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Title: Lancashire: Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes

Author: Leo H. Grindon

Release date: August 26, 2012 [eBook #40584]

Language: English

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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.





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