And, certainly, that part of the popular voice which is raised upon questions respecting which it has little or no sound information, must be considerably swayed by prejudice, and by that erratic play of unenlightened feeling, which has no safer government than the ephemeral circumstances which chase each other off the field of time. Shrewd demagogues know well how prostrate is the position of this uneducated "mass," as it is called; and they have a stock of old-fashioned tricks, by which they can move it to their own ends "as easy as lying." He who knows the touches of this passive instrument, can make it discourse the music he desires; and, unhappily, that is not always airs from heaven.

Now, the educated classes have all the wide field of ancient learning open to them—they can pasture where they will; and, the stream of present knowledge rushing by, they can drink as they list. Whatever is doing in politics, too, they hear of, whilst these things are yet matters of public dispute; and, in some degree, they understand and see the drift of them, and, therefore, can throw such influence as in them lies into one or the other scale of the matter. This boasted out-door parliament—this free expression of public opinion in England, however, as I have said before, goes no farther down among the people than education goes. Below that point lies a land of fretful slaves, dungeoned off by ignorance from the avenues which lead to freedom; and they drag out their lives in unwilling subservience to a legislation which is beyond their influence. Their ignorance keeps them dumb; and, therefore, their condition and wants are neither so well known, nor so often nor so well expressed as those of the educated classes. They seldom complain, however, until the state of affairs drives them to great extremity, and then their principal exponents are mobs, and uproars of desperation. It is plain that where there is society there must be law, and obedience to that law must be enforced, even among those who know nothing of the law, as well as those who defy it; but my principal quarrel is with that ignorant condition of theirs which shuts them out from any reasonable hope of exercising their rights as men and citizens. And so long as that ignorance is unnecessarily continued, the very enforcement of laws among them, the nature of which they have no chance of knowing, looks, to me, like injustice. I see a remarkable difference, however, between the majority of popular movements which have agitated the people for some time past, and that successful one—the repeal of the corn-laws. The agitation of that question, I believe, awakened and enlisted a greater breadth of the understanding sympathy of the nation, among all classes, than was ever brought together upon any one popular question which has been agitated within the memory of man. But it did more than this—and herein lies one of the foundationstones which shall hold it firm awhile, I think; since it has passed into law, its effects have most efficiently convinced that uneducated multitude of the labouring poor, who could not very well understand, and did not care much for the mere disputation of the question. Everybody has a stomach of some sort—and it frequently happens that when the brain is not very active the stomach is particularly so—so that, where it could not penetrate the understanding, it has by this time triumphantly reached the stomach, and now sits there, smiling defiance to any kind of sophistry that would coax it thenceforth again. The loaves of free trade followed the tracts of the League, and the hopes of protectionist philosophers are likely to be "adjourned sine die," for this generation at least—perhaps for ever; for the fog is clearing up a little, and I think I see, in the distance, a better education getting ready for the next generation.

The Cottage of Tim Bobbin, and the Village of Milnrow.

Burns.

It is not in its large towns that the true type of the natives of Lancashire can be seen. The character of its town population is greatly modified by mixture with settlers from distant quarters. Not so in the country parts, because the tenancy of land, and employment upon it, are sufficiently competed by the natives; and while temptations to change of settlement are fewer, the difficulties in the way of changing settlement are greater there than in towns. Country people, too, stick to their old sod, with hereditary love, as long as they can keep soul and body together upon it, in any honest way. As numbers begin to press upon the means of living, the surplus fights its way in cities, or in foreign lands; or lingers out a miserable life in neglected corners, for want of work, and want of means to fly, in time, to a market where it might, at least, exchange its labour for its living. The growth of manufacture and railways, and the inroads of hordes of destitute, down-trodden Irish, are stirring up Lancashire, and changing its features, in a surprising way; and this change is rapidly augmenting by a varied infusion of new human elements, attracted from all quarters of the kingdom by the immense increase of capital, boldly and promptly embarked in new inventions, and ever-developing appliances of science, by a people remarkable for enterprise and industry. Still, he who wishes to see the genuine descendants of those old Saxons who came over here some fourteen hundred years ago, to help the Britons of that day to fight for their land, and remained to farm it, and govern in it, let them ramble through the villages on the western side of Blackstone Edge. He will there find the open manners, the independent bearing, the steady perseverance, and that manly sense of right and wrong, which characterised their Teutonic forefathers. There, too, he will find the fair comeliness, and massive physical constitution of those broad-shouldered farmer-warriors, who made a smiling England out of an island of forests and bogs—who felled the woods, and drained the marshes, and pastured their quiet kine in the ancient lair of the wild bull, the boar, and the wolf.

Milnrow is an old village, a mile and a half eastward from the Rochdale station. The external marks of its antiquity are now few, and much obscured by the increase of manufacture there; but it is, for many reasons, well worth a visit. It is part of the fine township of Butterworth, enriched with many a scene of mountain beauty. A hardy moor-end race, half farmers, half woollen-weavers, inhabit the district; and their rude, but substantial cottages and farmsteads, often perch picturesquely about the summits and sides of the hills, or nestle pleasantly in green holms and dells, which are mostly watered by rivulets, from the moorland heights which bound the township on the east. There is also a beautiful lake, three miles in circumference, filling a green valley, up in the hills, about a mile and a half from the village. Flocks of sea-fowl often rest on this water, in their flight from the eastern to the western seas. From its margin the view of the wild ridges of the "Back-bone of England" is fine to the north, while that part of it called "Blackstone Edge" slopes up majestically from the cart-road that winds along the eastern bank. A massive cathedral-looking crag frowns on the forehead of the mountain. This rock is a great point of attraction to ramblers from the vales below, and is called by them "Robin Hood Bed." A square cavity in the lower part is called "Th' Cellar." Hundreds of names are sculptured on the surface of the rock, some in most extraordinary situations; and often have the keepers of the moor been startled at peep of summer dawn by the strokes of an adventurous chiseller, hammering his initials into its hard face as stealthily as possible. But the sounds float, clear as a bell, miles over the moor, in the quiet of the morning, and disturb the game. One of the favourite rambles of my youth was from Rochdale town, through that part of Butterworth which leads by "Clegg Hall," commemorated in Roby's tradition of "Clegg Ho' Boggart," and thence across the green hills, by the old farmhouse, called "Peanock," and, skirting along the edge of this quiet lake—upon whose waters I have spent many a happy summer day, alone—up the lofty moorside beyond, to this rock, called "Robin Hood Bed," upon the bleak summit of Blackstone Edge. It is so large that it can be seen at a distance of four miles by the naked eye, on a clear day. The name of Robin Hood, that brave outlaw of the olden time—"The English ballad-singer's joy"—is not only wedded to this wild crag, but to at least one other congenial spot in this parish; where the rude traditions of the people point out another rock, of several tons weight, as having been thrown thither, by this king of the green-woods, from an opposite hill, nearly seven miles off. The romantic track where the lake lies, is above the level of Milnrow, and quite out of the ordinary way of the traveller; who is too apt to form his opinion of the features of the whole district, from the sterile sample he sees on the sides of the rail, between Manchester and Rochdale. But if he wishes to know the country and its inhabitants, he must get off that, "an' tak th' crow-gate," and he will find vast moors, wild ravines, green cloughs, and dells, and

which will repay him for his pains. And then, if he be a Lancashire man, and a lover of genius, let him go to Milnrow—it was the dwelling-place of Tim Bobbin, with whose works I hope he is not unacquainted. His written works are not much in extent. He was a painter, and his rough brush was replete with Hogarthian sketches, full of nature, and radiant with his own broad, humourous originality. He also left a richly-humourous dialectic tale, a few Hudibrastic poems and letters, characteristic of the sterling quality of his heart and head, and just serving to show us how much greater the man was than his book.

I was always proud of Tim, and in my early days have made many a pilgrimage to the village where he used to live, wandering home again through the green hills of Butterworth. Bent on seeing the place once more, I went up to Hunt's Bank, one fine day at the end of last hay-time, to catch the train to Rochdale. I paid my shilling, and took my seat among a lot of hearty workmen and country-folk coming back from Wales and the bathing places on the Lancashire coast. The season had been uncommonly fine, and the trippers looked brighter for their out, and, to use their own phrase, felt "fain at they'rn wick," and ready to buckle to work again, with fresh vigour. The smile of summer had got into the saddest of us a little; and we were communicative and comfortable. A long-limbed collier lad, after settling his body in a corner, began to hum, in a jolting metre, with as much freedom of mind as if he was at the mouth of a lonely "breast-hee" on his native moorside, a long country ditty about the courtship of Phœbe and Colin:—

The late-comers, having rushed through the ticket-office into the carriages, were wiping their foreheads, and wedging themselves into their seats, in spite of many protestations about being "to full o'ready." The doors were slammed, the bell rung, the tickets were shown, the whistle screamed its shrill signal, and off we went, like a street on wheels, over the little Irk, that makes such a slushy riot under the wood bridge by the college wall. Within the memory of living men, the angler used to come down the bank, and settle himself among the grass, to fish in its clear waters. But since Arkwright set this part of the world so wonderfully astir with his practicable combination of other men's inventions, the Irk, like the rest of South Lancashire streams, has been put to work, and its complexion is now so "subdued to what it works in," that the angler comes no more to the banks of the Irk to beguile the delicate loach, and the lordly trout in his glittering suit of silver mail.

The train is now nearly a mile past Miles Platting, and about a mile over the fields, on the north side, lies the romantic dell called "Boggart Hole Clough," hard by the village of Blackley—a pleasant spot for an afternoon walk from Manchester. An old Lancashire poet lives near it, too, in his country cottage. It is a thousand to one that, like me, the traveller will see neither the one nor the other from the train; but, like me, let him be thankful for both, and ride on. Very soon, now, appears, on the south side of the line, the skirts of Oldham town, scattered about the side and summit of a barren slope, with the tower of the parish church, peeping up between the chimneys of the cotton factories behind Oldham Edge. If the traveller can see no fine prospective meaning in the manufacturing system, he will not be delighted with the scene; for the country has a monotonous look, and is bleak and sterile, with hardly anything worthy of the name of a tree to be seen upon it. But now, about a hundred yards past the Oldham Station, there is a little of the picturesque for him to feast on. We are crossing a green valley, running north and south. Following the rivulet through the hollow, a thick wood waves on a rising ground to the south. In that wood stands Chadderton Hall, anciently the seat of the Chaddertons, some of whom were famous men; and since then, the seat of the Horton family. The situation is very pleasant, and the land about it looks richer than the rest of the neighbourhood. There was a deer-park here in the time of the Hortons. Chadderton is a place of some note in the history of the county; and it is said to have formerly belonged to one of the old orders of knighthood. On the other side of the line, about a mile and a half off, the south-east end of Middleton is in sight; with its old church on the top of a green hill. The greater part of the parish of Middleton, with other possessions in South Lancashire, belonging to the Ashetons from before Richard III., when extraordinary powers were granted to Randulph Asheton. The famous Sir Ralph Asheton, called "The Black Lad," from his wearing black armour, is traditionally said to have ruled in his territories in South Lancashire with great severity. In the town of Ashton, one of the lordships of this family, his name is still remembered with a kind of hereditary dislike; and till within the last five or six years he has been shot and torn to pieces, in effigy, by the inhabitants, at the annual custom of "The Riding of the Black Lad." The hero of the fine ballad called "The Wild Rider," written by Bamford, the Lancashire poet, was one of this family. The Middleton estates, in 1776, failing male issue, passed by marriage into the noble families of De Wilton and Suffield. Now, many a rich cotton spinner, perhaps lineally descended from some of the villain-serfs of the "Black Lad," has an eye to buying the broad lands of the proud old Ashetons.

The train is now hard by Blue Pits Station, where it is not impossible for the traveller to have to wait awhile. But he may comfort himself with the assurance that it is not often much more than half an hour or so. Let him amuse himself, meanwhile, with the wild dins that fill his ears;—the shouting and running of porters, the screams of engine-whistles, the jolts and collisions on a small scale, and the perpetual fuff-fuff of trains, of one kind or other, that shoot to and fro by his window, then stop suddenly, look thoughtful, as if they had dropt something, and run back again. If he looks out, ten to one he will see a red-hot monster making towards him from the distance at a great speed, belching steam, and scattering sparks and red-hot cinders; and, in the timidity of the moment, he may chance to hope it is on the right pair of rails. But time and a brave patience delivers him from these terrors, unshattered in everything—if his temper holds good—and he shoots ahead again.

The moorland hills now sail upon the sight, stretching from the round peak of Knowl, on the north-west, to the romantic heights of Saddleworth on the south-east. The train is three minutes from Rochdale, but, before it reaches there, let the traveller note that picturesque old mansion, on the green, above Castleton Clough, at the left-hand side of the rail. His eye must be active, for, at the rate he is going, the various objects about him literally "come like shadows, so depart." This is Castleton Hall, formerly a seat of the Holts, of Stubley, an ancient and powerful family in this parish, in the reign of Henry VIII. Castleton Hall came afterwards into the possession of Humphrey Chetham, the founder of Chetham College, in Manchester. Since then it has passed into other hands; but the proverb, "as rich as a Chetham o' Castleton," is often used by the people of this district, at this day; and many interesting anecdotes, characteristic of the noble qualities of this old Lancashire worthy, are treasured up by the people of those parts of the country where he lived; especially in the neighbourhoods of Clayton Hall, near Manchester, and Turton Tower, near Bolton, his favourite residences. Castleton Hall was an interesting place to me when I was a lad. As I pass by it now I sometimes think of the day when I first sauntered down the shady avenue, which leads to it from the highroad behind; and climbed up a mossy wall by the wayside, to look into the green gloom of a mysterious wood, which shades the rear of the building. Even now, I remember the flush of imaginations which came over me then. I had picked up some scraps of historic lore about the hall, which deepened the interest I felt in it. The solemn old rustling wood; the quaint appearance, and serene dignity of the hall; and the spell of interest which lingers around every decaying relic of the works and haunts of men of bygone times, made the place eloquent to me. It seemed to me, then, like a monumental history of its old inhabitants, and their times. I remember, too, that I once got a peep into a part of the hall, where in those days, some old armour hung against the wall, silent and rusty enough, but, to me, teeming with tales of chivalry and knightly emprise. But, here is Rochdale station, where he, who wishes to visit the village of Milnrow, had better alight.

If the traveller had time and inclination to go down into Rochdale town, he might see some interesting things, old and new, there. The town is more picturesquely situated than most of the towns of South Lancashire. It lines the sides of a deep valley on the banks of the Roch, overlooked by moorland hills. In Saxon times it was an insignificant village, called "Rocheddam," consisting of a few rural dwellings in Church Lane, a steep and narrow old street, which was, down to the middle of last century, the principal street in the town, though now the meanest and obscurest. The famous John Bright, the Cromwell of modern politicians—a man of whom future generations of Englishmen will be prouder even than his countrymen are now—was born in this town, and lives at "One Ash," on the north side of it. John Roby, author of the "Traditions of Lancashire," was a banker, in Rochdale, of the firm of Fenton and Roby. The bank was next door to the shop of Thomas Holden, the principal bookseller of the town, to whom I was apprentice. For the clergy of the district, and for a certain class of politicians, this shop was the chief rendezvous of the place. Roby used to slip in at evening, to have a chat with my employer, and a knot of congenial spirits who met him there. In the days when my head was yet but a little way higher than the counter, I remember how I used to listen to his versatile conversations. Rochdale was one of the few places where the woollen manufacture was first practised in England. It is still famous for its flannel. The history of Rochdale is in one respect but the counterpart of that of almost every other South Lancashire town. With the birth of cotton manufacture, it shot up suddenly into one of the most populous and wealthy country towns in England. After the traveller has contemplated the manufacturing might of the place, he may walk up the quaint street from which the woollen merchants of old used to dispatch their goods, on pack horses, to all parts of the kingdom; and from which it takes the name of "Packer Street." At the top, a flight of one hundred and twenty-two steps leads into the churchyard; which commands an excellent view of the town below. There, too, lies "Tim Bobbin." Few Lancashire strangers visit the town without looking at the old rhymer's resting-place. Bamford, author of "Passages in the Life of a Radical," thus chronicles an imaginary visit to Tim's grave, in happy imitation of the dialect of the neighbourhood:—

Some of the epitaphs on the grave-stones were written by Tim. The following one, on Joe Green, the sexton, is published with Tim's works:—

Near to this grave is the grave of Samuel Kershaw, blacksmith, bearing an epitaph which is generally attributed to the pen of Tim, though it does not appear among his writings:—

"Blind Abraham," who rang the curfew, and who used to imitate the chimes of Rochdale old church, in a wonderful way, for the lads at the Grammar School, could lead a stranger from any point of the churchyard, straight as an arrow's flight, to Tim's gravestone. The Grammar School was founded in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, by Archbishop Parker. The parish church is an interesting old edifice, standing on the edge of an eminence, which overlooks the town. Tradition says its foundations were laid by "Goblin Builders." The living was anciently dependent on the Abbey of Whalley. It is now the richest vicarage in the kingdom. A short walk through the glebe lands, and past "Th' Cant-hill Well,"[7] west of the vicarage, will bring the traveller to the hill on which, in 1080, stood the castle of Gamel, the Saxon Thane, above the valley called "Kill-Danes," where the northern pirates once lost a great fight with the Saxon.

After spending a few days in the town, I set out for Milnrow, one fine afternoon. The road leads by the "Railway Inn," near the station. The hay was mostly gathered in, but the smell of it still lingered on the meadows, and perfumed the wind, which sung a low melody among the leaves of the hedges. Along the vale of the Roch, to the left, lay a succession of manufacturing villages, with innumerable mills, collieries, farmsteads, mansions, and cottages, clustering in the valley, and running up into the hills in all directions, from Rochdale to Littleborough, a distance of three miles. As I went on I was reminded of "wimberry-time," by meeting knots of flaxen-headed lads and lasses from the moors, with their baskets filled, and mouths all stained with the juice of that delicious moorland fruit. There are many pleasant customs in vogue here at this season. The country-folk generally know something of local botany; and gather in a stock of medicinal herbs to dry, for use throughout the year. There is still some "spo'in'" at the mineral springs in the hills. Whether these springs are really remarkable for peculiar mineral virtues, or what these peculiar virtues are, I am not prepared to say; but it is certain that many of the inhabitants of this district firmly believe in their medicinal qualities, and, at set seasons of the year, go forth to visit these springs, in jovial companies, to drink "spo wayter." Some go with great faith in the virtues of the water, and, having drunk well of it, they will sometimes fill a bottle with it, and ramble back to their houses, gathering on their way edible herbs, such as "payshun docks," and "green-sauce," or "a burn o' nettles," to put in their broth, and, of which, they also make a wholesome "yarb-puddin'," mixed with meal; or they scour the hill-sides in search of "mountain flax," a "capital yarb for a cowd;" and for the herb called "tormental," which, I have heard them say, grows oftenest "abeawt th' edge o' th' singing layrock neest;" or they will call upon some country botanist to beg a handful of "Solomon's seal," to "cure black e'en wi'." But some go to these springs mainly for the sake of a pleasant stroll and a quiet feast. One of the most noted of these "spo'in'" haunts is "Blue Pots Spring," situated upon a lofty moorland, at the head of a green glen, called "Long Clough," about three miles from the village of Littleborough. The ancient Lancashire festival of "Rushbearing," and the hay-harvest, fall together, in the month of August; and make it a pleasant time of the year to the folk of the neighbourhood. At about a mile on the road to Milnrow, the highway passes close by a green dingle, called "Th' Gentlewoman's Nook," which is someway connected with the unfortunate fate of a lady, once belonging to an influential family, near Milnrow. Some of the country people yet believe that the place is haunted; and, when forced to pass it after dark has come on, they steal fearfully and hastily by.

About a mile on the road stands Belfield Hall, on the site of an ancient house, formerly belonging to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. It is a large old building, belonging to the Townley family. The estate has been much improved by its present occupant, and makes a pleasant picture in the eye from the top of a dinge in the road, at the foot of which a by-path leads up to the old village of Newbold, on the brow of a green bank, at the right-hand side of the highway. I stood there a minute, and tried to plant again the old woods, that must have been thick there, when the squirrel leaped from tree to tree, from Castletor Hall to Buckley Wood. I was trying to shape in imagination what the place looked like in the old time, when the first rude hall was built upon the spot, and the country around was a lonesome tract, shrouded by primeval trees, when a special train went snorting by the back of the hall, and shivered my delicate endeavour to atoms. I sighed involuntarily; but bethinking me how imagination clothes all we are leaving behind in a drapery that veils many of its rough realities, I went my way, thankful for things as they are. A little further on, Fir Grove bridge crosses the Rochdale canal, and commands a better view of the surrounding country. I rested here a little while, and looked back upon the spot which is for ever dear to my remembrance. The vale of the Roch lay smiling before me, and the wide-stretching circle of dark hills closed in the landscape, on all sides, except the south-west. Two weavers were lounging on the bridge, bareheaded, and in their working gear, with stocking-legs drawn on their arms. They had come out of the looms to spend their "baggin-time" in the open air, and were humming one of their favourite songs:—

At the door of the Fir Grove ale-house, a lot of raw-boned young fellows were talking with rude emphasis about the exploits of a fighting-cock of great local renown, known by the bland sobriquet of "Crash-Bwons." The theme was exciting, and in the course of it they gesticulated with great vehemence, and, in their own phrase, "swore like horse-swappers." Some were colliers, and sat on the ground, in that peculiar squat, with the knees up to a level with the chin, which is a favourite resting-attitude with them. At slack times they like to sit thus by the road side, and exchange cracks over their ale, amusing themselves meanwhile by trying the wit and temper of every passer by. These humourous road-side commentators are, generally, the roughest country lads of the neighbourhood, who have no dislike to anybody willing to accommodate them with a tough battle; for they, like the better regulated portion of the inhabitants of the district, are hardy, bold, and independent; and, while their manners are open and blunt, their training and amusements are very rough.

I was now approaching Milnrow; and, here and there, a tenter-field ribbed the landscape with lines of woollen webs, hung upon the hooks to dry. Severe laws were anciently enacted for the protection of goods thus necessarily exposed. Depredations on such property were punished after the manner of that savage old "Maiden" with the thin lip, who stood so long on the "Gibbet Hill," at Halifax, kissing evil-doers out of the world. Much of the famous Rochdale flannel is still woven by the country people here, in the old-fashioned, independent way, at their own homes, as the traveller will see by "stretchers," which are used for drying their warps upon, so frequently standing at the doors of the roomy dwelling-houses near the road. From the head of the brow which leads down into the village, Milnrow chapel is full in view on a green hill-side to the left, overlooking the centre of the busy little hamlet. It is a bald-looking building from the distance, having more the appearance of a little square factory than a church. Lower down the same green eminence, which slopes to the edge of the little river Beal, stands the pleasant and tasteful, but modest residence of the incumbent of Milnrow, the Rev. Francis Robert Raines, honorary canon of Manchester, a notable archæologist and historian; much beloved by the people of the locality.

There are old people still living in Milnrow, who were taught to read and write, and "do sums" in Tim Bobbin's school; yet, the majority of the inhabitants seem unacquainted with his residence. I had myself been misled respecting it; but having obtained correct information, and a reference from a friend in Rochdale to an old relative of his who lived in the veritable cottage of renowned Tim, I set about inquiring for him. As I entered the village, I met a sturdy, good-looking woman, with a chocolate-coloured silk kerchief tied over her snowy cap, in that graceful way which is known all over the country-side as a "Mildro Bonnet." She stopt me and said, "Meastur, hea fur han yo com'd?" "From Rochdale." "Han yo sin aught ov a felley wi breeches on, an' rayther forrud, upo' th' gate, between an' th' Fir Grove?" I told her I had not; and I then inquired for Scholefield that lived in Tim Bobbin's cottage. She reckoned up all the people she knew of that name, but none of them answering the description, I went on my way. I next asked a tall woollen-weaver, who was striding up the street with his shuttle to the mending. Scratching his head, and looking thoughtfully round among the houses, he said, "Scwofil? Aw know no Scwofils, but thoose at th' Tim Bobbin aleheawse; yodd'n better ash (ask) theer." Stepping over to the Tim Bobbin inn, Mrs. Schofield described to me the situation of Tim's cottage, near the bridge. Retracing my steps towards the place, I went into the house of an old acquaintance of my childhood. On the strength of a dim remembrance of my features, he invited me to sit down, and share the meal just made ready for the family. "Come, poo a cheer up," said he, "an' need no moo lathein'."[8] After we had finished, he said, "Neaw, win yd have a reech o' bacco? Mally, reytch us some pipes, an th' pot out o'th nook. Let's see, who's lad are yo, sen yo? for aw welly forgetten, bith mass." After a fruitless attempt at enlightening him thereon in ordinary English, I took to the dialect, and in the country fashion described my genealogy, on the mother's side. I was instantly comprehended; for he stopt me short with—"Whau then, aw'll be sunken iv yo are not gron'son to 'Billy, wi' th' pipes, at th' Biggins.'" "Yo han it neaw," said I. "Eh," replied he, "aw knowed him as weel as aw knew my own feythur! He're a terrible chap for music, an' sich like; an' he used to letter grave-stones, an' do mason-wark. Eh, aw've bin to mony a orrytory wi' Owd Billy. Why,—let's see—Owd Wesley preytched at his heawse, i' Wardle fowd once't.[9] An' han yo some relations i' th' Mildro, then?" I told him my errand, and inquired for Scholefield, who lived in Tim Bobbin's cottage. As he pondered, and turned the name over in his mind, one of his lads shouted out, "By th' mon, feyther, it's 'Owd Mahogany,' Aw think he's code (called) Scwofil, an' he lives i'th garden at th' botham o'th bonk, by th' waytur side." It was generally agreed that this was the place, so I parted with my friends and went towards it. The old man came out without his hat, a short distance, to set me right. After bidding me a hearty "good neet," he turned round as he walked away, and shouted out, "Neaw tay care yo coan, th' next time yo com'n thiz gate, an' wi'n have a gradely do."

About twenty yards from the west end of the little stone bridge that spans the river, a lane leads, between the ends of the dwelling houses, down to the water side. There, still sweetly secluded, stands the quaint, substantial cottage of John Collier, in its old garden by the edge of the Beal, which, flowing through the fields in front, towards the cottage, is there dammed up into a reservoir for the use of the mill close by, and then tumbling over in a noisy little fall under the garden edge, goes shouting and frolicking along the north-east side of it, over water-worn rocks, and under the bridge, till the cadence dies away in a low murmur, beyond, where the bed of the stream gets smoother. Lifting the latch, I walked through the garden, to the cottage, where I found "Owd Mahogany" and his maiden sister, two plain, clean, substantial working-people, who were sitting in the low-roofed, but otherwise roomy apartment in front, used as a kitchen. They entered heartily into the purpose of my visit, and showed me everything about the house with a genial pride. What made the matter more interesting was the fact, that "Owd Mahogany" had been, when a lad, a pupil of Collier's. The house was built expressly for Tim, by his father-in-law; and the uncommon thickness of the walls, the number and arrangement of the rooms, and the remains of a fine old oak staircase, showed that more than usual care and expense had been bestowed upon it. As we went through the rooms on the ground-floor, my ancient guide gave me a good deal of anecdote connected with each. Pointing to a clean, cold, whitewashed cell, with a great flag table in it, and a grid-window at one end, he said, "This wur his buttery, wheer he kept pullen,[10] an gam, an sich like; for thir no mon i' Rachdaw parish liv't betther nor Owd Tim, nor moor like a gentleman; nor one at had moor friends, gentle an simple. Th' Teawnlo's took'n to him fearfully, an thir'n olez comin' to see him; or sendin' him presents o' some mak'." He next showed me the parlour where he used to write and receive company. A little oblong room, low in the roof, and dimly lighted by a small window from the garden. Tim used to keep this retiring sanctum tastefully adorned with the flowers of each season, and one might have eaten his dinner off the floor in his time. In the garden he pointed out the corner where Tim had a roomy green arbor, with a smooth stone table in the middle, on which lay his books, his flute, or his meals, as he was in the mood. He would stretch himself out here, and muse for hours together. The lads used to bring their tasks from the school behind the house, to this arbor, for Tim to examine. He had a green shaded walk from the school into his garden. When in the school, or about the house, he wore a silk velvet skull-cap. The famous radical, William Cobbett, used to wear a similar one, occasionally; and I have heard those who have seen both in this trim, say that the likeness of the two men was then singularly striking. "Owd Mahogany" having now shown and told me many interesting things respecting Tim's house and habits, entered into a hearty eulogy upon his character as a man and a schoolmaster. "He're a fine, straight-forrud mon, wi' no maffle abeawt him; for o' his quare, cranky ways." As an author, he thought him "Th' fine'st writer at Englan' bred, at that time o' th' day." Of his caligraphy, too, he seemed particularly proud, for he declared that "Tim could write a clear print hond, as smo' as smithy smudge," He finished by saying, that he saw him carried out of the door-way we were standing in, to his grave.

At the edge of dark, I bade adieu to Tim's cottage, and the comfortable old couple that live in it. As I looked back from the garden-gate, the house wore a plaintive aspect, in my imagination; as if it was thinking of its fine old tenant. Having heard that there was something uncommon to be learnt of him at the Tim Bobbin Inn, I went there again. It is the largest and most respectable public-house in the village, kept in a fine state of homely comfort by a motherly old widow. I found that she could tell me something of the quaint schoolmaster and his wife "Mary," who, as she said, "helped to bring her into th' world." She brought out a folio volume of engravings from designs by Tim, with many pieces of prose and verse of his, in engraved fac-simile of his hand-writing. The book was bound in dark morocco, with the author's name on the side, in gold. I turned it over with pleasure, for there were things in it not found in any edition of his works. The landlady shows this book with some pride to Tim's admirers; by some she had been offered large sums of money for it; and once a party of curious visitors had well-nigh carried it off by stealth in their carriage, after making fruitless offers of purchase; but the plan was detected in time, and the treasure restored to its proper custody. I read in it one of his addresses to his subscribers, in which he says of himself: "He's Lancashire born; and, by the by, all his acquaintance agree, his wife not excepted, that he's an odd-fellow.... In the reign of Queen Anne he was a boy, and one of the nine children of a poor curate in Lancashire, whose stipend never amounted to thirty pounds a-year, and consequently the family must feel the iron teeth of penury with a witness. These indeed were sometimes blunted by the charitable disposition of the good rector (the Rev. Mr. H.——, of W—— n): so this T. B. lived as some other boys did, content with water-pottage, buttermilk, and jannock, till he was between thirteen and fourteen years of age, when Providence began to smile on him in his advancement to a pair of Dutch looms, when he met with treacle to his pottage, and sometimes a little in his buttermilk, or spread on his jannock. However, the reflections of his father's circumstances (which now and then start up and still edge his teeth) make him believe that Pluralists are no good Christians; that he who will accept of two or more places of one hundred a-year, would not say I have enough, though he was Pope Clement, Urban, or Boniface,—could affirm himself infallible, and offer his toe to kings: that the unequal distribution of Church emoluments is as great a grievance in the ecclesiastic, as undeserved pensions and places are in the state; both of which, he presumes to prophesy, will prove canker-worms at the roots of those succulent plants, and in a few years cause leaf and branch to shrivel up, and dry them to tinder." The spirit of this passage seems the natural growth, in such a mind as his, of the curriculum of study in the hard college of Tim's early days. In the thrifty home of the poor Lancashire curate, though harrowed by "the iron teeth of penury," Tim inherited riches that wealth cannot buy. Under the tuition of a good father, who could study his reflective and susceptible mind, and teach him many excellent things; together with that hard struggle to keep the wolf from the door of his childhood, which pressed upon his thoughts, he grew up contemplative, self-reliant, and manly, on oatmeal porridge, and jannock, with a little treacle for a god-send. His feelings were deepened, and his natural love of independence strengthened there, with that hatred of all kinds of injustice, which flashes through the rich humour and genial kindness of his nature,—for nature was strong in him, and he relished her realities. Poverty is not pleasant, yet the world has more to thank poverty for than it dreams of. With honourable pride he fought his way to a pair of Dutch looms, where he learned to win his jannock and treacle by honest weaving. Subsequently he endeavoured to support himself honourably, by pursuits no less useful, but more congenial to the bias of his faculties; but, to the last, his heart's desire was less to live in external plenty and precedence among men, than to live conscientiously, in the sweet relations of honourable independence in the world. This feeling was strong in him, and gives dignity to his character. As a politician, John Collier was considerably ahead of the time he lived in, and especially of the simple, slow-minded race of people dwelling, then, in that remote nook of Lancashire, at the foot of Blackstone Edge. Among such people, and in such a time, he spoke and wrote things, which few men dared to write and speak. He spoke, too, in a way which was as independent and pithy as it was quaintly-expressive. His words, like his actions, stood upon their own feet, and looked up. Perhaps, if he had been a man of a drier nature,—of less genial and attractive genius than he was,—he might have had to suffer more for the enunciation of truths, and the recognition of principles which were unfashionable in those days. But Collier was not only a man of considerable valour and insight, with a manly mind and temper, but he was also genial and humourous, as he was earnest and honest. He was an eminently human-hearted man, who abhorred all kinds of cant and seeming. His life was a greater honour to him even than his quaint pencil, or his pen; and the memory of his sayings and doings will be long and affectionately cherished, at least, by Lancashire men.