Chapter 3

Why should I sowen draf out of my fistWhen I may sowen wheat, if that me list?CHAUCER.

Doncaster is built upon a peninsula, or ridge of land, about a mile across, having a gentle slope from east to west, and bounded on the west by the river; this ridge is composed of three strata; to wit,—of the alluvial soil deposited by the river in former ages, and of limestone on the north and west; and of sandstone to the south and east. To the south of this neck of land lies a tract called Potteric Carr which is much below the level of the river, and was a morass, or range of fens when our Doctor first took up his abode in Doncaster. This tract extends about four miles in length and nearly three in breadth, and the security which it afforded against an attack on that side, while the river protected the peninsula by its semicircular bend on the other, was evidently one reason why the Romans fixed upon the site of Doncaster for a station. In Brockett's Glossary of North-Country words, Carr is interpreted to mean “flat marshy land; a pool or lake;” but the etymology of the word is yet to be discovered.

These fens were drained and enclosed pursuant to an Act of Parliament which was obtained for that purpose in the year 1766. Three principal drains were then cut, fourteen feet wide, and about four miles long, into which the water was conducted from every part of the Carr, southward, to the little river Torne at Rossington Bridge, whence it flows into the Trent. Before these drainings the ground was liable to frequent inundations; and about the centre there was a decoy for wild ducks: there is still a deep water there of considerable extent, in which very large pike and eels are found. The soil, which was so boggy at first that horses were lost when attempting to drink at the drains, has been brought into good cultivation (as all such ground may be) to the great improvement of the district; for till this improvement was effected intermittent fevers and sore throats were prevalent there, and they have ceased from the time that the land was drained. The most unhealthy season now is the Spring, when cold winds from the North and North East, usually prevail during some six weeks; at other times Doncaster is considered to be a healthy place. It has been observed that when endemic diseases arrive there, they uniformly come from the south; and that the state of the weather may be foretold from a knowledge of what it has been at a given time in London, making an allowance of about three days, for the chance of winds. Here, as in all places which lie upon a great and frequented road, the transmission of diseases has been greatly facilitated by the increase of travelling.

But before we leave Potteric Carr, let us try reader, whether we cannot improve it in another way, that is in the dissenting and, so called, evangelical sense of the word, in which sense the battle of Trafalgar was improved, in a sermon by the Reverend John Evans. Gentle Reader, let you and I in like manner endeavour to improve this enclosure of the Carr.

Four thousand acres of bog whereof that Carr consisted, and upon which common sand, coal ashes, and the scrapings of a limestone road were found the best manure, produce now good crops of grain and excellent pasturage.

There are said to be in England and Wales at this time 3,984,000 acres of uncultivated but cultivable ground; 5,950,000 in Scotland; 4,900,000 in Ireland; 166,000 in the smaller British Islands. Crags, woods, and barren land are not included in this statement. Here are 15,000,000 acres, the worst of which is as good as the morass which has been reclaimed near Doncaster, and the far greater part very materially better.

I address myself now to any one of my readers who pays poor rates; but more especially to him who has any part in the disposal of those rates; and most especially to a clergyman, a magistrate, and a member of Parliament.

The money which is annually raised for poor-rates in England and Wales has for some years amounted to from five to six millions. With all this expenditure cases are continually occurring of death from starvation, either of hunger or cold, or both together; wretches are carried before the magistrates for the offence of lying in the streets or in unfinished houses, when they have not where to hide their heads; others have been found dead by the side of limekilns, or brickkilns, whither they had crept to save themselves from perishing for cold; and untold numbers die of the diseases produced by scanty and unwholesome food.

This money moreover is for the most part so applied, that they who have a rightful claim upon it, receive less than in justice, in humanity, and according to the intent of a law wisely and humanely enacted, ought to be their portion; while they who have only a legal claim upon it, that claim arising from an evil usage which has become prescriptive, receive pay where justice, policy, and considerate humanity, and these very laws themselves if rightly administered, would award restraint or punishment.

Thus it is in those parts of the United Kingdom, where a provision for the poor is directly raised by law. In Scotland the proportion of paupers is little less, and the evils attendant upon poverty are felt in an equal or nearly equal degree. In Ireland they exist to a far greater extent, and may truly be called terrible.

Is it fitting that this should be while there are fifteen millions of cultivable acres lying waste? Is it possible to conceive grosser improvidence in a nation, grosser folly, grosser ignorance of its duty and interest, or grosser neglect of both, than are manifested in the continuance and growth and increase of this enormous evil, when the means of checking it are so obvious, and that too by a process in which every step must produce direct and tangible good?

But while the Government is doing those things which it ought not to have done, and leaves undone those which it ought to do, let Parishes and Corporations do what is in their power for themselves. And bestir yourselves in this good work ye who can! The supineness of the Government is no excuse for you. It is in the exertions of individuals that all national reformation must begin. Go to work cautiously, experimentally, patiently, charitably, and in faith! I am neither so enthusiastic as to suppose, nor so rash as to assert, that a cure may thus be found for the complicated evils arising from the condition of the labouring classes. But it is one of those remedial means by which much misery may be relieved, and much of that profligacy that arises from hopeless wretchedness be prevented. It is one of those means from which present relief may be obtained, and future good expected. It is the readiest way in which useful employment can be provided for the industrious poor. And if the land so appropriated should produce nothing more than is required for the support of those employed in cultivating it, and who must otherwise be partly or wholly supported by the poor-rates, such cultivation would even then be profitable to the public. Wherever there is heath, moor or fen,—which there is in every part of the Island,—there is work for the spade; employment and subsistence for man is to be found there, and room for him to encrease and multiply for generations.

Reader, if you doubt that bog and bad land may be profitably cultivated, go and look at Potteric Carr; (the members of both Houses who attend Doncaster Races, may spare an hour for this at the next meeting). If you desire to know in what manner the poor who are now helpless may be settled upon such land, so as immediately to earn their own maintenance, and in a short time to repay the first cost of their establishment, read the account of the Pauper Colonies in Holland; for there the experiment has been tried, and we have the benefit of their experience.

As for the whole race of Political Economists, our Malthusites, Benthamites, Utilitarians or Futilitarians, they are to the Government of this Country such counsellors as the magicians were to Pharaoh; whosoever listens to them has his heart hardened.—But they are no conjurors.

REMARKS ON AN OPINION OF MR. CRABBE'S. TOPOGRAPHICAL POETRY. DRAYTON.

Do, pious marble, let thy readers knowWhat they and what their children oweTo Drayton's name, whose sacred dustWe recommend unto thy trust.Protect his memory, and preserve his story;Remain a lasting monument of his glory;And when thy ruins shall disclaimTo be the treasurer of his name,His name that cannot fade shall beAn everlasting monument to thee.EPITAPH INWESTMINSTERABBEY.

The Poet Crabbe has said that there subsists an utter repugnancy between the studies of topography and poetry. He must have intended by topography when he said so, the mere definition of boundaries and specification of land-marks, such as are given in the advertisement of an estate for sale; and boys in certain parts of the country are taught to bear in mind by a remembrance in tail when the bounds of a parish are walked by the local authorities. Such topography indeed bears as little relation to poetry as a map or chart to a picture.

But if he had any wider meaning, it is evident, by the number of topographical poems, good, bad and indifferent, with which our language abounds, that Mr. Crabbe's predecessors in verse, and his contemporaries also, have differed greatly from him in opinion upon this point. The Poly-olbion, notwithstanding its common-place personifications and its inartificial transitions, which are as abrupt as those in the Metamorphoses and the Fasti, and not so graceful, is nevertheless a work as much to be valued by the students and lovers of English literature, as by the writers of local history. Drayton himself, whose great talents were deservedly esteemed by the ablest of his contemporaries in the richest age of English poetry, thought he could not be more worthily employed than in what he calls the Herculean task of this topographical poem; and in that belief he was encouraged by his friend and commentator Selden, to whose name the epithet of learned was in old times always and deservedly affixed. With how becoming a sense of its dignity and variety the Poet entered upon his subject, these lines may shew:

Thou powerful God of flames, in verse divinely great,Touch my invention so with thy true genuine heat,That high and noble things I slightly may not tell,Nor light and idle toys my lines may vainly swell;But as my subject serves so high or low to strain,And to the varying earth so suit my varying strain,That Nature in my work thou mayest thy power avow;That as thou first found'st art, and didst her rules allow,So I, to thine own self that gladly near would be,May herein do the best in imitating thee.As thou hast here a hill, a vale there, there a flood,A mead here, there a heath, and now and then a wood,These things so in my song I naturally may show;Now as the mountain high, then as the valley low;Here fruitful as the mead; there as the heath be bare,Then as the gloomy wood I may be rough, tho' rare.

I would not say of this Poet, as Kirkpatrick says of him, that when he

———————his Albion sungWith their own praise the echoing vallies rung;His bounding Muse o'er every mountain rodeAnd every river warbled where he flowed;

but I may say that if instead of sending his Muse to ride over the mountains, and resting contented with her report, he had ridden or walked over them himself, his poem would better have deserved that praise for accuracy which has been bestowed upon it by critics who had themselves no knowledge which could enable them to say whether it were accurate or not. Camden was more diligent; he visited some of the remotest counties of which he wrote.

This is not said with any intention of detracting from Michael Drayton's fame: the most elaborate criticism could neither raise him above the station which he holds in English literature, nor degrade him from it. He is extolled not beyond the just measure of his deserts in his epitaph which has been variously ascribed to Ben Jonson, to Randolph, and to Quarles, but with most probability to the former, who knew and admired and loved him.

He was a poet by nature, and carefully improved his talent;—one who sedulously laboured to deserve the approbation of such as were capable of appreciating, and cared nothing for the censures which others might pass upon him. “Like me that list,” he says,

my honest rhymes,Nor care for critics, nor regard the times.

And though he is not a poetvirûm volitare per ora, nor one of those whose better fortune it is to live in the hearts of their devoted admirers, yet what he deemed his greatest work will be preserved by its subject; some of his minor poems have merit enough in their execution to ensure their preservation, and no one who studies poetry as an art will think his time mis-spent in perusing the whole,—if he have any real love for the art which he is pursuing. The youth who enters upon that pursuit without a feeling of respect and gratitude for those elder poets, who by their labours have prepared the way for him, is not likely to produce any thing himself that will be held in remembrance by posterity.

ANECDOTES OF PETER HEYLYN AND LIGHTFOOT, EXEMPLIFYING THAT GREAT KNOWLEDGE IS NOT ALWAYS APPLICABLE TO LITTLE THINGS; AND THAT AS CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, SO IT MAY WITH EQUAL TRUTH SOMETIMES BE SAID THAT KNOWLEDGE ENDS THERE.

A scholar in his study knows the stars,Their motion and their influence, which are fix'd,And which are wandering; can decypher seas,And give each several land his proper bounds:But set him to the compass he's to seek,Where a plain pilot can direct his courseFrom hence unto both the Indies.HEYWOOD.

There was a Poet who wrote a descriptive poem, and then took a journey to see the scenes which he had described. Better late than never, he thought; and thought wisely in so thinking. Drayton was not likely to have acted thus upon after consideration, if in the first conception of his subject he did not feel sufficient ardour for such an undertaking. It would have required indeed a spirit of enterprize as unusual in those days as it is ordinary now. Many a long day's ride must he have taken over rough roads, and in wild countries; and many a weary step would it have cost him, and many a poor lodging must he have put up with at night, where he would have found poor fare, if not cold comfort. So he thought it enough, in many if not most parts, to travel by the map, and believed himself to have been sufficiently “punctual and exact in giving unto every province its peculiar bounds, in laying out their several land-marks, tracing the course of most of the principal rivers, and setting forth the situation and estate of the chiefest towns.”

Peter Heylyn who speaks thus of his own exactness in a work partaking enough of the same nature as the Poly-olbion to be remembered here, though it be in prose and upon a wider subject, tells a humourous anecdote of himself, in the preface to his Cosmography. “He that shall think this work imperfect,” says he, “(though I confess it to be nothing but imperfections) for some deficiencies of this kind, may be likened to the country fellow, (in Aristophanes, if my memory fail not,) who picked a great quarrel with the map because he could not find where his own farm stood. And such a country customer I did meet with once, a servant of my elder brother, sent by him with some horses to Oxford, to bring me and a friend of mine unto his house; who having lost his way as we passed through the forest of Whichwood, and not being able to recover any beaten track, did very earnestly entreat me to lead the way, till I had brought him past the woods to the open fields. Which when I had refused to do, as I had good reason, alledging that I had never been there before, and therefore that I could not tell which way to lead him; ‘that's strange!’ said he; ‘I have heard my old master, your Father, say that you made a book of all the world; and cannot you find your way out of the wood?’”

Peter Heylyn was one who fell on evil times, and on whom, in consequence, evil tongues have fallen. But he was an able, honest, brave man who “stood to his tackling when he was tasted.” And if thou hast not read his Survey of the State of France, Reader, thou hast not read one of our liveliest books of travels in its lighter parts; and one of the wisest and most replete with information that ever was written by a young man.

His more learned contemporary Lightfoot, who steered a safer but not so straight a course, met with an adventure not unlike that of Heylyn's in the forest; but the application which in the cosmographist's case was ridiculously made by an ignorant and simple man was in this instance self-originated.

Lightfoot had promised to set forth as an accompaniment to his Harmony of the Evangelists, “A chorographical description of the land of Canaan, and those adjoining places, that we have occasion to look upon as we read the Gospels.”—“I went on in that work,” he says, “a good while, and that with much cheerfulness and content; for methought a Talmudical survey and history of the land of Canaan, (not omitting collections to be taken up out of the Scripture, and other writers) as it would be new and rare, so it might not prove unwelcome nor unprofitable to those that delighted in such a subject.”—It cost him as much pains to give the description as it would have done to travel thither; but says one of his Editors “the unhappy chance that hindered the publishing this elaborate piece of his, which he had brought to pretty good perfection, was the edition of Doctor Fuller's Pisgah Sight; great pity it was that so good a book should have done so much harm; for that book, handling the same matters and preventing his, stopped his resolution of letting his labors on that subject see the light. Though he went a way altogether different from Dr. Fuller; and so both might have shown their face together in the world; and the younger sister, if we may make comparisons, might have proved the fairer of the two.”

It is pleasant to see how liberally and equitably both Lightfoot and Fuller speak upon this matter;—“But at last,” says the former, “I understood that another workman, a far better artist than myself, had the description of the Land of Israel, not only in hand, but even in the press; and was so far got before me in that travel that he was almost at his journey's end, when I was but little more than setting out. It was grievous to me to have lost my labour, if I should now sit down; and yet I thought it wisdom not to lose more in proceeding farther, when one on the same subject, and of far more abilities in it, had got the start so far before me.

“And although I supposed, and at last was assured, even by that Author himself (my very learned and worthy friend) that we should not thrust nor hinder one another any whit at all, though we both went at once in the perambulation of that land, because he had not meddled with that Rabbinic way that I had gone; yet, when I considered what it was to glean after so clean a reaper, and how rough a Talmudical pencil would seem after so fine a pen, I resolved to sit down, and to stir no more in that matter, till time and occasion did show me more encouragement thereunto, than as yet I saw. And thus was my promise fallen to the ground, not by any carelessness or forgetfulness of mine, but by the happy prevention of another hand, by whom the work is likely to be better done. Yet was I unwilling to suffer my word utterly to come to nothing at all, though I might evade my promise by this fair excuse: but I was desirous to pay the reader something in pursuance of it, though it were not in this very same coin, nor the very same sum, that I had undertaken. Hereupon I turned my thoughts and my endeavours to a description of the Temple after the same manner, and from the same authors, that I had intended to have described the Land; and that the rather, not only that I might do some thing towards making good my promise; but also, that by a trial in a work of this nature of a lesser bulk, I might take some pattern and assay how the other, which would prove of a far larger pains and volume, would be accepted, if I should again venture upon it.”

Lightfoot was sincere in the commendation which he bestowed upon Fuller's diligence, and his felicitous way of writing. And Fuller on his part rendered justice in the same spirit to Lightfoot's well known and peculiar erudition. “Far be it from me,” he says, “that our pens should fall out, like the herdsmen of Lot and Abraham, the land not being able to bear them both, that they might dwell together. No such want of room in this subject, being of such latitude and receipt, that both we and hundreds more, busied together therein, may severally lose ourselves in a subject of such capacity. The rather, because we embrace several courses in this our description; it being my desire and delight, to stick only to the written word of God, whilst my worthy friend takes in the choicest Rabbinical and Talmudical relations, being so well seen in these studies, that it is questionable whether his skill or my ignorance be the greater therein.”

Now then—(for now and then go thus lovingly together, in familiar English—)—after these preliminaries, the learned Lightfoot, who at seven years of age, it is said could not only read fluently the biblical Hebrew, but readily converse in it, may tell his own story.

“Here by the way,” he says, “I cannot but mention, and I think I can never forget, a handsome and deserved check that mine own heart, meeting with a special occasion, did give me, upon the laying down of the other task, and the undertaking of this, for my daring to enter either upon the one or the other. That very day wherein I first set pen to paper to draw up the description of the Temple, having but immediately before laid aside my thoughts of the description of the Land, I was necessarily called out, towards the evening, to go to view a piece of ground of mine own, concerning which some litigiousness was emerging, and about to grow. The field was but a mile from my constant residence and habitation, and it had been in mine owning divers years together; and yet till that very time, had I never seen it, nor looked after it, nor so much as knew whereabout it lay. It was very unlikely I should find it out myself, being so utterly ignorant of its situation; yet because I desired to walk alone, for the enjoying of my thoughts upon that task that I had newly taken in hand, I took some direction which way to go, and would venture to find out the field myself alone. I had not gone far, but I was at a loss; and whether I went right or wrong I could not tell; and if right thither, yet I knew not how to do so farther; and if wrong I knew not which way would prove the right, and so in seeking my ground I had lost myself. Here my heart could not but take me to task; and, reflecting upon what my studies were then, and had lately been upon, it could not but call me fool; and methought it spake as true to me, as ever it had done in all my life,—but only when it called me sinner. A fool that was so studious, and had been so searching about things remote, and that so little concerned my interest,—and yet was so neglective of what was near me, both in place, and in my particular concernment! And a fool again, who went about to describe to others, places and buildings that lay so many hundred miles off, as from hence to Canaan, and under so many hundred years' ruins,—and yet was not able to know, or find the way to a field of mine own, that lay so near me!

“I could not but acknowledge this reproof to be both seasonable, and seasoned both with truth and reason; and it so far prevailed with me, that it not only put me upon a resolution to lay by that work that I had newly taken in hand that morning, but also to be wiser in my bookishness for the time to come, than for it, and through it, to neglect and sink my estate as I had done. And yet within a little time after, I know not how, I was fallen to the same studies and studiousness again,—had got my laid-up task into my hands again before I was aware,—and was come to a determination to go on in that work, because I had my notes and collections ready by me as materials for it; and when that was done, then to think of the advice that my heart had given me, and to look to mine own business.

“So I drew up the description of the Temple itself, and with it the History of the Temple-service.”

Lightfoot's heart was wise when it admonished him of humility; but it was full of deceit when it read him a lesson of worldly wisdom, for which his conscience and his better mind would have said to him “Thou Fool!” if he had followed it.

THE READER IS LED TO INFER THAT A TRAVELLER WHO STOPS UPON THE WAY TO SKETCH, BOTANIZE, ENTOMOLOGIZE OR MINERALOGIZE, TRAVELS WITH MORE PLEASURE AND PROFIT TO HIMSELF THAN IF HE WERE IN THE MAIL COACH.

Non servio materiæ sed indulgeo; quæ quo ducit sequendum est, non quo invitat.

SENECA.

Fear not, my patient reader, that I should lose myself and bewilder you, either in the Holy land, or Whichwood forest, or in the wide fields of the Poly-olbion, or in Potteric Carr, or in any part of the country about Doncaster, most fortunate of English towns for circumstances which I have already stated, and henceforth to be the most illustrious, as having been the place where my never-to-be-forgotten Philosopher and friend, passed the greater part of his innocent and useful and happy life. Good patient reader, you may confide in me as in one who always knows his whereabout, and whom the Goddess Upibilia will keep in the right way.

In treating of that flourishing and every way fortunate town, I have not gone back to visionary times, like the author who wrote a description and drew a map of Anglesea, as it was before the flood. Nor have I touched upon the ages when hyenas prowled over what is now Doncaster race-ground, and great lizards, huge as crocodiles, but with long necks and short tails, took their pleasure in Potteric Carr. I have not called upon thee, gentle and obsequious reader, to accompany me into a Præadamite world, nor even into the antediluvian one. We began with the earliest mention of Doncaster—no earlier; and shall carry our summary notices of its history to the Doctor's time,—no later. And if sometimes the facts on which I may touch should call forth thoughts, and those thoughts remind me of other facts, anecdotes leading to reflection, and reflection producing more anecdotes, thy pleasure will be consulted in all this, my good and patient reader, and thy profit also as much as mine; nay, more in truth, for I might think upon all these things in silence, and spare myself the trouble of relating them.

O Reader, had you in your mindSuch stores as silent thought can bring,O gentle Reader, you would findA Tale in every thing!1

1WORDSWORTH.

I might muse upon these things and let the hours pass by unheeded as the waters of a river in their endless course. And thus I might live in other years,—with those who are departed, in a world of my own, by force of recollection;—or by virtue of sure hope in that world which is theirs now, and to which I shall ere long be promoted.

For thy pleasure, Reader, and for thy improvement, I take upon myself the pains of thus materializing my spiritual stores. Alas! their earthly uses would perish with me unless they were thus embodied!

“The age of a cultivated mind,” says an eloquent and wise and thoughtful author, “is often more complacent, and even more luxurious, than the youth. It is the reward of the due use of the endowments bestowed by nature: while they who in youth have made no provision for age, are left like an unsheltered tree, stripped of its leaves and its branches, shaking and withering before the cold blasts of winter.

“In truth nothing is so happy to itself and so attractive to others, as a genuine and ripened imagination, that knows its own powers, and throws forth its treasures with frankness and fearlessness. The more it produces, the more capable it becomes of production; the creative faculty grows by indulgence; and the more it combines, the more means and varieties of combinations it discovers.

“When Death comes to destroy that mysterious and magical union of capacities and acquirements which has brought a noble genius to this point of power, how frightful and lamentable is the effect of the stroke that stops the current which was wont to put this mighty formation into activity! Perhaps the incomprehensible Spirit may have acted in conjunction with its corporeal adherents to the last. Then in one moment, what darkness and destruction follows a single gasp of breath!”2

2SIREGERTONBRYDGES.

This fine passage is as consolatory in its former part, as it is gloomy at the conclusion; and it is gloomy there, because the view which is there taken is imperfect. Our thoughts, our reminiscences, our intellectual acquirements, die with us to this world,—but to this world only. If they are what they ought to be, they are treasures which we lay up for Heaven. That which is of the earth, earthly, perishes with wealth, rank, honours, authority, and other earthly and perishable things. But nothing that is worth retaining can be lost. When Ovid says in Ben Jonson's play

We pour out our affections with our blood,And with our blood's affections fade our loves,

the dramatist makes the Roman Poet speak like a sensualist, as he was, and the philosophy is as false as it is foul. Affections well placed and dutifully cherished; friendships happily formed and faithfully maintained; knowledge acquired with worthy intent, and intellectual powers that have been diligently improved as the talents which our Lord and Master has committed to our keeping; these will accompany us into another state of existence, as surely as the soul in that state retains its identity and its consciousness.

ETYMOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES CONCERNING THE REMAINS OF VARIOUS TRIBES OR FAMILIES MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURAL HISTORY.

All things are big with jest; nothing that's plainBut may be witty, if thou hast the vein.HERBERT.

That the lost ten Tribes of Israel may be found in London, is a discovery which any person may suppose he has made, when he walks for the first time from the city to Wapping. That the tribes of Judah and Benjamin flourish there is known to all mankind; and from them have sprung the Scripites, and the Omniumites and the Threepercentites.

But it is not so well known that many other tribes noticed in the Old Testament are to be found in this Island of Great Britain.

There are the Hittites, who excel in one branch of gymnastics. And there are the Amorites, who are to be found in town and country; and there are the Gadites who frequent watering places, and take picturesque tours.

Among the Gadites I shall have some of my best readers, who being in good humour with themselves and with every thing else, except on a rainy day, will even then be in good humour with me. There will be Amorites in their company; and among the Amorites too there will be some, who in the overflowing of their love, will have some liking to spare for the Doctor and his faithful memorialist.

The Poets, those especially who deal in erotics, lyrics, sentimentals or sonnets, are the Ah-oh-ites.

The gentlemen who speculate in chapels are the Puh-ites.

The chief seat of the Simeonites is at Cambridge; but they are spread over the land. So are the Man-ass-ites of whom the finest specimens are to be seen in St. James's Street, at the fashionable time of day for exhibiting the dress and the person upon the pavement.

The free-masons are of the family of the Jachinites.

The female Haggites are to be seen, in low life wheeling barrows, and in high life seated at card tables.

The Shuhamites are the cordwainers.

The Teamanites attend the sales of the East India Company.

Sir James Mackintosh, and Sir James Scarlett, and Sir James Graham, belong to the Jim-nites.

Who are the Gazathites if the people of London are not, where any thing is to be seen? All of them are Gettites when they can, all would be Havites if they could.

The journalists should be Geshurites, if they answered to their profession: instead of this they generally turn out to be Geshuwrongs.

There are however three Tribes in England, not named in the Old Testament, who considerably out number all the rest. These are the High Vulgarites, who are the children of Rahank and Phashan: the Middle Vulgarites, who are the children of Mammon and Terade, and the Low Vulgarites, who are the children of Tahag, Rahag, and Bohobtay-il.

With the Low Vulgarites I have no concern; but with the other two tribes, much. Well it is that some of those who arefruges consumere nati, think it proper that they should consume books also: if they did not, what a miserable creature wouldst thou be, Henry Colburn, who art their Bookseller! I myself have that kind of respect for the consumers which we ought to feel for every thing useful. If not the salt of the earth they are its manure, without which it could not produce so abundantly.

A CHAPTER FOR THE INFORMATION OF THOSE WHO MAY VISIT DONCASTER, AND ESPECIALLY OF THOSE WHO FREQUENT THE RACES THERE.

My good Lord, there is a Corporation,A body,—a kind of body.MIDDLETON.

Well, reader, I have told thee something concerning the topography of Doncaster: and now in due order, and as in duty bound, will I give thee a sketch of its history; “summa sequar fastigia rerum,” with becoming brevity, according to my custom, and in conformity with the design of this book. The Nobility and Gentry who attend the races there, will find it very agreeable to be well acquainted with every thing relating to the place: and I particularly invite their attention to that part of the present chapter which concerns the Doncaster charters, because as a wise and ancient author hath said,turpe est homini nobili ejus civitatis in quâ versetur, jus ignorare, which may be thus applied, that every gentleman who frequents Doncaster races ought to know the form and history of its corporation.

In Edward the Confessor's reign, the soccage part of Doncaster and of some adjoining townships was under the manor of Hexthorp, though in the topsy-turveying course of time Hexthorp has become part of the soke of Doncaster. Earl Tostig was the Lord of that manor, one of Earl Godwin's sons, and one who holds like his father no honorable place in the records of those times, but who in the last scene of his life displayed a heroism that may well redeem his name. The manor being two miles and a half long, and one and a half broad, was valued at eighteen pounds yearly rent; but when Doomsday book was compiled that rent had decreased one third. It had then been given by the Conqueror to his half-brother Robert Earl of Montaigne in Normandy, and of Cornwall in England. The said Earl was a lay-pluralist of the first magnitude, and had no fewer than seven hundred and fifty manors bestowed upon him as his allotment of the conquered kingdom. He granted the lordship and soke of Doncaster with many other possessions to Nigel de Fossard, which Nigel is believed to have been the Saxon noble who at the time of the conquest held these same possessions under the crown.

The Fossard family ended in an heiress in Cœur de Lion's reign; and the only daughter of that heiress was given in marriage by John Lackland to Peter de Malolieu or Maulay, as a reward for his part in the murder of Prince Arthur. Peter de Maulay, bore, as such a service richly deserved, an ill name in the nation, being moreover a favorite of King John's, and believed to be one of his evil counsellors as well as of his wicked instruments: but the name was in good odour with his descendants, and was borne accordingly by eight Peters in succession. The eighth had no male issue; he left two daughters, and daughters are said by Fuller to be “silent strings sending no sound to posterity, but losing their own surnames in their matches.” Ralph Salvayne or Salvin, a descendant of the younger coheiress, in the reign of James I. claimed the Lordship of Doncaster; and William his son after a long suit with the Corporation resigned his claim for a large sum of money.

The Burgesses had obtained their Charter from Richard I. in the fifth year of his reign, that king confirming to them their Soke, and Town or Village of Danecastre, to hold of him and his heirs, by the ancient rent, and over and above that rent, by an annual payment at the same time of twenty-five marks of silver. For this grant the Burgesses gave the king fifty marks of silver, and were thereby entitled to hold their Soke and Town “effectually and peaceably, freely and quietly, fully and honorably, with all the liberties and free customs to the same appertaining, so that none hereupon might them disturb.” This charter with all and singular the things therein contained was ratified and confirmed by Richard II. to his beloved the then Burgesses of the aforesaid Town.

The Burgesses fearing that they might be molested in the enjoyment of these their liberties and free customs, through defect of a declaration and specification of the same, petitioned Edward IV. in the 7th year of his reign, that he would graciously condescend those liberties and free customs, under specifical declaration and express terms, to them and their heirs and successors, incorporating them, and making them persons fit and capable, with perpetual succession. Accordingly the king granted that Doncaster should be a free borough, and that the burgesses, tenants, resiants, and inhabitants and their successors, should be free burgesses and might have a Gild Merchant, and continue to have the same liberties and free customs, as they and their predecessors had theretofore reasonably used and enjoyed. And that they from thenceforth might be, in reality and name, one body and one perpetual community; and every year chuse out of themselves one fit person to be the Mayor, and two other fit persons for the Serjeants at Mace, of the same town, within the same town dwelling, to rule and govern the community aforesaid, for ever. And further of his more abundant grace the King granted that the cognizance of all manner of pleas of debt, trespass, covenant, and all manner of other causes and contracts whatsoever within the same borough, should be holden before the Mayor. He granted also to the corporation the power of attachment for debt, by their Serjeants at Mace; and of his abundant grace that the Mayor should hold and exercise the office of Coroner also, during his year; and should be also a Justice and Keeper of the King's peace within the said borough. And he granted them of his same abundant grace the right of having a Fair at the said Borough every year upon the vigil, and upon the feast, and upon the morrow of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to be held, and for the same three days to continue, with all liberties and free customs to this sort of fair appertaining, unless that fair should be to the detriment of the neighbouring fairs.

There appear to this Charter among others as witnesses, the memorable names of “our dearest brothers George of Clarence, and Richard of Gloucester, Dukes; Richard Wydevile de Ryvers, our Treasurer of England, Earl; and our beloved and faithful William Hastynges de Hastynges, Chamberlain of our Household, and Anthony Wydevile de Scales, Knights.” The charter is moreover decorated with the armorial bearings of the Corporation, a Lion sejeant, upon a cushion powdered ermine, holding in his paws and legs a banner with the castle thereon depicted, and this motto,Son Comfort et Liesse, his Comfort and Joy.

Henry VII. enlarged the charter, giving of his special grace, to the Mayor and Community all and singular the messuages, marshes, lands, tenements, rents, reversions and services, advowsons of churches, chantries and chapels, possessions and all hereditaments whatsoever within the Lordship and its dependencies, “with the court-leets, view-of-frank-pledges-courts, waters, mills, entry and discharge of waters, fairs, markets, tolls, picages, stallages, pontages, passages, and all and singular profits, commodities and emoluments whatsoever within that lordship and its precincts to the King, his heirs and successors howsoever appertaining, or lately belonging. And all and singular the issues, revenues, and profits of the aforesaid courts, view of frank pledge, waters, mills, fairs, markets, tolls, picages, stallages, pontages, passages, and the rest of the premises in what manner so ever accruing or arising.” For this the Mayor and Community were to pay into the Exchequer yearly in equal portions, at the feasts of St. Michael the Archangel, and Easter, without fee, or any other charge, the sum of seventy and four pounds, thirteen shillings eleven pence and an halfpenny. Further of his more extensive grace, he granted them to hold twice in every year a leet or view of frank pledge; and that they might have the superintendency of the assize of bread and ale, and other victuals vendible whatsoever, and the correction and punishment of the same, and all and whatsoever, which to a leet or view of frank pledge appertaineth, or ought to appertain. And that they might have all issues and profits and perquisites, fines, penalties, redemptions, forfeitures, and amerciaments in all and singular these kind of leets, or frank pledge to be forfeited, or assessed, or imposed; and moreover wayf, strayf, infang-thief, and outfang-thief; and the goods and chattels of all and singular felons, and the goods of fugitives, convicts and attainted, and the goods and chattels of outlaws and waived; and the wreck of sea when it should happen, and goods and chattels whatsoever confiscated within the manor, lordship, soke, towns, villages, and the rest of the premises of the precincts of the same, and of every of them found, or to be found for ever.

In what way any wreck of sea could be thrown upon any part of the Doncastrian jurisdiction is a question which might have occasioned a curious discussion between Corporal Trim and his good master. How it could happen I cannot comprehend, unless “the fatal Welland,” according to old saw,

Back to Index Next