly, a sweet and pleasant air never fails to "invite our
-gentle senses." Here too we get our first lesson in what may be truly
-said, once for all, of Lancashire--that wherever the ground is
-sufficiently bold and elevated we are sure not only of fine air and an
-extensive prospect, but a glorious one. At Ashurst, while Liverpool is
-not too far for the clear discerning of its towers and spires, in the
-south are plainly distinguished the innumerable Delamere pines, rising
-in dark masses like islands out of the sea; and far away, beyond the
-Dee, the soft swell of the hills of North Wales, Moel Vamma never
-wanting. This celebrated eminence, almost as well known in South
-Lancashire as in Denbighshire, may be descried even at Eccles, four or
-five miles from the Manchester Exchange.
-
-Eastwards of the great arterial line of railway which, running from
-Manchester to Lancaster through Bolton and Preston, almost exactly
-bisects the county, the scenery is rich in the eloquent features which
-come of wild and interminable surges of broad and massive hill, often
-rocky, with heights of fantastic form, the irregularities giving
-token, in their turn, of deep chasms and clefts, that subdivide into
-pretty lateral glens and moist hollows crowded with ferns. The larger
-glens constitute the "cloughs" so famous in local legend, and the
-names of which recur so frequently in Lancashire literature. As
-Yorkshire is approached, the long succession of uplands increases in
-volume, rising at last in parts to a maximum altitude of nearly 1900
-feet. Were a survey possible from overhead, the scene would be that of
-a tempest-ruffled ocean, the waves suddenly made solid.
-
-[Illustration: THE LAKE AT LITTLEBOROUGH]
-
-Very much of this vast hill-surface consists of desolate, heathery,
-unsheltered moorland. The amount of unreclaimed land still existing in
-Lancashire, and which must needs remain for ever as it is, constitutes
-in truth one of the striking characteristics of the county. Not merely
-in the portion now specially under notice are there cold and savage
-wastes such as laugh the plough to scorn. The "fells" of the more
-northern districts present enormous breadths of similar character,
-incapable of supporting more than the poorest aboriginal vegetation,
-affording only the scantiest pasturage for a few scattered
-mountain-sheep, thus leaving the farmer without a chance. In itself
-the fact of course is in no degree remarkable, since there are plenty
-of hopeless acres elsewhere. The singular circumstance is the
-association of so much barrenness with the stupendous industries of
-the busiest people in the world. It is but in keeping after all with
-the general idea of old England,--
-
-    "This precious gem, set in the silver sea,"--
-
-the pride of which consists in the constant blending of the most
-diverse elements. If we have grim and hungry solitudes, rugged and
-gloomy wildernesses, not very far off, be sure there is counterpoise
-in placid and fruitful vale and mead. Lancashire may not supply the
-cornfield: the soil and climate, though good for potatoes, are
-unfriendly to the cerealia; there is no need either to be too
-exacting; if the sickle has no work, there is plenty for the scythe
-and the spade.
-
-[Illustration: WATERFALL IN CLIVIGER]
-
-A few miles beyond Bolton the hills begin to rise with dignity. Here
-we find far-famed and far-seen Rivington Pike, conspicuous, like
-Ashurst, through ascending almost immediately out of the plain. "Pike"
-is in Lancashire, and in parts of the country closely adjacent, the
-equivalent of "peak," the highest point of a hilly neighbourhood,
-though by no means implying an exactly conical or pyramidal figure,
-and very generally no more than considerable elevation, as in the case
-of the "Peak of Derbyshire." Rivington well deserves its name,
-presenting from many points of view one of those beautiful, evenly
-swelling, and gently rounded eminences which the ancient Greeks were
-accustomed to call [Greek: titthoi] and [Greek: mastoi], as in the
-case of the classic mound at Samos which Callimachus connects so
-elegantly with the name of the lady Parthenia. There are spots,
-however, where the mamelon disappears. From all parts of the summit
-the prospect is delightful. Under our feet, unrolled like a carpet, is
-a verdant flat which stretches unbrokenly to the sea-margin, twenty
-miles distant, declared, nevertheless, by a soft, sweet gleam of
-silver or molten gold, according to the position of the sun in the
-heavens. The estuary of the Ribble, if the tide be in, renews that
-lovely shining; and beyond, in the remote distance, if the atmosphere
-be fairly clear, say fifty or sixty miles away, may be discerned the
-grand mountains that cast their shadows into Coniston. Working
-Lancashire, though it has lakes of its own, has made others! From the
-summit of Rivington we now look down upon half a dozen immense
-reservoirs, so located that to believe them the work of man is
-scarcely possible. Fed by the inflow of several little streams, and no
-pains taken to enforce straight margins, except when necessary, these
-ample waters exemplify in the best manner how art and science are able
-at times to recompense Nature--
-
-    "Leaving that beautiful which always was,
-    And making that which was not."
-
-After heavy and continuous rain, the overflow gives rise to musical
-waterfalls. Up in the glen called Deanwood there is also a natural
-and nearly permanent cascade.[35]
-
-    [35] These vast reservoirs belong to the Liverpool Waterworks,
-    which first used them in January 1857. The surface, when they
-    are full, is 500 acres. Another great sheet of water, a mile in
-    length, for local service, occurs at Entwistle, near Turton.
-
-The eastern slopes of the Rivington range descend into the spacious
-valley which, beginning just outside Manchester, extends nearly to
-Agricola's Ribchester, and in the Roman times was a soldiers'
-thoroughfare. In this valley lie Turton, Darwen, and Blackburn. The
-hills, both right and left, again supply prospects of great extent,
-and are especially attractive through containing many fine recesses,
-sometimes as round as amphitheatres. Features of much the same kind
-pertain to the nearly parallel valley in which Summerseat nestles,
-with the pleasurable additions that come of care to preserve and to
-compensate in case of injury. By this route we may proceed, for
-variety, to Whalley, the Mecca of the local archæologist; thence on to
-Clitheroe, and to the foot of famous Pendle. At Whalley we find "Nab's
-Hill," to ascend which is pastime enough for a summer's evening.
-Inconsiderable in comparison with some of its neighbours, this
-favoured eminence gives testimony once again to the advantages
-conferred by situation and surroundings, when the rival claims
-consist in mere bulk and altitude. Lord Byron might have intended it
-in the immortal lines:
-
-    "Green and of mild declivity, the last,
-    As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
-    Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
-    But a most living landscape."
-
-Westwards, from the summit the eye ranges, as at Rivington, over a
-broad champaign, the fairest in the district, the turrets of princely
-Stonyhurst rising amid a green throng of oaks and beeches. In the
-north it rests upon the flanks of airy Longridge, the immediate scene
-accentuated by the ruined keep of the ancient castle of the De Lacys.
-On the right towers Pendle itself, most massive of English mountains,
-its "broad bare back" literally "upheaved into the sky"; and
-completing the harmonious picture,--since no landscape is perfect
-without water,--below runs the babbling Calder. Whalley Nab has been
-planted very liberally with trees. How easy it is for good taste to
-confer embellishment!
-
-Pendle, the most distinguished and prominent feature in the physical
-geography of Mid-Lancashire, is not, like mountains in general, broken
-by vast defiles, but fashioned after the manner of the Dundry range in
-Somersetshire, presenting itself as a huge and almost uniform green
-mound, several miles in length, and with a nearly level sky-line.
-Dundry, however, is much less steep. The highest point is at the upper
-or north-east extremity, stated by the Ordnance Survey to be 1850 feet
-above the sea. The superficial extent is estimated at 15,000 statute
-acres, or about 25 square miles, including the great gorge upon
-the southern side called Ogden Clough--a broad, deep, and
-mysterious-looking hollow, which contributes not a little to the fine
-effect of this gigantic hill as seen from the Yorkshire side.
-
-The slope which looks upon Yorkshire marks the boundary of the famous
-"forest of Pendle," a territory of nearly 25,000 acres--not to be
-understood as now or at any former period covered with great and aged
-trees, but simply as a tract which, when the property was first
-apportioned, lay _ad foras_, or outside the lands deemed valuable for
-domestic purposes, and which was left undisputed to the wild animals
-of the country. Immense breadths of land of this description existed
-in England in early times, and in no part was the proportion larger
-than in Lancashire, where many of the ancient "forests" still retain
-their primitive appellation, and are peculiarly interesting in the
-marked survival among the inhabitants of the language, manners, and
-customs of their ancestors. Generally speaking, these ancient
-"forests" are distinguished also by dearth of primitive architecture
-and of rude primeval fences, the forest laws having forbidden all
-artificial hindrances to the chase, which in the refuges thus afforded
-to "deer," both large and small, had its most ample and enjoyable
-scope.
-
-From the summit of Pendle, all that is seen from Whalley Nab, now
-diminutive, is renewed on a scale quite proportionate to its own
-nobleness. The glistening waters of the Irish Sea in the far west; in
-the north the mountains of Westmoreland; proximately the smiling
-valleys of the Ribble, the Hodder, and the Calder; and, turning to the
-east, the land as far towards the German Ocean as the power of the eye
-can reach. When the atmosphere is in its highest state of transparency
-even the towers of York Minster become visible. Well might the old
-historian of Whalley commend the prospect from mighty Pendle as one
-upon which "the eye, the memory, and the imagination rest with equal
-delight." To the same author we owe the showing that the common
-Lancashire term Pendle-_hill_ is incorrect, seeing that the sense of
-"hill" is already conveyed, as in Penmanmawr and Penyghent. "Nab's
-Hill" would seem to involve a corresponding repetition, "nab" being a
-form of the Scandinavian _nebbé_ or _nibba_, a promontory--as in
-Nab-scar, near Rydal, and Nab-crag, in Patterdale.
-
-All these grand peaks belong essentially to the range reached another
-time by going from Manchester to Littleborough, ascending from which
-place we find ourselves upon Blackstone Edge, so lofty (1553 feet),
-and, when climbed, so impressive in all its circumstances, that we
-seem to be pacing the walls of an empire. All the topmost part is
-moorland; below, or upon the sides, there is abundance of the
-picturesque; precipitous crags and rocky knolls, receding dells and
-ravines, occurring frequently. Many of the dells in summer bear
-witness to the descent in winter of furious torrents; the broad bed of
-the now tiny streamlets that fall from ledge to ledge being strewed
-with stones and boulders, evidently washed down from the higher
-channel by the vehement water, heedlessly tossed about and then
-abandoned. The desolate complexion of these winter-torrent gullies (in
-Lancashire phrase "water-gaits") in its way is unique, though often
-mitigated by the innumerable green fern-plumes upon the borders. The
-naturalist's enjoyment is further quickened by the occurrence, not
-infrequently, of fragments of calamites and other fossils. The
-ascent to the crest is by no means arduous. Attaining it, provided
-the atmosphere is free from mist, the prospect--now an old story--is
-once again magnificent, and, as at Rivington, made perfect by water.
-Nowhere perhaps in England has so much landscape beauty been provided
-artificially and undesignedly by the construction of great reservoirs
-as in the country of twenty miles radius around Manchester. The waters
-at Lymm and Taxal belong respectively to Cheshire and Derbyshire.
-Independently of those at Rivington, Lancashire excels both of them in
-the romantic lake below Blackstone Edge, well known to every
-pleasure-seeker as "Hollingworth." The measurement round the margin is
-quite two miles; hills almost completely encircle it, and, as seen
-from the edge, near Robin Hood's crags, so utterly is it detached from
-all that pertains to towns and cities as to recall the remotest wilds
-beyond the Tweed. Hollingworth Lake was constructed about ninety years
-ago with a view to steady maintenance of the Rochdale Canal. Among the
-hills upon the opposite or north-western side of the valley, Brown
-Wardle, often named in story, is conspicuous; and adorning the lofty
-general outline may be seen--best, perhaps, from near "Middleton
-Junction"--another mamelon--this one believed in local story to be a
-haunt of the maidens of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_.
-
-[Illustration: IN THE BURNLEY VALLEY]
-
-Looking westward from the Robin Hood pinnacles, the prospect includes
-the valleys of the Roch and the Spodden--the last-named stream in
-parts wild and wilful. At Healey its walls of rock appear to have been
-riven at different times. Here, struggling through a lengthened and
-tortuous cleft, and forming more than one lively cascade before losing
-itself in the dingle below, so plainly does the water seem to have
-forced a passage, asserting mastery over all impediments, that in the
-vernacular this spot is called the "Thrutch." The first phrase heard
-in a Lancashire crowd is, "Where are you thrutching?" The perennial
-attrition of the broken and impending rocks causes many of them to
-terminate in sharp ridges, and in one part has given birth to the
-"Fairies' Chapel." The streams spoken of have their beginning in the
-lofty grounds which intervene between Rochdale and Cliviger, and
-include aspiring Thieveley Pike. Thieveley in the bygones served the
-important use of a station for beacon-fires, signalling on the one
-hand to Pendle, on the other to Buckton Castle. The prospect from the
-top, 1474 feet above the sea, comprehends, to the north, almost the
-whole of Craven, with Ingleborough, and the wilds of Trawden Forest.
-The nearer portions of the Lake District mountains, now familiar, are
-discernible; and on sunny evenings, when the river is full, once more
-the bright-faced estuary of the Ribble. The view reaches also to North
-Wales and Derbyshire, the extremities of this great map being quite
-sixty miles asunder.
-
-Cliviger, after all, is the locality which most astonishes and
-delights the visitor to this part of Lancashire. Soon after quitting
-Rochdale, the railway passes through the great "Summit Tunnel," and so
-into the Todmorden Valley, there very soon passing the frontier formed
-by the Calder,[36] and entering Yorkshire. The valley is noted for its
-scenery, new combinations of the most varied elements, rude but not
-inhospitable, rising right and left in quick succession. Turning up
-the Burnley Valley, we enter Cliviger proper: a district having a
-circuit of nearly twenty miles, and presenting an endless variety of
-the most romantic features possible to mingled rock and pastured
-slope, constantly lifted to mountain-height, the charm of the huge
-gray bluffs of projecting gritstone augmented in many parts by
-abundance of trees, the predominant forms the graceful ones of larch,
-birch, and mountain-ash. The trees are now very nearly a century old,
-having been planted during the fifteen years ending with 1799, yet, to
-appearance, still in the prime of their calm existence. A striking
-characteristic of this admired valley is the frequent apparent
-closing-in of the passage by protruding crags, which nevertheless soon
-give way to verdant curves. Cliviger in every part is more or less
-marked by crags and curves, so that we incessantly come upon vast
-green bowls or hemispherical cavities, the bases of which change at
-times into circular plateaux, at midsummer overlaid with carpets of
-the prettiest botanical offspring of the province,--
-
-    "In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white,
-    Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery."
-
-    [36] This, of course, is not the Calder seen at Whalley, there
-    being three rivers in Lancashire of the name--the West Calder,
-    the East Calder, and a little stream which enters the Wyre near
-    Garstang. The West Calder enters the Ribble half way between
-    Whalley and Stonyhurst; the eastern, after a course of forty
-    miles, joins the Aire in the neighbourhood of Wakefield.
-
-For introduction to these choice bits it is needful, of course, to
-leave the main thoroughfares and take one of the innumerable by-paths
-which lead away to the lonely and impressive silence of the moors,
-which, though desolate and sometimes bleak, have a profoundly
-delightful influence upon the mind. Their interest is heightened by
-the portions which are vividly green with bog-moss, being the
-birthplace of important streams. No slight matter is it to stand at
-any time where rivers are cradled. Here the flow of water is at once
-both east and westwards--a phenomenon witnessed several times in the
-English Apennine, and always bidding the traveller pause awhile. The
-Ribble and the Wharf begin this way; so do the Lune and the Swale:
-playmates in childhood, then parting for ever. Similarly, in Cliviger
-Dean the two Calders issue from the same fragment of watery waste,
-destined immediately for opposite courses. Hard by, in a stream called
-Erewell, at the foot of Derply Hill, on the verge of Rossendale, may
-be seen the birthplace of the Manchester Irwell.
-
-The promise given at Newborough in regard to the scenery of East
-Lancashire is thus perfectly fulfilled. It does not terminate either
-with Cliviger, being renewed, after passing Pendle, all the way to the
-borders of Westmoreland. Ward-stone, eight or nine miles south-east of
-Lancaster, part of the Littledale Fells, has an altitude exceeding
-even that of Pendle.
-
-Asking for the best portions of the Lancashire river scenery,
-they are soon found, pertaining to streams not really its own--the
-Lune, approaching from Westmoreland by way of Kirby Lonsdale,
-to which place it gives name; and the Ribble, descending from
-the high moorlands of Craven, first passing Ingleborough, then
-Settle, and Bolton Abbey. The only two important streams which
-actually rise within the confines of the county are the Wyre
-and the much-enduring Irwell. Lancashire is rich in home-born
-_minor_ streams, a circumstance said to be recognised in the ancient
-British name of the district,--literally, according to Whitaker, the
-"well-watered,"[37]--and many of these, the affluents in particular,
-do, no doubt, lend themselves freely to the production of the
-picturesque, as in the case of the Darwen,[38] which glides almost
-without a sound beneath Hoghton Tower, joining the Ribble at Walton;
-and the Wenning, which, after bathing the feet of a thousand
-water-flags and forget-me-nots, strengthens the well-pleased Lune.
-Tributaries,--the little primitive streamlets which swell the
-affluents,--since they begin almost always among the mountains, are at
-all times, all over the world, wherever they run, in their youth pure
-and companionable. One joyous consideration there is open to us
-always, namely, that if we go to the beginning of things we are fairly
-well assured of purity; whatever may be the later history, the
-fountain is usually a synonym for the undefiled, as very pleasantly
-certified by the Erewell Springs; the beginnings of the unhappy Irwell
-itself are clear and limpid. Still, as regards claims to high
-distinction, the river scenery of Lancashire is that, as we have said,
-which pertains to its welcome guests, the Ribble and the Lune. When
-proud and wealthy Ribchester was in existence fifteen centuries ago,
-there is reason to believe that the Ribble, for many miles above
-Preston, was considerably broader and deeper than at present, or at
-all events that the tide came very much farther up than it does
-to-day. It did so as late as the time of Leland. The change, as
-regards the bed of the river, would thus be exactly the reverse of the
-helpful one to which modern Liverpool owes its harbour. England
-nowhere contains scenery of its kind more suave than that of the
-Ribble, from Ribchester upwards. In parts the current is impetuous.
-Whether rapid or calm, it is the life of a peaceful dale, from which
-the hills retire in the gentlest way imaginable, presenting as they
-go, green, smooth faces fit for pasture; then, through the unexpected
-changefulness which is always so much more congenial to the fancy than
-repetition, even of the most excellent things, wooded banks and shaded
-recesses, followed by more green lawns and woods again, the last
-seeming to lean against the sky. When the outline drops sufficiently,
-in the distance, according to the point of observation, rises proud
-old Pendle, or Penyghent, or Wharnside. Near Mitton, where Yorkshire
-darts so curiously into Lancashire, the channel is somewhat shallow.
-Here, after a busy and romantic course of its own, the Hodder
-surrenders its waters, thus in good time to take part in the wonderful
-whirl, or "wheel," at Salesbury, a little lower down, an eddy of
-nearly twenty yards in depth, and locally known as "Sale-wheel." If a
-haven ever existed at the mouth of the Ribble, it has now disappeared.
-The sands at the bar continually shift with high tides, so that
-navigation is hazardous, and vessels of light draught can alone
-attempt the passage.
-
-    [37] It may not be amiss here to mention the names, in exact
-    order, of the Lancashire rivers, giving first those which enter
-    the sea, the affluents and their tributaries coming afterwards:
-    (1) The Mersey, formed of the union of the non-Lancashire Tame,
-    Etherowe, and Goyt. Affluents and tributaries--the Irwell, the
-    Roche, the Spodden, the Medlock, the Irk. (2) The Alt. (3) The
-    Ribble. Affluents and tributaries--the Douglas, the Golforden,
-    the Darwen, the West Calder, the Lostock, the Yarrow, the Brun.
-    (4) The Wyre, which receives the third of the Calders, the
-    Brock, and several others. (5) The Lune, or Loyne. Affluents and
-    tributaries--the Wenning, the Conder, the Greta, the Leck, the
-    Hindburn. Then, north of Lancaster, the Keer, the Bela, the
-    Kent, the Winster, the Leven (from Windermere), the Crake (from
-    Coniston Water), and the Duddon.
-
-    [38] The river immortalised by Milton, alluding to the conflict
-    of 17th August 1648:
-
-           "And Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued."
-
-[Illustration: THE RIBBLE AT CLITHEROE]
-
-The very interesting portion of the scenery on the banks of the Lune,
-so far as concerns Lancashire, lies just above Lancaster itself.
-Nearly all the elements of perfect landscape intermingle in this part
-of the valley. If either side of the stream possesses an advantage,
-perhaps it will belong to the road along the southern border, or that
-which proceeds by way of Melon and Caton to Hornby, distant from
-Lancaster about nine miles. The river winds so waywardly that in many
-parts it seems a string of lakelets. Masses of woodland creep down to
-the edge, and whichever way the eye is turned, green hills form
-pictures that leave nothing to be desired.
-
-_The Roman Road._--The portion of Roman Road referred to at the outset
-as crossing Blackstone Edge presents, like all similar remains in our
-island, one of the most conclusive as well as interesting memorials we
-possess of the thorough conquest of the country by the Cæsars. Labour
-and skill, such as were so plainly devoted to the construction of
-these wonderful roads, would be expended only by conquerors determined
-on full and permanent possession, such as the Romans maintained for
-three hundred and seventy years:--the Blackstone Edge road has in
-addition the special interest which attaches to features not found
-anywhere else, at all events nowhere else in England. The roads in
-question were designed not more to facilitate the movements of the
-troops than for the easier transport of merchandise and provisions, a
-purpose which this one on Blackstone Edge seems to indicate perfectly.
-In the district we to-day call "Lancashire" there were several roads
-of the principal class, these serving to connect Warrington,
-Manchester, Ribchester, and Lancaster, from which last place there was
-continuation to Carlisle, and furnishing ready access to modern
-"Yorkshire," thus to Ilkley--the Olicana of Ptolemy--and York, the
-famous city which saw the death of Severus and the birth of
-Constantine. Manchester and Ribchester were the two most important
-strongholds in Western Brigantia, standing on the direct great western
-line from the south to the north. There were also many branch or
-vicinal roads leading to minor stations; those, for instance,
-represented to-day by Wigan, Colne, Burnley, Kirkham, Urswick,
-Walton-le-Dale, and Overborough. The lines of most of these roads have
-been accurately determined, the chief of them having been usually
-straight as an arrow, carried forward with undeviating precision,
-regardless of all obstacles. They were formed generally in Lancashire
-of huge boulder stones, probably got from neighbouring watercourses,
-or of fragments of rock embedded in gravel, and varied in width from
-four yards to perhaps fourteen. The stones have in most places
-disappeared--made use of, no doubt, by after-comers for building
-purposes; as exemplified on Blackstone Edge itself, where the
-materials of which the wall near the road has been constructed point
-only too plainly to their source. Complete remains continuous for any
-considerable distance are found only upon elevated and unfrequented
-moorlands; where also the substance of the road appears to have been
-more rigid. The Blackstone Edge road, one of this kind, ascends the
-hill at a point about two miles beyond Littleborough--an ancient Roman
-station, here consisting of a strip of pavement exactly sixteen feet
-wide. It is composed of square blocks of millstone-grit, obtained upon
-the spot, laid with consummate care, and presenting, wherever the
-dense growth of whortleberry and other coarse herbage has been cleared
-away, a surface so fresh and even, that for seventeen centuries to
-have elapsed since its construction seems incredible. The unique
-feature of the road consists in the middle being formed of blocks
-considerably larger than those used at the sides, harder, and
-altogether of better quality, laid end to end, and having a continuous
-longitudinal groove, obviously the work of the chisel. This groove, or
-"trough," evidently extended down the entire roadway where steep,
-beginning at the top of the hill. Nothing like it, as said above, is
-found anywhere else in England, for the simple reason, it would
-appear, that no other British Roman road descends by so steep an
-incline. For it can hardly be doubted that Dr. March is correct in his
-conjecture, that it was intended to steady the passage of wagons or
-other vehicles when heavily laden; brakes adjusted to the wheels
-retarding their progress as indicated by marks still distinguishable.
-In some parts there are indications also of lateral trenches cut for
-the downflow of water, the road itself being kept dry by a slight
-convexity of surface. Over the crest of the hill the descent is easy,
-and here the paving seems to have been discontinued. The Robin Hood
-rocks close by present remarkably fine examples of typical
-millstone-grit. Rising to the height of fifty feet and fantastically
-"weathered," on the summits there are basin-like cavities, popularly
-attributed, like so many other things they had no hand in, to the
-Druids; but palpably referable to a far less mythical agency--the
-quiet action, during thousands of years, of the rain and the
-atmosphere.
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-THE SEASHORE AND THE LAKE DISTRICT
-
-
-The coast of Lancashire has already been described as presenting, from
-the Mersey upwards as far as the estuary of the Kent, an almost
-unbroken surface of level sand. In several parts, as near Birkdale,
-the western sea-breeze, pursuing its work for ages, has heaped up the
-sand atom by atom into hills that have a romantic and attractive
-beauty all their own. But of overhanging rocks and crags there are no
-examples, except when at Heysham, in Morecambe Bay, the millstone grit
-cropping out so as to form a little promontory, gives pleasing change.
-Almost immediately after entering this celebrated bay--although the
-vast expanse of sand remains unaltered--the mountains begin to draw
-nearer, and for the rest of the distance, up to the estuary of the
-Duddon, where Cumberland begins, the scenery close inshore is
-picturesque. The peculiar feature of the coast consists, perhaps, in
-its estuaries. No seaside county in England has its margin interrupted
-by so many as there are in Lancashire, every one of the rivers which
-leave it for the Irish Sea, excepting the insignificant Alt (six or
-eight miles north of Liverpool), widening immensely as the sands are
-approached. Embouchures more remarkable than those of the Ribble, the
-Wyre, the Lune, and the various minor streams which enter Morecambe
-Bay, are certainly not to be found, and there are none that through
-association awaken interest more curious.
-
-When, accordingly, the visitor to any one of the Lancashire
-watering-places south of the Ribble desires scenery, he must be
-content with the spectacle of the sea itself, and the glimpses
-obtained in fair weather of the mountains of maritime North Wales. At
-Blackpool it is possible also, on clear evenings, to descry the lofty
-peaks of the Isle of Man, and occasionally even Cumberland Black
-Combe. At Fleetwood these quite compensate the dearth of inland
-beauty, and with every step northwards more glorious becomes the
-outlook. Not to mention the noble sea in front--an ocean when the tide
-is in--all the higher grounds of Cartmel and Furness are plainly in
-view. Upon these follow the fells of Coniston, and a little more to
-the east the dim blue cones which mark the near neighbourhood of the
-head of Windermere. Everything is renewed at Morecambe, and upon a
-scale still more commanding: the last reflection, as one turns
-homeward from that favoured spot, is that the supreme seaside scenery
-of old England pertains, after all, to the many-sided county of the
-cotton-mills.
-
-The watering-places themselves are healthful, well-conducted, and
-ambitious. None of them had substantial existence seventy or eighty
-years ago. Southport, the most important and the most advanced in all
-that is honourable, is a daughter of the primitive neighbouring
-village of Churchtown,--_filia pulchrior_ very emphatically.
-Blackpool, in 1817, was only a rabbit-warren, the sunward slopes, like
-those of original Birkdale and Churchtown, a playground for quick-eyed
-lizards, their descendants, both gray and green, not yet extinct.
-Fleetwood has grown up within easy recollection; Morecambe is a
-creation almost of yesterday. Unexcelled, in summer, for the visitor
-in search of health, in its cool, firm, ample sands, Fleetwood aspires
-to become important also commercially. Morecambe, though destitute of
-a deep channel, and unable to offer the security of a natural harbour,
-is making vigorous efforts in the same direction. Sir J. E. Smith, in
-his account of the evening-primrose in _English Botany_, A.D. 1805,
-described the Lancashire coast as a sort of _ultima Thule_:--to-day,
-at Southport, there is the finest Winter Garden out of London; and at
-a couple of miles distance, reached by tram-car, a Botanical Garden,
-including fernery and conservatories, that puts to shame many an
-ancient and wealthy city. A drawback to these South Lancashire
-watering-places, as mentioned before, is that the water, at low tide,
-recedes so far, and ordinarily is so reluctant to return. But is the
-tide everything? When out, there is the serene pleasure of silent
-stroll upon the vast expanse, the inspiring solitude beyond which
-there is only Sea. On these smooth and limitless sands there is plenty
-alike for repair of body, the imagination, and the solace of the
-naturalist. Shells may be gathered in plenty, and in different parts,
-of very various kinds: solens, long and straight; mactras, dentalias,
-that resemble miniature elephant's tusks; the fragile pholas;
-tellinas, that seem scattered rose-petals; and towards Fleetwood
-pearly trochuses, dappled with lilac. A more delicious seaside walk
-for those who love the sound of the rolling surge, the sense of
-infinite tranquillity, total seclusion from every circumstance of town
-and city life, and the sight of old ocean's playthings, may be sought
-the world over, and not found more readily than by pursuing the five
-or six miles between Fleetwood and Blackpool, one's face turned all
-the while to the poetic west. Wanting rocks, upon these quiet sands
-there are no native seaweeds, though fragments lie about, torn from
-beaches far away, and stranded.
-
-Very distinct interest attaches to the physical history of this part
-of the coast, the elevation of which was at some not very remotely
-distant period, almost without doubt, much higher. Mr. Joseph
-Dickinson, the well-known geologist, and Government Inspector of
-Mines, believes that in certain portions it has subsided through the
-solution of rock-salt in the strata below--the circumstance to which
-the formation of most, if not all, of the natural Cheshire meres is
-attributed. The existence of the rock-salt has been clearly proved by
-the sinking of a shaft and subsequent borings, near Preesal, a village
-about a mile and a half south-east of Fleetwood. The thickness of the
-deposit is similar to that met with in the salt districts of Cheshire,
-at Port Clarence, near the mouth of the Tees, and at Stoke Prior,
-Worcestershire. The subsidence of the shore at Blackpool is, on the
-northern side, very palpable. Here the path to Rossall is pursued for
-some distance along the brow of an earthy, crumbling cliff, not very
-far from which, exposed at the lowest of low tides, there is a little
-insulated mound, upon which, according to well-sustained tradition,
-there once stood a cottage long since overwhelmed by envious Neptune.
-
-The great rampart of sand-hills which stretches for so many leagues,
-and which has been calculated to have an area of twenty-two square
-miles, is thought by another distinguished geologist--Mr. T. Melland
-Reade--to have taken certainly not less than 2500 years to form,
-probably a much longer time. Some of the mounds, however, are
-manifestly quite recent, interstratifications of cinders and matter
-thrown up from wrecks, being found near the base. A strong westerly
-wind brings up the sand vehemently, and very curious then becomes the
-spectacle of its travel, which resembles the flow of thin waves of
-translucent smoke. The wind alternately heaps up the sand and
-disperses it, except where a firm hold has been obtained by the
-maram,[39] or star-grass, the roots of which bind and hold all
-together. Decoration of the smooth surface of the sloping sand-hills
-is supplied by the wind-whirling of the slender stalks half way round,
-and sometimes quite so, when there is room for free play: circles and
-semicircles are then grooved, smaller ones often inside, as perfect as
-if drawn with compasses. Another curious result of the steady blowing
-of the sea-breeze is that on the shore there are innumerable little
-cones of sand, originating in shells, or fragments of shells, which
-arrest the drifting particles, and are, in truth, rudiments of
-sand-hills, such as form the barrier a little further in.
-
-    [39] Maram, the popular name of the _Ammophila arenaria_, is
-    probably the Danish _marhalm_, sea-haulm or straw, a term
-    applied in Norway to the Zostera.
-
-Further north the shore has little to offer in the way of curiosities,
-nor is there any agreeable bathing-ground; not even at Grange. Never
-mind. The further we advance towards the county frontier, the more
-wonderful become the sands, these spreading, at low water, like a
-Sahara, with the difference, that the breath of ocean, nowhere in the
-world sweeter, blows across them for ever and ever. On a moonlight
-night, when the tide is at the full, Morecambe Bay, surveyed from
-Kent's Bank, presents an aspect of inexpressible fascination, the
-rippled lustre being such as a shallow sea, gently moving, alone can
-yield.
-
-    "Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus."
-
-Moving onwards, or towards Cumberland, we find that Lancashire is not
-without its island. This is Walney, off the estuary of the Duddon,
-closely abutting on the mainland of Furness--a very singular bank or
-strip of mingled sand, pebbles, and shingle, nearly ten miles in
-length, and half a mile broad where widest. Barren as it may seem from
-the description, the soil is in parts so fertile that capital crops of
-grain are reaped. There are people on it, likewise, though the
-inhabitants are chiefly sea-gulls. Walney Island is the only known
-locality for that beautiful wild-flower the _Geranium Lancastriense_,
-a variety of the _sanguineum_, the petals, instead of blood-colour, as
-at Fleetwood, on St. Vincent's Rocks, and elsewhere, cream-white
-netted with rose. The seaward or western side of Walney is defended by
-a prodigious heap of pebbles, the mass of which is constantly
-augmenting, though left dry at low water. At the lower extremity of
-the island there is a light-house, sixty-eight feet high, and adjacent
-to it there are one or two islets.
-
-The portion of Lancashire to which Walney belongs, or that which, as
-it is locally said, lies "north of the sands" (the sands specially
-intended being those of Morecambe Bay), agrees, in natural
-composition, with Westmoreland and Cumberland. It is distinguished by
-mountain-summits, greatly exceeding in elevation those found upon the
-confines of Yorkshire, and the lower slopes of which are, as a rule,
-no longer naked, but dressed with shrubs and various trees. Concealed
-among these noble mountains are many deep and romantic glens, while at
-their feet are lakes of matchless purity. No feature is more striking
-than the exchange of the broad and bulky masses of such hills as
-Pendle for the rugged and jutting outlines characteristic of the older
-rocks, and particularly, as here, of the unstratified. Before
-commencing the exploration, it is well to contemplate the general
-structure of the country from some near vantage-ground, such as the
-newly-opened public park at Lancaster; or better still, that
-unspeakably grand terrace upon the Westmoreland side of the Kent,
-called Stack-head, where the "Fairy steps" give access to the plain
-and valley below, and which is reached so pleasantly by way of
-Milnthorpe, proceeding thence through Dallam Park, the village of
-Beetham, and the pine-wood--in itself worth all the journey. The view
-from the Stack-head terrace (profoundly interesting also,
-geologically) comprises all that is majestic and beautiful as regards
-the elements of the picturesque, and to the Lancashire man is
-peculiarly delightful, since, although he stands actually in
-Westmoreland, all the best part of it, Arnside Knot alone excepted, is
-within the borders of his own county.[40] Whether the most pleasing
-first impressions of the scenery of the Lake District are obtained in
-the way indicated; or by taking the alternative, very different route,
-by way of Fleetwood and Piel, is nevertheless an open question. The
-advantage of the Lancaster route consists in the early introduction it
-gives to the mountains themselves--to go _viâ_ Fleetwood and Piel
-involves one of those inspiring little initiative voyages which
-harmonise so well with hopes and visions of new enjoyment, alluring
-the imagination no less agreeably than they gratify the senses.
-
-    [40] "Knot," in the Lake District, probably denotes a rocky
-    protuberance upon a hill. But it is often used, as in the
-    present instance, for the hill in its entirety. Hard Knot, in
-    Eskdale, and Farleton Knot, near Kendal, are parallel examples.
-
-The Lancaster route implies, in the first instance, quiet and
-unpretending Silverdale; then, after crossing the estuary of the Kent,
-leafy Grange--unrivalled upon the north-west coast, not only for
-salubrity, but for the exhaustless charms of the neighbouring country.
-Whatever the final intentions in visiting this part of England, a few
-days' delay at Grange will never be regretted: it is one of those
-happy places which are distinguished by wild nature cordially shaking
-hands with civilisation. Sallying forth from the village in an
-easterly direction, or up the winding and shady road which leads
-primarily to Lindal, we may, if we please, proceed almost direct to
-Windermere, distant about ten miles. Turn, before this, up the green
-slope just beyond Ellerhow, the village on the left, perched
-conspicuously on the highest hill in front, thus reaching Hampsfell.
-Many beautiful views will have been enjoyed upon the way, land and sea
-contributing equally; all, at the top of Hampsfell, are renewed
-threefold, innumerable trees remembering that no witchery is perfect
-in the absence of graceful apparel; while in the valley below, gray
-and secluded Cartmel talks of a remote historic past. Fully to realise
-the absorbing beauty of the scene, there must be no hesitation in
-ascending to the Hospice, where the "herald voice" of "good tidings"
-heard at Lindal is proved not to have uttered a single syllable in
-excess. Hampsfell may be reached also by a path through the Eggerslack
-woods, noted for the abundance of their hazel-nuts, and entered almost
-immediately after emerging from Grange; and again by a third, somewhat
-circuitous, near the towering limestone crags called Yewbarrow.
-
-Kent's Bank, a couple of miles beyond Grange, supplies hill scenery
-little inferior. The heights above Allithwaite cover almost the whole
-of the fine outlook characteristic of the northern shore of Morecambe
-Bay. Kirkhead and Humphrey Head also give unlimited prospects,
-especially when the tide is in. The man who loves solitude will find
-them lonely enough for hermitages:--blackberries beyond measure grow
-on the slopes. Humphrey Head presents features rarely met with,
-consisting of a limestone promontory, the sides, in part, nearly
-vertical, thus closely resembling the rock at the south-western
-extremity of Clevedon, with which many associate Tennyson and the
-mournful verses which have for their burden, "Break, break, break, on
-thy cold gray stones, O Sea!" Grange, Kent's Bank, Kirkhead, and
-Humphrey Head, constantly awaken recollections of the beautiful
-village on the eastern edge of the Bristol Channel. The scenery
-corresponds, and in productions there is again a very interesting
-similarity, though Clevedon has a decided advantage in regard to
-diversity of species. Hampsfell and Allithwaite recur at intervals all
-the way to the borders of the Leven; thence, constantly varying,
-westward to the banks of the Duddon, and southward to the Furness
-Valley: not, indeed, until we reach Piel--the little cape where the
-boats arrive from Fleetwood--is there surrender.
-
-Piel, as said above, is preferable as a route to the Lake District,
-because of the preliminary half hour upon the water, which is
-generally smooth and exhilarating. It offers the most interesting way
-of approach, also, to Duddon Bridge, where the coast of Lancashire
-ends--a place itself of many attractions. The river, it is scarcely
-necessary to say, is the Duddon immortalised by Wordsworth, one of
-whose sonnets describes the "liquid lapse serene" of this too-seldom
-visited stream as it moves through Dunnerdale, after entering, near
-Newfield, through a rent in the rocky screen which adds so much to the
-romantic features of its early existence. The bridge gives ready
-approach to Black Combe, most gloomy and austere of the Cumberland
-mountains, but affording full compensation in the magnificence of the
-prospects, the height being little short of 2000 feet. Close by, in
-Lancashire, we find the ancient village of Broughton, the lords of
-which, four or five centuries ago, gave their name to a well-known
-suburb of Manchester--so curious is the history of estates.
-
-The railway, after touching at Broughton, leads right away to
-Coniston, then to the foot of the "Old Man," the summit, 2649 feet
-above the level of the sea, so remarkable in its lines and curves
-that, once exactly distinguished from the crowd of lower heights,
-like the head of Ingleborough, it is impossible to be mistaken.
-Towards the village it throws out a ridge, upon which the houses are
-chiefly placed. A deep valley intervenes, and then the mountain rises
-abruptly, the walls in some places nearly perpendicular, but in others
-disappearing, so that, if well selected, the path upwards is by no
-means toilsome, or even difficult, though impeded here and there by
-rocks and stones. The climbing is well repaid. From the brows of the
-old giant are seen mountains innumerable, lakes, rivers, woods, deep
-valleys, velvety meads, with, in addition, the accessories of every
-perfect landscape,--those which come of its being impregnated with the
-outcome of human intelligence and human feeling, the love of gardens,
-and of refined and comfortable homes. Looking south, south-west, and
-south-east, there are changing views of Morecambe Bay, flooded with
-brightness; the estuaries of the Kent, the Leven, and the Duddon; the
-capes and promontories that break the sea margin; Walney Island, the
-shining Irish Sea, with the Isle of Man beyond, and the whole of the
-long line of coast which runs on to the portals of the Wyre and more
-distant Ribble.
-
-Over the mouth of the Leven, Lancaster Castle is distinguishable.
-Far away, in the same line, the lofty ranges of the Craven district
-come in view; and when the atmosphere is very clear a dim blue
-mountain wave on the side where sunset will be indicates Snowdon. In
-other directions the views are somewhat circumscribed, Coniston being
-situated upon the frontiers rather than within the actual area of the
-hill country it so greatly enriches. The figure in general, of all
-that is seen, so far as the nature of the barriers will allow, is
-nevertheless majestic, and in itself worth all the labour of the
-ascent. The Old Man, it must be admitted, is prone to hide his ancient
-brows in mist and vapour; the time for climbing must therefore be
-chosen carefully and deliberately.
-
-[Illustration: CONISTON]
-
-The lake, called Coniston Water, extends to a length of about six
-miles. It is in no part quite a mile in breadth, but although so
-narrow never gives the slightest idea of restriction; thus agreeing
-with Windermere, to which, however, Coniston bears not the least
-resemblance in detail, differing rather in every particular, and
-decidedly surpassing it in respect of the wildness and purple
-sublimity of the surroundings. The immediate borders, by reason of the
-frequently recurring showers of rain, are refreshingly green all the
-year round; they allure, also, at every season, by the daintiness and
-the generosity with which the greater portion has been planted. Beyond
-the line to which the handiwork of man has been continued, or where
-the ground becomes steep and rocky, there are brown and heathy slopes,
-fissures and winding ravines, redolent of light and shade, the sunward
-parts often laced with little white streamlet waterfalls, that in the
-distance seem not cascades, but veins of unmelted winter snow. The
-slopes, in turn, like the arches in a Gothic cathedral, lead the eye
-upwards to outlines that please so much the more because imperfectly
-translatable; since when the clouds hover round the summits of these
-soaring peaks, they change to mystery and fable, wooing the mind with
-the incomparable charm that always waits upon the margin of the
-undiscovered.
-
-From what particular point the best views, either of the lake or of
-the adjacent mountains, are readily obtainable, must of necessity be
-very much a matter of taste. Perhaps it is discreetest to take, in the
-first instance, the view _up_ the lake, or from Nibthwaite, where the
-waters contract, and become the little river Crake--the stream which,
-in conjunction with the Leven from Windermere, forms the estuary named
-after the latter.
-
-Contemplated from Nibthwaite, the mountains in which the lake is
-bosomed are certainly less impressive than when viewed from some
-distance farther up; but the mind is touched with a more agreeable
-idea of symmetry, and the water itself seems to acquire amplitude.
-None of the mountains are out of sight; the merit of this particular
-view consists jointly in their presence, and in the dignified
-composure with which they seem to stand somewhat aloof. The view
-_down_ the lake,--that which is obtained by approaching Coniston _viâ_
-Hawkshead and Waterhead, is indescribably grand, the imposing forms of
-the adjacent mountains, those in particular of the Furness Fells (the
-altitude of which is nearly or quite 2600 feet), being here realised
-perfectly, the more distant summits fading delicately, the nearer ones
-dark and solemn. To our own fancy, the most impressive idea alike of
-the water and its framework is obtained, after all, not from either
-extremity, but from the surface, resting upon one's oars, as nearly as
-possible in the middle. Coniston Water contains a couple of islets,
-the upper one named, after its abundant Highland pines, "Fir Island."
-Many streamlets contribute to its maintenance, the principal being
-Coniston Beck and Black Beck. No celebrated waterfall occurs very
-near. All the famous lake waterfalls bearing names belong either to
-Cumberland or Westmoreland.
-
-Windermere, or more correctly, as in the well-known line:
-
-    "Wooded Winandermere, the river-lake,"
-
-is nearly twice the length of Coniston Water, but of little more than
-the same average width. Superficially it belongs to Westmoreland; the
-greater portion of the margin is, nevertheless, in Lancashire, without
-leaving which county the beauty of the English Zurich may be gathered
-perfectly.
-
-The finest view of the lake, as a whole, is obtained near Ambleside,
-on the road through the valley of Troutbeck, where it is visible for
-nearly the whole extent, the islands seeming clustered in the middle.
-Yet nothing can be lovelier, as regards detail, than the views
-obtained by ascending from Newby Bridge, the point at which the Leven
-issues. The scenery commences long before the lake is actually
-reached, the river having a fall, in the short space of four miles, of
-no less than 105 feet, consequently flowing with great rapidity, and
-supplying a suitable introduction to the charms above its source.
-Newby Bridge deserves every word of the praise so often bestowed upon
-it. Lofty and wood-mantled hills enclose the valley on every side,
-and whichever way we turn the impression is one of Eden-like
-retirement. The pine-crowned summit of Finsthwaite, reached by a
-woodland path having its base near the river-side, commands a prospect
-of admirable variety, the lake extending in one direction, while on
-the other the eye ranges over Morecambe Bay. The water of Windermere
-is clear as crystal--so limpid that the bottom in the shallower parts
-shows quite plainly, the little fishes darting hither and thither over
-the pebbles. Taken in its entirety, Windermere is the deepest of the
-English lakes, excepting only Wastwater, the level of the surface
-being, in parts, upwards of 240 feet above the bed. The maximum depth
-of Wastwater is 270 feet. Whether, on quitting Newby Bridge, the
-onward course be made by boat, or, more wisely, on foot or by
-carriage, along the road upon the eastern margin of the lake, the
-prevailing character of the scenery, for a considerable distance, will
-be found to consist in consummate softness and a delicacy of finish
-that it may be permitted to call artistic.
-
-[Illustration: NEAR THE COPPER MINES, CONISTON]
-
-Not until we reach the neighbourhood of Storrs Hall (half way to
-Ambleside), where Lancashire ends and Westmoreland begins, is there
-much for the artist. The scenery so far has been captivating, but
-never grand. Here, however, and of rarest hues, especially towards
-sunset, come in view the majestic Langdale Pikes, with mountains of
-every form, and Windermere proves itself the veritable "Gate
-Beautiful." Everywhere, upon the borders, oak and ash fling out their
-green boughs, seeking amiably others that spring from neighbours as
-earnest. Woodbine loves to mingle its fragrant coronals of pink,
-white, and amber with the foliage amid which the spirals "gently
-entwist;" and at all seasons there is the rich lustre of the peerless
-"ivy green." The largest of the Windermere islands (in the Lake
-District, as in the Bristol Channel, called "holms") has an area of
-thirty acres.
-
-Esthwaite, the third and last of the trio of lakes claimed by
-Lancashire, is a quiet, unassuming water, so cheerful, withal, and so
-different in character from both Coniston and Windermere, that a day
-is well devoted to it. The length is not quite three miles; the width,
-at the broadest part, is about three furlongs; the best approach is by
-the ferry across Windermere, then ascending the mountain-path among
-trees, the lake presently appearing upon the left, silvery and
-unexpected, so suddenly does it come in view. Esthwaite, like the
-Duddon, has been immortalised by Wordsworth, who received his
-education at Hawkshead, the little town at the northern extremity. The
-outlet is by a stream called the Cunsey, which carries the overflow
-into Windermere.
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-THE ANCIENT CASTLES AND MONASTIC BUILDINGS
-
-
-At the period so memorable in history when Wiclif was giving his
-countrymen the first complete English Bible--this under the kindly
-wing of John o' Gaunt, who shielded the daring reformer in many a
-perilous hour--Lancashire possessed six or seven baronial castles; and
-no fewer than ten, or rather more, of the religious houses
-distinguished by the general name of abbeys and priories. Every one of
-the castles, except John o' Gaunt's own, has disappeared; or if relics
-exist, they are the merest fragments. Liverpool Castle, which held out
-for twenty-four days against Prince Rupert, was demolished more than
-200 years ago. Rochdale, Bury, Standish, Penwortham, are not sure even
-of the exact spots their citadels occupied. A fate in some respects
-heavier has overtaken the monastic buildings, these having gone in
-every instance; though the ruins of one or two are so beautiful
-architecturally, that in their silent pathos there is compensation for
-the ruthless overthrow: one is reconciled to the havoc by the
-exquisite ornaments they confer, as our English ruins do universally,
-on parts of the country already picturesque.
-
-      "I do love these ancient ruins!
-    We never tread among them, but we set
-    Our foot upon some reverend history."
-
-Lancaster Castle, the only survivor of the fortresses, stands upon the
-site of an extremely ancient stronghold; though very little, somewhat
-singularly, is known about it, or indeed of the early history of the
-town. The latter would seem to have been the Bremetonacis of the
-Romans, traces of the fosse constructed by whom around the castle hill
-are still observable upon the northern side. On the establishment of
-the Saxon dynasty the Roman name was superseded by the current one;
-the Saxon practice being to apply the term _caster_, in different
-shapes, to important former seats of the departed Roman power, in the
-front rank of which was unquestionably the aged city touched by the
-waters of the winding Lune. Omitting fractions, the name of Lancaster
-is thus just a thousand years old. The Saxons seem to have allowed the
-castle to fall into decay. The powerful Norman baron, Roger de
-Poictou (leader of the centre at the battle of Hastings)--who received
-from the Conqueror, as his reward, immense portions of Lancashire
-territory from the Mersey northwards--gave it new life. He, it is
-believed, was the builder of the massive Lungess Tower, though some
-assign this part of the work to the time of William Rufus. In any
-case, the ancient glory of the place was restored not later than A.D.
-1100.
-
-After the disgrace of Roger de Poictou, who had stirred up sundry
-small insurrections, the possession was transferred to Stephen, Earl
-of Boulogne, inheritor of the crown, and from that time forwards, for
-at least two centuries, the history of Lancaster Castle becomes
-identified with that of the sovereigns of our island to a degree
-seldom equalled in the annals of any other away from London. King
-John, in 1206, held his court here for a time, receiving within the
-stately walls an embassy from France. Subsequent monarchs followed in
-his wake. During the reign, in particular, of Henry IV., festivities,
-in which a brilliant chivalry had no slight share, filled the
-courtyard with indescribable animation. The gateway tower was not
-built till a later period, or the castle would probably not have
-suffered so severely as it did when the Scots, after defeating Edward
-II. at Bannockburn, pushed into Lancashire, slaying and marauding. The
-erection of this splendid tower, perhaps the finest of its kind in the
-country, is generally ascribed to John o' Gaunt (fourth son of Edward
-III.), who, as above mentioned, was created second Duke of Lancaster
-(13th June 1362) by virtue of his marriage to Blanche, daughter of the
-first duke, previously Earl of Derby, and thus acquired a direct
-personal interest in the place. But certain portions of the
-interior--the inner flat-pointed archway, for instance, the passage
-with the vaulted roof, and a portion of the north-west corner--are
-apparently thirteenth-century work; and although it is quite possible
-that the two superb semi-angular towers and the front wall as high as
-the niche containing the statue may have been built by this famous
-personage, the probabilities point rather toward Henry, Prince of
-Wales, eventually Henry V. Ten years after the death of John o' Gaunt,
-or in 1409, this prince was himself created Duke of Lancaster, and may
-reasonably be supposed to have commemorated the event in a manner at
-once substantial and agreeable to the citizens. The presumption is
-strongly supported by the heraldic shield, which could not possibly
-have been John o' Gaunt's, since the quartering for France consists
-of only three fleurs de lys. The original bearing of the French
-monarchy, as historians are well aware, was _azure_, semée de fleur de
-lys, _or_. Edward III. assumed these arms, with the title of King of
-France, in 1340. In 1364 the French reduced the number of fleurs de
-lys to the three we are so familiar with, and in due time England
-followed suit. But this was not until 1403, when John o' Gaunt had
-been in his grave nearly four years. The shield in question is thus
-plainly of a period too late for the husband of the Lady Blanche.
-
-But whoever the builder, how glorious the features! how palatial the
-proportions! Placed at the south-east corner of the castle, and
-overlooking the town, this superb gateway tower is not more admirably
-placed than exalted in design. The height, sixty-six feet, prepares us
-for the graceful termination of the lofty wings in octagonal turrets,
-and for the thickness of the walls, which is nearly, or quite, three
-yards: it is scarcely possible to imagine a more skilfully
-proportioned blending of strength, regal authority, and the air of
-peacefulness. The statue of John o' Gaunt above the archway is modern,
-having been placed there only in 1822. But the past is soon recalled
-by the opening for the descent of the portcullis, though the ancient
-oaken doors have disappeared.
-
-The entire area of Lancaster Castle measures 380 feet by 350 without
-reckoning the terrace outside the walls. The oldest portion--probably,
-as said above, Roger de Poictou's--is the lower part of the massive
-Lungess Tower, an impressive monument of the impregnable masonry of
-the time, 80 feet square, with walls 10 feet in thickness, and the
-original Norman windows intact. The upper portion was rebuilt temp.
-Queen Elizabeth, who specially commended Lancaster Castle to the
-faithful defenders of her kingdom against the Spaniards. The height is
-70 feet; a turret at the south-west corner, popularly called John o'
-Gaunt's Chair, adding another ten to the elevation. Delightful views
-are obtained from the summit as, indeed, from the terrace. The chapel,
-situated in the basement, 55 feet by 26, here, as elsewhere in the
-ancient English castles, tells of the piety as well as the dignity of
-their founders and owners. In this, at suitable times, the sacraments
-would be administered, not alone to the inmates, but to the foresters,
-the shepherds, and other retainers of the baron or noble lady of the
-place; the chapel was no less an integral part of the establishment
-than the well of spring water; the old English castle was not only a
-stronghold but a sanctuary. Unhappily in contrast but in equal harmony
-with the times, there are dungeons in two storeys below the level of
-the ground.
-
-The Lancaster Castle of 1881 is, after all, by no means the Lancaster
-Castle of the Plantagenets. As seen from Morecambe and many another
-spot a few miles distant, the old fortress presents an appearance
-that, if not romantic, is strikingly picturesque:
-
-    "Distance lends enchantment to the view,"
-
-and the church alongside adds graciously to the effect, seeming to
-unite with the antique outlines. But so much of the building has been
-altered and remodelled in order to adapt it to its modern uses--those
-of law-courts and prison; the sharpness of the new architecture so
-sadly interferes with enjoyment of the blurred and wasted old; the
-fitness of things has been so violated that the sentiment of the
-associations is with difficulty sustained even in the ample inner
-space once so gay with knights and pageantry. The castle was employed
-for the trial of criminals as early as 1324, but 1745 seems to be the
-date of its final surrender of royal pride. No sumptuous halls or
-storied corridors now exist in it. Contrariwise, everything is
-there that renders the building convenient for assizes; and it is
-pleasing to observe that with all the medley of modern adaptations
-there has been preserved, as far as practicable, a uniformity of
-style--the ecclesiastical of temp. Henry VII.
-
-[Illustration: LANCASTER]
-
-Clitheroe Castle, so called, consists to-day of no more than the Keep
-and a portion of the outermost surrounding wall. The situation and
-general character of this remarkable ruin are perhaps without a match.
-Half a mile south of the Ribble, on the great green plain which
-stretches westwards from the foot of Pendle, there suddenly rises a
-rugged limestone crag, like an island out of the sea. Whether it
-betokens an upheaval of the underlying strata more or fewer millions
-of years ago, or whether it is a mass of harder material which
-withstood the powerful descending currents known to have swept in
-primæval times across the country from east to west, the geologists
-must decide. Our present concern is with the fine old feudal relic
-perched on the summit, and which, like Lancaster Castle, belongs to
-the days of Roger de Poictou and his immediate successors, though a
-stronghold of some kind no doubt existed there long previously--a
-lofty and insulated rock in a country not abounding in strong military
-positions, being too valuable to be neglected even by barbarians. The
-probability is, that although founded by Roger de Poictou, the chief
-builders were the De Lacys, those renowned Norman lords whose
-headquarters were at Pontefract, and who could travel hither, fifty
-miles, without calling at any hostelrie not virtually their own. They
-came here periodically to receive tribute and to dispense justice.
-There was never any important residence upon the rock. The space is
-not sufficient for more than might be needed for urgent and temporary
-purposes; and although a gentleman's house now stands upon the slope,
-it occupies very little of the old foundation.
-
-The inside measurement of the keep is twenty feet square; the walls
-are ten feet thick, and so slight has been the touch, so far, of the
-"effacing fingers," that they seem assured of another long seven
-centuries. The chapel was under the protection of the monks of Whalley
-Abbey. Not a vestige of it now remains; every stone, after the
-dismantling of the castle in 1649, having been carried away, as in so
-many other instances, and used in the building of cottages and walls.
-After four generations, or in little more than a hundred years, the
-line of the De Lacys became extinct. Do we think often enough, and
-with commensurate thankfulness, of the immense service they and the
-other old Norman lords rendered our country during their lifetimes?
-The Normans, like the Romans, were scribes, architects, reclaimers of
-the waste, instruments of civilisation--all the most artistic and
-interesting relics of the Norman age Old England possesses bear Norman
-impress. How voiceful, to go no further, their cathedrals--Hereford,
-Peterborough, Durham, Gloucester! Contemplating their castles, few
-things more touch the imagination than the presence, abreast of the
-aged stones, of the shrubs and flowers of countries they never heard
-of. Here, for instance, sheltering at the knee of old Clitheroe Castle
-Keep, perchance in the identical spot where a plumed De Lacy once
-leaned, rejoicing in the sunshine, there is a vigorous young Nepalese
-cotoneaster. Surely it is the gardener, perpetuator of the earliest of
-ennobling professions, who, by transfer of plants and fruits from one
-country to another, shows that art and taste co-operating, as at
-Clitheroe, do most literally "make the whole world kin." How welcome
-will be the volume which some day will be devoted to thorough survey
-of the benevolent work! From whatever point approached, the ancient
-keep salutes the eye long before we can possibly reach it: no one who
-may seek it will pronounce the visit unrewarded.
-
-[Illustration: CLITHEROE CASTLE]
-
-Nor will the tourist exploring Lancashire think the time lost that he
-may spend among the sea-beaten remains of the Peel of Fouldrey,--the
-cluster of historic towers which forms so conspicuous an object when
-proceeding by water to Piel Pier, _en route_ for Furness Abbey and the
-Lakes. The castle owes its existence to the Furness abbots, who,
-alarmed by the terrible raid of the Scots in 1316, repeated in 1322,
-temp. Edward II., discreetly constructed a place for personal safety,
-and for deposit of their principal treasures. No site could have been
-found more trustworthy than the little island off the southern extreme
-of Walney. While artillery was unknown Fouldrey must have been
-impregnable, for it was not only wave-girt but defended by artificial
-moats, and of substance so well knit that although masses of tumbled
-wall are now strewn upon the beach, they refuse to disintegrate. These
-huge lumps are composed partly of pebbles, and of cement now hard as
-rock. The keep is still standing, with portions of the inner and outer
-defences. Traces of the chapel are also discoverable, indicating the
-period of the erection; but there is nothing anywhere in the shape of
-ornament. The charm of Fouldrey is now purely for the imagination.
-Hither came the little skiffs that brought such supplies to the abbey
-as its own broad lands could not contribute. Here was given the
-welcome to all distinguished visitors arriving by sea, and from
-Fouldrey sailed all those who went afar. To-day all is still. No
-voices are heard save those of the unmusical seafowl, and of the waves
-that toss up their foam--
-
-          "Where all-devouring Time
-          Sits on his throne of ruins hoar,
-    And winds and tempests sweep his various lyre."
-
-"Peel," a term unknown in the south of England, was anciently, in the
-north, a common appellation for castellets built as refuges in times
-of peril. They were often no more than single towers, square, with
-turrets at the angles, and having the door at a considerable height
-above the ground. The word is variously spelt. Pele, pile, pylle, and
-two or three other forms, occur in old writers, the whole resolving,
-apparently, into a mediæval _pelum_, which would seem to be in turn
-the Latin _pila_, a mole or jetty, as in the fine simile in Virgil,
-where the Trojan falls smitten by a dart:
-
-    "Qualis in Euboico Baiarum litore quondam
-    Saxea pila cadit," etc.--_Æneid_, ix. 710, 711.
-
-Fouldrey itself is not assured of immortality, for there can be no
-doubt that much of the present sea in this part of Morecambe Bay
-covers, as at Norbreck, surface that aforetime was dry, and where
-fir-trees grew and hazel-nuts. Stagnant water had converted the ground
-into moss, even before the invasion of the sea; for peat is found by
-digging deep enough into the sands, with roots of trees and trunks
-that lie with their heads eastwards. Walney, Fouldrey, and the
-adjacent islets, were themselves probably formed by ancient inrush of
-the water. The beach hereabouts, as said by Camden, certainly "once
-lay out a great way westward into the ocean, which the sea ceased not
-to slash and mangle ... until it swallowed up the shore at some
-boisterous tide, and thereby made three huge bays." Sand and pebbles
-still perseveringly accumulate in various parts. Relentless in its
-rejection of the soft and perishable, these are the things which old
-ocean loves to amass.
-
-The castle was dismantled by its own builders at the commencement of
-the fifteenth century, probably because too expensive to maintain.
-From that time forwards it has been slowly breaking up, though gaining
-perhaps in pictorial interest; and seen, as it is, many miles across
-the water, never fails to excite the liveliest sentiments of
-curiosity. One of the abbots of Furness was probably the builder also
-of the curious old square tower still standing in the market-place of
-Dalton, and locally called the "Castle." The architecture is of the
-fourteenth century.
-
-Furness Abbey, seven miles south-west of Ulverston, once the most
-extensive and beautiful of the English Cistercian houses,--which held
-charters from twelve successive kings, and whose abbots had
-jurisdiction, not only ecclesiastical but civil, over the whole of the
-great peninsula formed by the Duddon, the Leven, Windermere, and the
-sea,--still attests in the variety and the stateliness of the remains
-that the "pomp and circumstance" of monastic authority must here have
-been played forth to the utmost limit. In its day the building must
-have been perfect alike in design and commodiousness. The outermost
-walls enclosed no less than sixty-five acres of ground, including the
-portion used as a garden. This great area was traversed by a clear and
-swiftly flowing stream, which still runs on its ancient way; and the
-slopes of the sequestered glen chosen with so much sagacity as the
-site, were covered with trees. To-day their descendants mingle also
-with the broken arches; these last receiving comfort again from the
-faithful campanula, which in its season decks every ledge and
-crumbling corbel, flowering, after its manner, luxuriantly--a reflex
-of the "heavens' own tinct," smiling, as Nature always does, upon the
-devastation she so loves to adorn. The contrast of the lively hues of
-the vegetation with the gray-red tint of the native sandstone employed
-by the builders, now softened and subdued by the touch of centuries,
-the painter alone can portray. When sunbeams glance through, falling
-on the shattered arcades with the subtle tenderness which makes
-sunshine, when it creeps into such places, seem, like our own
-footsteps, conscious and reverent, the effects are chaste and
-animating beyond expression. Even when the skies are clouded, the long
-perspectives, the boldness with which the venerable walls rise out of
-the sod, the infinite diversity of the parts,--to say nothing of the
-associations,--render this glorious ruin one of the most fascinating
-in our country.
-
-Furness Abbey was founded in the year 1127, the twenty-sixth of Henry
-I., and sixty-first after the Norman Conquest. The original patron was
-the above-named Stephen, Earl of Boulogne, afterwards King of England,
-a crowned likeness of whom, with a corresponding one of his queen,
-Matilda, still exists upon the outer mouldings of the east window. The
-carving is very slightly abraded, probably through the sculptor's
-selection of a harder material than that of the edifice, which
-presents, in its worn condition, a strong contrast to the solid,
-though simple, masonry. The Furness monks were seated, in the first
-instance, on the Ribble, near Preston, coming from Normandy as early
-as 1124, then as Benedictines. On removal to the retired and fertile
-"Valley of Nightshade," a choice consonant with their custom, they
-assumed the dress of the Cistercian Order, changing their gray
-habiliments for white ones, and from that day forwards (7th July 1127)
-they never ceased to grow steadily in wealth and power. The dedication
-of the abbey, as usual with the Cistercians, was to Our Lady, the
-Virgin Mary. The building, however, was not completed for many years,
-transition work being abundant, and the lofty belfry tower at the
-extreme west plainly not older than the early part of the fifteenth
-century, by which time the primitive objection with the Cistercians to
-aspiring towers had become lax, if not surrendered altogether. The
-oldest portions in all likelihood are the nave and transepts of the
-conventual church, the whole of which was completed perhaps by the
-year 1200. Eight pillars upon each side, alternately clustered and
-circular, their bases still conspicuous above the turf, divided the
-nave from the aisles, the wall of the southern one still standing.
-Beneath the window of the north transept the original Early Norman
-doorway (the principal entrance) is intact, a rich and delectable arch
-retiring circle within circle. Upon the eastern side of the grand
-cloister quadrangle (338 feet by 102) there are five other
-deeply-recessed round arches, the middle one leading into the
-vestibule of the Chapterhouse--the fretted roof of which, supported by
-six pillars, fell in only about a hundred years ago. The great east
-window, 47 feet in height, 23-1/2 in width, and rising nearly from the
-ground, retains little of its original detail, but is imposing in
-general effect.
-
-[Illustration: FURNESS ABBEY]
-
-Scrutinising the various parts, the visitor will find very many other
-beautiful elements. With the space at our command it is impossible
-here even to mention them, or to do more than concentrate material for
-a volume into the simple remark that Furness Abbey remains one of the
-most striking mementoes England possesses, alike of the tasteful
-constructive art of the men who reared it and of the havoc wrought,
-when for four centuries it had been a centre of public usefulness, by
-the royal thirst, not for reformation, but for spoil. The overthrow of
-the abbeys no doubt prepared the way for the advent of a better order
-of things; but it is not to be forgotten that the destruction of
-Furness Abbey brought quite a hundred years of decay and misery to
-its own domain.
-
-[Illustration: FURNESS ABBEY]
-
-Of Whalley Abbey, within a pleasant walk from Clitheroe, there is
-little new to be said; few, however, of the old monasteries have a
-more interesting history. The original establishment, as with Furness,
-was at a distance, the primitive seat of the monks to whose energy it
-owed its existence having been at Stanlaw, a place at the confluence
-of the Gowy with the Mersey. In Greenland itself there is not a spot
-more desolate, bleak, and lonely. It was selected, it would seem, in
-imitation of the ascetic fathers of the Order, who chose
-Citeaux--whence their name--because of the utter sterility. After a
-time the rule was prudently set aside, and in 1296, after 118 years of
-dismal endurance, the whole party migrated to the green spot under the
-shadow of Whalley Nab where now we find the ruins of their famous
-home. The abbey grounds, exceeding thirty-six acres in extent, were
-encircled, where not protected by the river, by a deep trench, crossed
-by two bridges, each with a strong and ornamental gatehouse tower,
-happily still in existence. The principal buildings appear to have
-been disposed in three quadrangles, but the merest scraps now remain,
-though amply sufficient to instruct the student of monastic
-architecture as to the position and uses of the various parts.
-Portions of massive walls, dilapidated archways, little courts and
-avenues, tell their own tale; and in addition there are piles of
-sculptured stones, some with curiously wrought bosses bearing the
-sacred monogram "M," referring to the Virgin, to whom, as said above,
-all Cistercian monasteries were dedicated. The abbot's house did not
-share in the general demolition, but it has undergone so much
-modernising that little can now be distinguished of the original
-structure. The abbot's oratory has been more fortunate, and is now
-dressed with ivy.
-
-The severest damage to this once glorious building was not done, as
-commonly supposed, temp. Henry VIII., nor yet during the reign of his
-eldest daughter, when so great a panic seized the Protestant
-possessors of the abolished abbeys, and the mischief in general was so
-cruel. "For now," says quaint old Fuller (meaning temp. Mary), "the
-edifices of abbeys which were still entire looked lovingly again on
-their ancient owners; in prevention whereof, such as for the present
-possessed them, plucked out their eyes by levelling them to the
-ground, and shaving from them as much as they could of abbey
-characters." Whatever the time of the chief destruction wrought at
-Furness, that of Whalley did not take place till the beginning of the
-reign of Charles II.
-
-Third in order of rank and territorial possessions among the old
-Lancashire religious houses came Cokersand Abbey, founded in 1190 on a
-bit of seaside sandy wilderness about five miles south of Lancaster,
-near the estuary of the streamlet called the Coker. There is no reason
-to believe that the edifice was in any degree remarkable, in point
-either of extent or of architectural merit. Nothing now remains of it
-but the Chapter-house, an octagonal building thirty feet in diameter,
-the roof supported upon a solitary Anglo-Norman shaft, which leads up
-to the pointed arches of a groined ceiling. The oaken canopies of the
-stalls, when the building was dismantled, were removed, very properly,
-to the parish church of Lancaster.
-
-Burscough Priory, two miles and a half north-east of Ormskirk, founded
-temp. Richard I., and for a long time the burial-place of the Earls of
-Derby, has suffered even more heavily than Cokersand Abbey. Nothing
-remains but a portion of the centre archway of the church. Burscough
-has interest, nevertheless, for the antiquary and the artist; the
-former of whom, though not the latter, finds pleasure also in the
-extant morsel of the ancient priory of Cartmel--a solitary gateway,
-standing almost due west of the church, close to the little river Ea,
-and containing some of the original windows, the trefoil mouldings of
-which appear to indicate the early part of the fourteenth century. The
-foundation of the edifice, as a whole, is referred to the year 1188,
-the name then given being "The Priory of the Blessed Mary of
-Kartmell." The demolition took place very shortly after the fatal
-1535, when the church, much older, was also doomed, but spared as
-being the parochial one. Contemplating old Cartmel, one scarcely
-thinks of Shakspere, but it was to the "William Mareshall, Earl of
-Pembroke," in _King John_, that the Priory owed its birth.
-
-Of Conishead Priory, two miles south of Ulverston, there are but atoms
-remaining, and these are concealed by the modern mansion which
-preserves the name. The memory of good deeds has more vitality than
-the work of the mason:--the monks of Conishead were entrusted with the
-safe conveyance of travellers across the treacherous sands at the
-outlet of the Leven; the Priory was also a hospital for the sick and
-maimed. Upholland Priory, near Wigan, dates from 1319, though a
-chantry existed there at a period still earlier. One of the lateral
-walls still exists, with a row of small windows, all covered with ivy.
-Some fragments of Penwortham Priory, near Preston, also remain; and
-lastly, for the curious there is the never-finished building called
-Lydiate Abbey, four miles south-west of Ormskirk, the date of which
-appears to be temp. Henry VIII., when the zeal of the Catholic
-founders received a sudden check. The walls are covered with ivy,
-"never sere," and the aspect in general is picturesque; so calmly and
-constantly always arises out of the calamities of the past nutriment
-for pleasure in the present.
-
-
-
-
-X
-
-THE OLD CHURCHES AND THE OLD HALLS
-
-
-Christianity in Lancashire--so far, at all events, as concerns the
-outward expression through the medium of places of worship--had a very
-early beginning, the period being that of Paulinus, one of the
-missionaries brought into England by Augustine. In 625 the kingdom of
-Northumbria, which included the northern portions of the modern county
-of Lancaster, had for its monarch the celebrated Edwin--he who
-espoused the Christian princess Edilberga, daughter of the king of
-Kent--the pious woman to whom the royal conversion was no doubt as
-largely owing as to the exhortations of the priest who found in her
-court welcome and protection. The story is told at length by Bede.
-There is no necessity to recapitulate it. The king was baptized, and
-Christianity became the state religion of the northern Angles.
-Paulinus nowhere in his great diocese--that of York--found listeners
-more willing than the ancestors of the people of East Lancashire; and
-as nearly as possible twelve and a half centuries ago, the foundations
-were laid at Whalley of the mother church of the district so
-legitimately proud to-day of a memorial almost unique. Three stone
-crosses, much defaced by exposure to the weather, still exist in the
-graveyard. They are considered by antiquaries to have been erected in
-the time of Paulinus himself, and possibly by his direction; similar
-crosses occurring near Burnley Church, and at Dewsbury and Ilkley in
-Yorkshire. The site is a few yards to the north of that one afterwards
-chosen for the abbey. The primitive Anglo-Saxon churches, it is
-scarcely requisite to say, were constructed chiefly, and often
-entirely, of wood.[41] Hence their extreme perishableness, especially
-in the humid climate of Lancashire; hence also the long step to the
-next extant mementoes of ecclesiastical movement in this county; for
-these, with one solitary exception, pertain, like the old castles, to
-the early Norman times. The Saxon relic is one of the most interesting
-in the north of England; and is peculiarly distinguished by the
-mournful circumstances of the story which envelops it, though the
-particular incidents are beyond discovery. At Heysham, as before
-mentioned, four miles from Lancaster, on the edge of Morecambe Bay,
-there is a little projecting rock, the only one thereabouts. Upon the
-summit formerly stood "St. Patrick's Chapel," destroyed ages ago,
-though the site is still traceable; fragments of stonework used in the
-building of the diminutive Norman church beneath, and others in the
-graveyard, adding their testimony. That, however, which attracts the
-visitor is the existence to this day, upon the bare and exposed
-surface of the rock, of half a dozen excavations adapted to hold the
-remains of human beings of various stature--children as well as
-adults. These "coffins," as the villagers call them, tell their own
-tale. Upon this perilous and deceitful coast, one dark and tempestuous
-night a thousand years ago, an entire family would seem to have lost
-their lives by shipwreck. The bodies were laid side by side in these
-only too significant cavities; the oratory or "chapel" was built as a
-monument by their relatives, with, in addition, upon the highest point
-of the hill, a beacon or sort of rude lighthouse, with the maintenance
-of which the priest and his household were charged. On this lone
-little North Lancashire promontory, where no sound is ever heard but
-that of the sea, the heart is touched well-nigh as deeply as by the
-busiest scenes of Liverpool commerce.
-
-    [41] Thus in conformity with their general architectural
-    practice, and as expressed in the Anglo-Saxon word for "to
-    build"--_getymbrian_.
-
-The church architecture of the Norman times has plenty of examples in
-Lancashire. It is well known also that many modern churches occupy old
-Norman and even Saxon sites, though nothing of the original structure
-has been preserved. The remains in question usually consist, as
-elsewhere, of the massive pillars always employed by the Norman
-architects for the nave, or of the ornamented arch which it was their
-custom to place at the entrance of the choir. Examples of Norman
-pillars exist at Colne, Lancaster, Hawkshead, Cartmel, Whalley, and
-Rochdale; the last-named, with the arches above, bringing to mind the
-choir of Canterbury Cathedral; at Clitheroe we find a chancel-arch;
-and at the cheerful and pretty village of Melling, eleven miles
-north-west of Lancaster, a Norman doorway, equalled perhaps in merit
-by another at Bispham, near Blackpool. Chorley parish church also
-declares itself of Norman origin, and at Blackburn are preserved
-various sculptured stones, plainly from Norman tools, and which
-belonged to the church now gone, as rebuilt or restored in the De Lacy
-times. The most ancient ecclesiastical building in Lancashire is
-Stede, or Styd, Chapel, a mile and a half north of the site of
-Ribchester. The period of the erection would appear to be that of
-Stephen, thus corresponding with the foundation of Furness Abbey. The
-windows are narrow lancet; the doors, though rather pointed, are
-enriched with Norman ornaments; the floor is strewed with ancient
-gravestones. In this quiet little place divine service is still, or
-was recently, held once a month.
-
-Whalley Church, as we have it to-day--a building commemorative in site
-of the introduction of the Christian faith into this part of
-England--dates apparently, in its oldest portion--the pillars in the
-north aisle--from the twelfth century. The choir is a little later,
-probably of about 1235, from which time forwards it is evident that
-building was continued for quite 200 years, so that Whalley, like York
-Minster, is an epitome of architectural progress. The sedilia and
-piscina recall times antecedent to the Reformation. Every portion of
-the church is crowded with antiquities, many of them heraldic; very
-specially inviting among them are the stalls in the chancel, eighteen
-in number, transferred hither from the conventual church at the time
-of the spoliation. The luxuriant carving of the abbot's stall is in
-itself enough to repay an artist's journey. At the head of one of the
-compartments of the east window we have the Lancastrian rose; the
-flower of course tinctured gules, and almost the only representation
-of it in the county:
-
-    "Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,
-    But dare maintain the party of the truth,
-    Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me."
-
-    I _Henry VI._, ii. 4.
-
-The floral badge of the house of Lancaster, it may be well to say, is
-the purely heraldic rose, the outline being conventionalised, as is
-the case also with the white rose of York. When used as the emblem of
-England, and associated with the thistle and the shamrock, the queen
-of flowers is represented as an artist would draw it--_i.e._
-truthfully to nature, or with stalk, leaves, and buds, the petals
-still, as in the Lancastrian, of a soft crimson hue, "rose-colour"
-emphatically. The titles of the various subjects are all in old black
-letter.
-
-The history of Cartmel Church reads like a romance. The original
-building was of earlier date than the Conquest, but changes
-subsequently made bring it very considerably forwards--up indeed to
-the time of Edward III. It was then that the windows of the south
-aisle of the chancel were inserted, and painted as usual in that
-glorious art-epoch, as shown by the few portions which remain. Other
-portions of the coloured glass were probably brought from the priory
-when broken up by the unhallowed hands of Henry VIII., under whose
-rule the church was threatened with a similar fate, but spared, in
-answer to the cry of the parishioners, who were allowed to purchase it
-at an indulgent price, with the loss of the roof of the chancel. Thus
-laid open to the rain and snow, these were allowed to beat into it for
-eighty years, with results still plainly visible upon the woodwork. A
-partial restoration of the fabric was then effected, and within these
-last few years every part has been put in perfect order.
-
-The ground-plan of this interesting old church is that of a Greek
-cross. The nave, sixty-four feet in length (Furness exceeding it by
-only a few inches), leads us through angular pillars, crowned with the
-plain abacus, to a choir of unusual proportionate magnitude; and here,
-in contrast to the pointed nave-arches, the form changes to round,
-while the faces are carved.
-
-In one of the chapels to which the chancel-arches lead there is some
-fine perpendicular work. Similar windows occur in the transepts; and
-elsewhere there are examples of late decorated. The old priory-stalls,
-twenty-six in number, are preserved here, as at Whalley.
-
-Externally, Cartmel Church presents one of the most curious
-architectural objects existing in Lancashire, the tower being placed
-diagonally to the body of the edifice, a square crossways upon a
-square, as if turned from its first and proper position half-way
-round. What particular object was in view, or what was the motive for
-this unprecedented deviation from the customary style of building,--a
-parallel to which, in point of the singularity, is found, perhaps,
-only in Wells Cathedral,--does not appear. We owe to it, however, four
-pillars of great beauty and strength, necessarily placed at the points
-of the intersection of the transepts.
-
-The interior of the church is encrusted with fine monuments, many of
-them modern, but including a fair number that give pleasure to the
-antiquary. The most ancient belong to a tomb upon the north side of
-the altar, within a plain arch, and inscribed, upon an uninjured slab
-of gray marble, in Longobardic characters, _Hic jacet Frator Willemus
-de Walton, Prior de Cartmel_. Opposite this there will be found record
-of one of the celebrated old local family of Harrington--probably the
-Sir John who in 1305, when Edward I. was bound for Scotland, was
-summoned by that monarch to meet him at Carlisle. An effigy of the
-knight's lady lies abreast of that of the warrior; the arch above it
-is of pleasing open work, covered with the grotesque figures of which
-the monks were so fond.
-
-Had exact annals been preserved of early church-building in Lancashire
-in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they would tell most
-assuredly of many important foundations. The beginning of Eccles
-Church, near Manchester, on the west, is referred by the archæologists
-to about the year 1120, but probably it is one of the two mentioned in
-"Domesday Book" in connection with Manchester. The first distinct
-reference to Eccles occurs in the "Coucher Book" of Whalley Abbey, or
-about thirty years later than 1120. The Whalley monks held large
-estates both in Eccles and the neighbourhood, with granaries,
-etc.,--the modern "Monton" is probably a contraction of "Monks' Town,"
-and the very name is thought to indicate a church settlement.
-Ecclesiastical relics of age quite, or nearly, corresponding are found
-also near Preston, especially in the tower and chancel near the church
-of Walton-le-Dale, the former of no great elevation, but very strong,
-buttressed and embattled. Placed in a skilfully chosen position on the
-crest of a little hill near the confluence of the Darwen with the
-Ribble, the aspect of the old place is distinctly picturesque; the
-site at the same moment explaining the local appellation of "Low
-Church,"--the Anglo-Saxon _low_ or _law_ denoting an isolated
-eminence, as in the case of Cheshire Werneth Low and Shuttlings Low.
-The date assigned to this ancient tower is 1162; to about thirty years
-after which time the oldest existing portions of Samlesbury, a few
-miles distant, appear to belong, the relics of the original here
-including the baptismal font. Didsbury Church, near Manchester,
-represents a chapel built about 1235, originally for the private use
-of the lord of the manor and a few families of local distinction, but
-a century afterwards made parochial.[42]
-
-    [42] The existing church dates only from 1620, and in many of
-    its details only from 1852 and 1855.
-
-There are numerous indications also of ecclesiastical energy, if not
-of enthusiasm, temp. Edward III., to which period seem to belong the
-choir of Rochdale Church, with its rich window tracery, the choir,
-probably, of Burnley Church, and perhaps the older portions of Wigan
-Church. As happens with many others, the history of the last-named is
-very broken. A church existed at Wigan in 1246, but the larger portion
-of the present pile belongs to two centuries later. That it cannot be
-the original is proved by the monument to the memory of Sir William
-Bradshaigh and the unfortunate lady, his wife, the principal figure
-in the legend of Mab's, or Mabel's cross. The knight is cross-legged,
-in coat of mail, and in the act of unsheathing his sword; the lady is
-veiled, with hands uplifted and conjoined as if in prayer. The deaths
-of these two occurred about the time of the Flemish weavers' settling
-in Lancashire, and of Philippa's intercession for the burghers of
-Calais.
-
-Manchester "old church," since 1847 the "Cathedral," was founded, as
-before stated, in 1422, the last year of Henry V. and first of Henry
-VI.--that unhappy sovereign whose fate reflects so dismally upon the
-history of Lancashire faithfulness. The site had previously been
-occupied by an edifice of timber, portions of which are thought to
-have been carried away and employed in the building of certain of the
-old halls for which the neighbourhood was long noted, the arms of the
-respective families (who, doubtless, were contributors to the cost of
-the new structure) being displayed in different parts. But there does
-not appear to be any genuine ground for the belief; and at a period
-when oak timber was so readily procurable as in the time of Henry VI.,
-it is scarcely probable that men who could afford to build handsome
-halls for their abode would care to introduce second-hand material,
-unless in very small quantity, and then merely as commemorative of
-the occasion. Choice of a quarry by the builders of the new church was
-not in their power. They were constrained to use the red-brown friable
-sandstone of the immediate vicinity, still plainly visible here and
-there by the river-side. The exterior of the building has thus
-required no little care and cost to preserve, to say nothing of the
-injury done by the smoke of a manufacturing town. There was a time
-when Thoresby's quotation from the Canticles in reference to St.
-Peter's at Leeds would have been quite as appropriate in regard to the
-Manchester "Cathedral"--"I am black, but comely." The style of the
-building, with its square and pinnacled tower, 139 feet high, is the
-florid Gothic of the time of the west front and south porch of
-Gloucester. The interior, in its loftiness and elaborate fretwork, its
-well-schemed proportions and ample windows, excites the liveliest
-admiration. The chancel-screen is one for an artist to revel in; the
-tabernacle work is, if possible, more beautiful yet.
-
-The second best of the old Lancashire ecclesiastical interiors belongs
-to Sefton, near Liverpool, a building of the time of Henry VIII., upon
-the site of a pre-Conquest church. The screen, which contains sixteen
-stalls, presents a choice example of carved work. There is also a
-fine carved-canopy over the pulpit, though time with the latter has
-been pitiless. Striking architectural details are also plentiful with,
-in addition, some remarkable monuments of Knights Templars with
-triangular shields. Sefton church is further distinguished as one of
-the few in Lancashire more than a hundred years old which possesses a
-spire, the favourite style of tower in the bygones having been the
-square, solid, and rather stunted--never in any degree comparable with
-the gems found in Somerset, or with the circular towers that give so
-much character to the churches of Norfolk and Suffolk. A very handsome
-octangular tower exists at Hornby, on the banks of the Lune, built
-about the middle of the sixteenth century. Winwick church, an ancient
-and far-seen edifice near Warrington, supplies another example of a
-spire; and at Ormskirk we have the odd conjunction of spire and square
-tower side by side. Leland makes no mention of the circumstance--one
-which could hardly have escaped his notice. The local tale which
-proposes to explain it may be dismissed. The probability is that the
-intention was to provide a place for the bells from Burscough Priory,
-some of the monuments belonging to which were also removed hither when
-the priory was dissolved.
-
-Many remains show that in Lancashire, in the time of Henry VIII., the
-spirit of church extension was again in full flow. Indications of it
-occur at Warrington, Burnley, Colne, and St. Michael-le-Wyre, near
-Garstang, also in the aisles of Middleton Church, and in the towers of
-Rochdale, Haslingden, Padiham, and Warton, near Lancaster. Here,
-however, we must pause; the history of the old Lancashire churches
-treated in full would be a theme as broad and various as that of the
-lives and writings of its men of letters. There is one, nevertheless,
-which justly claims the special privilege of an added word, the very
-interesting little edifice called Langho Chapel, four miles from
-Blackburn, the materials of which it was built consisting of part of
-the wreck of Whalley Abbey. Sculptured stones, with heraldic shields
-and other devices, though much battered and disfigured, declare the
-source from which they were derived; and in the heads of some of the
-windows, which resemble the relics of others at the Abbey, are
-fragments of coloured glass in all likelihood of similar origin. The
-date of the building would seem to have been about 1557, though the
-first mention of it does not occur until 1575. How curious and
-suggestive are the reminders one meets with in our own country
-(comparing the small with the great), of the quarrying of the
-Coliseum by the masons of mediæval Rome!
-
-In old halls, mansions, and manor-houses, especially of
-sixteenth-century style, Lancashire abounds. A few are intact, held,
-like Widnes House, by a descendant of the original owners; or
-preserved through transfer to some wealthy merchant or manufacturer
-from the town, who takes an equal pride in maintaining the integrity
-of all he found--a circumstance to which we are indebted for some of
-the most beautiful archæological relics the county possesses. On the
-contrary, as would be expected, the half-ruined largely predominate,
-and these in many cases are now devoted to ignoble purposes. A
-considerable number of stronger substance have been modernised, often
-being converted into what are sometimes disrespectfully called
-"farmhouses," as if the home of the agriculturist were not one of the
-most honourable in the land;--now and then they have been divided into
-cottages. Still, they are there; attractive very generally to the
-artist in their quaintness, always dear to the antiquary and
-historian, and interesting, if no more, to all who appreciate the fond
-care which clings to memorials of the past, whether personal or
-outside, as treasures which once lost can never be recovered. They
-tell of a class of worthy and industrious men who were neither barons
-nor vassals, who had good taste, and were fairly well off in purse,
-and loved field-sports--for a kennel for harriers and otter hounds is
-not rare,--who were hospitable, and generous, and mindful of the poor.
-
-The history of these old halls is, in truth very often, the history of
-the aboriginal county families. As wealth increased, and abreast of it
-a longing for the refinements of a more elevated civilisation, the
-proprietors usually deserted them for a new abode; the primitive one
-became the "old," then followed the changes indicated, with departure,
-alas! only too often, of the ancient dignity.
-
-In the far north a few remains occur which point to a still earlier
-period, or when the disposition to render the manorial home a fortress
-was very natural. Moats, or the depressions they once occupied, are
-common in all parts, even where there was least danger of attack. In
-the neighbourhood of Morecambe Bay the building was often as strong as
-a castle, as in the case of the old home of the Harringtons at
-Gleaston, two miles east of Furness Abbey. These celebrated ruins,
-which lie in a hollow in one of the valleys running seawards, are
-apparently of the fourteenth century, the windows in the lower storey
-being acutely pointed single lights, very narrow outside, but widely
-splayed within. Portions of three square towers and part of the
-curtain-wall connecting them attest, with the extent of the enclosure
-(288 feet by 170 where widest), that the ancient lords of Aldingham
-were alike powerful and sagacious. On the way to Gleaston, starting
-from Grange, a little south of the village of Allithwaite, Wraysholme
-tells of similar times, though all that now remains is a massive
-tower, the walls 3-1/2 feet thick as they rise from the sod. It was
-near Wraysholme, it will be remembered, that according to tradition
-and the ballad, the last of the English wolves was killed. The fine
-old tower of Hornby Castle, the only remaining portion of a stronghold
-commenced soon after the Conquest, is of much later date, having been
-built in or about 1520. That without being originally designed to
-withstand the attack of a violent enemy, more than one of these
-substantial old Lancashire private houses held its own against
-besiegers in the time of the civil wars is matter of well-known
-history. Lathom House (the original, long since demolished) has
-already been mentioned as the scene of the memorable discomfiture of
-Fairfax by Charlotte, Countess of Derby, the illustrious lady in whom
-loyalty and conjugal love were interwoven.
-
-The Elizabethan halls so termed, though some of them belong to the
-time of James I., are of two distinct kinds,--the half-timbered,
-black-and-white, or "magpie," and the purely stone, the latter
-occurring in districts where wood was less plentiful or more costly.
-Nothing in South Lancashire, and in the adjacent parts of Cheshire,
-sooner catches the eye of the stranger than the beautiful old
-patterned front of one of the former;--bars vertical and horizontal,
-angles and curves, mingling curiously but always elegantly, Indian ink
-upon snow, many gables breaking the sky-line, while the entrance is
-usually by a porch or ornamental gateway, the windows on either side
-low but wide, with many mullions, and usually casemented. The features
-in question rivet the mind so much the more because of the proof given
-in these old half-timbered houses of the enduring vitality of the
-idea of the Gothic cathedral, and its new expression when
-cathedral-building ceased, in the subdued and modified form
-appropriate to English homes--the things next best, when perfect, to
-the fanes themselves. The gables repeat the high-pitched roof; the
-cathedral window, as to the rectangular portion, or as far as the
-spring of the arch, is rendered absolutely; the filagree in
-black-and-white, ogee curves appearing not infrequently, is a varied
-utterance of the sculpture; the pinnacles and finials, the coloured
-glass, and the porch complete the likeness. Anything that can be
-associated with a Gothic cathedral is thereby ennobled;--upon this one
-simple basis, the architecture we are speaking of becomes artistic,
-while its lessons are pure and salutary.
-
-Drawing near, at the sides of the porch, are found seats usually of
-stone. In front, closing the entrance to the house, there is a strong
-oaken door studded with heads of great iron nails. Inside are chambers
-and corridors, many and varied, an easy and antique staircase leading
-to the single upper storey, the walls everywhere hidden by oaken
-panels grooved and carved, and in the daintier parts divided by fluted
-pilasters; while across the ceilings, which are usually low, run the
-ancient beams which support the floor above. So lavish is the
-employment of oak, that, when this place was built, surely one thinks
-a forest must have been felled. But those were the days of giant
-trees, the equals of which in this country will probably never be seen
-again, though in the landscape they are not missed. Inside, again, how
-cheery the capacious and friendly hearth, spanned by a vast arch;
-above it, not uncommonly, a pair of huge antlers that talk of joy in
-the chase. Inside, again, one gets glimpses of heraldic imagery,
-commemorative of ancient family honours, rude perhaps in execution,
-but redeemed by that greatest of artists, the Sunshine, that streaming
-through shows the colours and casts the shadows. Halls such as these
-existed until quite lately even in the immediate suburbs of
-Manchester, in the original streets of which town there were many
-black-and-white fronts, as to the present moment in Chester, Ludlow,
-and Shrewsbury. Some of the finest of those still remaining in the
-rural parts of Lancashire will be noticed in the next chapter. Our
-illustrations give for the present an idea of them. When gone to decay
-and draped with ivy, like Coniston Hall, the ancient home of the le
-Flemings, whatever may be the architecture, they become keynotes to
-poems that float over the mind like the sound of the sea. In any case
-there is the sense, when dismemberment and modernising have not
-wrought their mischief, that while the structure is always peculiarly
-well fitted for its situation, the outlines are essentially English.
-It may be added that in these old Lancashire halls and mansions the
-occurrence of a secret chamber is not rare. Lancashire was always a
-stronghold of Catholicism, and although the hiding-places doubtless
-often gave shelter to cavaliers and other objects of purely political
-enmity, the popular appellation of "priest's room," or "priest's
-hole," points plainly to their more usual service. They were usually
-embedded in the chimney-stacks, communication with a private cabinet
-of the owner of the house being provided for by means of sliding
-shutters. Very curious and interesting refuges of this character exist
-to this day at Speke, Lydiate, Widnes, and Stonyhurst, and in an old
-house in Goosenargh, in the centre wall of which, four feet thick,
-there are two of the kind. In a similar "hole" at Mains Hall, in the
-parish of Kirkham, tradition says that Cardinal Allen was once
-concealed.
-
-
-
-
-XI
-
-THE OLD HALLS (_continued_)
-
-
-Although the few perfect remaining examples of the old timbered
-Lancashire halls are preserved with the fondest reverence by their
-owners, the number of those which have been allowed to fall into a
-state of partial decay diminishes every year. They disappear, one by
-one, perhaps inevitably, and of many, it is to be feared, not a trace
-will soon be left. Repairs and restorations are expensive; to preserve
-such buildings needs, moreover, a strong sense of duty, and a
-profounder devotedness to "reliquism," as some author terms it, than
-perhaps can ever be expected to be general. The duty to preserve is
-plain. The wilful neglect, not to say the reckless destruction of
-interesting old buildings that can be maintained, at no great cost, in
-fair condition and as objects of picturesque beauty, is, to say the
-least of it, unpatriotic. The possessors of fine old memorials of the
-past are not more the possessors in their own right than trustees of
-property belonging to the nation, and the nation is entitled to insist
-upon their safe keeping and protection. The oaks of Sherwood,
-festooned with stories of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, are not more a
-ducal inheritance, than, as long as they may survive, every
-Englishman's by birthright. Architectural remains, in particular, when
-charged with historical interest, and that discourse of the manners
-and customs of "the lang syne," are sacred. Let opulence and good
-taste construct as much more as they please on modern lines. Every
-addition to the architectural adornment of the country reflects honour
-upon the person introducing it, and the donor deserves, though he may
-not always receive, sincere gratitude. Let the builder go further,
-pull down, and, if he so fancies, reconstruct his own particular work.
-But no man who calls himself master of a romantic or sweet old place,
-consecrated by time, has any right, by destroying, to steal it from
-the people of England; he is bound not even to mutilate it. There are
-occasions, no doubt, when to preserve is no longer practicable, and
-when to alter may be legitimate; we refer not to these, but to
-needless and wanton overthrow--such as unhappily has had examples only
-too many. There was no need to destroy that immemorial mansion,
-Reddish Old Hall, near the banks of the Tame, now known only through
-the medium of a faithful picture;[43] nor was there excuse for the
-merciless pulling to pieces of Radcliffe Old Hall, on the banks of the
-Irwell, a building so massive in its under-structure that the utmost
-labour was required to beat it down. We need not talk of Alaric, the
-Goths, and the Vandals, when Englishmen are not ashamed to behave as
-badly.
-
-    [43] In the Chetham Society's 42nd vol., p. 211.
-
-[Illustration: DARCY LEVER, NEAR BOLTON]
-
-Of the venerated and unmolested, Speke Hall is, perhaps, the oldest in
-South Lancashire that remains as an example of the "magpie," or
-black-and-white half-timbered style. It stands upon the margin of the
-estuary of the Mersey, a few miles above Liverpool, with approach at
-the rear by an avenue of trees from the water's edge. As with all the
-rest of its class, the foundations are of solid masonry, the house
-itself consisting of a framework of immensely strong vertical timbers,
-connected by horizontal beams, with diagonal bracings, oak in every
-instance, the interstices filled with laths upon which is laid a
-peculiar composition of lime and clay. The complexion of the principal
-front is represented in our drawing, but no pencil can give a perfect
-idea of the repose, the tender hues, antique but not wasted, the
-far-reaching though silent spell with which it catches and holds both
-eye and fancy. Over the principal entrance, in quaint letters, "This
-worke," it is said, "25 yards long, was wolly built by Edw. N., Esq.,
-Anno 1598." The N. stands for Norreys, the surname of one of the
-primitive Lancashire families, still represented in the county, though
-not at Speke. A baronial mansion belonging to them existed here as
-early as 1350, but of this not a stone that can be recognised remains.
-A broad moat once surrounded the newer hall, but, as in most other
-instances, the water has long since given way to green turf.
-Sometimes, in Lancashire, the ancient moats have been converted into
-orchards. Inside, Speke is distinguished by the beauty of the
-corridors and of the great hall, which latter contains some carved
-wainscoting brought from Holyrood by the Sir Wm. Norreys who, serving
-his commander, Lord Stanley, well at Flodden, A.D. 1513, got leave to
-despoil the palace of the unfortunate monarch there defeated. The
-galleries look into a spacious and perfectly square central court of
-the kind usually pertaining to these old halls, though now very seldom
-found with all four of the enclosing blocks of building. The court at
-Speke is remarkable for its pair of aged yew trees; one of each
-sex, the female decked in autumn with its characteristic scarlet
-berries--a place for trees so exceptional that it probably has no
-counterpart. Everywhere and at all times the most imperturbable of
-trees, yews never fail to give an impression of long inheritance and
-of a history abreast of dynasties, and at Speke the association is
-sustained perfectly.
-
-[Illustration: SPEKE HALL]
-
-[Illustration: HALE HALL]
-
-Near Bolton there are several such buildings, all in a state of
-praiseworthy preservation. In the time of the Stuarts and the
-Republicans they must have been numerous. Smithills, or Smethells, a
-most beautiful structure placed at the head of a little glen, occupies
-the site of an ancient Saxon royal residence. After the Conquest, the
-estate and the original hall passed through various successive hands,
-those of the Ratcliffes included. At present it is possessed,
-fortunately, by one of the Ainsworth family above mentioned (p. 125),
-so that, although very extensive changes have been made from time to
-time, including the erection of a new east front in stone, and the
-substitution of modern windows for the primitive casements, the
-permanency of all, as we have it to-day, is guaranteed. The interior
-is rich in ancient wood-carving. Quaint but charmingly artistic
-decoration prevails in all the chief apartments; some of the panels
-are emblazoned in colours; everywhere, too, there is the sense of
-strength and comfort. In the quadrangle, open on one side, and now a
-rose-garden, amid the flower-borders, and in the neighbouring
-shrubberies, it is interesting to observe once again how the botanical
-aspect of old England is slowly but surely undergoing transformation,
-through the liberal planting of decorative exotics.
-
-Speke suggests the idea of botanical metamorphosis even more
-powerfully than Smithills. At each place the ancient occupiers, full
-of the native spirit of "never say die," the oak, the hawthorn, and
-the silver birch,--trees that decked the soil in the days of
-Caractacus,--wonder who are these new-comers, the rhododendrons and
-the strange conifers from Japan and the antipodes. They bid them
-welcome all the same. As at Clitheroe, they stand arm in arm; we are
-reminded at every step of the good householder "which bringeth forth
-out of his treasure things both new and old."
-
-Hall i' th' Wood, not far off, so called because once hidden in the
-heart of a forest containing wild boars, stands on the brow of a
-precipitous cliff at the base of which flows the Eagley. Possessed of
-a large bay window, Hall i' th' Wood may justly be pronounced one of
-the best existing specimens of old English domestic architecture--that
-of the franklins, or aboriginal country gentlemen, not only of
-Lancashire, but of the soil in general, though some of the external
-ornaments are of later date than the house itself. The oldest part
-seems never to have suffered "improvements" of any kind; in any case,
-Hall i' th' Wood is to the historian one of the most interesting spots
-in England, since it was here, in the room with the remarkable
-twenty-four-light window, that Crompton devised and constructed his
-cotton-machine. The noble old trees have long since vanished. When
-the oaks were put to death, so large were they that no cross-cut saw
-long enough for the purpose could be procured, and the workmen were
-obliged to begin with making deep incisions in the trunks, and
-removing large masses of the ironlike timber. This was only a trifle
-more than a century ago.
-
-Turton Tower, near Bolton, an old turreted and embattled building,
-partly stone, partly black-and-white, the latter portion gabled,
-originally belonged to the Orrells, afterwards to the Chethams, the
-most distinguished of whom, Humphrey Chetham, founder of the Chetham
-Free Library, died here in 1653. The upper storeys, there being four
-in all, successively project or overhang, after the manner of those of
-many of the primitive Manchester houses. The square form of the
-building gives it an aspect of great solidity; the ancient door is
-oak, and passing this, we come once again upon abundance of elaborate
-wood-carving, with enriched ceilings, as at Speke. Turton has, in
-part, been restored, but with strict regard to the original style and
-fashion, both within and without.
-
-The neighbourhood also of Wigan is celebrated for its old halls,
-pre-eminent among which is Ince, the ancient seat of the Gerards,
-and the subject of another of our sketches. Ince stands about a mile
-to the south-east of the comparatively modern building of the same
-name, and in its many gables surmounting the front, and long ranges of
-windows, is not more tasteful as a work of art than conspicuous to the
-traveller who is so fortunate as to pass near enough to enjoy the
-sight of it. Lostock Old Hall, black-and-white, and dated 1563,
-possesses a handsome stone gateway, and has most of the rooms
-wainscoted. Standish Hall, three and a half miles N.N.W., is also well
-worth a visit; and after these time is well given to Pemberton Old
-Hall, half timbered (two miles W.S.W.), Birchley Hall, Winstanley
-Hall, and Haigh Hall. Winstanley, built of stone, though partly
-modernised, retains the ancient transom windows, opposing a quiet and
-successful resistance to the ravages of time and fashion. Haigh Hall,
-for many ages the seat of the Bradshaigh family (from which, through
-females, Lord Lindsay, the distinguished Lancashire author and
-art-critic, descended), is a stately mansion of various periods--the
-chapel as old apparently as the reign of Edward II. Placed upon the
-brow of the hill above the town, it commands a prospect scarcely
-surpassed by the view from Billinge.
-
-[Illustration: HALL IN THE WOOD]
-
-The old halls of Manchester and the immediate neighbourhood would a
-hundred years ago have required many chapters to themselves. It has
-already been mentioned that a great portion of the original town was
-"black-and-white," and most of the halls belonging to the local
-gentry, it would seem, were similar. Those which stood in the way of
-the fast-striding bricks and mortar of the eighteenth century and the
-beginning of the nineteenth, if not gone entirely, have been mutilated
-beyond recognition. In the fields close to Garratt Hall partridges
-were shot only seventy or eighty years ago: to-day there is scarcely a
-fragment of it left! Hulme Hall, which stood upon a rise of the red
-sandstone rock close to the Irwell, overlooking the ancient ford to
-Ordsall,--once the seat of the loyal and generous Prestwich
-family,--is remembered by plenty of the living as the point aimed for
-in summer evenings by those who loved the sight of hedges covered with
-the white bells of the convolvulus--Galatea's own pretty flower.
-Workshops now cover the ground; and though Ordsall Hall, its neighbour
-across the water, not long ago a mile from any public road, is still
-extant, it is hall only in name. Ordsall, happily, is in the
-possession of a firm of wealthy manufacturers, who have converted the
-available portions into a sort of institute for their workpeople.[44]
-Crumpsall Old Hall; Hough Hall, near Moston; Ancoats Old Hall, now the
-Ancoats Art Gallery; Barton Old Hall, near Eccles; Urmston Old Hall,
-and several others, may be named as examples of ancient beauty and
-dignity now given over to the spirit of change. Leaving them to their
-destiny, it is pleasant to note one here and there among the fields
-still unspoiled, as in the case of "Hough End," a building of modest
-proportions, but an excellent example of the style in brick which
-prevailed at the close of the reign of Elizabeth; the windows
-square-headed, with substantial stone mullions, and transomed. Hough
-End was originally the home of the Mosleys, having been erected by Sir
-Nicholas Mosley, Lord Mayor of London in 1600, "whom God," says the
-old biographer, "from a small and low estate, raysed up to riches and
-honour." One of the prettiest of the always pretty "magpie" style is
-Kersall Cell, near the banks of the Irwell, at Agecroft, so named
-because on the site of an ancient monkish retreat or hermitage, the
-predecessor of which in turn was a little oratory among the rocks at
-Ordsall, lower down the stream, founded temp. Henry II. Worsley Old
-Hall, another example of "magpie," though less known to the general
-public than the adjacent modern Worsley Hall, the seat of the Earl of
-Ellesmere, is one of the most imposing edifices of its character in
-South Lancashire. With the exception of Worsley Hall, Manchester
-possesses no princely or really patrician residences. The Earl of
-Wilton's, Heaton Park, though well placed, claims to be nothing more
-than of the classical type so common to its class.
-
-    [44] Messrs. R. Howarth & Co., whose "weaving-shed," it may be
-    added, is the largest and most astonishing in the world.
-
-When relics only exist, they in many cases become specially
-interesting through containing some personal memorial. Barlow Hall,
-for instance, originally black-and-white, with quadrangle, now so
-changed by modernising and additions that we have only a hint of the
-primitive aspect, is rich in the possession of an oriel with stained
-glass devoted to heraldry. One of the shields--parted per pale,
-apparently to provide a place for the Barlow arms, not inserted--shows
-on the dexter side those of Edward Stanley, third Earl of Derby, in
-seventeen quarterings--Stanley, Lathom, the Isle of Man, Harrington,
-Whalley Abbey, Hooton, and eleven others. The date of this, as of the
-sundial, is 1574.
-
-The country immediately around Liverpool is deficient in old halls of
-the kind so abundant near Bolton and Manchester. This perhaps is in no
-degree surprising when we consider how thinly that part of Lancashire
-was inhabited when the manufacturing south-east corner was already
-populous. Speke is the only perfect example thereabouts of its
-particular class, the black-and-white; and of a first-class
-contemporaneous baronial mansion, the remains of the Hutte, near Hale,
-furnish an almost solitary memorial. The transom of the lower window,
-the upper smaller windows, the stack of kitchen chimneys, the antique
-mantelpiece, the moat, still untouched, with its drawbridge, combine
-to show how important this place must have been in the bygones, while
-the residence of the Irelands. It was quitted in 1674, when the
-comparatively new "Hale Hall" was erected, a solid and commodious
-building of the indefinite style. Liverpool as a district is
-correspondingly deficient in palatial modern residences, though there
-are many of considerable magnitude. Knowsley, the seat of the Earl of
-Derby, is eminently miscellaneous, a mixture of Gothic and classical,
-and of various periods, beginning with temp. Henry VI. The front was
-built in 1702, the back in 1805. Croxteth Hall, the Earl of Sefton's,
-is a stone building of the negative character indicative of the time
-of Queen Anne and George I. Childwall Abbey, a mansion belonging to
-the Marquis of Salisbury, is Gothic of the kind which is recommended
-neither by taste nor by fidelity to exact principles. Lathom, on the
-other hand, is consistent, though opinions vary as to the amount of
-genius displayed in the detail--the very part in which genius is
-always declared. Would that there existed, were it ever so tiny, a
-fragment of the original Lathom House, that noble first home of the
-Stanleys, which had no fewer than eighteen towers, without reckoning
-the lofty "Eagle" in the centre--its outer walls protected by a fosse
-of eight yards in width, and its gateway one that in nobleness would
-satisfy kings. Henry VII. came here in 1495, the occasion when "to the
-women that songe before the Kinge and the Quene," as appears in the
-entertaining Privy Purse Expenses of the royal progress that pleasant
-summer, there was given "in reward, 6s. 8d." So thorough was the
-demolition of the old place that now there is no certain knowledge
-even of the site. The present mansion was built during the ten years
-succeeding 1724. It has a rustic basement, with double flight of
-steps, above which are rows of Ionic columns. The length of the
-northern or principal front, including the wings, is 320 feet; the
-south front overlooks the garden, and an abundantly wooded park. An
-Italian architect, Giacomo Leoni, was entrusted with the decoration of
-the interior, which upon the whole is deservedly admired.
-
-Ince Blundell is distinguished, not so much for its architecture, as
-for the collection of works of art contained in the entrance-hall, a
-model, one-third size, of the Pantheon. The sculptures, of various
-kinds, above 550 in number, are chiefly illustrative of the later
-period of Roman art, though including some gems of ancient Greek
-conception; the paintings include works of high repute in all the
-principal continental schools, as well as English, the former
-representing, among others, Paul Veronese, Andrea del Sarto, and Jan
-Van Eyck. The Ince Blundell collection is certainly without equal in
-Lancashire, and is pronounced by connoisseurs one of the finest of its
-kind in the country.
-
-The neighbourhood of Blackburn is enviable in the possession of
-Hoghton Tower, five and a half miles to the W.S.W., a building
-surpassed in its various interest only by Lancaster Castle and the
-abbeys; in beauty of situation little inferior to Stirling Castle, and
-as a specimen of old baronial architecture well worthy of comparison
-with Haddon Hall. The estate was in the possession of the Hoghton
-family as early as temp. Henry II., when the original manor-house,
-superseded by the Tower, stood at the foot of the hill, by the
-river-side. The existing edifice dates from the reign of Elizabeth,
-having been erected by the Thomas Hoghton whose departure from "Merry
-England" is the theme of the pathetic old ballad, "The Blessed
-Conscience." He was one of the "obstinate" people who, having been
-educated in the Catholic faith, refused to conform to the requirements
-of the new Protestant powers, and was obliged in consequence to take
-refuge in a foreign country, dying an exile at Liege, 3d June 1580.
-
-    "Oh! Hoghton high, which is a bower
-      Of sports and lordly pleasure,
-    I wept, and left that lordly tower
-      Which was my chiefest treasure.
-    To save my soul, and lose the rest,
-      It was my true pretence;
-    Like frighted bird, I left my nest,
-      To keep my consciènce.
-
-    "Fair England! now ten times adieu!
-      And friends that therein dwell;
-    Farewell, my brother Richard true,
-      Whom I did love so well--
-    Farewell, farewell, good people all,
-      And learn experiènce;
-    Love not too much the golden ball,
-      But keep your consciènce."
-
-[Illustration: HOGHTON TOWER]
-
-The "Tower," so called, occupies the summit of a lofty ridge, on its
-eastern side bold and rugged, steep and difficult of access, though to
-the north and west sloping gently. Below the declivity meanders the
-Darwen, in parts smooth and noiseless; but in the "Orr," so named from
-the sound, tumbling over huge heaps of rock loosened from the opposite
-bank, where the wall of stone is almost vertical. In the time of its
-pride the hill was almost entirely clothed with trees, but now it is
-chiefly turf, and the extent of the prospect, which includes the
-village of Walton-le-Dale, down in the valley of the Ribble, is
-enjoyed perfectly. The ground-plan of the building presents two
-capacious courts, the wall with three square towers in front, the
-middle one protecting the gateway. The outer court is large enough for
-the easy movement of 600 men; the inner one is approached by a noble
-flight of steps. The portion designed for the abode of the family
-contains noble staircases, branching out into long galleries, which
-lead, in turn, to the many chambers. One of the rooms, called James
-the First's, is wainscoted. The stay of his Majesty at Hoghton for a
-few days in August, 1617, has already been referred to. It is this
-which has been so admirably commemorated in Cattermole's best
-painting. With a view to rendering his picture, containing some fifty
-figures, as historically correct as might be possible, the artist was
-assisted with all the records and portraits in existence, so that the
-imagination has little place in it beyond the marshalling. Regarded as
-a semi-ruin, Hoghton Tower is a national monument, a treasure which
-belongs not more to the distinguished baronet by whom it has lately
-been in some degree restored after the neglect of generations, than,
-as said above, like all others of its kind, to the people of England,
-who, in course of time, it is to be hoped, will rightly estimate the
-value of their heirlooms.
-
-Stonyhurst, now the principal English Jesuit College, was originally
-the home of the Sherburne family, one of whom attended Queen Philippa
-at Calais, while upon another, two centuries later, Elizabeth looked
-so graciously that, although a Catholic, she allowed him to retain his
-private chapel and domestic priest. It was under the latter that the
-existing edifice took the place of one more ancient, though the
-builder did not live to complete his work. The completion, in truth,
-may be said to be yet barely effected, so many additions, all in
-thorough keeping, have been projected. Not that they interfere with
-the design of the stately original, its lofty and battlemented
-centre, and noble cupolas. The new is in perfect harmony with the
-old, and the general effect, we may be sure, is no less imposing to-day
-than it was three hundred years ago. The interior corresponds; the
-galleries and apartments leave nothing to be desired: they are stored,
-moreover, with works of art, and with archæological and historical
-curiosities; so richly, indeed, that whatever the value of the museums
-in some of the Lancashire large towns, in the entire county there is
-no collection of the kind that can take precedence of Stonyhurst. The
-house was converted to its present purpose in 1794, when the founders
-of the College, driven from Liege by the terrors of the French
-Revolution, obtained possession of it. They brought with them all they
-could that was specially valuable, and hence, in large measure, the
-varied interest of what it contains. In the philosophical apparatus
-room there is a _Descent from the Cross_, by Annibale Caracci.
-Elsewhere there are some carvings in ivory, and a _Crucifixion_, by
-Michel Angelo, with ancient missals, a copy of the Office of the
-Virgin which belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, and antiques of
-miscellaneous character innumerable, those of the Christian ages
-supplemented by a Roman altar from Ribchester. A curious circumstance
-connected with Stonyhurst is, that the house and grounds occupy, as
-nearly as possible, the same area as that of the famous city which
-once adorned the banks of the Ribble.
-
-[Illustration: STONYHURST]
-
-A pilgrimage to the neighbourhood of Stonyhurst is rewarded by the
-sight of old fashioned manor-houses scarcely inferior in manifold
-interest to those left behind in the southern part of the county.
-Little Mitton Hall (so named in order to distinguish it from Great
-Mitton, on the Yorkshire side of the stream) supplies an example of
-the architecture of the time of Henry VII. The basement is of stone,
-the upper storey of wood; the presence-chamber, with its embayed
-window-screen and gallery above, and the roof ceiled with oak in
-wrought compartments, are alike curious and interesting. Salesbury
-Hall, partly stone and partly wood, once possessed of a quadrangular
-court, now a farmhouse, was originally the seat of the Talbots, one of
-whom, in 1580, was Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London.
-Salmesbury, monographed by Mr. James Croston, dates from the close of
-the fourteenth century. This is a truly fascinating old place, the
-inner doors all without either panel or lock, and opened, like those
-of cottages, with a latch and a string. Townley Hall, near Burnley,
-one of the most ancient seats in the county, is rich in personal
-history. The banks of the Lune in turn supply examples of the ancient
-mansion such as befit a valley picturesque in every winding, Hornby
-Castle and Borwick Hall counting as chief among them.
-
-The list of Lancashire remains of this character could be considerably
-enlarged. Scarisbrick and Rufford, near Ormskirk; Yealand Redmayne,
-nine miles north of Lancaster; Swarthmoor, Extwistle, and many others,
-present features of various interest, and in the aggregate supply
-materials for one of the most delightful chapters still to be written
-for the history not only of Lancashire but of England. But here we
-must desist.
-
-
-
-
-XII
-
-THE NATURAL HISTORY AND THE FOSSILS
-
-
-An extended account of the flora of Lancashire, or of its fauna, or of
-the organic remains preserved in the rocks and the coal strata, is
-impossible in the space now at command: it is not demanded either by
-pages which profess to supply no more than general hints as to where
-to look for what is worthy or curious. A bird's-eye view of
-Lancashire, its contents and characteristics, would nevertheless be
-incomplete without some notice, however brief, of the indigenous trees
-and plants, the birds ordinarily met with, and the fossils. The zest
-with which natural history has been followed in Lancashire, for over a
-century, has resulted in so accurate a discrimination of all the
-principal forms of life, that the numbers, and the degree of diffusion
-of the various species, can now be spoken of without fear of error. In
-those departments alone which require the use of the microscope is
-there much remaining to be done, and these, in truth, are practically
-inexhaustible.
-
-Being so varied in its geology, and possessed of a hundred miles of
-coast, Lancashire presents a very good average flora, though wanting
-many of the pretty plants which deck the meadows and waysides of most
-of the southern counties. The wild clematis which at Clifton festoons
-every old thorn is sought in vain. In Lancashire no cornfield is ever
-flooded as in Surrey with scarlet poppies; the sweet-briar and the
-scented violet are scarcely known, except, of course, in gardens; even
-the mallow is a curiosity. Many flowers, on the other hand, occur in
-plenty, which, though not confined to Lancashire, are in the south
-seldom seen, and which in beauty compare with the best. Mr. Bentham,
-in his _Handbook of the British Flora_, describes 1232 native
-flowering plants, and 53 of the cryptogamia--the ferns and their
-allies--or a total of 1285. Of these the present writer has personally
-observed in Lancashire more than 500. In the remoter corners another
-score or two, without doubt, await the finding. In any case, the
-proportion borne by the Lancashire flora to that of the entire island
-is, in reality, much higher than the figures seem to indicate, since
-quite a sixth part of the 1285 consists of plants confined to three
-or four localities, and thus not entitled to count with the general
-vegetation of the country. It is not, after all, the multitude or the
-variety of the species found in a given spot that renders it enviable.
-The excellent things of the world are not the rare and costly ones,
-but those which give joy to the largest number of intelligent human
-beings; and assuredly more delight has arisen to mankind from the
-primrose, the anemone, and the forget-me-not, than from all the
-botanist's prizes put together. Better, moreover, at any time, than
-the possession of mere quantity, the ceaseless pleasure that comes of
-watching manners and customs, or a life-history--such, for example, as
-that of the Parnassia. Not to mention all that precedes and follows,
-how beautiful the spectacle of the milk-white cups when newly open,
-the golden anthers kneeling round the lilac ovary; then, after a
-while, in succession rising up, bestowing a kiss, and retiring, so
-that at last they form a five-rayed star, the ovary now impurpled. In
-connection with the dethronement of the natural beauty of the streams
-in the cotton manufacturing districts, it is interesting to note that,
-while the primroses, the anemones, and the forget-me-nots, that once
-grew in profusion, here and there, along the margins, have
-disappeared, the "azured harebell"[45] holds its own. Even when the
-whitethorn stands dismayed, the harebell still sheets many a slope and
-shelving bank with its deep-dyed blue.
-
-    [45] Usually miscalled "blue bell," _vide_ "The Shakspere
-    Flora."
-
-On the great hills along the eastern side of the county, and
-especially in the moorland parts, the flora is meagre in the extreme.
-Acres innumerable produce little besides heather and whortle-berry.
-When the latter decreases, it is to make room for the empetrum, or the
-Vitis Idæa, "the grape of Mount Ida"--a name enough in itself to fling
-poetry over the solitude. Harsh and wiry grasses and obdurate rushes
-fill the interspaces, except where green with the hard-fern.
-Occasionally, as upon Foledge, the parsley-fern and the club-moss tell
-of the altitude, as upon Pendle the pinguicula and the cloud-berry.
-The hills behind Grange are in part densely covered with juniper, and
-the characteristic grass is the beautiful blue sesleria, the colour
-contrasting singularly with that of the hay-field grasses. The
-choicest of the English green-flowered plants, the trulove, _Paris
-quadrifolia_, is plentiful in the woods close by, and extends to those
-upon the banks of the Duddon. Everywhere north of Morecambe Bay, as
-these names go far to indicate, the flora is more diversified than to
-the south; here, too, particular kinds of flowers occur in far greater
-plenty. At Grange the meadows teem with cowslips, in many parts of
-Lancashire almost unknown. Crimson orchises--Ophelia's "long-purples,"
-the tway-blade, the fly-orchis, the Lady's tresses, the
-butterfly-orchis, that smells only after twilight, add their charms to
-this beautiful neighbourhood, which, save for Birkdale, would seem the
-Lancashire orchids' patrimony. The total number of orchideous plants
-occurring wild in the county is fourteen; and of these Birkdale lays
-very special claim to two--the marsh epipactis and the _Orchis
-latifolia_. In the moist hollows among the sand-hills, called the
-"slacks," they grow in profusion, occurring also in similar habitats
-beyond the Ribble. The abundance is easily accounted for; the seeds of
-the orchids, of every kind, are innumerable as the motes that glisten
-i' the sunbeam, and when discharged, the wind scatters them in all
-directions. The orchids' Birkdale home is that also of the parnassia,
-which springs up less frequently alone than in clusters of from six or
-eight to twenty or thirty. Here, too, grows that particular form of
-the pyrola, hitherto unnoticed elsewhere, which counts as the
-Lancashire botanical specialty, looking when in bloom like the lily
-of the valley, though different in leaf, and emulating not only the
-fashion but the odour. It would much better deserve the epithet of
-"Lancashire" than the asphodel so called, for the latter is found in
-bogs wherever they occur. Never mind; it is more than enough that
-there is whisper in it of the "yellow meads," and that in high summer
-it shows its bright gold, arriving just when the cotton-grass is
-beginning to waft away, and the sundews are displaying their diamonds,
-albeit so treacherously, for in another week or two every leaf will be
-dotted with corpses. No little creature of tender wing ever touches a
-sundew except under penalty of death. Only two other English
-counties--York and Cornwall--lend their name to a wild-flower, so that
-Lancashire may still be proud of its classic asphodel.
-
-No single kind of wild-flower occurs in Lancashire so abundantly as to
-give character to the county, nor is it marked by any particular kind
-of fern. The most general, perhaps, is the broad-leaved sylvan
-shield-fern (_Lastrea dilatata_), though in some parts superseded by
-the amber-spangled polypody. Neither is any one kind of tree more
-conspicuous than another, unless it be the sycamore. Fair dimensions
-are attained by the wych-elm, which in Lancashire holds the
-place given south of Birmingham to that princely exotic, the
-_campestris_--the "ancestral elm" of the poet, and chief home of the
-sable rook--a tree of comparative rarity, and in Lancashire never
-majestic. The wild cherry is often remarkable also for its fine
-development, especially north of the sands. The abele, on the other
-hand, the maple, and the silver willow, are seldom seen; and of the
-spindle-tree, the wayfaring-tree, and the dogwood, there is scarcely
-an example. They do not blend in Lancashire, as in the south, with the
-crimson pea and the pencilled wood-vetch. When a climber of the
-summer, after the bindweed, ascends the hedge, it is the Tamus, that
-charming plant which never seems so much to have risen out of the
-earth as to be a cataract of foliage tumbling from some hidden fount
-above. Wood-nuts are plentiful in the northern parts of the county;
-and in the southern wild raspberries, these equal in flavour and
-fragrance to those of garden growth, wanting only in size. Bistort
-makes pink islands amid hay grass that waits the scythe. Foxgloves as
-tall as a man adorn all dry and shady groves. The golden-rod, the
-water septfoil, and the Lady's mantle, require no searching for. At
-Blackpool the sea-rocket blooms again towards Christmas. On the
-extremest verge of the county, where a leap across the streamlet would
-plant the feet in Westmoreland, the banks are dotted for many miles
-with the bird's-eye primula.
-
-
-THE BIRDS[46]
-
-    [46] Condensed in part from the chapter on Lancashire Birds in
-    _Manchester Walks and Wild-flowers_, 1858, long since out of
-    print.
-
-With the Lancashire birds, as with the botany, it is not the
-exhaustive catalogue that possesses the prime interest. This lies in
-the habits, the odd and pretty ways, the instincts, the songs, the
-migrations, that lift birds, in their endless variety, so near to our
-own personal human nature.
-
-Adding to the list of birds known to be permanent residents in Great
-Britain, the names of those which visit our islands periodically,
-either in summer or winter, the total approaches 250. Besides the
-regular immigrants, about a hundred others come occasionally; some,
-perchance, by force of accident, as when, after heavy weather at sea,
-the Stormy Petrel is blown ashore. In Lancashire there appear to be,
-of the first-class, about seventy: the summer visitors average about
-thirty; and of winter visitors there have been noticed about a score,
-the aggregate being thus, as nearly as possible, one-half of the
-proper ornithology of the country. The parts of the county richest in
-species are naturally those which abound in woods and well-cultivated
-land, as near Windermere, and where there are orchards and plenty of
-market-gardens, as on the broad plain south-west of Manchester, which
-is inviting also in the pleasant character of the climate. Here, with
-the first dawn of spring, when the catkins hang on the hazels, the
-song-thrush begins to pipe. The missel-thrush in the same district is
-also very early, and is often, like the chief musician, remarkable for
-size, plumage, and power of song. Upon the seaside sand-hills it is
-interesting to observe how ingeniously the throstle deals with the
-snails. Every here and there in the sand a large pebble is lodged, and
-against this the bird breaks the shells, so that at last the stone
-becomes the centre of a heap of fragments that recall the tales of the
-giants and their bone-strewed caverns. This, too, where the
-peacefulness is so profound, and where never a thought of slaughter
-and rapine, save for the deeds of the thrushes, would enter the mind.
-The snails are persecuted also by the blackbirds--in gardens more
-inveterately even than on the sand-hills--in the former to such a
-degree that none can refuse forgiveness of the havoc wrought among the
-strawberries and ripening cherries. Both thrush and blackbird have
-their own cruel enemy--the cunning and inexorable sparrow-hawk. When
-captured, the unfortunate minstrel is conveyed to an eminence,
-sometimes an old nest, if one can be near, and there devoured. In
-almost all parts of Lancashire where there are gardens, that cheerful
-little creature, the hedge-sparrow or dunnock, lifts up its voice.
-Birds commence their song at very various hours. The dunnock usually
-begins towards sunset, first mounting to the loftiest twig it can
-discover that will bear its weight. The sweet and simple note, if one
-would hear it to perfection, must be caught just at that moment. The
-song is one of those that seem to be a varied utterance of the words
-of men. Listen attentively, and the lay is as nearly as may be--"Home,
-home, sweet, sweet home; my work's done, so's yours; good night, all's
-well." Heard in mild seasons as early as January, the little dunnock
-sings as late as August. It rears a second brood while the summer is
-in progress, building a nest of moss, lining it with hair, and
-depositing five immaculate blue eggs. The robin, plentiful everywhere
-in the rural districts, and always equal to the production of a
-delightful song, never hesitates to visit the suburbs even of large
-and noisy towns, singing throughout the year, though not so much
-noticed in spring and summer, because of the chorus of other birds.
-The country lads still call it by the old Shaksperean name:
-
-                       ... "The ruddock would,
-    With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming
-    Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie
-    Without a monument!) bring thee all this;
-    Yea, and furr'd moss besides."--_Cymbeline_, iv. 2.
-
-The great titmouse is almost as generally distributed as the robin,
-and in gardens never a stranger, being busy most of its time looking
-for insects. Were coincidences in nature rare and phenomenal, instead
-of, to the contemplative, matter of everyday delight, we should think
-more of its note as the token of the time of blooming of the
-daffodils. Making the oddest of noises, as if trying to imitate other
-birds, poor innocent, it only too often gets shot for its pains, the
-sportsman wondering what queer thing can this be now? The blue
-titmouse, like the great, would seem to be very generally diffused.
-Exquisite in plumage, it attracts attention still more particularly
-while building, both the male and the female working so hard. The
-meadow pipit, or titling, loves the peat-mosses (those decked with the
-asphodel), upon which the nests are often plentiful, a circumstance
-the cuckoos, when they arrive, are swift to take advantage of. No bird
-that builds on the ground has more work to do for the "herald of
-summer." From the end of April onwards--the cuckoo arriving in the
-third week--the titlings, whether they like it or not, get no respite.
-The young cuckoos are always hungry, and never in the least anxious to
-go away. How exemplary the fondness of the cuckoo for its mate!
-Though apparently void of affection for its offspring, no bird, not
-even the turtle-dove, is more strongly attached to the one it has
-taken "for better for worse." Where either of the pair is seen, the
-other is sure never to be far away. Greenfinches and chaffinches are
-plentiful, the song of the former sweet, though monotonous, the latter
-rendered liberally, and always welcome. The chaffinch becomes
-interesting through choice of materials so very curious for its
-nest. One has been found--where but in Lancashire could it
-occur?--constructed entirely of raw cotton. The nest-building and the
-choice of abode constitute, in truth, a chapter in bird-life more
-charming even than the various outflow of the melody. The pied
-wagtail goes to the very localities that most other birds
-dislike--rough and stony places, near the water and under bridges; the
-tree-sparrow resorts to aged and hollow oaks, rarely building
-elsewhere; the long-tailed titmouse constructs a beautiful little nest
-not unlike a beehive, using moss, lichens, and feathers; while the
-redpole prefers dead roots of herbaceous plants, tying the fibres
-together with the bark of last year's withered nettle-stalks, and
-lining the cavity with the glossy white pappus of the coltsfoot, just
-ripe to its hand, and softer than silk. The common wren,--a frequent
-Lancashire bird,--a lovely little creature, sometimes with wings
-entirely white, and not infrequently with a few scattered feathers of
-that colour, is one of the birds that prefigure character in man. When
-the time for building arrives the hen commences a nest on her own
-private account, goes on with it, and completes it. Her consort
-meantime begins two or three in succession, but tires, and never
-finishes anything. Among the Lancashire permanent residents, and birds
-only partially periodical, may also be named, as birds of singular
-attractiveness in their ways,--though not perhaps always tuneful, or
-graceful in form, or gay in plumage,--the skylark that "at heaven's
-gate sings"; the common linnet, a bird of the heaths and hedgerows,
-captured, whenever possible, for the cage; the magpie, the common
-bunting, the yellow-ammer, the peewit, and the starling or shepster.
-The starlings travel in companies, and lively parties they always
-seem. The "close order" flight of the peewit is well known; that of
-the starling is, if possible, even more wonderful. The sudden move to
-the right or left of thousands perfectly close together upon the wing;
-the rise, at a given signal, like a cloud, from the pastures where
-they have been feeding, is a spectacle almost unique in its
-singularity. Near the sea the list is augmented by the marsh bunting,
-the curlew, and gulls of different kinds, including the kittiwake. In
-very tempestuous seasons gulls are often blown inland, as far as
-Manchester, falling when exhausted in the fields. They also come of
-their own accord, and may be seen feeding upon the mosses. Upon the
-sand-hills a curious and frequent sight is that of the hovering of the
-kestrel over its intended prey, which here consists very generally of
-young rabbits. The kestrel has little skill in building. Talents
-differ as much in birds as in mankind. Seldom its own architect, it
-selects and repairs an old and deserted crow's or magpie's nest, or
-any other it can find sufficiently capacious for its needs.
-
-The history of the Lancashire summer visitants is crowded with
-interest of equal variety. The nightingale stays away. She has come
-now and then to the edge of Cheshire, but no farther. Very often,
-however, she is thought to have ventured at last, the midnight note of
-the sedge-warbler being in some respects not unlike that of Philomel
-herself. The earliest to arrive, often preceding the swallows, appear
-to be the wheatear and the willow-wren. The sand-martin is also a very
-early comer. It cannot afford, in truth, to be dilatory, the nest
-being constructed in a gallery first made in some soft cliff, usually
-sandstone. While building it never alights upon the ground, collecting
-the green blades of grass used for the outer part, and the feathers
-for the lining, while still on the wing. The advent of the cuckoo has
-already been mentioned. In the middle of May comes the spotted
-fly-catcher, an unobtrusive and confiding little creature; and about
-the same time the various "warblers" make their appearance. The males
-usually precede the females by a week or two; the black-cap going,
-like the hedge-sparrow, to the highest pinnacle it can find, and
-singing till joined by the hen; while the garden-warbler keeps to the
-bushes and gardens, and is silent till she arrives. The whinchat, the
-yellow wagtail, and the stone-chat, haunter of the open wastes where
-gorse grows freely, never forget. Neither do the dotterel and the
-ring-ouzel, the latter in song so mellow, both moving on speedily into
-the hilly districts. To many the voice of the corncrake, though harsh
-and tuneless, becomes a genuine pleasure, for she is heard best during
-those balmy summer evening hours while, though still too light for the
-stars, the planets peer forth in their beautiful lustre, clear and
-young as when first noted by the Chaldean shepherds, bryony in bloom
-in the hedgerows, "listening wheat" on either hand.
-
-The winter visitants comprehend chiefly the fieldfare and the redwing.
-In October and November these birds, breeding in Norway and Sweden,
-appear in immense flocks. Winging its way to the vicinity of farms and
-orchards, the one piercing cry of the redwing may be heard overhead
-any still night, no matter how dark. Siskins come at uncertain
-intervals; and in very severe seasons the snow-bunting is sometimes
-noticed.
-
-Such are the ornithological facts which in Lancashire give new
-attraction to the quiet and rewarding study of wild nature. The few
-that have been mentioned--for they are not the hundredth part of what
-might be cited were the subject dealt with _in extenso_--do not
-pretend to be in the slightest degree novel. They may serve,
-nevertheless, to indicate that in Lancashire there is lifelong pastime
-for the lover of birds no less than for the botanist.
-
-
-THE FOSSILS[47]
-
-    [47] One or two paragraphs condensed from the seventh chapter of
-    _Summer Rambles_, 1866. Long since out of print.
-
-Although the new red sandstone, so general in the southern parts,
-offers scarcely any attractions to the palæontologist, Lancashire is
-still a rich locality in regard to fossils. The coal-fields and the
-mountain limestone, the latter so abundant near Clitheroe, make
-amends. The organic remains found in the mountain limestone almost
-invariably have their forms preserved perfectly as regards clearness
-and sharpness of outline. The history of this rock begins in that of
-primeval sea; the quantity of remains which it entombs is beyond the
-power of fancy to conceive, large masses owing their existence to the
-myriads, once alive, of a single species of creature. A third
-characteristic is that, notwithstanding the general hardness, the
-surface wears away under the influence of the carbonic acid brought
-down by the rain, so that the fossils become liberated, and may often
-be gathered up as easily as shells from the wet wrinkles of the sands.
-Access to the mountain limestone is thus peculiarly favourable to the
-pursuits of the student who makes researches into the history of the
-life of the globe on which we dwell. How much can be done towards it
-was shown forty or fifty years ago by the Preston apothecary, William
-Gilbertson, whose collection--transferred after his death to the
-British Museum--was pronounced by Professor Phillips in the _Geology
-of Yorkshire_ at that moment "unrivalled." Gilbertson's specimens were
-chiefly collected in the small district of Bolland, upon Longridge,
-where also at considerable heights marine shells of the same species
-as those which lie upon our existing shores may be found, showing that
-the elevation of the land has taken place since their first appearance
-upon the face of the earth.
-
-The quarries near Clitheroe and Chatburn supply specimens quite as
-abundantly as those of Longridge. Innumerable terebratulæ, the
-beautiful broad-hinged and deeply-striated spirifers, and the
-euomphalos, reward a very slight amount of labour. Here, too, are
-countless specimens of the petrified relics of the lovely creatures
-called, from their resemblance to an expanded lily-blossom and its
-long peduncle, the crinoidea, a race now nearly extinct. A very
-curious circumstance connected with these at Clitheroe is that of some
-of the species, as of the _Platycrinus triacontadactylos_, or the
-"thirty-rayed," there are myriads of fossilised _heads_ but no bodies.
-The presumed explanation of this singular fact is, that at the time
-when the creatures were in the quiet enjoyment of their innocent
-lives, great floods swept the shores upon which they were seated,
-breaking off, washing away, and piling up the tender and flowerlike
-upper portions, just as at the present day the petals of the pear-tree
-exposed to the tempest are torn down and heaped like a snowdrift by
-the wayside, the pillar-like stems remaining fast to the ground. There
-is no need to conjecture where the _bodies_ of the creatures may be.
-At Castleton, in Derbyshire, where the encrinital limestone is also
-well exhibited, there are innumerable specimens of these, and few or
-no examples of heads. The bodies of other species are plentiful at
-Clitheroe, where the actinocrinus is also extremely abundant, and may
-be detected, like the generality of these beautiful fossils, in nearly
-every one of the great flat stones set up edgeways in place of stiles
-between the fields that lie adjacent to the quarries.
-
-The organic remains found in the coal strata rival those of the
-mountain limestone both in abundance and exquisite lineaments. In some
-parts there are incalculable quantities of relics of fossil fishes,
-scales of fishes, and shells resembling mussels. The glory of these
-wonderful subterranean museums consists, however, in the infinite
-numbers and the inexpressible beauty of the impressions of
-fern-leaves, and of fragments of the stems--well known under the names
-of calamites, sigillaria, and lepidodendra--of the great plants which
-in the pre-Adamite times composed the woods and groves. In some of the
-mines--the Robin Hood, for instance, at Clifton, five miles from
-Manchester--the roof declares, in its flattened sculptures, the
-ancient existence hereabouts of a vast forest of these plants. At
-Dixonfold, close by, when the railway was in course of construction,
-there were found the lower portions of the fossilised trunks of half a
-dozen noble trees, one of the stone pillars eleven feet high, with a
-circumference at the base of over fifteen feet, and at the top, where
-the trunk was snapped when the tree was destroyed, of more than seven
-feet. These marvellous Dixonfold relics have been carefully preserved
-by roofing over, and are shown to any one passing that way who cares
-to inquire for them. Beneath the coal which lies in the plane of the
-roots, enclosed in nodules of clay, there are countless lepidostrobi,
-the fossilised fruits, it is supposed, of one or other of the
-coal-strata trees. Two miles beyond, at Halliwell, they occur in equal
-profusion; and here, too, unflattened trunks occur, by the miners
-aptly designated "fossil reeds." Leaves of palms are also met with.
-The locality which in wealth of this class of fossils excels all
-others in South Lancashire would appear to be Peel Delph. In it are
-found calamites varying from the thickness of a straw to a diameter of
-two or three feet, and as round as when swayed by the wind of untold
-ages ago. The markings upon the lepidodendra are as clear as the
-impress of an engraver's seal. In another part there is a stratum of
-some four feet in depth, consisting apparently of nothing besides the
-fossil fruits called trigonocarpa and the sandy material in which they
-are lodged. With these curious triangular nuts, no stems, or leaves,
-or plant-remains of any description have as yet been found associated.
-All that can be said of them is that they resemble the fruits of the
-many-sided Japanese tree called the salisburia.
-
-At Peel Delph again a stratum of argillaceous shale, five or six feet
-in thickness, contains innumerable impressions of the primeval ferns,
-the dark tint thrown forward most elegantly by the yellow of the
-surface upon which they repose. The neighbourhood of Bolton in general
-is rich in fossil ferns, though Ashton-under-Lyne claims perhaps an
-equal place, and in diversity of species is possibly superior.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Thus whether considered in regard to its magnificent modern
-developments in art, science, literature, and useful industries, its
-scenery and natural productions, or its wealth in the marvellous
-relics which talk of an immemorial past, Lancashire appeals to every
-sentiment of curiosity and admiration.
-
-
-
-_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_
-
-
-
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's note:
-
-Archaic and inconsistent spelling and punctuation were retained.
-
-
-
-***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LANCASHIRE***
-
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