Chapter 4

—————which God forbid!Should drown all Holland with his excrement.1

Nor indeed do I see how it could happen then, unless Humber should at the same time drown all Lindsey, and the whole of the Yorkshire plain, and Trent bear a part also with all his thirty tributary streams, and the plain land of all the midland counties be once more flooded, “as it was in the days of Noah.” But if the official person who drew up this charter of Henry the Seventh contemplated any such contingency, he must have been a whimsical person; and moreover an unreasonable one not to have considered that Doncaster itself must be destroyed by such a catastrophe, and consequently that its corporation even then could derive no benefit from wreck at sea.

1SPENSER.

Further of his more abundant grace King Henry granted to the Mayor and Community that they might hold two markets in the week for ever, to wit every Tuesday and every Saturday; and that they might hold a second fair, which was to be upon the vigil, and upon the day of St. James the Apostle, and upon the morrow of the day immediately following to continue: and that they might chuse a Recorder; and hold a weekly court in their Guild Hall, which court should be a Court of Record: and that the Recorder and three of the Aldermen should be Justices as well as the Mayor, and that they might have a gaol within the precincts of their town.

Henry VIII. confirmed this his father's charter, and Elizabeth that her father's confirmation. In the next reign when the corporation, after having “endured the charge of many great and tedious suits” had compounded with Ralph Salvin for what they called his pretended title, they petitioned the King that he would be pleased to accept from them a surrender of their estates, together with an assurance of Salvin's title, and then graciously assure and convey the said manors and premises to them and their successors, so to secure them against any farther litigation.

This accordingly was done. In the fourth year after the Restoration the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses petitioned for a ratification of their existing privileges and for an enlargement of them, which Charles II. granted, “the borough being an ancient and populous borough, and he being desirous that for the time to come, for ever, one certain and invariable method might be had of, for, and in the preservation of our peace, and in the rule and governance of the same borough, and of our people in the same inhabiting, and of others resorting thither; and that that borough in succeeding times, might be, and remain a borough of harmony and peace, to the fear and terror of the wicked, and for the support and reward of the good.” Wherefore he the King of his special grace, certain knowledge and mere motion, willed, granted, constituted, declared and confirmed, and by his then presents did will, grant, constitute, declare and confirm, that Doncaster should be, and continue for ever, a free borough itself; and that the Mayor and community, or commonalty thereof, should be one body corporate and politic in reality, deed and name, by the name of Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the borough of Doncaster in the County of York, and by that name be capacitated and enabled to plead, and to be impleaded, answer and be answered; defend and be defended; and to have, purchase, receive, possess, give, grant and demise.

This body corporate and politic which was to have perpetual succession, was by the Charter appointed to consist of one Mayor, twelve Aldermen, and twenty-four capital Burgesses, the Aldermen to be “of the better and more excellent inhabitants of the borough,” and the capital Burgesses of the better, more reputable and discreet, and these latter were to be “for ever in perpetual future times, the Common Council of the borough.” The three Estates of the Borough as they may be called, in court or convocation gathered together and assembled, were invested “with full authority, power and ability of granting, constituting, ordaining, making, and rendering firm, from time to time, such kind of laws, institutes, bye-laws, ordinances and constitutions, which to them, or the greater part of them, shall seem to be, according to their sound understandings, good, salutary, profitable, honest or honorable, and necessary for the good rule and governance of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses, and of all and singular, and other the inhabitants of the borough aforesaid; and of all the officers, ministers, artificers, and resiants whatsoever within the borough aforesaid, for the time being; and for the declaring in what manner and form, the aforesaid Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses, and all and singular other the ministers, officers, artificers, inhabitants, and resiants of the borough aforesaid, and their factors or agents, servants and apprentices, in their offices, callings, mysteries, artifices and businesses, within the borough aforesaid, and the liberties of the same for the time being, shall have, behave and use themselves, and otherwise for the more ultimate public good, common utility and good regimen of the borough aforesaid.” And for the victualling of the borough, and for the better preservation, governance, disposing, letting and demising of the lands, tenements, possessions, revenues and hereditaments, vested in their body corporate, they had power to ordain and enforce such punishments, penalties, inflictions and imprisonments of the body, or by fines and amerciaments, or by both of them, against and upon all delinquents and offenders against these their laws as might to them seem necessary, so that nevertheless this kind of laws, ordinances, institutions and constitutions be not repugnant, nor contrary to the laws and statutes of the kingdom.

Persons refusing to accept the office of Mayor, Alderman, Capital Burgess, or any other inferior office of the borough, except the Recorders, might be committed to gaol, till they consented to serve, or fined at the discretion of the Corporation, and held fast in their gaol till the fine was paid.

This Charter also empowered the Corporation to keep a fair on the Saturday before Easter, and thenceforth on every alternate Saturday until the feast of St. Andrew, for cattle, and to hold at such times a court of pie-powder.

James II. confirmed the corporation in all their rights and privileges, and by the Charter of Charles II., thus confirmed, Doncaster is governed at this day.

It was during the mayoralty of Thomas Pheasant that Daniel Dove took up his abode in Doncaster.

REMARKS ON THE ART OF VERBOSITY. A RULE OF COCCEIUS, AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE LANGUAGE AND PRACTICE OF THE LAW.

If they which employ their labour and travail about the public administration of justice, follow it only as a trade, with unquenchable and unconscionable thirst of gain, being not in heart persuaded that justice is God's own work, and themselves his agents in this business,—the sentence, of right, God's own verdict, and themselves his priests to deliver it; formalities of justice do but serve to smother right; and that which was necessarily ordained for the common good, is through shameful abuse made the cause of common misery.

HOOKER.

Reader, thou mayest perhaps have thought me at times disposed to be circumambagious in my manner of narration. But now, having cast thine eyes over the Doncaster charters, even in the abridged form in which I have considerately presented them, thou knowest what a round-about style is when amplified with all possible varieties of professional tautology.

You may hear it exemplified to a certain degree, in most sermons of the current standard, whether composed by those who inflict them upon their congregation, or purchased ready made and warranted orthodox as well as original. In a still greater degree you may hear it in the extempore prayers of any meeting-house, and in those with which the so-called Evangelical Clergymen of the Establishment think proper sometimes to prologize and epilogize their grievous discourses. But in tautology the Lawyers beat the Divines hollow.

Cocceius laid it down as a fundamental rule of interpretation in theology, that the words and phrases of scripture are to be understood in every sense of which they are susceptible; that is, that they actually signify every thing that they can possibly signify. The Lawyers carry this rule farther in their profession than the Leyden Professor did in his: they deduce from words not only every thing that they can possibly signify, but sometimes a great deal more; and sometimes they make them bear a signification precisely opposite to what they were intended to express.

That crafty politician who said the use of language is to conceal our thoughts, did not go farther in his theory, than the members of the legal profession in their practice; as every deed which comes from their hands may testify, and every Court of Law bears record. You employ them to express your meaning in a deed of conveyance, a marriage settlement, or a will; and they so smother it with words, so envelope it with technicalities, so bury it beneath redundancies of speech, that any meaning which is sought for may be picked out, to the confusion of that which you intended. Something at length comes to be contested: you go to a Court of Law to demand your right; or you are summoned into one to defend it. You ask for justice, and you receive a nice distinction—a forced construction,—a verbal criticism. By such means you are defeated and plundered in a civil cause; and in a criminal one a slip of the pen in the indictment brings off the criminal scot free. As if slips of the pen in such cases were always accidental! But because Judges are incorruptible, (as blessed be God they still are in this most corrupt nation) and because Barristers are not to be suspected of ever intentionally betraying the cause which they are fee'd to defend, it is taken for granted that the same incorruptibility, and the same principled integrity, or gentlemanly sense of honor which sometimes is its substitute, are to be found among all those persons who pass their miserable lives in quill-driving, day after day, from morning till night, at a scrivener's desk, or in an attorney's office!

REVENUE OF THE CORPORATION OF DONCASTER WELL APPLIED.

Play not for gain but sport: who plays for moreThan he can lose with pleasure, stakes his heart;Perhaps his wife's too, and whom she hath bore.HERBERT.

Well, gentle Reader, we have made our way through the Charters, and seen that the Borough of Doncaster is, as it may be called, animperium in imperio—orregnum, or rather if there were such wordregnulum, in regno, (such a word there ought to be, and very probably was, and most certainly would be if the Latin were a living language)—a little kingdom in itself, modelled not unhappily after the form of that greater one whereof it is a part; differing from it, for reasons so evident that it would be a mere waste of words and time to explain them,—in being an elective instead of an hereditary monarchy, and also because the monarchy is held only for a year, not for life; and differing in this respect likewise that its three estates are analogous to the vulgar and mistaken notion of the English constitution, not to what that constitution is, as transmitted to us by our fathers.

We have seen that its Mayor (or Monarch,) its twelve Aldermen (or House of Lords,) all being of the better and more excellent inhabitants, and its four and twenty capital Burgesses (or House of Commons,) all of the better, more reputable and discreet Doncastrians, constitute one body corporate and politic in reality, deed and name, to the fear and terror of the wicked, and for the support and reward of the good; and that the municipal government has been thus constituted expressly to the end that Doncaster might remain for ever a borough of harmony and peace: to the better effecting of which most excellent intent, a circumstance which has already been adverted to, contributes greatly, to wit, that Doncaster sends no members to Parliament.

Great are the mysteries of Corporations; and great the good of them when they are so constituted, and act upon such principles as that of Doncaster.

There is an old Song which says

Oh London is a gallant townA most renowned city;'Tis governed by the scarlet gown,Indeed, the more's the pity.

The two latter verses could never be applied to Doncaster. In the middle of the last century the revenues of the Corporation did not exceed £1500. a year: at the beginning of this they had encreased to nearly £6000., and this income was principally expended, as it ought to be, for the benefit of the Town. The public buildings have been erected from these funds; and liberal donations made from them to the Dispensary and other eleemosynary institutions. There is no constable-assessment, none for paving and lighting the street; these expences are defrayed by the Corporation, and families are supplied with river water chiefly at its expence.

Whether this body corporate should be commended or condemned for encouraging the horse-races, by building a grand stand upon the course; and giving annually a plate of the value of £50. to be run for, and two sums of twenty guineas each toward the stakes, is a question which will be answered by every one according to his estimate of right and wrong. Gentlemen of the Turf will approve highly of their conduct, so will those Gentlemen whose characteristics are either light fingers or black legs. Put it to the vote in Doncaster, and there will be few voices against them: take the sense of the nation upon it by universal suffrage, and there would be a triumphant majority in their favour.

In this, and alas! in too many other casesvox populi est vox diaboli.

A greater number of families are said to meet each other at Doncaster races, than at any other meeting of the same kind in England. That such an assemblage contributes greatly to the gaiety and prosperity of the town itself, and of the country round about, is not to be disputed. But horse races excite evil desires, call forth evil passions, encourage evil propensities, lead the innocent into temptation, and give opportunities to the wicked. And the good which arises from such amusements, either as mere amusement (which is in itself unequivocally a good when altogether innocent)—or by circulating money in the neighbourhood,—or by tending to keep up an excellent breed of horses, for purposes of direct utility,—these consequences are as dust in the balance when compared with the guilt and misery that arise from gambling.

Lord Exeter and the Duke of Grafton may perhaps be of a different opinion. So should Mr. Gully whom Pindar may seem to have prophetically panegyrized as

’Ολυμπιονἰκαν’Ανδρα,—πὺξ αρετὰνΕὑρόντα. Ol. 7. 162.

That gentleman indeed may with great propriety congratulate himself upon his knowledge of what is called the world, and the ability with which he has turned it to a good practical account. But Lord Burleigh methinks would shake his head in the antechamber of Heaven if he could read there the following paragraph from a Sunday Newspaper.

“PLEASURES ANDPROFITS OF THETURF.—We stated in a former number that Lord Exeter's turf-profits were for the previous season £26,000., this was intended to include bets. But we have now before us a correct and consecutive account of the Duke of Grafton's winnings from 1811 to 1829 inclusive, taking in merely the value of the stakes for which the horses ran, and which amounts to no less a sum than £99,211. 3s.4d.or somewhat more than £5000. per annum. This, even giving in a good round sum for training and outlay, will leave a sufficiently pleasant balance in hand; to say nothing of the betting book, not often, we believe, light in figures. His Grace's greatest winnings were in 1822 and 1825: in the former of these years they amounted to £11,364. 5s.—in the latter £12,668. 16s.8d.”

It is to be hoped that the Duke has with his crest and coronet his motto also upon the covers of his racing and betting books, and upon his prize plates and cups;

ETDECUS ETPRETIUMRECTI.

Before we pass from the Race-ground let me repeat to the reader a wish of Horace Walpole's that “some attempt were made to ennoble our horse-races, by associating better arts with the courses, as by contributing for odes, the best of which should be rewarded by medals. Our nobility,” says he, “would find their vanity gratified; for as the pedigrees of their steeds would soon grow tiresome, their own genealogies would replace them, and in the mean time poetry and medals would be improved. Their lordships would have judgement enough to know if the horse (which should be the impression on one side) were not well executed; and as I hold that there is no being more difficult to draw well than a horse, no bad artist could be employed. Such a beginning would lead farther; and the cup or plate for the prize might rise into beautiful vases.”

Pity that the hint has not been taken, and an auxiliary sporting society formed for promoting the education of Pindars and Benvenuto Cellinis!

WHEREIN THE AUTHOR MAKES KNOWN HIS GOOD INTENTIONS TO ALL READERS, AND OFFERS GOOD ADVICE TO SOME OF THEM.

I can write, and talk too, as soft as other men,with submission to better judgements,—and I leave it to you Gentlemen. I am but one, and I always distrust myself. I only hint my thoughts: You'll please to consider whether you will not think that it may seem to deserve your consideration.—This is a taking way of speaking. But much good may do them that use it!

ASGILL.

Reader, my compliments to you!

This is a form of courtesy which the Turks use in their compositions, and being so courteous a form, I have here adopted it. Why not? Turks though they are, we learnt inoculation from them, and the use of coffee; and hitherto we have taught them nothing but the use of tobacco in return.

Reader, my compliments to you!

Why is it that we hear no more of Gentle Readers? Is it that having become critical in this age of Magazines and Reviews, they have ceased to be gentle? But all are not critical;

The baleful dregsOf these late ages,—that Circæan draughtOf servitude and folly, have not yet,—Yet have not so dishonour'd, so deform'dThe native judgement of the human soul.1

1AKENSIDE.

In thus applying these lines I mean the servitude to which any rational man degrades his intellect when he submits to receive an opinion from the dictation of another, upon a point whereon he is just as capable of judging for himself;—the intellectual servitude of being told by Mr. A. B. or C. whether he is to like a book or not,—or why he is to like it: and the folly of supposing that the man who writes anonymously, is on that very account entitled to more credit for judgement, erudition and integrity, than the author who comes forward in his own person, and stakes his character upon what he advances.

All Readers however,—thank Heaven, and what is left among us of that best and rarest of all senses called Common Sense,—all Readers however are not critical. There are still some who are willing to be pleased, and thankful for being pleased; and who do not think it necessary that they should be able toparsetheir pleasure, like a lesson, and give a rule or a reason why they are pleased, or why they ought not to be pleased. There are still readers who have never read an Essay upon Taste;—and if they take my advice they never will; for they can no more improve their taste by so doing, than they could improve their appetite or their digestion by studying a cookery book.

I have something to say to all classes of Readers: and therefore having thus begun to speak of one, with that class I will proceed. It is to the youthful part of my lectors—(why not lectors as well as auditors?) it isvirginibus puerisquethat I now address myself. Young Readers, you whose hearts are open, whose understandings are not yet hardened, and whose feelings are neither exhausted nor encrusted by the world, take from me a better rule than any professors of criticism will teach you!

Would you know whether the tendency of a book is good or evil, examine in what state of mind you lay it down. Has it induced you to suspect that what you have been accustomed to think unlawful may after all be innocent, and that that may be harmless which you have hitherto been taught to think dangerous? Has it tended to make you dissatisfied and impatient under the controul of others; and disposed you to relax in that self government, without which both the laws of God and man tell us there can be no virtue—and consequently no happiness? Has it attempted to abate your admiration and reverence for what is great and good, and to diminish in you the love of your country and your fellow creatures? Has it addressed itself to your pride, your vanity, your selfishness, or any other of your evil propensities? Has it defiled the imagination with what is loathsome, and shocked the heart with what is monstrous? Has it disturbed the sense of right and wrong which the Creator has implanted in the human soul? If so—if you are conscious of all or any of these effects,—or if having escaped from all, you have felt that such were the effects it was intended to produce, throw the book in the fire whatever name it may bear in the title page! Throw it in the fire, young man, though it should have been the gift of a friend!—young lady, away with the whole set, though it should be the prominent furniture of a rose-wood book case!

DONCASTER CHURCH. THE RECTORIAL TITHES SECURED BY ARCHBISHOP SHARP FOR HIS OWN FAMILY.

Say ancient edifice, thyself with yearsGrown grey, how long upon the hill has stoodThy weather-braving tower, and silent mark'dThe human leaf in constant bud and fall?The generations of deciduous manHow often hast thou seen them pass away!HURDIS.

The ecclesiastical history of Doncaster is not so much to the credit of all whom it concerns, as the municipal. Nigel Fossard in the year 1100, granted the advowson of its church to St. Mary's Abbey, York; and it was for rather more than two hundred years a rectory of two medieties, served by two resident rectors whom the Abbey appointed. In 1303, Archbishop Corbridge appropriated it to the abbey, and ordained it a perpetual vicarage. Fifty marks a year out of the profits of the rectory were then allowed for the Vicar's support, and he held the house and garden also which had formerly appertained to one of the Rectors. When upon the dissolution of the monasteries it fell to the crown, Henry VIII. gave it with other monastic impropriations to Archbishop Holgate, as some compensation for the valuable manors which he made the see of York alienate to himself. The church of Doncaster gained nothing by this transfer. The rectory was secured by Archbishop Sharp for his own family. At the beginning of the present century it was worth from £1000. to £1200. a year, while the Vicar had only an annual income of £80. charged upon that rectory, and £20. charged upon a certain estate. He had no tithes, no Easter offerings, and no other glebe than the church-yard, and an orchard attached to the vicarage. And he had to pay a curate to do the duty at Loversall church.

There is one remarkable epitaph in this church upon a monument of the altar form, placed just behind the reading desk.

How, how, who is here?I Robin of Doncaster, and Margaret my fere.That I spent, that I had;That I gave, that I have;That I left, that I lost. A. D. 1579.Quoth Robertus Byrkes who in this world did reignThreescore years and seven, and yet lived not one.

Robin of Doncaster as he is now familiarly called by persons connected, or acquainted with the church, is remembered only by this record which he has left of himself: perhaps the tomb was spared for the singularity of the epitaph, when prouder monuments in the same church were despoiled. He seems to have been one who thinking little of any thing beyond the affairs of this world till the last year of his pilgrimage, lived during that year a new life. It may also be inferred that his property was inherited by persons to whom he was bound by no other ties than those of cold affinity; for if he had felt any concern for their welfare, he would not have considered those possessions as lost which were left to them.

Perhaps a farther inference may be fairly drawn, that though the deceased had stood in this uncomfortable relation to his heirs at law, he was too just a man to set aside the course of succession which the law appointed. They who think that in the testamentary disposal of their property they have a right to do whatever it is legally in their power to do, may find themselves woefully mistaken when they come to render their account. Nothing but the weightiest moral considerations can justify any one in depriving another of that which the law of the land would otherwise in its due course have assigned him. But rights of descent cease to be held sacred in public opinion in proportion as men consider themselves exempt from all duty to their forefathers; and that is in proportion as principles become sophisticated, and society more and more corrupt.

St. George's is the only church in Doncaster, a town which in the year 1800, contained 1246 houses, 5697 souls: twenty years afterwards the houses had increased to 1729, and the inhabitants to 8544. The state having made no other provision for the religious instruction of the townspeople than one church, one vicar, and one curate—if the vicar from other revenues than those of his vicarage can afford to keep one— the far greater part of the inhabitants are left to be absenters by necessity, or dissenters by choice. It was the boast of the corporation in an address to Charles II. that they had not “one factious seditious person” in their town, “being all true sons of the Church of England and loyal subjects;” and that “in the height of all the late troubles and confusion (that is during the civil wars and the commonwealth,—which might more truly have been called the common-woe) they never had any conventicle amongst them, the nurseries and seed plots of sedition and rebellion.”—There are conventicles there now of every denomination. And this has been occasioned by the great sin of omission in the Government, and the great sin of commission in that Prelate who appropriated the property of the church to his own family.

Hollis Pigot was Vicar when Daniel Dove began to reside in Doncaster; and Mr. Fawkes was his Curate.

ANTIQUITIES OF DONCASTER. THE DEÆ MATRES. SAXON FONT. THE CASTLE. THE HELL CROSS.

Vieux monuments,—Las, peu à peu cendre vous devenez,Fable du peuple et publiques rapines!Et bien qu'au Temps pour un temps facent guerreLes bastimens, si est ce que le TempsOeuvres et noms finablement atterre.JOACHIM DUBELLAY.

The oldest monument in Doncaster is a Roman altar, which was discovered in the year 1781, in digging a cellar six feet deep, in St. Sepulchre's gate. An antiquary of Ferrybridge congratulated the corporation “on the great honor resulting therefrom.”

Was it a great honour to Doncaster,—meaning by Doncaster, its Mayor, its Aldermen, its capital burgesses, and its whole people,—was it, I say, an honour, a great honour to it, and these, and each and all of these, that this altar should have been discovered? Did the corporation consider it to be so? Ought it to be so considered? Did they feel that pleasurable though feverish excitement at the discovery which is felt by the fortunate man at the moment when his deserts have obtained their honorable meed? Richard Staveley was Mayor that year: Was it an honour to him and his mayoralty as it was to King Ferdinand of Spain that when he was King, Christopher Columbus discovered the New World,—or to Queen Elizabeth, that Shakespeare flourished under her reign? Was he famous for it, as old Mr. Bramton Gurdon of Assington in Suffolk, was famous, about the year 1627, for having three sons parliament men? If he was thus famous, did he “blush to find it fame,” or smile that it should be accounted so? What is fame? what is honour? But I say no more. “He that hath knowledge spareth his words; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.”

It is a votive altar, dedicated to theDeæ Matres, with this inscription:

MATRIBUSM. NAN-TONIUS.ORBIOTAL.VOTUM. SOLVIT. LUBENS. MERITO.

and it is curious because it is only the third altar dedicated to those Goddesses which has yet been found: the other two were also found in the North of England, one at Binchester near Durham, the other at Ribchester in Lancashire.

Next in antiquity to this Roman altar, is a Saxon font in the church; its date which is now obliterated, is said to have been A. D. 1061.

Not a wreck remains of any thing that existed in Doncaster between the time when Orbiotal erected his altar to the local Goddesses, and when the baptismal font was made: nor the name of a single individual; nor memorial, nor tradition of a single event.

There was a castle there, the dykes of which might partly be seen in Leland's time, and the foundation of part of the walls,—nothing more, so long even then had it been demolished. In the area where it stood the church was built, and Leland thought that great part of the ruins of one building were used for the foundations of the other, and for filling up its walls. It is not known at what time the church was founded. There was formerly a stone built into its east end, with the date of A. D. 1071; but this may more probably have been originally placed in the castle than the church. Different parts of the building are of different ages, and the beautiful tower is supposed to be of Henry the third's age.

The Hall Cross, as it is now called, bore this inscription;

ICEST : EST : LACRUICE : OTE : D : TILLI : A : KI :ALME : DEU : EN : FACE : MERCI : AM :

There can be little doubt that this Otto de Tilli is the same person whose name appears as a witness to several grants about the middle of the twelfth century, and who was Seneschal to the Earl of Conisborough. It stood uninjured till the Great Rebellion, when the Earl of Manchester's army, on their way from the South to the siege of York in the year 1644, chose to do the Lord service by defacing it. “And the said Earl of Manchester's men, endeavouring to pull the whole shank down, got a smith's forge-hammer and broke off the four corner crosses; and then fastened ropes to the middle cross which was stronger and higher, thinking by that to pull the whole shank down. But a stone breaking off, and falling upon one of the men's legs, which was nearest it, and breaking his leg, they troubled themselves no more about it.” This account with a drawing of the cross in its former state was in Fairfax's collection of antiquities, and came afterwards into Thoresby's possession. The Antiquarian Society published an engraving of it by that excellent and upright artist Vertue, of whom it is recorded that he never would engrave a fictitious portrait. The pillar was composed of five columns, a large one in the middle, and four smaller ones around it, answering pretty nearly to the cardinal points: each column was surmounted by a cross, that in the middle being the highest and proportionally large. There were numeral figures on the south face, near the top, which seem to have been intended for a dial; the circumference of the pillar was eleven feet seven, the height eighteen feet.

William Paterson, in the year of his mayoralty 1678, “beautified it with four dials, ball and fane:” in 1792, when Henry Heaton was Mayor, it was taken down, because of its decayed state, and a new one of the same form was erected by the road side, a furlong to the south of its former site, on Hop-cross hill. This was better than destroying the cross; and as either renovation or demolition had become necessary, the Corporation are to be commended for what they did. But it is no longer the same cross, nor on the same site which had once been consecrated, and where many a passing prayer had been breathed in simplicity and sincerity of heart.

What signifies the change? Both place and monument had long been desecrated. As little religious feeling was excited by it as would have been by the altar to theDeæ Matresif it had stood there. And of the hundreds of travellers who daily pass it in, or outside of stage coaches, in their own carriages, on horseback, or on foot; and of the thousands who flock thither during the races; and of the inhabitants of Doncaster itself, not a single soul cares whether it be the original cross or not, nor where it was originally erected, nor when, nor wherefore, nor by whom!

“I wish I did not!” said Dr. Dove, when some one advanced this consideration with the intent of reconciling him to the change. “I am an old man,” said he, “and in age we dislike all change as naturally, and therefore no doubt, as fitly as in youth we desire it. The youthful generation in their ardour for improvement and their love of novelty, strive to demolish what ought religiously to be preserved; the elders in their caution and their fear endeavour to uphold what has become useless, and even injurious. Thus in the order of Providence we have both the necessary impulse and the needful check.

“But I miss the old cross from its old place. More than fifty years had I known it there; and if fifty years acquaintance did not give us some regard even for stocks and stones, we must be stocks and stones ourselves.”

HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED WITH DONCASTER. THOMAS, EARL OF LANCASTER. EDWARD IV. ASKE'S INSURRECTION. ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. JAMES I. BARNABEE. CHARLES I. CHURCH LIBRARY.

They unto whom we shall appear tedious, are in no wise injured by us, because it is in their own hands to spare that labour which they are not willing to endure.

HOOKER.

Nothing more than the scanty notices which have already been mentioned is recorded concerning the history of Doncaster, till King John ordered it “to be enclosed with hertstone and pale, according as the ditch required; and that a light brecost or barbican should be made upon the bridge, to defend the town if need should be.” The bridge was then of wood; in the following reign the townsmen “gave aid to make a stone bridge there:” in that reign a hospital for sick and leprous people was built there, the priories of St. James and St. Nicholas founded, a Dominican convent, and a Franciscan one. Henry III. slept there on his way to York. In the 23d year of Edward I. the borough was first summoned to send members to Parliament, from which burthen as it was then considered, it was relieved in the ensuing year.

In 1321, Thomas Earl of Lancaster held a council here with other discontented Barons against Edward II.; in its results it brought many of them to an untimely death, and Lancaster himself suffered by the axe at Pomfret, as much in revenge for Gaveston, as for this rebellion. “In this sort,” says an old chronicler, “came the mighty Earl of Lancaster to his end, being the greatest Peer in this realm, and one of the mightiest Earls in Christendom: for when he began to levy war against the King, he was possessed of five earldoms, Lancaster, Lincoln, Salisbury, Leicester and Derby, beside other seigniories, lands and possessions, great to his advancement in honor and puissance. But all this was limited within prescription of time, which being expired both honor and puissances were cut off with dishonor and death; for (O miserable state!)

Invida fatorum series, summisque negatumStare diu.

“But now touching the foresaid Earl of Lancaster, great strife rose afterwards amongst the people, whether he ought to be reputed for a saint, or no. Some held that he ought to be no less esteemed, for that he did many alms-deeds in his lifetime, honored men of religion, and maintained a true quarrel till his life's end. Also his enemies continued not long after, but came to evil ends. Others conceived another opinion of him, alledging that he favoured not his wife, but lived in spouse-breach, defiling a great number of damsels and gentlewomen. If any offended him, he slew him shortly after in his wrathful mood. Apostates and other evil doers he maintained, and would not suffer them to be punished by due order of law. All his doings he used to commit to one of his secretaries, and took no heed himself thereof; and as for the manner of his death, he fled shamefully in the fight, and was taken and put to death against his will; yet by reason of certain miracles which were said to be done near the place both where he suffered and where he was buried, caused many to think he was a Saint. Howbeit, at length by the King's commandment the church doors of the Priory where he was buried, were shut and closed, so that no man might be suffered to come to the tomb to bring any offerings, or to do any other kind of devotion to the same. Also the hill where he suffered was kept by certain Gascoigners appointed by the Lord Hugh Spenser his son, then lying at Pomfret, to the end that no people should come and make their prayers there in worship of the said Earl, whom they took verily for a martyr.”

The next confederacy at Doncaster was more successful though it led eventually to bloodier consequences. Bolingbroke after landing at Ravensburg, was met here by Northumberland, Hotspur, Westmorland, and others, who engaged with him there, some of them probably not knowing how far his ambitious views extended, and who afterwards became the victims of their own turbulent policy. The Dragon's teeth which were then sown produced a plentiful harvest threescore years afterwards, when more than six and thirty thousand Englishmen fell by each others hands at Towton, between this town and York. Edward IV. beheaded Sir Robert Willis and Sir Ralph Grey here, whom he had taken in the rout of Lose-coat field; and when he mustered his people here to march against Warwick and Clarence whose intentions began then to be discovered, “it was said that never was seen in England so many goodly men and so well arranged in a field.” Afterwards he past through Doncaster when he returned from exile, on the way to his crowning victory at Barnet.

Richard III. also past through this place on the way to York where he was crowned. In Henry VIII's reign it became the actual seat of war, and a battle would have been fought there, if the Don had not by its sudden rising twice prevented Aske and his army of insurgents from attacking the Duke of Norfolk, with so superior a force that success would have been almost certain, and the triumph of the popish party a probable result. Here Norfolk, profiting by that delay, treated with the insurgents, and finally by offering them a free pardon, and engaging that a free Parliament should be held in the North, induced them to disperse.

In 1538 John Grigge the Mayor, lost a thumb in an affray at Marshgate, and next year the Prior of Doncaster was hanged for treason. In 1551 the town was visited by the plague: in that of 1582, 908 persons died here.

The next noticeable circumstance in the annals of Doncaster, is that James I. lodged there, at the sign of the Sun and Bear, on his way from Scotland to take possession of the Crown of England.

The maypole in the market place was taken down in 1634, and the market cross erected there in its place. But the removal of the maypole seems to have been no proof of any improved state of morals in the town; for Barnabee, the illustrious potator, saw there the most unbecoming sight that he met with in all his travels. On his second visit the frail Levite was dead; and I will not pick out a name from the succession of Vicars which might suit the time of the poem, because though Doncaster was the scene it does not follow that the Vicar was the actor; and whoever he may have been his name can be no object of legitimate curiosity, though Barnabee's justly was, till it was with so much ingenuity determined by Mr. Haslewood.

When the army which had been raised against the Scots was disbanded, Charles I. dined there at the house of Lady Carlingford, and a pear tree which he is said to have planted is now standing there in Mr. Maw's garden. Charles was there again in 1644, and attended service in the church. And from a house in the butter market it was that Morris with two companions attempted to carry off the parliamentary commander Rainsborough at noon-day, and failing in the attempt, killed him upon the spot.

A Church Library was founded here by the contributions of the clergy and gentry of the surrounding country in 1726. A chamber over the church porch was appropriated for the books, with the Archbishop's licence; and there was one curate of this town whose love of reading was so great, that he not only passed his days in this library, but had a bed fixed there, and spent his nights there also.

In 1731 all the streets were new paved, and the sign posts taken down; and in 1739, Daniel Dove, in remembrance of whom these volumes are composed, came to reside in Doncaster.

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