FOOTNOTES:[22]The scalp with the hair attached.[23]In the early and middle ages kissing was the common form of salutation, and theosculum paciswas a sign of reconciliation and charity. Examples will occur to every reader of Scripture and the classics.[24]Dr. Whitaker. Vide notes to the "Bridals of Dacre," for instances.
[22]The scalp with the hair attached.
[22]The scalp with the hair attached.
[23]In the early and middle ages kissing was the common form of salutation, and theosculum paciswas a sign of reconciliation and charity. Examples will occur to every reader of Scripture and the classics.
[23]In the early and middle ages kissing was the common form of salutation, and theosculum paciswas a sign of reconciliation and charity. Examples will occur to every reader of Scripture and the classics.
[24]Dr. Whitaker. Vide notes to the "Bridals of Dacre," for instances.
[24]Dr. Whitaker. Vide notes to the "Bridals of Dacre," for instances.
Up the valley of Brathay rode Dagmar the Dane.There was gold on her bit, there was silk on her rein.You might see her white steed in the distance afar,On the green-breasted hill, shining out like a star;Where beyond her on high in his barrow lay sleepingOld Sölvar the chief; and the shade, that sat keepingHis fame, by his tomb sang the Norseland's wild strain.As the white steed of Dagmar shone, breasting the hill;To the mound where old Sölvar lies lonely and still,In the red light of evening, arresting her gaze,Flocked the meek mountain ewes and the steers up the ways,With the firstlings and yearlings, from hill top and hollow,Gathering far, the sweet voice of the Phantom to follow—To them sweeter than murmur of fountain and rill.There was joy in their looks, in their eyes the clear lightGlistened searchingly forth on that mystical sight.And from far, too, the white steed of Dagmar the DanePricked his ears, stepping proudly, unheeding the rein;And aside to the summit turned joyfully pacing;While the steers and the ewes listened wistfully gazing,And the Phantom sat singing of Sölvar the Bright.O'er the pools of the Brathay, from Skelwith's lone towerThe sire of the princess looked forth in that hour.He beheld the white steed of his child, like a starOn the green-breasted hill, and he cried from afar—"She has heard his wild strains on the hill-top awaken,And I from this hour am alone and forsaken.—Not her voice nor her foot-fall, to come to me more!"For to Dagmar the fair, when the flocks of the fieldAnd the herds were in motion their homage to yieldTo the bright Norseland Boy—with the fire and the graceOf his sires in his limbs and their pride in his face—In the garb of his country, rehearsing the storyOf chiefs and of kings and the Norseland's old glory—Was the Phantom in all his bright beauty revealed.There entranced in that vision, enchained by his tongue,As the strains through his harp-strings melodiously rung,Sat the maid on White Svend mid the yearlings; till nowFar departing he turns from the hill's sunny brow;And the ewes at his feet awhile falteringly follow,Then range back bewildered to hill-top and hollow;While the Maid on his fast-fading accents still hung.Through the still light receding his loose tresses streamed;But to fly with him still was the dream she had dreamed;Side by side o'er the hills, through the valleys, and onTo the Norseland to hear his wild songs all alone;And to chase from his lips every accent of sorrow,As they walked through the dawn of a brighter to-morrowInto sunlight that heaven upon earth never beamed.Springing down from White Svend, swiftly Dagmar the DaneCast aside on his neck the rich silk-tassel'd rein;With her eyes fixed afar o'er the green mountain sward,Whence the bright Norseland Boy cast a backward regard.Call aloud from thy Tower, call aloud and implore her,Hapless sire! to return, ere the night gathers o'er her!She can hear but the voice of the Phantom's sweet strain.Light and fleet was her foot over hollow and hill;Till they reached the rude cleft of the deep-roaring Ghyll.On the black dungeon's brink not a moment he stay'd;O'er the black roaring Ghyll glided softly the Shade.Like a thin wreath of mist she descried him far over—And her cry pierced the night-boding hill tops above her;When down the loose rocks plunged, and bridged the dark Ghyll.Heard the eagle that shriek from his eyrie on high?Struck his wings the poised rocks as he rushed to the sky?Did the wild goat leap, startled, and press from their holdWith his hoof the loose crags?—that they bounded and roll'dFar above, down, and on, soughing, plunging, and clashing,Till they reached the dark Ghyll, and fell, wedging and crashing,In the gulf's horrid jaws, there for ever to lie.The fleet foot of Dagmar sprang light to the stone,Where it bridged the dread gulf, in the twilight, alone.For one moment she stood with her eyes straining o'erInto space, for the bright one that answered no more.He was gone from the hand she stretched, vainly imploring;He was gone from the heart that beat, madly adoring:And a voice from the waters cried wailingly—"Gone."Roar thou on, Dungeon-Ghyll! there was mourning in vainIn the fortress of Skelwith for Dagmar the Dane.From their tower on the cliff they looked, tearful and pale,On her riderless steed as it came down the vale.In her bower and in hall there was wailing and sorrow.And the hills shone renewed with each glorious to-morrow.But their bright star, their Dagmar, they knew not again.
While many Celtic names of places remain to attest the prolonged sovereignty of the Britons in Cumbria, by far the greater number refer to a period when the enterprising Northmen, coming from various shores, but all included under the comprehensive title of Danes, had pushed their conquests into the mountain country of Cumberland and Westmorland and those portions of the north of Lancashire, which are comprised within the district of the English Lakes. This territory had become the exclusive possession of the Norwegian settlers. Every height and how, every lake and tarn, every swamp and fountain, every ravine and ghyll, every important habitation on the mountain side, the dwelling place amidst the cleared land in the forest, the narrow dell, the open valley, every one is associated with some fine old name that belonged to our Scandinavian forefathers. Silver How is the hill of Sölvar, and Butter-lip-how, the mound of Buthar, surnamed Lepr the Nimble; Windermere and Buttermere, and Elter-water are the meres and water called after the ancient Norsemen, Windar, and Buthar or Butar, and Eldir, Gunnerskeld, and Ironkeld, and Butter-eld-keld, are the spring or marsh of Gunnar, and Hiarn, and Buthar the Old, or Elder. Bekangs-Ghyll, and Staingill, and Thortillgill, indicate the ravines or fissures, which were probably at one time the boundaries respectively of the lands of Bekan, and Steini, and Thortil; Seatallau and Seatoller were once the dwelling places whence Elli and Oller looked on the plains below them; and in Ormthwaile, and Branthwaite, and Gillerthwaite we recognise the lands cleared amid the forests with the axe, whose several possessors were Ormr, andBiorn, and Geller; while Borrodale, and Ennerdale, and Riggindale, and Bordale recall the days when these remote valleys were subject to the lordly strangers Borrhy, and Einar, and Regin, and Bor. All these names are Scandinavian proper names, and are to be found in the language of that ancient race, of whose sojourn amongst our hills so many traces remain in the nomenclature of the district.Coming from the wildest and poorest part of the Norwegian coast, and mixing with the Celtic tribes of these regions, in the early ages; those hardy sons of the sea made extensive and permanent settlements among them. They penetrated into the remotest recesses of the mountains, carrying thither their wild belief in the old northern gods, and their rude ideas of a future life. Their warlike recollections, and their attachment to the scenes of their valorous exploits, fostered the notion which was not uncommon among them, that the spirits of chieftains could sometimes leave the halls of Valhalla, and, seated each on his own sepulchral hill, could look around him on the peaceful land over which in life he had held rule, or on that beloved sea which had borne him so often to war and conquest. It was this thought that induced them to select for their burial places high mountains, or elevated spots in the valleys and plains. As a natural result of their long continued dominion in the North of England, they came to be classed in the imagination of the people with invisible and mystic beings which haunted that district. The shadows of the remote old hills were the abodes of enchantment and superstition. And the spirits of the departed were supposed to be seen visiting the earth, sometimes in the guise of a Celtic warrior careering on the wind, and sometimes in the form of one of the old northern chieftains sitting solitary upon his barrow. It is related of one being permitted to do so for the purpose of comforting his disconsolate widow, and telling her how much her sorrow disquieted him. Hence also the dwellers among the hills, it is said, still fancy they hear on the evening breeze musical tones as of harp strings played upon, and melancholy lays in a foreign tongue; a beautiful concert, to which we owe the exquisite medieval legend of the cattle, in thraldom to the potent spirit of harmony that rings through the air, often when no musical sound is audible to the organ of man, pricking up their ears in astonishment, as they listen to the Danish or Norseland Boy, sadly singing the old bardic lays over the barrows of his once mighty forefathers.It has been conjectured that the colonization of this districtby the Northmen was effected at two distinct periods, by two separate streams of emigration, issuing from two different parts of the Scandinavian shore. The first recorded invasion of Cumberland by the Danes appears to have taken place about the year 875; when an army under the command of Halfdene, having entered Northumberland and made permanent settlements there, commenced a series of incursions into the adjacent countries lying on the north and west, and thereby reached the borders of the lake region, first plundering them and finally settling there. The indications of the presence of the northern adventurers in that quarter are found to be more purely of a Danish character than those which abound beyond the eastern line of the district, and which may with great probability be referred to a colonization more particularly Norwegian.Our own histories make no mention of anything bearing upon the subject, but there seem to be good reasons for concluding that Cumberland was also invaded from the sea coast. The Norwegian sea-rover Olaf, according to Snorro Sturlessen, had visited, among other countries, both Cumberland and Wales. And Mr. Ferguson supposes, from various circumstances, which concur to fix the date of the Norwegian settlements here in the interval between 945 and 1000, that his descents must have taken place somewhere about the year 990. At that period the Cumbrian Britons had been for half a century in subjugation to the Saxons, and since the death of Dunmail their country had been handed over to Malcolm to be held in fealty by the Scottish crown. The scattered remnants of the Celtic tribes were for the most part shut up amongst their hills, or had retired into Wales. The plains of Westmorland and Cumberland on the north and east were probably chiefly occupied by a mixed Saxon and Danish population; for nearly a century had elapsed since the Danes from Northumberland had overrun them. In fifty years more the result of events was, as we are informed by Henry of Huntingdon, that one of the principal abodes of the "Danes," under which title old writers comprehend all Northmen, was in Cumberland. A stream of Northern emigrants, issuing, it may be supposed, from the districts of the Tellemark, and the Hardanger, a name signifying "a place of hunger and poverty," had descended along the north of Scotland, swept the western side of the island, fixed its head-quarters in the Isle of Man, and from thence succeeded in obtaining a firm footing upon the opposite shore of England; a land, like their own, of mountains and valleys, waiting for a people as they were for asettlement, a wild and untamed country, always thinly populated and never cultivated, a land of rocks and forests and of desolation. These protected by their ships, having command of the coast, and being unopposed except by the apparently impenetrable mountain barriers before them, these warlike settlers cleared for themselves homes amidst the woods, began to gather tribute from the mountain sides, and laid the foundations of those "thwaites" and "seats" and "gates" and "garths," which at the end of almost nine centuries of fluctuation and change still bear testimony to their wide-spread rule and are called by their Northern names.Not only do traces of them everywhere survive in names which indicate possession and location, or in words which particularise the multiform features of the country and describe the minor variations of its surface; but the sites of their legislative and judicial institutions, and their places of burial, as well as their towns and villages, are preserved in that local nomenclature which lives in the language spoken by their kinsmen in the mother-land at the present day. The old Norse element has penetrated, and diffused itself, and hardened into the dialect of the Cumberland and Westmorland "fell-siders," and emphatically pronounces from whom it came. And, lastly, the physical and moral characteristics, as well as the manners and customs of the people, are those of the hardy race, whose transmitted blood gave the larger nerve and more enduring vigour which characterise their frame. Tall, bony, and firmly knit; fair-haired, and of Sanguine complexion; possessing strong feelings of independance, and a large share of shrewdness and mother-wit; intolerant of oppression; cautious, resolute, astute and brave; these people, and the Cumbrians, especially, crown their list of claims to be of Norse descent with one more striking feature, a litigious spirit. Litigation appears to be almost as natural and necessary to their minds, as wrestling and other manly exercises are to their limbs: in respect to which, as well as to other amusements in which they are said to bear some resemblance to the old Icelanders, they bear away the palm from the rest of England.Dungeon Ghyll in Great Langdale is a deep chasm or fissure in the southern face of the first great buttress of the Pikes. It is formed by a considerable stream from Pike o' Stickle; which after making several fine leaps down the mountain side, tumbles at length over a lofty precipice about eighty feet between impending and perpendicular rocks into a deep and gloomy basin. A few slender branches are seen springingfrom the crevices in either face of the chasm near the top; and immediately above the basin, a natural arch, made by two large stones which have rolled from a higher part of the mountain, and got wedged together between the cheeks of rock. By scrambling over some rough stones in the bed of the stream, the largest and finest chamber may be reached; and the visitor stands underneath the arch, and in front of the waterfall. Over the bridge thus rudely formed, Wordsworth's "Idle Shepherd Boy" challenged his comrade to pass; and even ladies have had the intrepidity or temerity to cross it, undeterred by the narrowness and awkwardness of the footing, and the threatening aspect of the dismal gulf below.The station in the field adjoining the farm house called Skelwith-Fold, is the site where the Danish fortress is assumed to have stood.
While many Celtic names of places remain to attest the prolonged sovereignty of the Britons in Cumbria, by far the greater number refer to a period when the enterprising Northmen, coming from various shores, but all included under the comprehensive title of Danes, had pushed their conquests into the mountain country of Cumberland and Westmorland and those portions of the north of Lancashire, which are comprised within the district of the English Lakes. This territory had become the exclusive possession of the Norwegian settlers. Every height and how, every lake and tarn, every swamp and fountain, every ravine and ghyll, every important habitation on the mountain side, the dwelling place amidst the cleared land in the forest, the narrow dell, the open valley, every one is associated with some fine old name that belonged to our Scandinavian forefathers. Silver How is the hill of Sölvar, and Butter-lip-how, the mound of Buthar, surnamed Lepr the Nimble; Windermere and Buttermere, and Elter-water are the meres and water called after the ancient Norsemen, Windar, and Buthar or Butar, and Eldir, Gunnerskeld, and Ironkeld, and Butter-eld-keld, are the spring or marsh of Gunnar, and Hiarn, and Buthar the Old, or Elder. Bekangs-Ghyll, and Staingill, and Thortillgill, indicate the ravines or fissures, which were probably at one time the boundaries respectively of the lands of Bekan, and Steini, and Thortil; Seatallau and Seatoller were once the dwelling places whence Elli and Oller looked on the plains below them; and in Ormthwaile, and Branthwaite, and Gillerthwaite we recognise the lands cleared amid the forests with the axe, whose several possessors were Ormr, andBiorn, and Geller; while Borrodale, and Ennerdale, and Riggindale, and Bordale recall the days when these remote valleys were subject to the lordly strangers Borrhy, and Einar, and Regin, and Bor. All these names are Scandinavian proper names, and are to be found in the language of that ancient race, of whose sojourn amongst our hills so many traces remain in the nomenclature of the district.
Coming from the wildest and poorest part of the Norwegian coast, and mixing with the Celtic tribes of these regions, in the early ages; those hardy sons of the sea made extensive and permanent settlements among them. They penetrated into the remotest recesses of the mountains, carrying thither their wild belief in the old northern gods, and their rude ideas of a future life. Their warlike recollections, and their attachment to the scenes of their valorous exploits, fostered the notion which was not uncommon among them, that the spirits of chieftains could sometimes leave the halls of Valhalla, and, seated each on his own sepulchral hill, could look around him on the peaceful land over which in life he had held rule, or on that beloved sea which had borne him so often to war and conquest. It was this thought that induced them to select for their burial places high mountains, or elevated spots in the valleys and plains. As a natural result of their long continued dominion in the North of England, they came to be classed in the imagination of the people with invisible and mystic beings which haunted that district. The shadows of the remote old hills were the abodes of enchantment and superstition. And the spirits of the departed were supposed to be seen visiting the earth, sometimes in the guise of a Celtic warrior careering on the wind, and sometimes in the form of one of the old northern chieftains sitting solitary upon his barrow. It is related of one being permitted to do so for the purpose of comforting his disconsolate widow, and telling her how much her sorrow disquieted him. Hence also the dwellers among the hills, it is said, still fancy they hear on the evening breeze musical tones as of harp strings played upon, and melancholy lays in a foreign tongue; a beautiful concert, to which we owe the exquisite medieval legend of the cattle, in thraldom to the potent spirit of harmony that rings through the air, often when no musical sound is audible to the organ of man, pricking up their ears in astonishment, as they listen to the Danish or Norseland Boy, sadly singing the old bardic lays over the barrows of his once mighty forefathers.
It has been conjectured that the colonization of this districtby the Northmen was effected at two distinct periods, by two separate streams of emigration, issuing from two different parts of the Scandinavian shore. The first recorded invasion of Cumberland by the Danes appears to have taken place about the year 875; when an army under the command of Halfdene, having entered Northumberland and made permanent settlements there, commenced a series of incursions into the adjacent countries lying on the north and west, and thereby reached the borders of the lake region, first plundering them and finally settling there. The indications of the presence of the northern adventurers in that quarter are found to be more purely of a Danish character than those which abound beyond the eastern line of the district, and which may with great probability be referred to a colonization more particularly Norwegian.
Our own histories make no mention of anything bearing upon the subject, but there seem to be good reasons for concluding that Cumberland was also invaded from the sea coast. The Norwegian sea-rover Olaf, according to Snorro Sturlessen, had visited, among other countries, both Cumberland and Wales. And Mr. Ferguson supposes, from various circumstances, which concur to fix the date of the Norwegian settlements here in the interval between 945 and 1000, that his descents must have taken place somewhere about the year 990. At that period the Cumbrian Britons had been for half a century in subjugation to the Saxons, and since the death of Dunmail their country had been handed over to Malcolm to be held in fealty by the Scottish crown. The scattered remnants of the Celtic tribes were for the most part shut up amongst their hills, or had retired into Wales. The plains of Westmorland and Cumberland on the north and east were probably chiefly occupied by a mixed Saxon and Danish population; for nearly a century had elapsed since the Danes from Northumberland had overrun them. In fifty years more the result of events was, as we are informed by Henry of Huntingdon, that one of the principal abodes of the "Danes," under which title old writers comprehend all Northmen, was in Cumberland. A stream of Northern emigrants, issuing, it may be supposed, from the districts of the Tellemark, and the Hardanger, a name signifying "a place of hunger and poverty," had descended along the north of Scotland, swept the western side of the island, fixed its head-quarters in the Isle of Man, and from thence succeeded in obtaining a firm footing upon the opposite shore of England; a land, like their own, of mountains and valleys, waiting for a people as they were for asettlement, a wild and untamed country, always thinly populated and never cultivated, a land of rocks and forests and of desolation. These protected by their ships, having command of the coast, and being unopposed except by the apparently impenetrable mountain barriers before them, these warlike settlers cleared for themselves homes amidst the woods, began to gather tribute from the mountain sides, and laid the foundations of those "thwaites" and "seats" and "gates" and "garths," which at the end of almost nine centuries of fluctuation and change still bear testimony to their wide-spread rule and are called by their Northern names.
Not only do traces of them everywhere survive in names which indicate possession and location, or in words which particularise the multiform features of the country and describe the minor variations of its surface; but the sites of their legislative and judicial institutions, and their places of burial, as well as their towns and villages, are preserved in that local nomenclature which lives in the language spoken by their kinsmen in the mother-land at the present day. The old Norse element has penetrated, and diffused itself, and hardened into the dialect of the Cumberland and Westmorland "fell-siders," and emphatically pronounces from whom it came. And, lastly, the physical and moral characteristics, as well as the manners and customs of the people, are those of the hardy race, whose transmitted blood gave the larger nerve and more enduring vigour which characterise their frame. Tall, bony, and firmly knit; fair-haired, and of Sanguine complexion; possessing strong feelings of independance, and a large share of shrewdness and mother-wit; intolerant of oppression; cautious, resolute, astute and brave; these people, and the Cumbrians, especially, crown their list of claims to be of Norse descent with one more striking feature, a litigious spirit. Litigation appears to be almost as natural and necessary to their minds, as wrestling and other manly exercises are to their limbs: in respect to which, as well as to other amusements in which they are said to bear some resemblance to the old Icelanders, they bear away the palm from the rest of England.
Dungeon Ghyll in Great Langdale is a deep chasm or fissure in the southern face of the first great buttress of the Pikes. It is formed by a considerable stream from Pike o' Stickle; which after making several fine leaps down the mountain side, tumbles at length over a lofty precipice about eighty feet between impending and perpendicular rocks into a deep and gloomy basin. A few slender branches are seen springingfrom the crevices in either face of the chasm near the top; and immediately above the basin, a natural arch, made by two large stones which have rolled from a higher part of the mountain, and got wedged together between the cheeks of rock. By scrambling over some rough stones in the bed of the stream, the largest and finest chamber may be reached; and the visitor stands underneath the arch, and in front of the waterfall. Over the bridge thus rudely formed, Wordsworth's "Idle Shepherd Boy" challenged his comrade to pass; and even ladies have had the intrepidity or temerity to cross it, undeterred by the narrowness and awkwardness of the footing, and the threatening aspect of the dismal gulf below.
The station in the field adjoining the farm house called Skelwith-Fold, is the site where the Danish fortress is assumed to have stood.
In this sweet vale where peace has foundAn undisturbed abode,The everlasting hills surroundA temple reared to God;Where one pure stream, the Gospel's sound,Flows as it ever flow'd.Here never reach the angry jarsWhich break the Church's rest.The unity that strife debarsIs on this Branch imprest;Her truths of old no discord mars;Here peace is in her breast.One Book reveals the living loreOf prophets, saints, and kings.One mild apostle here its storeTo every household brings;And on this temple's sacred floorThe pure glad tidings sings.Race follows race from field and home,And all in earth are laid:But steadfast as the starry domeAbove, the truth is spreadAround their feet, howe'er they roam,Unquestioned, ungainsaid.How blest, to live and hope in peaceLike these! nor hear the knellOf some sure promise, made to ceaseBeneath the mystic's spell,Or subtle casuist's caprice—And know that all is well.In vainest strifes we cast awayToo much from life's fair page.The flock becomes the spoiler's prey,Because the shepherds rage.And while the life is but a day,The warfare lasts an age.But here may piety rejoiceTo tread the ancient ways:Still make the one true part the choiceOf even the darkest days;And lift an undivided voiceOf thankful prayer and praise.Guard, Sovereign of the heights and rills!These precincts of Thy fold;This little Church, which thus fulfilsThy purpose framed of old.And this Thy flock amidst these hillsStill in Thy bosom hold.
Wordsworth in his description of the Lake Country as it was, and had been through centuries, till within about one hundred years, thus alludes to the places of worship. "Towards the head of these Dales was found a perfect Republic of shepherds and agriculturists, among whom the plough of each man was confined to the maintenance of his own family, or to the occasional accommodation of his neighbour. Two or three cows furnished each family with milk and cheese. The Chapel was the only edifice that presided over these dwellings, the supreme head of this pure commonwealth: the members of which existed in the midst of a powerful empire, like an ideal society or an organised community, whose constitution had been imposed and regulated by the mountains which protected it."Thereligio lociis nowhere violated by these unstinted, yet unpretending works of human hands. They exhibit generally a well proportioned oblong, with a suitable porch, in some instances a steeple tower, and in others nothing more than a small belfry, in which one or two bells hang visibly. A man must be very insensible who would not have been touched with pleasure at the sight of the former Chapel of Buttermere, so strikingly expressing by its diminutive size, how small must have been the congregation there assembled, as it were, like one family; and proclaiming at the same time to the passenger, in connection with the surrounding mountains, the depth of that seclusion in which the people lived, that rendered necessary the building of a separate place of worship for so few. The edifice was scarcely larger thanmany of the single stones or fragments of rock which were scattered near it. The old Chapel was perhaps the most diminutive in all England, being incapable of receiving more than half a dozen families. The length of the outer wall was about seventeen feet. The curacy was 'certified to the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty at £1. paid by the contributions of the inhabitants,' and it was also certified, 'this Chapel and Wythop were served by Readers, except that the Curate of Lorton officiated there three or four times in the year.'"Such cures were held in these northern counties by unordained persons, till about the middle of George II.'s reign; when the Bishops came to a resolution, that no one should officiate who was not in orders. But, because there would have been some injustice and some hardship in ejecting the existing incumbents, they were admitted to deacons' orders without undergoing any examination. The person who was then Reader as it was called, at the Chapel in the Vale of Newlands, and who received this kind of ordination, exercised the various trades of Clogger, Tailor, and Butter-print maker.How otherwise than by following secular occupations were even Readers to exist? The Chapel of "Secmurthow" on the south side of the river Derwent, not far from the foot of Bassenthwaite lake, was certified to the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty at £2., being the interest of £40. raised by the inhabitants for a Reader. "Before its augmentation," says Hutchinson, "the Reader of divine service had a precarious income; but an actual custom existed for several years of allowing the poor minister awhittle-gate. He was privileged to go from house to house in the Chapelry, and stay a certain number of days at each place, where he was permitted to enter hiswhittleor knife with the rest of the family. This custom," he adds, "has been abolished in such modern times, that it is in the memory of many now living." (i.e. 1794.)The inhabitants of many of the Chapelries in the north got by custom from the Rectors or Vicars the right of nominating and presenting the curate; for this reason: before the death of Queen Anne, many of the Chapelries were not worth above two or three pounds a year, and the donees could not get persons properly qualified to serve them; so they left them to the inhabitants, who raised voluntary contributions for them in addition to their salary, with clothes yearly and whittle-gate.Clothes yearly, were one new suit of clothes, two pairs ofshoes, and one pair of clogs, shirts, stockings, etc., as they could bargain.Whittlegate is, to have two or three weeks' victuals at each house, according to the ability of the inhabitants, which was settled amongst them, so that he should go his course as regularly as the sun, and complete it annually. Few houses having more knives than one or two, the pastor was often obliged to buy his own; sometimes it was bought for him by the chapel-wardens. He marched from house to house with his whittle seeking fresh pasturage; and as master of the herd, he had the elbow chair at the table-head, which was often made of part of a hollow ash-tree, such as may be seen in those parts at this day.Buttermere was said to allow its priest whittle-gate, and twenty shillings yearly; by other accounts, "clogg-shoes, harden-sark, whittle-gate, and guse-gate"—that is, a pair of shoes clogged or iron-shod, a shirt of coarse linen or hemp once a year, free-living at each parishioner's house for a certain number of days, and the right to pasture a goose or geese on the common.The Wytheburn reader had sark, whittle-gate, and guse-gate.The Mungrisdale priest had £6. 0s.9d.a year.Many worthies have appeared, nevertheless, among these unpretending ministers of the dales; most prominently so, Robert Walker, for a long period curate of Seathwaite, and surnamed for his many virtues and industry, the Wonderful: of whose life and actions an interesting and detailed account is given in the Notes in Wordsworth's Works.The Chapel of Martindale, a perpetual curacy under the vicarage of Barton, near Penrith, was served for 67 years by a Mr. Richard Birket. The ancient endowment was only £2. 15s.4d.per annum, a small house, and about four acres of land. At his first coming, Birket's whole property consisted of two shirts and one suit of clothes; yet he amassed a considerable sum of money. Being the only man except one in the parish who could write, he transcribed most of the law papers of his parishioners. Whenever he lent money, he deducted at the time of lending, two shillings in the pound for interest, and the term of the loan never exceeded a year. He charged for writing a receipt twopence, and for a promissory note fourpence; and used other means of extortion. He likewise taught a school, and served as parish-clerk; and in both these offices he showed his wonderful turn for economyand gain; for his quarter-dues from his scholars being small, he had from the parents of each scholar a fortnight's board and lodging; and the Easter-dues being usually paid in eggs, he, at the time of collecting, carried with him a board, in which was a hole that served him as a gauge, and he positively refused to accept any which would pass through. He got a fortune of £60 with his wife; to whom he left at his decease the sum of £1200. Clark says, that on account of transacting most of the law affairs of his parishioners, he was called Sir Richard, or the Lawyer. But with reference to this title, Nicholson, Bishop of Carlisle, at the beginning of the 18th century says, "Since I can remember, there was not a reader in any chapel who was not called 'Sir.'" The old designation of the clergy before the Reformation was always "Sir"; knight being added as the military or civil distinction. It has also been stated that the last curate of this parish, or of these parts at all, called "Sir," was the Reverend Richard Birket (apud 1689).On the death of Mr. Birket no one would undertake the cure, on account of the smallness of the stipend: those therefore of the parishioners who could read, performed the service by turns. Things remained in this situation for some time; at length a little decrepid man, named Brownrigg, to whom Mr. Birket had taught a little Latin and Greek, was by the parishioners appointed perpetual Reader. For this they allowed him, with the consent of the Donee, the church perquisites, then worth about £12 per annum. Brownrigg being a man of good character, and there being no clergyman within several miles to baptize their children, or bury their dead, the parishioners petitioned the Bishop to grant him deacon's orders; this was accordingly done, and he served the cure forty-eight years.Mr. Mattinson, the curate of Paterdale, who died about the year 1770, was a singular character. For fifty-six years he officiated at the small "chapel with the yew tree," at the foot of St. Sunday's Crag. His ordinary income was generally twelve pounds a year, and never above eighteen. He married and lived comfortably, and had four children, all of whom he christened and married, educating his son to be a scholar, and sending him to College. He buried his mother; married his father and buried him; christened his wife, and published his own banns of marriage in the church. He lived to the age of ninety-six, and died worth a thousand pounds. It has been alleged that this provident curate assisted his wife to card andspin the tithe wool which fell to his lot, viz. one third; that he taught a school which brought him in about five pounds a year; that his wife was skilful and eminent as a midwife, performing her functions for the small sum of one shilling; but as according to ancient custom she was likewise cook at the christening dinner, she received some culinary perquisites which somewhat increased her profits. Clarke adds, "One thing more I must beg leave to mention concerning Mrs. Mattinson: On the day of her marriage, her father boasted that his two daughters were married to the two best men in Paterdale, the priest and the bag piper."In Langdale, in Clark's time, the poor Curate was obliged to sell ale to support himself and his family; and, he says, "At his house I have playedBarnabywith him on the Sabbath morning, when he left us with the good old song,'I'll but preach, and be with you again.'"Taking all their circumstances into consideration, it is not to be wondered at that the personal failings of these men were looked upon by their neighbours with a leniency which would hardly be intelligible elsewhere. Not very long ago an excellent old dame only recently deceased, who for her intelligence and goodness was respected and esteemed by the highest and the lowest, and was one of the finest specimens of nature's gentlewomen to be found anywhere, was heard warmly upholding the character of a neighbouring clergyman in these words,—"Well, I'll not say but he may haveslantednow and then, at a christenin' or a weddin'; but for buryin' a corp, he is undeniable!"In 1866 the Bishop of Carlisle consecrated a new church at Wythop on the shores of Bassenthwaite Lake. The old building which this edifice is intended to supersede is a decayed barn-like structure, supplied with a bell which hung from an adjoining tree. Some curious customs are associated with this Church. It was built in 1473. For some hundreds of years the inhabitants of the Chapelry were in the habit of dividing it into four quarters, from each of which a representative was elected yearly; the functions of the four being set forth in a document dated 1623. They have to elect a parish minister or reader, who was generally the schoolmaster, a layman being eligible; they had to collect "devotion money," supervise the repairs of the fabric, and look after the parish school. The stipend of the minister was 10½d. per Sunday. Here is a copy of an old receipt:—"Received of the chapelmenof Wythop the sum of 28s. 5d. for thirty-one weeks' reading wages, by me, John Fisher." The stipend was however supplemented by Whittlegate; he was boarded and lodged by the inhabitants of the four quarters in turn. The value of the living at the present day is only £51 per annum.This old church which is to remain as a curiosity, stands high on a mountain side; and not many years ago nettles grew luxuriantly beneath the seats in the pews and along the middle of the passage. A narrow board on a moveable bracket constitutes the communion table, and the vessels employed in the celebration of the Lord's Supper are a pewter cheese-plate and pewter pot. There is no font provided for baptisms, the purpose was served by a common earthenware vessel; nor is any vestry room attached to the building.Vestries are seldom to be found in these remote chapels. And in the chapel at Matterdale, the sacramental wine used to be kept in a wooden keg, or small cask; perhaps is so still.It is said of Whitbeck Chapel, which lies on the base of Black Combe, near the sea shore, that smugglers frequenting that exposed part of the coast, on many occasions deposited their illegal cargoes within its walls, until a convenient opportunity arose for removing them unobserved. Sunday sometimes came round when the sacred edifice was not in the most suitable condition for celebrating divine service. The parish clerk had then to advise the minister that it would be inconvenient to officiate on that day. It was not politic to scrutinize too closely the nature of the difficulty that existed: it was sufficiently understood. A substantial sample of the intruding contraband element found its way to the house of the minister; and forthwith due notice was circulated among the parishioners that the usual service would not be held until the Sunday following. Meanwhile the stores were disposed of, and the wild and desperate adventurers were in full career again towards the Manx or Scottish shore.In 1300 the Lady of Allerdale, and of the Honour of Cockermouth, Isabel Countess of Albemarle was summoned to prove by what right she held a market at Crosthwaite (near Keswick). She denied that she held any market there, but said that the men of the neighbourhood met at the Church on Festival days, and there sold flesh and fish; and that she as lady of the Manor of Derwent Fells took no toll. This practice being persevered in, in 1306 the inhabitants of Cockermouth represented in a petition to parliament that therewas a great concourse of people every Sunday at Crosthwaite Church, where corn, flour, beans, peas, linen, cloth, meat, fish, and other merchandise were bought and sold, which was so very injurious to the market at Cockermouth, that the persons of that place who farmed the tolls of the king were unable to pay their rent. Upon this a prohibitory proclamation was issued against the continuance of such an unseemly usage.Things had not got quite straight in this respect within the sanctuary at a much later period. The Rev. Thos. Warcup, incumbent of the parish church of Wigton, in the civil war was obliged to fly on account of his loyalty to the sovereign. After the restoration of Charles II. he returned to his cure; and tradition says, that the butcher-market was then held upon the Sunday, and the butchers hung up their carcasses even at the church door, to attract the notice of their customers as they went in and came out of church; and it was not an unfrequent thing to see people, who had made their bargains before prayer began, hang their joints of meat over the backs of the seats until the pious clergyman had finished the service. The zealous priest, after having long, but ineffectually, endeavoured to make his congregation sensible of the indecency of such practices, undertook a journey to London, on foot, for the purpose of petitioning the king to have the market-day established on the Tuesday; which favour it is said he had interest enough to obtain.This faithful priest long before his death caused his own monument to be erected in the churchyard, with this inscription in verse of his own composing:Thomas Warcup prepar'd this stone,To mind him of his best home.Little but sin and misery here,Till we be carried on our bier.Out of the grave and earth's dust,The Lord will raise me up, I trust;To live with Christe eternallie,Who, me to save, himself did die.Mihi est Christus et in vita et in morte lucrum. Phil. i. 21.Obiit anno 1653.Thus it appears his decease did not take place until some years after the date at which he records his death; probably a period marked by some important change in his life, or of unusual solemnity reminds us that only thirty-five years ago, at a very few miles from its base, one who served the pastoraloffice more than fifty years, eking out a wretched maintenance upon a small farm; while his sons were at the plough, was of necessity compelled to send his daughters with horses and carts for coals and lime, and to lead manure to the fields and distribute it over the land; whilst the Dean and Chapter of his diocese were the patrons of his cure.Such things can hardly be witnessed at this day. But a minister may be seen even now (1867) on the other side of the district, leading the choir in the aisle, in his surplice, with bow and fiddle in his hands, and then resuming his place at the desk, with becoming solemnity, until the course of the service requires his instrument again. His sense of harmony is acute; for in the middle of the psalm, his arms will fly apart, and the volume of sound be stopped, until an offensive note has been ejected, and the strain rectified, and renewed.A curious discovery has recently been made in the venerable parish church of Windermere. The plaster having come away over one of the arches, a band of red and black was revealed. On the removal of more of the thick layers of whitewash, a beautiful inscription in old English characters was found. Further search was instituted, and similar inscriptions have been discovered on all the walls between the arches in the nave. It is conjectured that these inscriptions were placed in the church at the time of the Reformation, as they are mostly directed against the dogma of transubstantiation, whilst they give plain instructions in the doctrine of the Sacraments.On the north side of the nave the following have been deciphered:—"Howe many sacramentes are their?—Two: baptisme and the supper of the Lord."In baptisme which ys ye signe yt may be seene?—Water onelie."Which is ye grace yt cannot be seene?—The washinge awaie of synnes by the bloode of Christe."In the Lordes supper which is ye signe yt may be sene?—Breade and Wyne."Which is ye grace yt cannot be seene?—The bodie and bloode of Christe."On the south wall the inscriptions are as follow:—"In goinge to ye table of the Lord, what ought a man to consider or doe pryncipalie?—T examine him selfe."Is the breade and wine turned into ye bodie and bloode of Christe?—No, for if you turne or take away ye signe that may be sene it is no sacrament."For the strengthenynge of your faith, howe many things learne yow in ye Lordes Supper?—Two: as by ye hand and mouthe, my bodie receiuth breade and wine: so by faithe, my soule dothe feade of ye bodie and blood of Christ: secondlie all ye benefittes of Christ his passion and his righteousness, are as surelye sealled up to be mine as my selfe had wrought them."To the strengthening of your faithe how many thinges learne you in baptisme?—Two: first, as water washeth away the filthines of ye fleshe: so ye bloode of Christ washeth awaie synne from my soull; secondly, I am taught to rise againe to neunes of life."
Wordsworth in his description of the Lake Country as it was, and had been through centuries, till within about one hundred years, thus alludes to the places of worship. "Towards the head of these Dales was found a perfect Republic of shepherds and agriculturists, among whom the plough of each man was confined to the maintenance of his own family, or to the occasional accommodation of his neighbour. Two or three cows furnished each family with milk and cheese. The Chapel was the only edifice that presided over these dwellings, the supreme head of this pure commonwealth: the members of which existed in the midst of a powerful empire, like an ideal society or an organised community, whose constitution had been imposed and regulated by the mountains which protected it.
"Thereligio lociis nowhere violated by these unstinted, yet unpretending works of human hands. They exhibit generally a well proportioned oblong, with a suitable porch, in some instances a steeple tower, and in others nothing more than a small belfry, in which one or two bells hang visibly. A man must be very insensible who would not have been touched with pleasure at the sight of the former Chapel of Buttermere, so strikingly expressing by its diminutive size, how small must have been the congregation there assembled, as it were, like one family; and proclaiming at the same time to the passenger, in connection with the surrounding mountains, the depth of that seclusion in which the people lived, that rendered necessary the building of a separate place of worship for so few. The edifice was scarcely larger thanmany of the single stones or fragments of rock which were scattered near it. The old Chapel was perhaps the most diminutive in all England, being incapable of receiving more than half a dozen families. The length of the outer wall was about seventeen feet. The curacy was 'certified to the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty at £1. paid by the contributions of the inhabitants,' and it was also certified, 'this Chapel and Wythop were served by Readers, except that the Curate of Lorton officiated there three or four times in the year.'"
Such cures were held in these northern counties by unordained persons, till about the middle of George II.'s reign; when the Bishops came to a resolution, that no one should officiate who was not in orders. But, because there would have been some injustice and some hardship in ejecting the existing incumbents, they were admitted to deacons' orders without undergoing any examination. The person who was then Reader as it was called, at the Chapel in the Vale of Newlands, and who received this kind of ordination, exercised the various trades of Clogger, Tailor, and Butter-print maker.
How otherwise than by following secular occupations were even Readers to exist? The Chapel of "Secmurthow" on the south side of the river Derwent, not far from the foot of Bassenthwaite lake, was certified to the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty at £2., being the interest of £40. raised by the inhabitants for a Reader. "Before its augmentation," says Hutchinson, "the Reader of divine service had a precarious income; but an actual custom existed for several years of allowing the poor minister awhittle-gate. He was privileged to go from house to house in the Chapelry, and stay a certain number of days at each place, where he was permitted to enter hiswhittleor knife with the rest of the family. This custom," he adds, "has been abolished in such modern times, that it is in the memory of many now living." (i.e. 1794.)
The inhabitants of many of the Chapelries in the north got by custom from the Rectors or Vicars the right of nominating and presenting the curate; for this reason: before the death of Queen Anne, many of the Chapelries were not worth above two or three pounds a year, and the donees could not get persons properly qualified to serve them; so they left them to the inhabitants, who raised voluntary contributions for them in addition to their salary, with clothes yearly and whittle-gate.
Clothes yearly, were one new suit of clothes, two pairs ofshoes, and one pair of clogs, shirts, stockings, etc., as they could bargain.
Whittlegate is, to have two or three weeks' victuals at each house, according to the ability of the inhabitants, which was settled amongst them, so that he should go his course as regularly as the sun, and complete it annually. Few houses having more knives than one or two, the pastor was often obliged to buy his own; sometimes it was bought for him by the chapel-wardens. He marched from house to house with his whittle seeking fresh pasturage; and as master of the herd, he had the elbow chair at the table-head, which was often made of part of a hollow ash-tree, such as may be seen in those parts at this day.
Buttermere was said to allow its priest whittle-gate, and twenty shillings yearly; by other accounts, "clogg-shoes, harden-sark, whittle-gate, and guse-gate"—that is, a pair of shoes clogged or iron-shod, a shirt of coarse linen or hemp once a year, free-living at each parishioner's house for a certain number of days, and the right to pasture a goose or geese on the common.
The Wytheburn reader had sark, whittle-gate, and guse-gate.
The Mungrisdale priest had £6. 0s.9d.a year.
Many worthies have appeared, nevertheless, among these unpretending ministers of the dales; most prominently so, Robert Walker, for a long period curate of Seathwaite, and surnamed for his many virtues and industry, the Wonderful: of whose life and actions an interesting and detailed account is given in the Notes in Wordsworth's Works.
The Chapel of Martindale, a perpetual curacy under the vicarage of Barton, near Penrith, was served for 67 years by a Mr. Richard Birket. The ancient endowment was only £2. 15s.4d.per annum, a small house, and about four acres of land. At his first coming, Birket's whole property consisted of two shirts and one suit of clothes; yet he amassed a considerable sum of money. Being the only man except one in the parish who could write, he transcribed most of the law papers of his parishioners. Whenever he lent money, he deducted at the time of lending, two shillings in the pound for interest, and the term of the loan never exceeded a year. He charged for writing a receipt twopence, and for a promissory note fourpence; and used other means of extortion. He likewise taught a school, and served as parish-clerk; and in both these offices he showed his wonderful turn for economyand gain; for his quarter-dues from his scholars being small, he had from the parents of each scholar a fortnight's board and lodging; and the Easter-dues being usually paid in eggs, he, at the time of collecting, carried with him a board, in which was a hole that served him as a gauge, and he positively refused to accept any which would pass through. He got a fortune of £60 with his wife; to whom he left at his decease the sum of £1200. Clark says, that on account of transacting most of the law affairs of his parishioners, he was called Sir Richard, or the Lawyer. But with reference to this title, Nicholson, Bishop of Carlisle, at the beginning of the 18th century says, "Since I can remember, there was not a reader in any chapel who was not called 'Sir.'" The old designation of the clergy before the Reformation was always "Sir"; knight being added as the military or civil distinction. It has also been stated that the last curate of this parish, or of these parts at all, called "Sir," was the Reverend Richard Birket (apud 1689).
On the death of Mr. Birket no one would undertake the cure, on account of the smallness of the stipend: those therefore of the parishioners who could read, performed the service by turns. Things remained in this situation for some time; at length a little decrepid man, named Brownrigg, to whom Mr. Birket had taught a little Latin and Greek, was by the parishioners appointed perpetual Reader. For this they allowed him, with the consent of the Donee, the church perquisites, then worth about £12 per annum. Brownrigg being a man of good character, and there being no clergyman within several miles to baptize their children, or bury their dead, the parishioners petitioned the Bishop to grant him deacon's orders; this was accordingly done, and he served the cure forty-eight years.
Mr. Mattinson, the curate of Paterdale, who died about the year 1770, was a singular character. For fifty-six years he officiated at the small "chapel with the yew tree," at the foot of St. Sunday's Crag. His ordinary income was generally twelve pounds a year, and never above eighteen. He married and lived comfortably, and had four children, all of whom he christened and married, educating his son to be a scholar, and sending him to College. He buried his mother; married his father and buried him; christened his wife, and published his own banns of marriage in the church. He lived to the age of ninety-six, and died worth a thousand pounds. It has been alleged that this provident curate assisted his wife to card andspin the tithe wool which fell to his lot, viz. one third; that he taught a school which brought him in about five pounds a year; that his wife was skilful and eminent as a midwife, performing her functions for the small sum of one shilling; but as according to ancient custom she was likewise cook at the christening dinner, she received some culinary perquisites which somewhat increased her profits. Clarke adds, "One thing more I must beg leave to mention concerning Mrs. Mattinson: On the day of her marriage, her father boasted that his two daughters were married to the two best men in Paterdale, the priest and the bag piper."
In Langdale, in Clark's time, the poor Curate was obliged to sell ale to support himself and his family; and, he says, "At his house I have playedBarnabywith him on the Sabbath morning, when he left us with the good old song,
'I'll but preach, and be with you again.'"
Taking all their circumstances into consideration, it is not to be wondered at that the personal failings of these men were looked upon by their neighbours with a leniency which would hardly be intelligible elsewhere. Not very long ago an excellent old dame only recently deceased, who for her intelligence and goodness was respected and esteemed by the highest and the lowest, and was one of the finest specimens of nature's gentlewomen to be found anywhere, was heard warmly upholding the character of a neighbouring clergyman in these words,—"Well, I'll not say but he may haveslantednow and then, at a christenin' or a weddin'; but for buryin' a corp, he is undeniable!"
In 1866 the Bishop of Carlisle consecrated a new church at Wythop on the shores of Bassenthwaite Lake. The old building which this edifice is intended to supersede is a decayed barn-like structure, supplied with a bell which hung from an adjoining tree. Some curious customs are associated with this Church. It was built in 1473. For some hundreds of years the inhabitants of the Chapelry were in the habit of dividing it into four quarters, from each of which a representative was elected yearly; the functions of the four being set forth in a document dated 1623. They have to elect a parish minister or reader, who was generally the schoolmaster, a layman being eligible; they had to collect "devotion money," supervise the repairs of the fabric, and look after the parish school. The stipend of the minister was 10½d. per Sunday. Here is a copy of an old receipt:—"Received of the chapelmenof Wythop the sum of 28s. 5d. for thirty-one weeks' reading wages, by me, John Fisher." The stipend was however supplemented by Whittlegate; he was boarded and lodged by the inhabitants of the four quarters in turn. The value of the living at the present day is only £51 per annum.
This old church which is to remain as a curiosity, stands high on a mountain side; and not many years ago nettles grew luxuriantly beneath the seats in the pews and along the middle of the passage. A narrow board on a moveable bracket constitutes the communion table, and the vessels employed in the celebration of the Lord's Supper are a pewter cheese-plate and pewter pot. There is no font provided for baptisms, the purpose was served by a common earthenware vessel; nor is any vestry room attached to the building.
Vestries are seldom to be found in these remote chapels. And in the chapel at Matterdale, the sacramental wine used to be kept in a wooden keg, or small cask; perhaps is so still.
It is said of Whitbeck Chapel, which lies on the base of Black Combe, near the sea shore, that smugglers frequenting that exposed part of the coast, on many occasions deposited their illegal cargoes within its walls, until a convenient opportunity arose for removing them unobserved. Sunday sometimes came round when the sacred edifice was not in the most suitable condition for celebrating divine service. The parish clerk had then to advise the minister that it would be inconvenient to officiate on that day. It was not politic to scrutinize too closely the nature of the difficulty that existed: it was sufficiently understood. A substantial sample of the intruding contraband element found its way to the house of the minister; and forthwith due notice was circulated among the parishioners that the usual service would not be held until the Sunday following. Meanwhile the stores were disposed of, and the wild and desperate adventurers were in full career again towards the Manx or Scottish shore.
In 1300 the Lady of Allerdale, and of the Honour of Cockermouth, Isabel Countess of Albemarle was summoned to prove by what right she held a market at Crosthwaite (near Keswick). She denied that she held any market there, but said that the men of the neighbourhood met at the Church on Festival days, and there sold flesh and fish; and that she as lady of the Manor of Derwent Fells took no toll. This practice being persevered in, in 1306 the inhabitants of Cockermouth represented in a petition to parliament that therewas a great concourse of people every Sunday at Crosthwaite Church, where corn, flour, beans, peas, linen, cloth, meat, fish, and other merchandise were bought and sold, which was so very injurious to the market at Cockermouth, that the persons of that place who farmed the tolls of the king were unable to pay their rent. Upon this a prohibitory proclamation was issued against the continuance of such an unseemly usage.
Things had not got quite straight in this respect within the sanctuary at a much later period. The Rev. Thos. Warcup, incumbent of the parish church of Wigton, in the civil war was obliged to fly on account of his loyalty to the sovereign. After the restoration of Charles II. he returned to his cure; and tradition says, that the butcher-market was then held upon the Sunday, and the butchers hung up their carcasses even at the church door, to attract the notice of their customers as they went in and came out of church; and it was not an unfrequent thing to see people, who had made their bargains before prayer began, hang their joints of meat over the backs of the seats until the pious clergyman had finished the service. The zealous priest, after having long, but ineffectually, endeavoured to make his congregation sensible of the indecency of such practices, undertook a journey to London, on foot, for the purpose of petitioning the king to have the market-day established on the Tuesday; which favour it is said he had interest enough to obtain.
This faithful priest long before his death caused his own monument to be erected in the churchyard, with this inscription in verse of his own composing:
Thomas Warcup prepar'd this stone,To mind him of his best home.Little but sin and misery here,Till we be carried on our bier.Out of the grave and earth's dust,The Lord will raise me up, I trust;To live with Christe eternallie,Who, me to save, himself did die.
Mihi est Christus et in vita et in morte lucrum. Phil. i. 21.Obiit anno 1653.
Thus it appears his decease did not take place until some years after the date at which he records his death; probably a period marked by some important change in his life, or of unusual solemnity reminds us that only thirty-five years ago, at a very few miles from its base, one who served the pastoraloffice more than fifty years, eking out a wretched maintenance upon a small farm; while his sons were at the plough, was of necessity compelled to send his daughters with horses and carts for coals and lime, and to lead manure to the fields and distribute it over the land; whilst the Dean and Chapter of his diocese were the patrons of his cure.
Such things can hardly be witnessed at this day. But a minister may be seen even now (1867) on the other side of the district, leading the choir in the aisle, in his surplice, with bow and fiddle in his hands, and then resuming his place at the desk, with becoming solemnity, until the course of the service requires his instrument again. His sense of harmony is acute; for in the middle of the psalm, his arms will fly apart, and the volume of sound be stopped, until an offensive note has been ejected, and the strain rectified, and renewed.
A curious discovery has recently been made in the venerable parish church of Windermere. The plaster having come away over one of the arches, a band of red and black was revealed. On the removal of more of the thick layers of whitewash, a beautiful inscription in old English characters was found. Further search was instituted, and similar inscriptions have been discovered on all the walls between the arches in the nave. It is conjectured that these inscriptions were placed in the church at the time of the Reformation, as they are mostly directed against the dogma of transubstantiation, whilst they give plain instructions in the doctrine of the Sacraments.
On the north side of the nave the following have been deciphered:—
"Howe many sacramentes are their?—Two: baptisme and the supper of the Lord.
"In baptisme which ys ye signe yt may be seene?—Water onelie.
"Which is ye grace yt cannot be seene?—The washinge awaie of synnes by the bloode of Christe.
"In the Lordes supper which is ye signe yt may be sene?—Breade and Wyne.
"Which is ye grace yt cannot be seene?—The bodie and bloode of Christe."
On the south wall the inscriptions are as follow:—
"In goinge to ye table of the Lord, what ought a man to consider or doe pryncipalie?—T examine him selfe.
"Is the breade and wine turned into ye bodie and bloode of Christe?—No, for if you turne or take away ye signe that may be sene it is no sacrament.
"For the strengthenynge of your faith, howe many things learne yow in ye Lordes Supper?—Two: as by ye hand and mouthe, my bodie receiuth breade and wine: so by faithe, my soule dothe feade of ye bodie and blood of Christ: secondlie all ye benefittes of Christ his passion and his righteousness, are as surelye sealled up to be mine as my selfe had wrought them.
"To the strengthening of your faithe how many thinges learne you in baptisme?—Two: first, as water washeth away the filthines of ye fleshe: so ye bloode of Christ washeth awaie synne from my soull; secondly, I am taught to rise againe to neunes of life."
G. AND T. COWARD, PRINTERS, CARLISLE.
SECOND EDITION.Small Crown 8vo. In neat Cloth binding, Price 3s. 6d.
THE FOLK-SPEECH OF CUMBERLAND and some Districts Adjacent; being short Stories and Rhymes in the Dialects of the West Border Counties. ByAlex. Craig Gibson, F.S.A.
THE FOLK-SPEECH OF CUMBERLAND and some Districts Adjacent; being short Stories and Rhymes in the Dialects of the West Border Counties. ByAlex. Craig Gibson, F.S.A.
The tales are remarkable for their spirit and humour. The poetry, too, is marked by the same characteristics.—Westminster Review.
The stories and rhymes have the freshness of nature about them.—Contemporary Review.
Brimful of humour, homely wit and sense, and reflect the character and life and ways of thought of an honest sturdy people.—Spectator.
The stories, or prose pieces, are wonderfully clever and well done.—Saturday Review.
This is an uncommon book, combining, as it does, in an extraordinary degree, the recondite lore which throws antiquarians into ecstacies, with the shrewd humour, the descriptive force, and the poetic charm which, garbed in the old Norse-rooted vernacular which Cumbrians love so well, will secure for it a cordial reception among all those who claim "canny Cumberland" for their childhood's home.—Eddowes's Shrewsbury Journal.
His poems are pictures in very natural colours.—Durham Chronicle.
Destined to an honourable place among the choicest productions of our native literature.—Carlisle Journal.
Besides being a learned antiquary, he has wit, humour, and a true vein of poetry in him, and the literary skill, in addition to turn all these to the best account.—Carlisle Express.
In its way perfectly unique.—Carlisle Examiner.
CARLISLE: G. AND T. COWARD. LONDON: J. RUSSELL SMITH.
Small Crown 8vo. In neat Cloth binding, Price 3s. 6d.
"CUMMERLAND TALK;"being Short Tales and Rhymes in the Dialect of that County. ByJohn Richardson, of Saint John's.
"CUMMERLAND TALK;"being Short Tales and Rhymes in the Dialect of that County. ByJohn Richardson, of Saint John's.
A very good specimen of its class. The ordinary subscriber to Mudie's would not for a moment dream of ever looking into it, and yet Mr. Richardson possesses far more ability than the generality of novelists who are so popular.—Westminster Review.
Good and pleasant.—Saturday Review.
There are both pathos and humour in the various stories and ballads furnished by Mr. Richardson. We congratulate Cumberland on having so many able champions and admirers of her dialect.—Athenæum.
Some of the rhymes are admirable. "It's nobbut me!" is a capital specimen of a popular lyric poem.—Notes and Queries.
He has seized on some of the most striking habits of thought, and describes them simply and naturally, without any straining after effect.—Carlisle Patriot.
To all lovers of the dialect literature of this county the volume will be heartily welcome.—Whitehaven News.
A worthy companion to Dr. Gibson's "Folk Speech."—Wigton Advertiser.
The sketches are quite equal to anything of the kind we have seen.—Kendal Mercury.
A very pleasant addition to the records of the dialect of Cumberland.—Westmorland Gazette.
The best and most comprehensive reflex of the folk-speech of Cumberland that has been put into our hands.—Soulby's Ulverston Advertiser.
There is plenty of variety in the volume.—Ulverston Mirror.
CARLISLE: G. AND T. COWARD. LONDON: J. RUSSELL SMITH.
F. Cap 8vo. Price 2s. 6d.SONGS AND BALLADSBy JOHN JAMES LONSDALE,Author of "The Ship Boy's Letter," "Robin's Return," &c.WITH A BRIEF MEMOIR.
From the ATHENÆUM.
Mr. Lonsdale's songs have not only great merit, but they display the very variety of which he himself was sceptical. His first lay, "Minna," might lay claim even to imagination; nevertheless, for completeness and delicacy of execution, we prefer some of his shorter pieces. Of most of these it may be said that they are the dramatic expressions of emotional ideas. In many cases, however, these songs have the robust interest of story, or that of character and picture. When it is borne in mind that by far the greater portion of these lays were written for music, no small praise must be awarded to the poet, not only for the suitability of his themes to his purpose, but for the picturesqueness and fancy with which he has invested them under difficult conditions.
From the WESTMINSTER REVIEW.
Poetry seems now to flourish more in the north than in the south of England. Not long ago we noticed an admirable collection of Cumberland ballads, containing two songs by Miss Blamire, which are amongst the most beautiful and pathetic in our language. We have now a small volume by a Cumberland poet, which may be put on the same shelf with Kirke White. Like Kirke White's, Mr. Lonsdale's life seems to have been marked by pain and disappointment. Like Kirk White too, he died before his powers were full developed. A delicate pathos and a vein of humour characterize his best pieces.
From the SPECTATOR.
"The Children's Kingdom" is really touching. The picture of the band of children setting out in the morning bright and happy, lingering in the forest at noon, and creeping to their journey's end at midnight with tearful eyes, has a decided charm.
From NOTES AND QUERIES.
A volume containing some very pleasing poems by a young Cumberland poet, who but for his early death, would probably have taken a foremost place amongst the lyrists of our day.
CARLISLE: G. AND T. COWARD. LONDON: J. RUSSELL SMITH.
Small Crown 8vo. Price 3s. 6d. Cloth Limp.
A GLOSSARY of the WORDS and PHRASES OF FURNESS (North Lancashire), with Illustrative Quotations, principally from the Old Northern Writers. ByJ. P. Morris, F.A.S.L.
A GLOSSARY of the WORDS and PHRASES OF FURNESS (North Lancashire), with Illustrative Quotations, principally from the Old Northern Writers. ByJ. P. Morris, F.A.S.L.
We are thoroughly pleased with the creditable way in which Mr. Morris has performed his task. We had marked a number of words, the explanation of which struck us as being good and to the point, but space unfortunately fails us. We commend the Furness Glossary to all students of our dialects.—Westminster Review.
The collection of words is remarkably good, and Mr. Morris has most wisely and at considerable pains and trouble illustrated them with extracts from old writers.—The Reliquary Quarterly Review.
Mr. Morris is well known in the district, both as a writer and an antiquarian. His labours in the work before us evince him to be a zealous and untiring student. We trust his book will have the success which we think it well deserves.—Ulverston Advertiser.
The stranger who takes up his abode in Furness will find Mr. Morris's little book a capital helpmate.—Ulverston Mirror.
Apart from its etymological value the work is highly acceptable as a contribution to local literature.—Carlisle Journal.
We cordially recommend the glossary to admirers of the old writers, and to all curious philologists.—Carlisle Patriot.
Valuable as tracing to their source many good old forms of the Furness dialect, and as explaining not a few archaisms which have been stumbling-blocks to students of their mother tongue.—Whitehaven News.