-V.V
AN HISTORY
OF THE
ORIGINAL PARISH OF WHALLEY
AND
HONOR OF CLITHEROE.
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AN HISTORY
OF THE
ORIGINAL PABISH OF'WHALLEY,
AND
HONOR OF CLITHEROE.
TO WHICH IS SUBJOINED
AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARISH OF CARTMELL.
15 Y
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKEK, LL.D., F.S.A.
VICAR OF WHALLEY.
THE FOURTH EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED,
BT
• JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS, F.S.A. AND THE KEV. PONSONBY A. LYONS, B.A.
VOLUME I.
"Antiquities, or remnants of history, are 'tanquam tabula naufragii,' when industrious persons, by an exact and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time. In these kinds of imperfect histories I do assign no deficience, for they are 'tanquam imperfecta mista,' and therefore any deficience in them is but their nature." — LOUD BACON, Advancement of Learning, book ii.
LONDON : GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE.
MANCHESTER: L. C. GENT.
1872.
iv j 5 i ?. ', '
v - 1
CONTENTS OF THE FIKST VOLUME.
PAGE
Preface to the Fourth (the present) Edition ......... ix
Biographical Memoirs of The Author .......... xiii
Original Dedication to Charles Townley, esq. ......... Ivii
Preface to the First Edition ........... lix
Subscribers to the First Edition .......... Ixiv
Advertisements to the Second and Third Editions ........ Ixvi
BOOK I.
CHAP. I. Introductory. — Natural Features, Rivers, Etymology ...... 1
CHAP. II. Roman History . . . . . . . . . . .11
The Itinerary attributed to Richard of Cirencester . . . . . .14
Ribchester and its Antiquities ......... 17
Roman Roads . .• . . . . . . . . .41
CHAP. III. Memorials of the Parish during the Saxon JEra . . . . . . .48
Domesday Book for Lancashire, South of the Ribble . . . . . .53
BOOK II.
CHAP. I. Ecclesiastical History ........ . (15
The Status de Blackbnrnshire . . ...... G6
The White Church under the Leigh . . . . . . . .70
The Deans of Whalley .......... 73
Case of the Monks of Pontefract regarding the Church of "Whalley . . . .77
Peter de Cestria, the only Rector of Whalley ....... 80
CHAP. II. History of Whalley Abbey, originally founded at Stanlavv in Cheshire . . . .83
Grievances of the Abbey of Salley on the translation of the Abbey of Stanlaw . . .84
Valor of the Church of Whalley and its Chapels, taken in 1296 . . . .80
Abbots of Stanlaw, and the Monks at their translation to Whalley . . . .88
Biographical Catalogue of the Abbots of Whalley . . . . . .91
The Hermitage, and its Abolition ........ 101
Injunctions given to the Monastery of Whalley, temp. Hen. VIII. . . . .107
The Pilgrimage of Grace ... . . . . . . .108
Catalogue of the Monks of Whalley, during the 14th and 15th centuries . . . 112
The Compotus of 1478 and that of 1521 (in parallel columns) ..... 116
The Construction of Monasteries in general and of Cistercian Houses in particular . .135
The Remains of Whalley Abbey as they exist at present ...... 139
Indulgences granted for the removal of Stanlaw . . . . . . .144
Poetical Epitaphs of the Lacies . . . . . . . .147
Documents from the Commonplace Book of the Abbey . . . . . .149
French Poem written after the Battle of Neville's Cross . . . . . .155
b
Ti CONTENTS.
PAOE
CHAP. IL— continued.
French and Latin Poem on Taxation, written circ. 1337 ....
Latin Sermon by Fr. Johannes de Glovernia, who died in 1328 .....
Documents relating to the Appropriation of the Church of Whalley to the Abbey .
Valuation of Great Tithes in 1298 and 1310 .....
Petition for Appropriation of the Church of Preston ......
Various Corrodies granted by the Abbey ...••••
Obit founded for Bishop Koger de Meuland • • .172
Eights of the Chapel of Clitheroe and Church of Slaidburne within the Forest of Bowland . 173
Visitation made by John Abbot of Savigny in 1320 . . • • .177
Dead of Sale of a Slave (p. 175) and the hiring of a Servant for Life . . " . .179
Eunic Alphabet (with fac-simile) • .... 18.
Contracts for Sale and Delivery of Wood ....... 16.
Sale of the Abbey and its Demesnes ........
Notices of Whalley Park . ... 183, 203
Inventory of all the Goods of the Monastery, 28 Hen. VIII. . . . .185
The Abbey Kitchener's last Account, 28 Hen. VIII. . .... 188
Part of another Inventory made in 1536 . . .... 189
State of the Abbey estates after the Attainder .......»*•
Observations on the Dissolution of Monasteries . . . • • • .190
Agreement on the Tithe of Hay, made in 1 330 . . . • • • . ib.
Valor of the Estates of the Abbey, 36 Hen. VIII. . . . 191
The Lcctionary of Whalley Abbey, throughout the year . . . . . .193
Seals attached to Whalley Charters (as engraved in Plate) ..... 200
The Seal and Arms of Whalley Abbey . ...... 201
CHAP. III. Parish Church and Vicarage of Whalley . ...... 202
The divisce made in 1306 between the medieties of Billington ... . 203
Chapels of the old foundation in the Parish of Whalley, with the measure of their respective
glebes in oxgangs and acres ........ 205
Exoneration of the Chaplains of Colne, Burnley, Church, and Haslingden, from the repairs of the
Parish Church . . . . . . . . . ib.
Chapelries of the later foundation ........ 207
List of the Vicars of Whalley ......... 211
Pedigree of Johnson or Johnston . . . . . . . .214
Documents collected. by William Johnson, Vicar of Whalley ..... 215
Return of the Chapelries and their Ministers, made in 1650 . . . . .218
Richard Dugdale, the Surey Demoniac . . . . . . . .221
Ministers' Orders, in the Hundred of Blackburn, 1649 ....... ib.
Instruction for my Lord of Canterburies Benefices in Lancashire . . . .223
Undertaking of William le Wolf of Kirklawton, Vicar of Whalley, not to seek any increase of the
new foundation of Whalley Vicarage, 1336 ...... 225
BOOK III.
CHAP. I. Origin, Progress, and Ramifications of Property . . . . . .226
Four senses of the manerium or manor . . . . . . . . 228
Domesday Survey of the Hundred of Blackburn ...... ib.
Inquisition on the death of Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln ..... 230
CHAP. II. Lords of the Honor of Clitheroe ......... 236
The First House of Lacy ... . ib.
CONTENTS. vii
PAQK
CHAP. II. — continued.
Hugh de la Val, the intruding Lord of Clitheroe ... . 237
The family of Lizours, and Second House of Lacy ...... 239
The Royal House of Lancaster ......... 252
George Monck, Duke of Albemarle, and his Descendants ..... 253
CHAP. III. Castle of Clitheroe, and Chapel of St. Michael in Castro ...... 255
List of Chaplains ••-....... 257
Calendar of Documents relating to the Chapel ....... 258
CHAP. IV. Honor of Clitheroe, with the Forest and other Demesnes . . . . .203
Feodary of the Earl of Lincoln in Blackburnshire . . . . . . ib.
Custumale of Blackburnshire, taken by inquisition 3 Hen. IV. ..... 2G5
Officers of the Honor of Clitheroe ........ 267
Senescalli, or Stewards of Blackburnshire . . . . . . .268
FORESTS. — The Laws and Customs of ancient Forests ........ 270
The Forests of Blackburnshire and Bowland ....... 282
Commission for granting lands within the Forest, 22 Hen. <VII. ..... 286
Proceedings against the Tenants in the Forest, temp. James I. . . . . . 287
Petition of the Copyholders, temp. Charles II. ....... 289
Charter of Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, to Blackburnshire . . . . .290
Quitclaim of the Abbot of Kirkstall, to Margaret Countess of Lincoln and Pembroke, for timber
in the Forest .......... ib.
Charges of Queen Isabella against the Abbot of Whallcy and others .... ib.
Letter of King Edward III. to John Radcliff'e, Steward in 1348 . . . . ib.
Customs of the Honor of Clitheroe, in 1670 ....... 292
PENDLE FOREST. The hill, or mountain, and George Fox's Well .... 296
Sudden eruption of water in the year 1669 ..... ib.
Vaccaries in the Forest, temp. Hen. VII. and Eclw. IV. ...... 297
NEWCHURCH IN PENDLE .... ..... 299
HEYHOUSES ........... 300
Witchcraft in Pendle Forest, 1633 ........ ib.
Charter of Henry de Lacy regarding the boundaries between Bernoldswick and his forest .. 304
FENCE, and the Vaccaries of Sabden, West Close, and Higham .... 305
IGHTENHILL PARK ... ...... 306
Accompts of the royal Equitium, or haras, of Ightenhill ...... 308
Accompts for repairing the houses of the manor, 1426 ...... 312
List of Parkers of Ightenhill ......... 313
The Forest or Chase of TRAWDEN ........ ib.
The Chase of ROSSENDALE . . . . . . . . .314
Ancient entrenchment of THE DYKES . . . . . . . ib.
The Booths and Vaccaries of Rossendale, 22 Hen. VII. . . . . . .315
The Park of MUSBURV .......... 316
NEW CHURCH IN ROSSENDALE . . . . . . . . .318
The Chapel of GOODSHAW, the village of BACOPE, and river Irwell .... 320
The Chace of ACCRINGTON and leases of the Vaccary of Antley ..... 321
The mine of iron-stone .......... 322
The manor of TOTTINOTON . . . . . . . . . 323
Charters of Roger de Montbegon to the Priory of Bretton ..... 324
62 f
CONTENTS.
Vlll
PAGE
FORESTS— continued.
on/*
The Chapel and Chnrch of HOLCOMBE
List of the Bailiffs and Eeeves of Tottington
The Forest of BOWLAND and Brenand Chapel
Perambulation of the Forest in 1483, 329; and in the Seventeenth Century
Survey of the Chace of Bolland, made in 1652 . • lb-
Domesday Survey of the Manor of Grinleton
The Bowbearer of Bowland 332> 3;
The river Hodder, and Chapel of WHITEWELL . .333
Biographical notice of Richard Rauthmell the antiquary .
The mansion-house of BROWSHOLME
Biographical notice of Thomas Lister Parker, esq. F.R.S. and F.S.A. . • 337
Historical papers preserved at Browsholme • 339
A Balade of Maryage • ' .340
Pedigree of Parker (following p. 340)
The Forests and Demesnes of Blackburnshire • 341
Documents relating to the Forests— Bowland, 343; Leagrim Park, 347; Radholme Park, 349;
Manor-house of Whitewell ... ... .351
Leases of the Vaccaries in the Forest of Rossendale • • 353
Survey of Woods in Bowland, 31 May 1620 • 354
List of the Master Foresters of Blackburnshire, 355; of Bowland, ib. ; Parkers of Radholme, 356;
Parkers of Lathegryme ....••••• 357
Compotus of Thomas Lord Stanley, Receiver of Clitheroe, 1464 . . . . . ib.
Mines of Coal and Slate, and Conveyance of the Forest revenues . • 361
Commission regarding Future Rents, temp. Hen. VII. ....•• 362
LIST OF PLATES.
Portrait of the Author . . . . . . To face the Title.
Map of the Ancient Parish of Whalley ..... Page 1
Roman Antiquities, Plate I. . . . . . . .32
— Plate II 34
Distant View of Whalley Abbey . . . • . . .83
Whalley Abbey, from the River . . . . . . .135
Whalley Abbey, from the Cloister Court . . . . . .139
Plan of Whalley Abbey . . . . . . . .140
Seals attached to Whalley Abbey Charters ..... 200
Seals of the Ancient Lords of Blackburnshire ..... 252
View of Clitheroe, from Eadisford Bridge ...... 255
Whitewell, and the Keeper's Lodge in the Forest of Bowland . . . 333
Browsholme, in the year 1800 (drawn by William Turner) . . . 336
in the year 1809 (drawn by John Buckler) .... 337
Portrait of Edward Parker, as Bowbearer of Bowland, about 1690 ; and repre- sentations of various Antiquities at Browsholme ..... 338
The Pedigree of Parker of Browsholme to follow page 340.
PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION.
THE History of Whalley on its first appearance, in the year 1801, was hailed with general approbation. A scholar and a man of genius had condescended to irradiate with his learning and his eloquence a department of literature that of late had been mainly characterised by tedious details relating to the descent of property, and dry deductions of genealogy. Books of Topography had hitherto been books for reference only, but here was one that could be perused with gratification and delight.
The Author had great advantages in the field of his inquiries. A country of extraor- dinary natural magnificence and beauty, yet of the utmost wildness in its pristine condition, had become the thriving dwelling-place of a teeming and busy population : offering the most wonderful contrasts, and presenting for observation and comment continual changes in social progress. A Roman city yielded up a rich store of its buried treasures. A wealthy monastery unfolded ample records of its former grandeur and influence, and all the curimis details of its internal discipline. The ancient lords of the territory had been historical personages, acting their busy parts in life among the highest of the ancient nobility, and merging at last in princes of the blood royal. Here were some of those forests which pro- vided certain of their wants, and a large proportion of their pleasures, but under laws and customs very different to those of modern use. These were interesting subjects, and the materials for illustrating them were fortunately abundant. When such subjects and materials were treated not only with intelligence and taste, but with all those embellish- ments that were the fruit of brilliant talents and well-directed scholarship, the result was such as to persuade the world that a new era had arrived in Topography. The success which the author achieved encouraged him to pursue his inquiries in other neighbouring districts, and to produce a series of works, of which some account will be found in the ensuing biography.
The History of Whalley was reprinted in the year 1818 as a Third Edition; the Second Edition, dated 1806, not having been an entire reprint, but formed by many
x PREFACE.
cancellings, additions, and supplements. And this course of procedure constitutes, in fact, the chief defect of the Third Edition, as well as of the Second, and even, it must be admitted, of Dr. Whitaker's whole method, or want of method, as a local historian. The limes labor was not a task in which he was disposed to engage. He took no pains to amend his original text,1 but continually corrected it by supplementary statements, reverting to preceding passages, perhaps from memory only, and expecting the reader to do the same. Thus, in the course of the present work, he will often be found to introduce a subject for a second time,! amplify and elucidate his former statements, and sometimes, from a lapse of his really powerful memory, to which he too much trusted, actually to some extent repeat them.3
Many subjects are thus dislocated and divided, or discussed in several places, an arrangement which, if intentional, would show that the Author not merely expected that his book should be read throughout, but that the reader should retain in his mind all he had previously perused, as in other historical works of the highest class. Remembering, however, the more ordinary character of works of this kind, and the more ordinary uses to which they are generally applied, as books for occasional consultation, the present Editors have considered it desirable to make cross-references in such cases, and the book when completed will be rendered still further useful and available by an adequate Index, a very necessary feature in which it has hitherto been miserably defective.
Another matter to which in the revision of this Edition especial attention has been paid is the collation of documents, and the verification of quotations and references, many of which, it may be fairly declared, Dr. Whitaker had put forth with " all the carelessness of genius ; " and this is said advisedly, not overlooking the claim to " correct and authentic transcripts," which, with singular self-deception, he makes in his first Preface. Eor the records the present Editors have had recourse to the original manuscripts, wherever they were accessible, and in such cases it may be asserted that, with scarcely an exception, they have now the satisfaction to present a more accurate and often much fuller text. For
1 The reader will find a very extraordinary instance of this noticed in p. 31. Dr. Whitaker never withdrew (in any of his three editions) his hope expressed in 1796 (in his manuscript copy) that Mr. Tovvneley would write on the Roman Antiquities discovered at Ribchester, although Mr. Towneley had actually addressed the Society of Antiquaries on the subject in 1798, and the Society had published his memoir in 1799. Yet in another place, at p. 486, Dr. Whitaker mentioned the Dissertation on the Ribchester Helmet, printed in the Vetusta Monumenta, as the only literary essay that Mr. Towneley ever gave to the public.
2 The most serious instance of this is Clitheroe, the history of which is given partly in Chapter IV. of Book III. and partly in Chapter II. of Book IV. The latter will fall in the Second Volume of the present Edition.
' Among several other repetitions in the Third Edition, the same document regarding the Chapelries of the Classis of Blackburn that is printed in full in the note at p. 160 is afterwards given in abstract in the text at p. 416.
PREFACE. xi
such blemishes as, they are sensible, may after all have escaped their notice they still solicit a candid indulgence.
In justice to themselves, and to the Publishers who are at the expense of this Edition, the Editors think it proper to specify further the extent of their additions. They must first remark, by way of anticipation, that they do not undertake to continue the recent history of the ancient Parish of Whalley during the last half-century. That would not only have enlarged the work to too great an extent, but it would have diluted its historical character, and have in fact made it a totally different book. The modern history of the district has been in part published in Baines's History of Lancashire, and more recently, to a certain extent, in Newbigging's History of the Forest of Rossendale. It may hereafter be written, more in detail, on a consistent and well-considered plan.
But in respect to the descent of great properties, and the correction and continuation of the lists of incumbents of the older churches, and the masters of the grammar schools, this edition will be rendered as complete as possible.
More particularly it is intended that the Pedigrees of the principal resident families, being brought down in all particulars to the present time, should impart a character to this edition which will deserve and insure a lasting reputation.
In every case, when such information is obtained as the Author would have probably been disposed to employ had it been available to him, the occasion is taken to improve the text and to add valuable information in the notes. Altogether this First Volume has received an accession of more than one-fourth of new matter : which the reader will readily distinguish by its being marked throughout with [ ].
The chapter on the Roman Antiquities of Ribchester is enlarged by the addition of fresh information and additional engravings to the extent of more than seventeen pages, including a description of Dr. Whitaker's own plates, which was hitherto wholly omitted.
To the documents illustrative of the history of the Abbey there are important accessions, from various sources, and especially from the singular commonplace-book or miscellany kept by the monks (and now preserved in the British Museum,) from which Dr. Whitaker himself made many extracts. Among these are the two political Poems in pp. 155, 156, only partly and incorrectly printed by Dr. Whitaker, but now rendered complete. The exceedingly curious Lectionary in pp. 193-199 is a new feature, and a document of which the Editors know of no parallel belonging to any English monastery.
The Seals engraved by Dr. Whitaker are now for the first time described, and the Seal of the Abbey itself has been found, and is engraved for the first time.
x5i PREFACE.
Among the documents relating to the Forests very large additions are inserted; and, generally speaking, considerable use has been made of the records of the Duchy of Lancaster, which have become accessible in the Public Record Office. The various compoti, and more particularly that relating to the Royal equitium, or haras, at Ightenhill Park, will be found to unfold many particulars of a character hitherto little understood. The 'lists of Foresters, Parkers, and Officers of Clitheroe Castle are now first compiled.
The Customs of the Honor of Clitheroe, at p. 292, are also introduced for the first time into this Edition.
An account of the principal records and other archives upon which this History is chiefly founded, (promised at p. 149,) it is proposed to prefix to the Second Volume.
The Author's own copy of the last Edition being now the property of the Publishers, his latest marginal notes have been available for use ; and others made by his amanu- ensis the late Rev. Samuel J. Allen, M.A. in a copy still belonging to his son the Rev. George Samuel Allen, M.A. of Manchester, have contributed a considerable amount of information ; whilst Mr. G. D. Tomlinson of Huddersfield has kindly communicated various manuscript corrections made in the first and second editions by Dr. Whitaker's antiquarian friend and coadjutor Mr. Beaumont of Whitley and Little Mitton. To Ralph F. Ainsworth, esq., M.D., of Manchester, the Editors are indebted for the loan of the copy of the First Edition formerly belonging to Matthew Gregson, F.S.A.
The Rev. Robert Nowell Whitaker, M.A. the present Vicar of "Whalley, has, with the utmost kindness, answered the various inquiries with which the Editors have found it necessary to trouble him ; and many important communications have been received from the Rev. F. R. Raines, M.A., F.S.A. Vicar of Milnrow, and Hon. Canon of Manchester; from William Langton, esq. of Manchester; William Beamont, esq. of Orford Hall, Warrington, F.R.A.S. ; Mr. Dixon Robinson, of Clitheroe Castle; Mr. Alderman Wilkinson, of Burnley ; Mr. William Haworth, of Burnley ; and other gentlemen. In architectural matters, Mr. William Angelo Waddington, author of Architectural Sketches on the Colder and Ribble, in and around Whalley, has earned their especial thanks, and particularly for his careful ground-plan of Whalley Abbey.
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
OF
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKEE,
LL.D. F.R.S. F.S.A.
AT the close of the account, given in this Work, of his predecessors in the Vicarage of Whalley, Dr. Whitaker introduced the following biographical notices of himself, which it has been thought desirable to transfer to the present more prominent position, and to append to them some additional particulars, and an account of his literary performances :
" Thomas Dunham Whitaker, the author of this Work, was born June 8th, 1759, in the parsonage-house of Rainham, Norfolk, which is the subject of a singular story, recorded by Sir Henry Spclman.1 The writer's father was, in 1759, Curate of that parish; but, his elder brother dying unmarried in the beginning of the following year, he came, Oct. 3, 1760, to reside at his paternal house at Holme,2 which had never been out of the occupation of the family from the reign of Henry VI.
" In November, 1766, the writer of this was placed under the care of the Rev. John Shaw, of Rochdale, an excellent grammarian and teacher. In 1771 he became sickly, and apparently declined, so as to be incapable of any attention to books till the year 1774, when he was placed in the family of the Rev. William Sheepshanks,3 at Grassington, in Craven, an airy and healthful situation.
" In November of that year he was admitted of St. John's College, Cambridge, where he
1 "In the reign of Charles I. Sir Roger Townshend, purposing to rebuild his house at Ruinham, conveyed a large quantity of stones for the purpose from the ruins of Coxford Abbey in the neighbourhood. These stones, as often as any attempt was made to build them up in this unhallowed edifice, obstinately gave way. The owner next tried them in the construction of a bridge ; the arch of which, in like manner, suddenly shrunk. He then piously determined to apply them to the rebuilding of the parsonage-house, where they quietly remained till about the year 1764, when they were once more removed by the late Viscount, afterwards Marquess Townshend, to another place, and the site of the original manse, of which the foundations are still visible north-west from the church, was taken into the park. The strange wanderings of this Casa Santa are now, probably, at an end."
2 The Rev. William Whitaker, our Author's father, died in 1782, aged 51 : see under Holme (in vol. II.) the Latin epitaph which was erected there to his memory, and to that of his widow, (Lucy, daughter of Mr. Robert Dunham of Sedgford in Norfolk,) who died in 1788, at the age of 64.
x Dr. Whitaker has left a biography of Mr. Sheepshanks in his History of Craven, second edit. p. 474, and after- wards published his portrait in the Supplement (1821) to Loidis and Elmete. — "At the village of Grassington he received into his house a limited number of pupils, among whom, in the years 1774 and 1775, was the writer of this article."
0
XIV
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIES OF
went to reside Oct. 3, 1776. In November 1781 he took the degree of LL.B. intending to pursue the profession of the Civil Law, which he studied, for two years, with great attention. But in June 1782, his father having died, after a week's illness, he settled upon his paternal estate, which for thirty years he has continued to improve and adorn, by successive plantations.
" In August 1785 he was ordained deacon at Rose Castle by Dr. John Law, Bishop of Clonfert [and afterwards of Elphin, eldest son of Dr. Edmund Law, then Bishop of Carlisle] ; and in July the following year received the order of priesthood from the same prelate, both without title.
" In 1788, having previously recovered, by a donation of 400Z., the patronage of the Chapel of Holme, which had been founded by one of his ancestors, with the aid of some liberal subscriptions, but at an expense of 470J. to himself, he rebuilt it, the old edifice being mean and dilapidated. In 1797, he Avas licensed to the perpetual curacy of Holme, on his own nomination.
" In July, 1799, he qualified as a magistrate for the county of Lancaster ; and, in the next year but one, for the West Riding of the county of York.
" At the Cambridge Commencement, 1801, he completed the degree of LL.D.
" In the month of January, 1809, he was presented, by the present Archbishop of Canterbury (Manners Sutton), to the Vicarage of Whalley, the great object of his wishes.1 For this favour, besides his Grace's own generous disposition to reward a stranger who had written the History of the Parish, he was also indebted to the recommendation of that learned and excellent prelate, Dr. Cleaver, formerly his diocesan, and then Bishop of Ban-
1 "Accept my sincere thanks for your most kind and friendly congratulations upon my attainment of an object which has long been very near my heart, and which after all will in a pecuniary view be, for some time at least, the gaining of a loss. For the vicarage house is in a sad dilapidated state, and I find that I am in hands from which little can be wrung without ligitation. Then there is a tenant in the house who, after having given voluntary notice to quit at Easter, now threatens to hold over, when all the materials are prepared for the repairs.
" I feel a pleasure and a pride in improving and adorning so favourite a spot, where I mean to reside as much, especially in winter, as I conveniently can, though I scarcely know how I can pack my large family within the walls. For this intention, however, I have several reasons. And first, a sense of duty, — that I may be found as much as possible at my post. Secondly, that I may be nearer my friends than at Holme, though at Whalley I must receive them presso lore, which I trust will be overlooked if the receiver be also fluids amicis. A third, and I hope a still inferior motive, is my health, as I am persuaded that the mild air of Whalley in early spring will better agree with my lungs than the harsh unkindly blasts that sweep our eastern moors.
" Whalley also is a more central situation than this for my clerical excursions through the parish ; for it is my wish to preach annually in every church and chapel within it, and you, I trust, will have no objection to accept my services in course at Clitheroe and Downham. Will you do me the favour to mention the same subject to Mr. Clarke with respect to Whitewell ? As I am a wretched horseman, I propose to economise distances by taking two neighbouring churches every Sunday. I hope this plan will neither be unnseful nor disagreeable in the parish. It will at least bring me acquainted with the parishioners, and noscere exerdtus, nosci exercitui may be applied to a parish minister as well as an officer. Dr. Coulthurst [the Vicar of Halifax] and Mr. Haddon [the Vicar of Leeds] have found great satisfaction in pursuing this plan in their respective parishes." (Letter to the Eev. Thomas Wilson, from Holme, March 23 1309. The living of Whalley, at this time, was worth little more than 100Z., and Holme about 50/. per annum.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKEK.
xv
gor, whose many instances of friendly attention he remembers with gratitude, and whose recent death he deeply deplores."
On the 14th Jan. 1813, Dr. Whitaker was presented by Thomas Clarkson, then a minor, to the rectory of Heysham near Lancaster, but at that place he never resided ; and he resigned the benefice in 1819, Mr. Clarkson being then qualified to present himself to it.
On the 7th Nov. 1818, Archbishop Manners Sutton presented Dr. Whitaker to the vicarage of Blackburn, which he retained, together with Whalley, until his death.1
Such were the main events of Dr. Whitaker's progress in life; and we may now endeavour to recall some of the associations from which they arose, or to which they led. It is evident that his early course was much influenced by his attachment to his tutor Mr. Sheepshanks, who had been a Fellow and Tutor of St. John's college, Cambridge, the contemporary of Bishop John Law (named in the opposite page) and of Archdeacon Paley, and the tutor of many distinguished pupils, among whom were Edward Law (younger brother of John,) afterwards Chief Justice of the King's Bench and Lord Ellenborough, and John Pretyman, afterwards Tomline, successively Bishop of Lincoln and Winchester. Whit- aker, by the advice of Mr. Sheepshanks, went to the same college, where one of his contem- poraries and most intimate friends was Ilerbert Marsh, afterwards Bishop of Peter- borough.
Subsequently, when having succeeded to his ancestral property, and become resident in the country, he paused in his legal studies, and determined to make the Church his profession, it was to Bishop Law that he had recourse for ordination, and his earliest efforts in the pulpit wrere exerted at Leeds,2 where his friend Mr. Sheepshanks became
1 " Since he was presented to the vicarage of the populous and extensive parish of Blackburn, he has resided in that town the greater part of the year, and takes his full share along with the Curates in performing three services every Sunday, in a large church, and to a crowded congregation. In Dr. Whitaker's church Divine Service is performed, and a Sermon preached, on the Sunday night. I mention this, because I consider that Dr. Whitaker's approbation of a measure the tendency of which has sometimes been questioned, is of very great importance." (Part of a Letter signed CLERICUS LANCASTRIENSIS, and dated Bury, Lancashire, Oct. 2, 1820, written "by one who is totally unknown to him," and printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, xc. ii. 402.)
* A list is here appended of Dr. Whitaker's published Sermons : —
Religion and Loyalty connected : being the substance of a Discourse (on 1 Tim. ii. 1 — 3) preached in St. John's Church, Leeds, on the General Fast Day, February 28, 1794, and published at the request of the Congregation.
A Sermon preached at the Consecration of the Chapel of Holme in Lancashire, July 19, 1794.
A Sermon (on Isaiah x. 25, 26), preached in St. John's Church, Leeds, on the General Fast Day, Feb. 25, 1795.
A Sermon (on Revelations, xxii. 2) preached in Trinity Church, Leeds, on Sunday, October 3, 1796; for the benefit of the General Infirmary in that town.
A Sermon preached at the Consecration of the Chapel of Salesbury, in Lancashire, September 8, 1807. ("I entirely agree with you in the sentiments and feelings which our friend W.'s excellent Consecration Sermon has pro- duced; it is certainly a very masterly performance." The Rev. Thomas Starkie, Vicar of Blackburn, to the Rev. Thomas Wilson, Dec. 21, 1807.)
A Sermon preached at the Primary Visitation of the Lord Bishop of Chester (George Henry Law), 1814.
A Sermon on the Consecration of Whitewell Chapel, 1818. (" A memorable Sermon, preached in troublous times, from the words, Sound an Alarm," Joel, ii. 1. Not. Cestriensis, ii. 346.)
xvi BIOGKAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
resident in 1777, and Vicar of St. John's church in 1783. On the 13th January in the latter year (two years before his ordination) Whitaker had married Lucy, daughter of Mr. Thomas Thoresby a merchant in Leeds,1 and in the same town his two elder children
were born in 1785 and 1787 .2
When settled in his ancestral mansion at Holme, being desirous to bring the neigh- bouring clergy together for social and religious intercourse, Whitaker instituted a sort of literary club, consisting of half a dozen members, whose tastes were congenial, and who dined together at each other's houses once a month for several years. The Eev. Thomas Starkie the Vicar of Blackburn, the Rev. William Barton (M. D.) the Incumbent of Harwood and Samlesbury, the Rev. Robert Smith the Incumbent of Waddington, and the Rev. Thomas Wilson the Master of Clitheroe School, were amongst the regular members. The Rev. Henry William Coulthurst, D.D. the Vicar of Halifax, the Rev. Rowland Ingram the Vicar of Giggleswick, Mr. John Dawson the learned mathematician of Sed- bergh, and Mr. William Cockiu of Milnthorpe, who had been writing-master and accoun- tant of the grammar school at Lancaster, were occasionally welcome guests. At these meetings there Avas much sympathy of moral and religious feeling, elegant hospitality, plea- surable conversation, and quiet enjoyment. The subjects discussed— previously announced — were of a general and miscellaneous description, embracing matters affecting the Church, literature, and politics, and rendered especially attractive by the playful humour of Wilson, the mechanical listlessness of Starkie, the meditative tenderness of Barton, and the masculine freshness and warmth of Whitaker.3
At this period, his studies were principally devoted to the works of the early Fathers
A Sermon preached in the parish church of Blackburn on Sunday July 11, 1819, on occasion of a late seditious meeting held in that town. This was published in a cheap form, pp. 20, for circulation among the operatives. It is a noble piece of oratory, and did great good in bringing the middle classes to a sense of the dangers which at that time surrounded them.
A Sermon preached for the relief of the Poor in the Town of Blackburn, Jan. 30, 1820. 8vo.
The Mourning of Hadad Rimrnon, a Sermon preached on the evening of His late Majesty's Interment, Feb. 16, 1820. 8vo.
1 At p. xv of his Life of Ralph Thoresby, prefixed to the Ducatus Leodiensis, 1816, Dr. Whitaker gives some account of that collateral branch of the family of Thursby or Thorsby from which his own wife was descended. Thomas Thoresby was living in Leeds in the reign of Charles the Second, and " Thus much is certain, that this person and Ralph were contemporaries in Leeds 41 years, and lived together on the footing of relations." Thomas was father of another Thomas, and " This second Thomas had a son of the same name, who, with a stronger and more original mind than Ralph, had a great bias to antiquarian pursuits, and bore a striking resemblance in the features of his countenance to the portrait of his celebrated relative. His oldest daughter married the Editor of this Work, who continued the name in the baptismal appellative of his oldest son." Just before it had been stated that " The name (excepting that it has been engrafted into another family by baptism) is now reduced to a single individual, without issue, and unmarried.'' This is believed to refer to Mrs. Whitaker's younger sister.
9 For further information in regard to Dr. Whitaker's family see the Pedigree under Holme in Volume II.
8 Memoirs of the Rev. Thomas Wilson, B. D., by the Rev. Mr. Canon Raines, prefixed to Miscellanies, &c. (Chetham Soc. vol. xlv.) p. Ivi.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER xvii
of the Church, and to the Greek and Roman historians of the same period.1 To the anti- quities of his own locality and neighbourhood he was first earnestly directed by the perusal in Dugdale's Monasticon of the Status de Blackburnshire? a very interesting relic of that class of historical composition -which was most in favour in the monasteries. As this unfolded to his view a very extraordinary picture of the pristine ecclesiastical arrangements of the district in which he resided,3 he was led by the curiosity thus excited to further investigation, and to pursue the history of the church and parish of Whalley in other records of its early ages.
It was during the three closing years of the last century that the composition of the History of Whalley was seriously undertaken. The first portion of it was committed to the press early in 1800 ;4 and was published during that year, with the Dedication to Mr. Townley, and the Preface, which are reprinted in the ensuing pages.5 " PAIIT THE SECOND," which bears date 1801, commenced at page 217 of the first edition, and closed with page 408, supplemented by many additions and corrections. PART THE THIRD commenced with page 411, and closed at p. 483, followed by further supplementary pages. A Title-page was then printed for the whole volume, Avith the date M.D.CCCI.
Dr. Whitaker was very fortunate in the assistance he received from his friends towards the expense of the engravings of this work. I3oth the plates of Roman antiquities were
1 See his own statement to this effect, quoted hereafter in p. xxii.
- See his allusion to "this germ of the History of Wltallctj," in p. 96 of the present volume.
3 The results appear in the Chapter on the Ecclesiastical History of the Parish (Book n. chapter i.) See pp. 66 et seq. of the present Edition, where a more accurate text is given of the narrative of the Status de Blackburnshire than has previously been published.
4 On the 6th Feb. 1800, in a letter to the Rev. Thomas Wilson, the Master of Clitheroe School, Whitaker men- tions that he had then just sent to Hemingway, his printer at Blackburn, the manuscript of the First Book of the History of Whalley, " some parts of which will exercise both his optics and his sagacity.'' This letter further contains a remark- able anecdote of" Turner, the draftsman," who was " showing all the irritability of youthful genius.'' See this passage hereafter at Gawthorp, to which place it relates.
5 It may be interesting to notice that the History of Whalley was on its first appearance cordially reviewed by Mr. Gough the Editor of Camden, in the Gentleman's Magazine (January 1802), at the unusual length of fourteen pages. The article, however, is rather a long series of extracts than anything more, for the critical observations are few ; but it concludes with this passage: " We flatter ourselves our readers will not be displeased with this extended review of a work whose author has shewn himself master of all that general knowledge which Cicero's friend Crassus requires in an orator, and qualified to discuss more at large the various topics which he has handled so judiciously on a smaller scale." Again, in the Magazine for December, 1805, the History of Craven was run through in like manner to the extent of nearly seventeen pages.
The History of Whalley was reviewed in the British Critic, xxi. 101-108, and 229-236.
An article in the Monthly Review, vol. xxxviii. criticised the History of Whalley with more freedom, and was not forgotten by its author when he published his subsequent work : " I understood that some of the Keviews had been sufficiently civil to The History of Craven; if the Monthly gentry are otherwise, unless they are guilty of some very gross misrepresentations, 1 have determined to treat them with silent contempt." Letter to the Rev. Thomas Wilson, March 1, 1808.
XV111
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
presented to him by Mr. Townley,1 as were the views of Gawthorp and Townley Hall. Of the three plates of Whalley Abbey, one was certainly presented by Lady Howe (for it is so acknowledged in the inscription), another probably by Lord Curzon, and the third not improbably by Mr. Beaumont of Whitley. Mr. Beaumont was certainly the contri- butor of the large plate of Little Mitton Hall, and of all the portraits of the Beaumonts. Mr. Lister Parker gave the two plates of Browsholme, and the use of several etchings which had been made for him by Mr. John Chessell Buckler. The view of Read Hall was contri- buted by the author's cousin, Alexander Nowell, esq.
It is worthy of especial remark that most of the drawings for these plates were early works (in water-colours) of the great painter, Joseph Mallord William Turner, R. A., though they bear his name under the simple designation of " Wm. Turner, A." It was only in the year 1800, at the time when Turner, then five and twenty, was employed for " Whalley," that he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, — an Academician in 1802. The landscapes that he subsequently drew for Dr. Whitaker's Richmondshire rank among the finest of his works.
A distant view of Clitheroe, from Eadisford Bridge, was dedicated to Lord Ribblesdale, and the plate probably engraved at his expense. It is the subject in the present work most characteristic of the painter's future excellence, and one upon which the engraver bestowed correspondent pains.2
After the History of Whalley was completed, and had been received with very general approbation, Dr. Whitaker was encouraged, particularly at the suggestion of the Rev. William Carr, of Bolton Abbey,3 to direct the same attention to the adjoining district of
1 Dr. Whitaker to Mr. Wilson of Clitheroe, Feb. 6, 1800. " If Mr. T.'s delicacy will allow, I propose the follow- ing inscription for one of the plates of lloman Antiquities which he gives me : —
CAROLO TOWNLEY, Arm. S. S. A. artium ct elegantiarum arbitro eximio hanc Tabulam sumptibus ejus sere iucisam in animi grati testimonium D. D. D. T. D. W."
This inscription first appeared in the Wilson Correspondence, p. 1C9 : for both the plates of Roman Antiquities, it will be seen, are dedicated (in the same words) to the Society of Antiquaries ; but under the plate of Townley hall will be found a Latin dedication to Mr. Townley, and under the distant view of Townley an inscription to his memory, including the encomiastic designation proposed in 1800, — artium et elegantiarum arbitro eximio. Dr. Whitaker's Dedi- cation to Mr. Townley of the First Edition of this Work is reprinted hereafter.
Some explanation perhaps is required of the orthography of this name, now so generally known from Mr. Charles Towneley's collections at the British Museum, as well as other reasons. Dr. Whitaker usually wrote and spelt it Townley, and his spelling has been left unaltered in several pkces of this volume. It appears that the middle e was adopted, »'. e. resumed, during Mr. Towneley's time.
' Mr. Basire is now at work on the plate of Clitheroe, which he says will deserve twenty-five guineas." Dr. Whitaker to Mr. Wilson, Feb. 6, 1800.
" His highly-esteemed friend the Reverend William Carr, B.D. Minister of Bolton Abbey, and late Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, as he first suggested the idea of the present work, has continued to urge it on, through every part of its progress, with a zeal and activity which merit his warmest thanks." Preface to the First Edition of the History of Craven, 1805.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKEE.
xix
Craven. His plans were matured at the close of 1802, when he issued a Prospectus l in which the scope of the proposed work was thus developed: —
Prospectus of a HISTORY of the DEANERY of CRAVEN and WAPONTAKE of STAINCLIFFE in the County of York, in six Books, intended as a continuation of the History of Whalley. By THOMAS DUNHAM \\'HITAKER, LL.D., F.S.A.
The Introduction will contain a general Outline of the subject, together with Remarks on the Soil, Climate, Mineralogy, and Scenery of the country.
BOOK 1st. Will consist of the British and Roman Antiquities of Craven, particularly the Station of Olicana and other Encampments, a Roman Villa, Roads, &c. together with the Discoveries belonging to those two Periods, which, at different times, have been made within that District.
BOOK 2nd. Will embrace Monastic Antiquities, including an ample Account of the Monasteries of Salley and Bernoldswick (i. e. Kirkstall) and the Priory of Bolton. Observations on the Monastic Life and Manners, the State of Religion in the 12th and 13th Centuries, &c. Several interesting Epistles and other Remains of the Abbots of Kirkstall and Salley, hitherto unpublished. Also many original Epistles and other curious Particulars of the first Abbots of Whalley, from a MS. communicated to the Author since the Publication of the History of that Parish.2
BOOK 3rd. Will give a general Survey of the State of Property in Craven from the JEra. of Domesday Book, together with an Account of the Origin, Descents, and final Union of the two great Fees of Percy and Clifford, intended as an Introduction to the three following Books.
BOOK 4th. RIBBLESDALE, or a Survey of the respective Parishes in Craven, contiguous to the Ribble, including an Account of the ancient and present State of the several Churches, their Dedications, Endowments, Appropriations, Monumental Inscriptions, Incumbents, Patrons, testamentary Burials, &c_ from very early Times: as also the several Manors and their Descents; Pedigrees of the principal Families, whether existing or extinct, State of their Mansions, armorial Bearings, &c.
BOOK 5th. AREDALE, containing, in addition to the particulars enumerated above, an Account of the Castle and Honour of Skipton nearly from the Conquest to the present Time, together with Memoirs of the noble Families of Romilly, Albemarle, and Clifford. This Book will also contain an Investigation of the Sources of the Are and a Description of the Romantic Environs of Malham.
BOOK 6th. WHARFDALE, containing a similar Survey to the two former; and, in addition, a particular Representation of the Scenery of Bolton, Bardon, Kilnsey, and the whole course of the River Wharf upwards to its Source.
The Collections for this Work in general, and particularly for the Monastic Part, have been made from
personal observation, and, with a few exceptions, from original or at least from MSS. Authorities.
1 This Prospectus is now reprinted from the Author's original Manuscript, which has fortunately been preserved. It was sent to Mr. Nichols in a letter (dated Holme, Nov. 3, 1802), which commences thus: " Sir, — I am now engaged in a History of the Deanery of Craven, which will form a kind of Sequel to the History of Whalley, and as I have suffered many inconveniences from Country Printers, I feel myself directed, by many considerations, to yourself, and especially as a Brother Antiquary and Topographer." The plan detailed above was not eventually adopted in every respect, for the History of Craven follows the more ordinary arrangement of Parishes, and the monasteries and antiquities are placed under their respective localities.
2 These were afterwards reserved for the Second Edition of the History of Whalley.
xx BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
The whole will be comprised in one Volume large Quarto, illustrated with numerous engravings. Price to subscribers 21. 2s. Od. Subscriptions received by Mr. Ilatchard, No. 190, Piccadilly, Mr. Edwards, Pall Mall, and Messrs. Edwards, Halifax, Yorkshire.
Dr. Whitaker was at this period addressed by the Editor of Camden with congratu- lations and proffers of assistance, and it is with great pleasure that the present writer finds himself able to insert in this place the cordial reply that was immediately returned : —
The Rev. Dr. Whitaker to Richard Goitgh, Esq.
Holme, Feb. 16, 1803.
Sir, — I have this day received the favour of your letter, and hasten to acknowledge with many thanks the pleasure with which I perused it.
I am not possessed of your Edition of the Britannia,1 tho' I have read the greater part of it and hope to have an opportunity of consulting it once more in the course of a few days, when if any thing occurs with respect to Craven I will avail myself of your most obliging offer.
However contemptible the account given by the Monthly Reviewers2 of the History of Whalley may be in itself, it has been far from contemptible in its effects either upon my Interest or Reputation, at least in the Country, where few Readers are either able or willing to judge for themselves, but indolently acquiesce in every thing they are told by the Periodical Retailers of what they call Criticism.
It is however no small consolation to be assured by such judges as Mr. Gough that their opinion is neither general nor his own.
One circumstance with respect to that work I owe it to myself to account for. The work, as you cannot but have observed, abounds with errors of the press, the history of which was this, that having been persuaded to print the book in a neighbouring town I committed the care of the press to a respected friend the A icar of the place/1 who discharged his trust very faithfully. But we have since discovered that •when the ioul copy was struck off and sent to him for correction the workmen without waiting for the return of it struck off the whole impression, and when this operation was over, in order to impose upon him, corrected the types according to his emendations and returned a clean copy, the only one which was ever printed.
\\ ith respect to the History of Craven I have every assistance which the Gentlemen of that Country (excepting the two noble Representatives of the Cliffords) can afford. I have not overlooked the celebrated Family Picture at Skipton, and if the Monthly Review do not ruin my Subscription, which I am certain they will greatly injure, I mean to put a copy of it into the hands of Mr. Basire, who will undoubtedly do justice to it.
In the course of a few days I expect to be summoned to a very interesting scene. The vault of the Cliffords which has Been closed many years is about to be opened in order to repair one of the tombs which has given way and which stands immediately above it, and a friend upon the spot has promised to give me timely instruction of the day when the process will begin.4
1 It is very pleasing to find in Dr. Whitaker's review of the Magna Britannia of Lysons, in the Quarterly Review the following tribute to the Editor of the earlier Britannia:—
"Of the name of Mr. Gough we wish to speak with reverence; he was the father of English Antiquaries in his day; he generously patronized rising merit in others; he devoted his own lifj and ample fortune to the pursuit of antiquities, and he still lives in the affections of many surviving friends." (vol. v. p. 332.)
In his life of Thoresby (p. xiv.) Whitaker quotes Cough's "candid and moderate estimate of Thoresby's merits as an antiquary," as that of " a great Master of English Topography."
1 See note in p. xvii. a The Rev. Thomas Starkie, M.A.
4 It took place in the chancel of Skipton church, on the 29th March 1803, and Dr. Whitaker has described the results in the History of Craven, (second edit.) p. 355.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER.
xxi
It is almost impossible to procure franks in a situation like this, otherwise I should not have put you to the expence of postage ' for the inclosed sheet, of which I beg your acceptance.
My Pedigree of the Eadcliff Family being unavoidably incorrect and defective from want of authoritative materials when that part of the -work was printed, and much good in formation being communicated afterwards, I compiled a second which I think is as nearly complete as any existing documents can make it. But of this I only struck off fifty copies which I intended as presents to the friends of the Work, and of which this is the last. I am, with Sincere Respect, Sir, Your much obliged and obedient Servant,
T. D. WHITAKER Richard Gougli, Esq., Enfield, Middlesex.
The History of the Deanery of Craven, comprising twenty-five parishes, was published in 1805, in a quarto volume, not very different in general appearance from the History of Whalley. It was dedicated to the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Ribblesdale,2 to the former (the fifth Duke, who died in 1811,) as Lord of the Percy Fee in Craven, and representative of the last male line of the Cliffords Earls of Cumberland ; " yet not more distinguished for his ancient descent than for the ancient virtues of an English nobleman, — disinterestedness, liberality, and attention to the happiness of his numerous dependants :" the latter, the first Lord Ribblesdale (who died in 1826), "whose loyalty and patriotism have twice assembled under his standard the Gentry and Yeomanry of Craven, now constituting one of the finest provincial corps in the Kingdom." The Duke gave to the work all the engravings of Bolton and Bardon, together with one of the great family picture of the Cliffords ; Lord Ribblesdale contributed seven plates, and twelve other plates were presented by Stephen Tempest, esq. of Broughton, James Hamerton, esq. Pudsay Dawson, esq. the Rev. William Roundell, Danson Richardson Currer, esq. the Rev. Thomas Sheepshanks, and Richard Heber, esq. of Marton. A still more important favour conferred on the author was the communication of the collections that had been made by John Richardson Currer for a History of Craven, which included transcripts of those of Dodsworth, and John Charles Brooke, Somerset herald.
" The Townley MSS." as in the author's former work, " continued to pour out their inexhaustible stores on every part of the present subject ; " and, while making this acknowledgment, he took the opportunity to append a tribute to the memory of Mr. Towneley, then recently deceased, which may well claim admission here in the character of a biographical reminiscence of both the eminent men to whom it relates, more particularly as it did not reappear when the book was reprinted.
Here let me for a moment, and in my own person, give way to feelings which will not easily be
1 It will be admitted, in the present days of cheap postage, that this apology was not wholly unnecessary, when the charge of 4s. 2d. is found marked on the cover, the weight being 1| oz.
2 The Second Edition of the History of Craven is dedicated only to the sixth Duke of Devonshire (1812-58): " To his Grace William Spencer, Duke of Devonshire, Marquis of Hartington, Lord of the Percy Fee, &c. in Craven, and representative in the male line of the illustrious House of Clifford, this Work is respectfully inscribed, with an earnest wish that the favoured portion of his domains which constitutes the principal subject of it, may continue to receive from him the same attention and regard with which his good taste has honoured it in early life."
d
xxii BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
suppressed. My last research in that library, where I had spent so many happy hours, was in company with its late excellent and accomplished owner. So completely at that time did the vigour of his understanding and the vivacity of his spirits appear to buoy up a sinking constitution, that I little foresaw how soon I should be called to attend his remains to the tomb of his ancestors. A monument is preparing to his memory, which I doubt not will be worthy of his taste and virtues, but the best monument of Mr. Towneley will be fixed in the hearts of those who knew him — " non quod intercedendum putem imaginibus qua? marmore finguntur, sed ut vultus hominum, ita simulacra vultus fluxa ac fragilia sunt, forma mentis seterna, quam tenere et exprimeve non per alienam materiam et artem, sed tuis ipse moribus posses." TACITUS.
The History of Craven was reviewed in the British Critic for December 1805, which pronounced the volume to he " full of interest, information, and amusement ;" adding, that " in no place, nor any subject, do the writer's industry of investigation fail, or his vivacity of remark relax."
Another critic, in the Eclectic Review for April, 1806, made further amends to Dr. Whitaker for the indignities which he had suffered from the Monthly Reviewer of his History of Whalley. It was predicted that the History of Craven would not preserve that unmolested enjoyment of otium cum dignitate upon the shelf of the library which was the usual reward of Topography. " It is so much enlivened by picturesque descriptions, by judicious remarks, by sketches of biography, and by natural delineations of life and manners in different periods, that we lay it aside, for the present, with little weariness, in the hope of resuming it with renewed satisfaction." .... " The author has succeeded in rendering the History of Craven one of the most complete and valuable pieces of topo- graphy that have come within our observation."
The History of Craven being accomplished, its author proceeded in the summer of 1805 T to form the Second Edition of the History of Whalley. This was completed, with eight additional engravings/ in September 1806.
The Second Edition of the History of Craven was published in 1812. Unlike the History of Whalley, it was entirely reprinted, and was now embellished with fifty-five plates, of which fifteen were accessions to this edition.3
It may be thought an omission if we do not mention, among the works of Dr.
i In a letter dated July 10, 1805, he states that 150 copies of the History of Whalley then remained unsold, that he wished to cancel several sheets, and to insert much additional matter which had fallen into his hands since the first publication of the work. " By this means a kind of Second Edition will be made up."
1 The " Advertisement " (as reprinted hereafter in p. Ixvi) says " four " only. These were those which had been engraved specially for this Edition: 1, the view of Whitewell; 2, the portrait of Parker the Bowbearer of Bowland, and other objects at Browsholme ; 3, the view of Head hall ; and 4, the distant view of Townley hall and park, bearing the Latin inscription to Mr. Townley 's memory. But, besides these, Mr. Beaumont gave the three Beaumont portraits, and, further, a folio engraving by H. Meyer of a portrait of Henry Tilson, painter, by himself. This last, however, is not found in all copies, and, as well as the Beaumont portraits (see vol. ii. p. 24 of the present Edition), is not even men- tioned by the Author. See all the plates carefully set forth in Upcott's " Bibliographical Account cf the principal Works relating to English Topography," 1818, p. 473.
8 See all technically described in Upcott's English Topography, pp. 1394-8. In the folio copies of the History of
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. xxiii
Whitaker, the Description of Browsholme Hall, 1815, 4-to, which is usually named in the list of his works. That hook however (which is noticed at p. 337 of the present volume) was rather the compilation of Mr. Lister Parker himself, though the leading features of its descriptive portions were drawn from the History of Whalley. To these were appended a variety of historical papers, from the originals at Browsholme, edited without note or comment. The clever etchings by Mr. John Chessell Buckler added great interest to the book, of which only 100 copies were printed. •
The Third Edition of the History of WTialley followed in 1818. Dr. Whitaker had been desirous to reprint this work for many years before the intention was carried out. In a letter to Mr. Nichols dated so early as the 16th June, 1810, he writes : —
The remaining copies of the History of Whalley, which were disposed of by me to Mr. Edwards at \l. 10s. each, have been nearly sold by him at 7 or 8 guineas per copy.
I have ample and valuable materials for another Edition: particularly an account of the Abbey of Lamb- spring,1 communicated to me by one of the ex-monks; and the Journal 2 — a most curious one — of a Gentleman of the Parish in the year 1617. My predecessor (not my immediate one)3 left also some valuable papers, which have fallen into my hands. With these and other helps I propose to print 250 copies uniformly with Craven, discarding a great deal of trifling stuff which I was compelled to admit before in order to make a Book. With this wholesome severity the whole in the type and page I have mentioned will be reduced to 320 pages.
He mentions again in May 1811 that he was then " extremely desirous to see the History of Whalley reprinted ; " and again in Nov. 1813 : —
I am now at leisure to attend to another Edition of the History of Whalley, and sincerely wish that Mr. Edwards 4 would authorise you to set about it.
My History of Lonsdale will I trust be ready to send to press by May next.
But it was not until July 1818 that the Third Edition of " Whalley " was completed. It has this brief Dedication to Archbishop Manners Sutton :
To the Most Reverend CHARLES, LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, Primate of all England, and Metropolitan, this Work is inscribed, by his Grace's most obliged and devoted servant, the Author.
It Avas embellished with fifty-one plates, twenty of which had not been in the previous editions.5 The price was six guineas in royal quarto, and twelve guineas in folio.
It was the Doctor's intention, in the same year, to produce a new edition of the History of Manchester, by his namesake the Rev. John Whitaker, which had been published in the year 1773. This appears from the following letter to Mr. Nichols :
Craven, published at Fifteen Guineas, there are duplicate impressions of the aquatinted plates by S. Alken, worked in colours. The price of the copies in Royal Quarto was Five Guineas.
1 In Westphalia; see Third Edition, p. 547. - That of Nicholas Assheton.
3 The Rev. William Johnson: see these papers described in p. 215 of this volume.
4 Mr. Edwards, of Halifax, supplied the necessary paper for Dr. Whitaker's works.
5 Several of these were merely borrowed from Churton's Life of Dean Nowell. It is stated in Boyle's Yorkshire Library that the number of copies printed of the third edition of the History of Whalley was only 25 on large paper and 100 on small; but the writer was misinformed, for the numbers were 150 large and 250 small.
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
Holme, March 25th, 1818.
Dear Sir, — On my way through Manchester yesterday I took an accurate survey of the Collegiate Church and College, and have also well considered the amount of the additions which will be required. The result is that I think that the whole of Mr. Whitaker's text, together with my own additions, notes, &c. may be included in one quarto of the same type with your reprint of the History of Whalley, with which I should wish it to be uniform. Three or four engravings and not more will be required.
If you would like to undertake the publishing as well as printing of this work, I will thank you to inform me what plan you would recommend. I think it may be made an interesting undertaking.
I am, Dear Sir, Very sincerely yours, T. D. WHITAKER.
Will you be so obliging as to forward a copy of Whalley to Adam Cottam, Esq. Whalley, near Blackburn, Lancashire, and place it to my account with Mr. Edwards.
But, besides this History of Manchester, there was another work at one time proposed to range with the Histories of Whalley and Craven. The reader will have already remarked the Doctor's mention of a Hisfori/ of Lonsdale, undertaken before Nov. 1813, and proposed to be published in the course of the ensuing twelvemonths. As it is unknown under that name, it is satisfactory to be able to give the complete account of its design which is furnished by the following (undated) Prospectus.
Preparing for the Press, in one volume quarto, illustrated with numerous engravings, 2Uailfla or a History of the Vale of Lune ; containing Accounts of the Setantiornm Portus of the Romans, the Castle, Dutchy, Priory, Parish, and Friary of Lancaster, the Saxon antiquities of Heysham, the chain of Danish forts on the Lune, the Castle, Honour, and Priory of Hornby, the Roman Bremetonacce, or Overborough, the Castle of Thurland Tunstall, the Environs of Ingleborough and Kirkby Lonsdale, and lastly the Parish and School of Sedbcrgh, with a Catalogue and short Biographical notices of eminent persons educated in that seminary. By THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER, LL.D. F.S.A. Vicar of Whalley, and Rector of Heysham, in Lancashire. London: Printed by Nichols, Son, and Bentlcy, for John Murray, 50, Albemarle Street.
This was evidently intended to form a volume correspondent with the Histories of Whalley and Craven. The materials collected for it were eventually added to the book now called the History of Richmondshire. But before we proceed to the circumstances which led to the latter work, we have to recur to the author's sentiments at an earlier period, when, during the winter of 1810-11, he experienced a serious failure of health,1 and consequent depression of spirits, whereby he was induced to take leave of the History of Craven in the following terms :
On these " Cold Keld Heads" we hare reached some of the highest ground in the Island; and, looking southward as far as the confines of the Peak, survey beneath our feet the three valleys of Craven, with all their boundaries of rock and fell, their scattered villages, rich pastures, and diversified landscapes. Further, in the same direction, stretch the brown hills of " the ancient parish of Whalley," with their populous towns, descried through smoke, and their uniting streams gradually expanded into one great aestuary, and mingling
1 •' The truth is that my constitution is greatly broken within the last six months, and I can have no great expectation of surviving many winters like the last. . . . My health requiring change of air, I am going in a few days to a friend's house in Cumberland." Letter to Mr. Nichols, May 28, 1811.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. xxv
with the sea. These ample districts have now been exhausted in two successive Works, by the labours of the same Topographer. The point on which now he stands, the elevation, and almost unbounded prospect, are inspiring. He now turns his eye in another direction, and the valleys and plains of Richmondshire stretch like a map before him.
To the left is the Roman Braccliium, with its elevated summer camp. Beneath appear the grey towers of Nappay ; while, bounding over the cataracts of Aysgarth, the Eure conducts him to another Bolton, pregnant with facts and recollections. Immediately beyond rise the proud towers of the Nevilles at Middleham, and far to the north-east the Norman keep of Richmond, begirt with its monastic accompaniments. In that vale to the east the arches of Coverham distinctly present themselves. In those fertile meadows beneath appear the fragments of Joreval, and Tanficld beyond, in whose church repose, beneath magnificent tombs, the Marmions of real History. Turning to the south-west the " troublous Skell" leads him to the mighty carcase of Fountains, and to the more ancient and venerable foundation of Wilfred.
Time has been when such a scene might have inspired and dictated another Work. But the. recollection of increasing years and declining health, together with the demands of duty in a most serious and important charge, checks at once the unseasonable impulse, and compels him to resign an History of Richmondshire * to some younger and more vigorous Antiquary, on whom, were it in his power, he would willingly bestow whatever portion he may possess of two qualifications henceforward of little value to himself, but indispensable to a true Topographer, namely, Perseverance and Enthusiasm.
These feelings, however, were transient. We have seen already that Whitaker did not at all abandon either his love for topography or the literary composition to which it led ; but in his latter years he was drawn into a different line of procedure by the liberal offers which were made to him by publishers. Ilis series of works in quarto, whether accom- plished or projected, have been purposely reviewed in succession ; and we now proceed to the more magnificent series in folio.
A new edition of the Ducatus Leodicnsis, or History of Leedes, by Ralph Thoresby, first published in 1715, was undertaken on a sumptuous scale by Messrs. Robinson, Son, and Holdsworth of Leeds, and Mr. John Hurst of Wakefield. Dr. Whitaker made copious additions, and inserted a memoir of the author. The book was published in a very large folio ; and in a corresponding volume, having the same date in its title-page, 1816, both being richly embellished with excellent engravings, appeared Dr. Whitaker's " lioidis and Elmete ; or, an attempt to illustrate the Districts described in those words by Bede, and supposed to embrace the lower portions of Aredale and Wharfdale, together with the entire Vale of Calder in the County of York." The former book was dedicated to the Duke of Leeds, and the latter to the Archbishop of York, Dr. Venablcs-Vernon. Subse- quently, in 1821, there was added " An Appendix to Loidis and Elmete," consisting of 88 pages, with four plates, one of which — Gledhow, by J. M. W. Turner, engraved by George Cooke, is a landscape that is scarcely surpassed by those in the " Richmondshire."
Dr. Whitaker had now arrived at the height of his success and of his enthusiasm as a topographical historian. Whilst still engaged in the Loidis and Elmete, he continued his collections for the History of Lonsdale, and was tempted, by the offers held out to
1 Which has been suggested to the author. From some future undertaking of a much less laborious nature, if life and leisure permit, he means not to preclude himself. (Note by Dr. Whitaker.)
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
him by some London publishers then distinguished for the magnificent scale of their transactions, to form visions of a work hitherto unexampled.1 The Prospectus of this undertaking, which was issued in Feb. 1816, is here reproduced, for, as displaying tho, extended scope of a design, of which he was eventually able to accomplish but a small portion, it may certainly be regarded as one of the most remarkable effusions that ever proceeded either from the pen of Dr. Whitaker or from any other literary projector, however confident and ambitious : —
Prospectus of A GENERAL HISTORY of the COUNTY of YORK. BY THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER, LL.D. F.S.A. Vicar of Whalley, and Rector of Heysham, in Lancashire.
TFIE History of Craven, together with the republication of Thoresby's Ducatus Leodiensis, and the supplementary volume which accompanies it, having already embraced more than one fourth part of this great county, both in extent and population, the Author of two of these works, and the Editor of the other, has been induced to submit to the Public, and especially to the Nobility, Gentry, and Clergy of Yorkshire, such an extension of the plan, as will gradually comprehend the whole.
AVith respect to the limits of such an undertaking it is impossible to speak with precision: an unexpected redundancy of materials in one part, and an equally unforeseen deficiency in a second, may frequently occur, and yet be very far from balancing each other; but, as a conjecture, rather than an assertion, it may be stated that seven folio volumes, of about five hundred pages each, and of the same type with the supplementary volume to Thoresby's Ducatus, will probably complete the work. To render this limitation, with respect to the treatment of a subject so extensive and multifarious, the more credible, the Author wishes it to be understood that his great objects in the use of the materials to be committed to him will be selection and compression. Subjects which are really important, either in point of picturesque beauty, of antiquity, or of their connexion with historical facts, will be treated of in detail: those, on the contrary, which have none of these recommendations, will, as far as it may appear consistent with accuracy, be thrown into the shade, in order to give relief and prominence to the others.
The Author's researches, besides a personal application to original authorities existing in public libraries, and, where he may be permitted, in private collections also, will extend to an exact survey of every parish : thankful as he shall always be for previous directions to objects of curiosity, he will take nothing upon trust. He will see every thing with his own eyes ; he will make minutes upon the spot. In order to the attainment of the same accuracy in those parts of his subject which depend upon written evidence, he most respectfully desires the representatives of ancient and noble families, who may be induced to encourage the projected work, to consider what a stamp of authenticity is impressed upon the whole by a general opinion of its having been
1 It will he remembered that the Magnet Britannia of the brothers Daniel and Samuel Lysons, a really sound, substantial, and comprehensive, if less brilliant, work, was actually in progress at the same time, though unfortunately lingering in its laborious course. The counties were taken alphabetically, and published, — Bedfordshire, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire, 1806; Cambridgeshire, 1808; Cheshire, 1810; Cornwall, 1814; Cumberland, 1816 ; Derby- shire, 1818; Devonshire, 1822. There this excellent work stopped. It must also be borne in mind that at a time when Whitaker had not yet conceived his own magnificent scheme, he had done ample justice to the Magna Britannia in the Quarterly Review for May 1811 : " On the whole, considering the laborious work of Messrs. Lysons as a series
•of volumes for the purposes of reference, we think it entitled to much and general commendation.
The arrangement also is clear and the style perspicuous and unaffected. These are praises which belong to the authors ; the defects of the work arise out of the plan itself — perpetual abridgement where detail was loudly called for, and mortifying transitions from one subject to another at the moment when interest and anxiety were beginning to be •excited." The apology for which limitations must always be Est quodam prodire tenus si non datur ultra.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. xxvii
compiled from original authorities. In more than one topographical work, already before the public, it has been, with very few exceptions, the happiness of the Author to have drawn from the' first fountains of information. In this age of general intelligence and liberal communication little, it may be hoped, remains of that absurd jealousy, by which the ancient stores of families were supposed to contain unknown and unsuspected secrets, which might shake the titles to estates. The most superficial knowledge of the law of England, as it exists at present, must in a moment remove every such apprehension. Discovery, while it is the most animating object of a topographer, can alone give an interest in the minds of real judges to a topographical work. What, for example, would have been the feelings of the writer, what the loss and disappointment of his readers, had he been debarred from access to the stores of the Cliffords, in their two surviving branches at Skipton and Bolton? And can it be supposed that in a county, which for several centuries has been the principal residence of so many noble families, distinguished for their activity and exertions in war and peace, the grantees also of so many religious houses, there should neither have been curiosity to collect, nor care to preserve, the evidences, which from time to time had fallen into their hand ?
Antiquarian research, and even poetry itself, have of late been turned to the elucidation of ancient manners: and the pursuit is a decisive proof of the superior intelligence and curiosity which belong to modern times. Heretofore, when an antiquary had given a tolerable view of the ruins of a religious house, the name of the founder, the date of the foundation, with the manors and carucatcs which it possessed, in faithful and dull detail, his office was performed, and his readers were satisfied. Meanwhile it never occurred to the one or the other that all this was the body only, not the soul of monastic history; that monkish manners, a system of life not only picturesque and magnificent, but combined in some degree both with piety and usefulness, was a study for philosophers; that all its varieties are yet accessible, and what is better, accessible not by means of direct and formal narrative, but through the medium of inference and induction (one of the most delightful exercises of an intelligent antiquary) in the compotuses of the religious houses. To the stores of this nature which are reposited in the libraries of ancient families, and still perhaps unexplored, the Author looks with anxious expectations: but in the Harleian and Cotton libraries, and above all, in the indigested, but almost inexhaustible, collections of Dodsworth, he reckons with certainty on much original intelligence.
Besides those objects of research which are already pointed out in other topographical works, he is aware that throughout the progress of a personal survey he must be indebted to the original information of respectable persons resident on the spot for a knowledge of many interesting objects hitherto unnoticed, and of discoveries which have lately taken place. On this subject he respectfully addresses himself to his brethren the parochial clergy, whose local knowledge of their respective districts, as well as intimate acquaintance with their own parish registers, and the antiquities of their churches, renders them peculiarly qualified to communicate hints and directions to an inquisitive stranger. Such communications the Author will always receive with gratitude.
For a continuation of the catalogues of incumbents from the time of Charles II. when Mr. Torre's collections cease, the author will feel himself much indebted to their living successors.
To add materials to a history of manners as well as of places, any intelligence with respect to the birth- places of eminent persons, as subjects for short biographical memoirs, and any account of curious and ancient customs, will best be derived from the same respectable and intelligent authorities.
Architecture, ancient and modern, civil, military, and ecclesiastic, will always be regarded in this work with peculiar attention; and the magnificent seats of the nobility and gentry, with which this great county abounds, together with the distinguished specimens of art in painting and sculpture with which they are severally adorned, will not fail to receive a due tribute of respect.
Picturesque natural scenery, as well as the efforts of modern taste in the production of scenery which rivals nature, will in no instance be passed over without attention.
xxviii BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
The entire text of Domesday, Leland's Itinerary, and many portions of that of Camden will be incorporated with the work. The late returns of population will also be subjoined to the account of every parish.
A work of this nature would be extremely imperfect without genealogical accounts of the principal and ancient families of the county; yet of all branches of antiquarian literature, none has remained to the present time in such a state ef error and confusion, especially with respect to the earlier descent?, as genealogies. On this subject, however, the author is quite at ease, as no pedigree will be inserted in the following work which has not been either compiled, or at least revised and corrected, by one of the most skilful genealogists in the kingdom, William Radclyffe, esq. Rouge Croix, so that each may be considered as having received the stamp of official authority. Much more amusing and instructive memorials however of the ancient nobility and gentry of Yorkshire will be given at the close of their respective genealogies, in original letters and other curious documents, principally referring to their services on the Scottish border, from the reign of Henry VIII. to that of Elizabeth. To these, of which a very large and valuable collection has been entrusted to the author, will be added facsimiles of the autographs.
As a proper accompaniment to genealogies, the armorial blazonings, which once adorned the windows of almost every church in Yorkshire, though the greater part of them are now no more, having been preserved by the care of Glover and Dugdale, in their respective visitations, will be enumerated, and many of them engraved.
Nearly allied to the subject of genealogies is that of epitaphs, with respect to which a system of very strict selection will be observed. The bulk of this work will never be purposely swelled by prolix and tumid panegyrics on inconsiderable persons; and it may sometimes happen, according to the merit or demerit of each, that a monument will be given without an epitaph, or an epitaph without a monument. Elegance in the composition, or distinguished merit in the subject of a monumental inscription, will alone ensure its insertion.
Subsidiary to the Author's department in this laborious work arc those of the draftsman and the engraver, concerning which the public have a right to be informed that no expense will be spared to render the History of Yorkshire what, in the present state of the national taste, can alone procure for it a favourable reception — truly magnificent. To this end distinct but superior artists will be engaged for subjects of landscape and architecture.
It is sufficient to name J. M. W. Turner, esq. R. A. in the former of these departments, and Mr. Buckler in the latter.
One species of ornament will be peculiar to the present work.
It was the complaint of Stukeley, an excellent draftsman, that the Roman antiquities of Britain had never been drawn. Even in Ilorsley's Britannia Romana, the inscriptions are represented by miserable scratches of mere outlines. In the History of Yorkshire they will be engraved from finished drawings, in all the softness of mouldering antiquity.
The engravings will of course be numerous, as no object of real beauty or importance will be omitted; but in the outset of the plan it is no more possible to conjecture what will be the number of these embellishments, than to pronounce with tolerable accuracy on the quantity of letter-press. It is obvious, however, from the character of the different districts into which the county of York is divided, that the number of plates must vary greatly in different volumes.
The work will commence with an account of the portion of the North Riding popularly called the County of Richmond, together with those parts of Lonsdale and Ewecross which are included in the Everwicschire of Domesday.
This part, which is already in considerable forwardness, will be put to press in the course of a few months. It will naturally be asked, what use is intended to be made in the ensuing work of the well-known publica- tions by which the county of York has already been partially illustrated. Of these, perhaps, the most cele-
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. xxix
brated, Thoresby's Ducatus, has been completely reprinted in conformity with a plan which had been partially executed before the undertaking now proposed was thought of. But the example will not be followed in other instances. Drake's Eboracum, for instance, though a work of great merit, contains too much matter of a sort purely local to be incorporated, in its present state, with a general history of the county. Its contents will therefore be melted down into a general mass; the less interesting portions will be rejected; and an uniform text, with respect to the city of York, will be formed out of that and such other authorities as may be acces- sible to the author. Minor works of the same nature, all of which, however useful within the respective districts of which they treat, are liable to the same objection as parts of a more extensive undertaking, may, it is hoped, be brought to undergo the same process, and to endure the transfusion of their better and brighter parts into the projected volumes without a murmur.
Such is the general outline of a work, undertaken, as the author freely confesses, at too late a period of life, but under the cheering influence of some encouragements and expectations with which he could not have flattered himself earlier. In the course of three months, however, will appear what may properly be regarded as a more extended prospectus, or rather specimen, of a general History of Yorkshire; that is, the Supple- mental Volume to Thoresby's Ducatus, executed precisely according to the Sketch which has been traced on the present sheet.
In order to remove a doubt which has been suggested, the Subscribers to the present volumes are requested to observe that they will form integral parts of the general work, and that they (the Subscribers) will be enti- tled at a fair price to all the supplemental matter and engravings which it may be judged expedient to insert in the correspondent parts of the general work when reprinted.
The work will be handsomely printed in folio, on fine demy paper, and the large-paper copies on super-royal drawing paper, and will be delivered to the subscribers in Parts, price 21. 2s. each, or on large paper, with proof impressions of the plates, price 4/. 4*. each Part.
The'impressions of the plates will be delivered in the exact order they are subscribed for.
Subscriptions to be received by Messrs. LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, and BUOWN, Paternoster Row, London; Messrs. ROBINSON, SON, and HOLDSWORTH, Leeds; Mr. JOHN HURST, Wakefield; and by all the other Booksellers in the county.
The printing of the work will commence as soon as 500 copies, ov as many as will cover the expenses, are subscribed for.
February, 1816. [This Prospectus is followed by a list of Subscribers for 57 copies on Large Paper, and 81 on Small Paper.]
This Prospectus was issued at a period when, commercially speaking, costly literature had attained its summit of favour, and flourished not only in works of high pictorial art, such as Turner's Liber Studiorum, and his Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast, Sir "Walter Scott's Antiquities of the Scottish Border, and Lodge's Illustrious Portraits, hut also in certain antiquarian works, as the enlarged editions of Dugdale's Monasticon and Dugdale's History of St. Paul's, and Stothard's Monumental Effigies,— all published peri- odically in numbers, or in detached volumes, as were the county histories then in progress, by Ormerod, Surtees, Clutterbuck, Baker, &c. Thus even an antiquarian author, if so eminent as Dr. Whitaker, was enabled to share in the literary extravagance of the time, and we find that the meed awarded to the Historian of Eichmondshire was at the handsome rate of One Pound for every page,1 whether the page was occupied with his own writing, or with epitaphs and documentary evidence, or even with vignettes and " blank spaces."
1 " By the contract, it is to be printed uniformly with the Additions to Thoresby's Ducatus, and the Author is to
e
XXX
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
The sentiments with which Dr. Whitaker had closed the second edition of his History of Craven, in the year 1811, have heen already extracted. Subsequently he described those passages as a lingering and reluctant leave-taking of Topography, that had been provoked by sickness, and its natural concomitant despondency.1
Six years later, when he buckled on his harness for the History of Richmondshire, he was sufficiently sanguine to adopt a very different tone. He now declared that, " by a singular blessing of Providence, the strength and spirits of the Author have been renewed, and his whole constitution has undergone a kind of rejuvenescence. Imagination, curiosity, and the spirit of research have, in his breast, become as active as ever. Locomotion and change of scene relieve the tedium, and remove the inconveniences, of uninterrupted study ; the assistance of skilful artists at once excites and gratifies the writer ; and instead of shrinking, as he once did, from the toil of a History of Kichmondshire, considered as a whole, he now dares to regard it as the auspicious commencement of a still greater undertaking, as an opening to more extended research, and more copious illustration."
At the same time he distinctly renounced all responsibility for genealogies, his repugnance to which he had always confessed,2 and prominently asserted this freedom in the following
Advertisement to the Reader.
The Author of the History of Richmondshire has the sincere pleasure of stating, that the genealogical parts of the work are from other hands, much more conversant with subjects of this nature than himself. Those with the initials (or his name) have been furnished by William Radclyffe, Esq. Rouge Croix.3 He can now, therefore, no longer give offence by presuming to hint, that since the deluge it has not been usual for three generations of the human race to survive more than three centuries, or by declining to accept without animadversion whatever cither dulness or design may have obtruded upon the genealogies of ancient families.
But it is due to the present College of Arms to say, that, although much remains upon their records in the earlier descents of many lines to which a critical test has never been applied, a diligence of inquiry and accuracy of reasoning now prevail in the compilation of pedigrees, which, as they result even in these trifles from the general intelligence of the age, were certainly not equalled in any other period.
Subsequently, in the same History, the Author expresses himself still more strongly, when introducing the pedigree of TunstaU. " In this work I am happy to be emancipated from the slavery of compiling genealogies; but in defiance of family prejudice and bigotry, of which I have had sufficient experience, I shall never knowingly adopt errors, nor conceal truth." (vol. ii. p. 270.)
receive the same price, viz. 4/. per sheet; in which the blank spaces at the beginning and end of every Parish, spaces for vignettes &c., are to be included." (These particulars are copied from an autograph letter of Dr. Whitaker, dated July 22, 1817.)
1 History of Richmondshire, vol. i. p. 1.
In his edition of the Ducatus Leodiensis, Dr. Whitaker had inserted (at the back of the Dedication) a notice that " For the Continuation of the Pedigrees the Editor desires it to be understood that he is principally indebted to Mr. Christopher Holland, who has executed the task with great Fidelity and Exactness."
Radclyffe was also a valuable assistant to Mr. Surtees in his History of Durham. See his letters, ranging from to 1819, in the Life of Surtees, by Taylor and Raine, pp. 327, 362, 387; and the lines in p. 211, commencing " Rouge Croix is the monarch of heralds," &c. His professional career was closed under a cloud.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. xxxi
It was not however until 1819 that the First Part of the proposed " General History of the County of York " was given to the world.1 The work was continued under that title until Dr. Whitaker's death, which ensued at the close of 1821. When that event happened, only eight Parts out of the ten had been published. He had left, however, certain collections prepared for the remaining parishes of Richmondshire, together with the more matured materials for Lonsdale that have been already described. The History of Rich- mondshire extends to nearly the middle of the second volume ; its remainder is occupied by "An History of Lonsdale, Ewecross, and Amunderness, parts of the Everwicschire of Domesday, now included in the counties of York, Lancaster, and Westmoreland." The work was announced as completed in the spring of 1823, in two volumes folio. Its price on demy paper was 251. 4ts., and on super-royal drawing paper, with Indian proof impressions of the plates, 501. 8s.2 Its plates from the landscapes of J. M. W. Turner were of beauty unsurpassed ; and the architectural views from the pencil of John Buckler were excellent in their way ; whilst many embellishments were boldly and effectively engraved on wood.3 The Dedication was addressed to a native of Lancashire, the Rev. James Wood, D.D. Master, and to the Fellows of St. John's college, Cambridge, — the founda- tion of Margaret Countess of Richmond, and the place of the Author's academical educa- tion. What editorial charge was taken of the work after the Author's decease4 does not appear, nor was any other notice of the circumstance inserted than in a few lines placed at the close of a table of errata of almost unprecedented length.5
On the whole the judicious were greatly disappointed,6 and not without reason, in the
1 Quarterly Review, vol. xxi. p. 567.
8 Quarterly Review, vol. xxix. p. 282.
* A full bibliographical account of the History of Richmonclshire, its embellishments and sheet pedigrees, has been published in The Yorkshire Library, by William Boyne, F.S.A. 4to. 18G9, pp. 175-180.
4 In Lonsdale, pp. 31G-323, occurs the parish cf Heysham, of which Whitaker was for some years Rector; but the list of Incumbents, p. 321, does not include his name !
8 " The Publishers trust that the peculiar circumstances in which the Work has been placed, in consequence of the illness and death of its lamented Author, and the unavoidable disadvantages of a residence distant from the press, will apologise for the numerous errata here pointed out, as well as for any others which may be discovered."
6 No one was better qualified to appreciate Whitaker's real merits than the Historian of Durham, Robert Surtees, and it was equally impossible for him to be blind to the deficiencies of the History of Richmondshire. In a letter to the late Rev. James Raine, D.C.L. the Historian of North Durham, written on the 22nd Feb. 1822, Mr. Surtees remarks: " I lament that Whitaker's last work on such a gallant subject is so meagre. The desideratum is a History of noble Richmondshire, on a new flation and fashion, carefully preserving every glowing gem and fragment of sparkling mica which the magician has flung from his rich mines so carelessly over the surface, fusing in the same furnace the grosser ores which he threw aside, and following up the numerous rich veins which he neglected to pursue. And who should be the subtle alchymist ? who but C. Clarkson, whose industry and fidelity are on record in his substantial sterling quarto, [a History of the Town of Richmond, published in 4to. 1821,] which will be a book of reference and authority as long as Swale washes the castled cliffs of Richmond ; but I fear too much has been done to expect this, and Whitaker will at least stop the way for years against any regular and ample historian. To correct merely the errata of Richmondsliire would be a tedious task ; to fix where additional information and illustration should terminate is still less easy. A mere account of parochial churches and fonts, with scattered touches of landscapes, and reflections here and there pro re nata, which recall the best days of Whitaker to mind, compose the whole work, and to render it complete
xxxn
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
result of this abortive attempt at a " General History of the County of York ;" and a recent critic, after paying a just tribute to "Whitaker's scholarship and taste, the liveliness of his fancy, and the vigorous beauty of his style, has plainly pronounced his last work to be at once the most pretentious and the most defective of all the county histories ever published.1 We have still to mention another scheme of Dr. Whitaker's latter years, to which he had evidently been persuaded to assent at the solicitation of his publishers, but for which he probably did no more than write the following Prospectus, which we reprint without hesitation as eminently characteristic of the writer, as well as being one of his latest compositions :
Proposals for publishing by Subscription, an Historical and Descriptive Account of the ABBEYS AND CASTLES IN YOUKSIIIRK, BY TIIOJIAS DUNHAM WHITAKER, LL.D. F.R.S. F.S.A. illustrated by a series of views, drawn and engraved by W. Wcstall, A.R. A. and F. Mackenzie. The existing remains of monastic antiquity in the County of York are beyond all comparison the most
interesting and magnificent in the kingdom.
The peculiarly durable materials with which they were constructed have hitherto resisted the operation
of atmospheric causes ; the remote situation in which many of them were placed has afforded no inducement
to their removal; and modern taste has in many instances prompted their owners to preserve them with due
care and veneration.
With all their durability, however, they must finally, though slowly, perish; and walls constructed
with all the skill, and united by the most durable cement of the middle ages, can have no pretensions to
survive the art of the graver and the multiplying powers of the press.
Much, it may be said, has already been done to rescue from oblivion these precious and slowly perishing
remnants of ancient wealth, elegance, and devotion.
a sturdy detail should be given of the descent of property and blood." See the rest of this letter, in which the writer proceeds to urge his friend Raine to give up his school and undertake this task, in the Memoir of Surtees, by Taylor and Raine, (Surtees Society, 1852,) p. 404. Of Mr. Surtees's own work it was very justly remarked by a critic in the Retrospective Review (ix. 229) that it " constitutes one of the best and most perfect specimens of County History that it has been our fortune to meet with, blending together, in very happy proportions, the severer labours of the genealogist and antiquary, and the more congenial reflections and illustrations of the man of taste and feeling."
The article here quoted appeared in the Retrospective Review in 1824. It is a general retrospect of the more important works of English Topography, in which those of Whitaker receive particular attention, and it is remarked that " No work of County History has hitherto issued from the press (not excepting even Sir Richard Hoare's magnifi- cent Wiltshire) so splendid in respect both of typography and graphic illustrations as Dr. Whitaker's Richmondshire; and yet, with all the author's high reputation and acknowledged talent, few (we believe) have fallen so short of the expectations formed by readers of real science and desirous of substantial information, principally in those very points in which we have represented Mr. Baker [in his History of Northamptonshire] as far excelling. That the causes of this failure are to be met with in the ill-directed spirit of enterprise evinced by the publishers, rather than in any defect of judgment on the part of the author, is an inference due, perhaps, to this eminent character; but it is not to be the less lamented that he surrendered his judgment to those who, with all their skill in what constitutes the external attractions, are so much less competent judges as to the essential requisite of works of learning and science. The imaginative faculty, and enthusiastic spirit of the genuine antiquary, are however displayed in almost every page of his History."
1 The Rev. James Raine, M.A. Canon of York, on the Materials for the Topography of the Wapentake of Agbrigg, 23 Jan. 1863, published in the Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal, i. 14.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. xxxiii
To say nothing of the rude attempts which, in the comparative infancy of drawing and sculpture, were made to perpetuate the monastic ruins of this great county, elaborate drawings, and even paintings, have at a late period been employed to represent them ; but the best of these have not only never been engraved, but were never intended either to be multiplied or even copied ; while such representations, as they possess the value, have also the instability and insecurity of manuscripts, besides that they partake of the same difficulty of access.
Nay, even in those partial attempts 'which have hitherto been made to perpetuate these remains by engraving united with verbal description, the former mode of representation has too often failed from want of skill, or where skill has not been wanting, from want of multiplicity in the points for representation under the same general subject. One or two of these have generally been thought sufficient for the satisfaction of general curiosity, whereas on nicer and more judicious inspection, or by the adoption of plans more liberal and comprehensive, points in the highest degree interesting and beautiful, even within the compass of the same ruin, may be multiplied with success, while additional lights are thrown on the specific uses and destination of different apartments in monastic edifices, highly illustrative of the habits of their ancient inhabitants.
With these impressions strongly operating on their minds, the projectors of the present undertaking presume to lay this Prospectus before the Public, pledging themselves to present to them a series of Engravings from drawings of monastic remains in the County of York, more numerous, and more correct, at least, than have ever been attempted in any former instance.
These Engravings will be accompanied by verbal descriptions annexed to each article, which, although they aspire not to the elaborate research or minute details of works purely and locally devoted to the illustration of single objects or confined districts, will be found equally remote from the trite repetitions, the slight and shallow descriptions, and, above all, the copied and multiplied errors in nomenclature, chronology, and even facts, which have usually disgraced the flimsy narratives of those who were content to have the author considered as merely subsidiary to the engraver, and, without the labour of investigation or even the exercise of reflection, to tread the same paths of indolent and unthinking error, which their predecessors in the same walk have, with servile deference to authorities of no value, been willing to tread before them.
Conditions. The Work will be divided into distinct portions, each portion to be complete in itself. The first will consist of Rivaulx and Byland Abbeys and Hclmsley Castle, in eleven Numbers.
The first Number to appear in November, 1819, and to be published Monthly, each Number to contain three Plates, with descriptive Letterpress, price 10s. Gd.
The Work to correspond with the " Views of the Caves in Yorkshire ; " a few Copies will be taken ofF on large paper, with proof impressions of the plates, to illustrate "Dr. Whitaker's History of Yorkshire."
London: Printed for Hurst, Robinson, and Co. (late Boydell's), 90, Cheapside. Subscriptions received by Robinson and Co. Leeds; Whitley, Halifax; Wolstenholme and Todd, York; and Wilson and Rodford, Hull.
It is believed that the design thus announced was not pursued at the time,1 either under the care of Dr. Whitaker or any other editor. The previous work on the Caves of Yorkshire,2 to which the advertisement refers, was a thin volume that had been produced in 1818 by William Westall, A.R.A.
1 At a subsequent date a portion of its design has been carried out in The Monastic Ruins of Yorkshire, sixty plates from drawings by William Kichardson, architect, in two vols. folio, 1843-1855. The descriptions, however, by the Rev. Edward Churton, M.A. do not fulfil Dr. Whitaker's intention, if we accept the criticism passed upon them in Boyne's Yorkshire Library, p. 25.
3 " Views of the Caves near Ingleton, Gordale Scar, and Malham Cove, in Yorkshire. Drawn and engraved by
XXXIV
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
Having now reviewed the whole of Dr. "Whitaker's labours in topography, it remains for us to notice his other literary efforts. When he had completed the History of Craven, in the spring of 1806, his thoughts recurred to a project which he had entertained in early life, and which he thus described in a letter to his friend Mr. Wilson of Clitheroe : —
I am now meditating a new work, but of such magnitude and importance, that I fear you will seriously
advise me to consider
quid ferre recusent,
Quid valeant burner!.
In short, it is no less than a History of the Roman Empire connected with that of the Christian Church, upon a new plan. For this, however, I have large materials. The first fifteen years of my residence here (at Holme) after leaving college was principally devoted to the study of the Greek and Latin Historians of this period, together with select works of the Fathers.
The great objection is the fame and splendour of Mr. Gibbon's History. This, however, will be acknowledged in its utmost extent; and the work will be given to the public merely as one which the pious may read without a sigh, and the modest without a blush, neither of which can be said to be the case with respect to that great but depraved and mischievous performance.
It will require, I think, the unremitting attention of ten years, which at forty-seven, or indeed at any age, it would be presumptuous for a man to promise himself with any certainty; but with me to be employed is to be happy, and if I die in harness, I shall at least have the satisfaction of dying innocently and perhaps usefully employed.
We have already seen that during the years which followed the date of this letter Dr. Whitaker was occupied by literary engagements that left no room for the great design which is here sketched out : at the same time it is obvious how well these studies must have armed him for the article on Gibbon which (it will be found hereafter) he contributed to the Quarterly Review in 1814.
Another important literary project which Whitaker entertained was a new edition of Horsley's Britannia Eomana. It is mentioned thus in his letter to Mr. Nichols of the 16th June, 1810, already in part quoted : —
I many years ago projected an edition of Horsley's Britannia Eomana, but was deterred from prosecuting it by the expense of the plates, as the old ones could not be found. For this Work I have very ample materials by me, and as I now find that the engravings, being mere scratches, could scarcely double the expense of the copper, I should think no bookseller, either of enterprise or opulence would feel that circumstance any objection to undertaking it. If liberal offers were made me so as to indemnify me for the expense of journeys, &c. I would engage to keep the press employed from this time, and to make the work a perfect Sylloge of Roman Inscriptions discovered in Britain to the present day.
Horsley's work, which was published in 1732, has never been reprinted ; but many portions of its materials have been reproduced, in a very superior style, in the publica- tions of Samuel Lysons, Dr. Collingwood Bruce, and others. The work1 of the Society of
William Westall, A.R.A. F.L.S. London: published by John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1818." Small folio and 4to. pp. 8. Twelve plates, aquatinted. This work has been overlooked by Mr. Boyne, who has described other books on the same subject in his Yorkshire Library, pp. 124, 125.
Lapidarium Septentrionale : or, a Description of the Monuments of Roman Rule in the North of England.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. xxxv
Antiquaries of Newcastle (mentioned at p. 25 of the present volume) realises Dr. Whitaker's proposals so far as the North of England is concerned ; whilst the more comprehensive Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, undertaken by the Royal Prussian Academy in 1863, promises to extend to the province of Britannia as complete a sylloge of its Roman inscriptions as it has already provided for Hispania, 1 and under the care of the same laborious editor, JEmilius Hiibner.
Dr. Whitaker's constant study of Tacitus directed him to a minor effort, which was undertaken, rather as an amusement than a task. It was a treatise, in the language and
* O o
style of his favourite Latin author, on the Rebellion of 1745. Tor the materials of this he almost wholly relied on the History of that period by John Home, first published in 1802. It is entitled "De Motu per Britanniam Civico, Annis MDCCXLV. ct MDCCXLVI. Liber Unicus, 1809." 12mo. pp. 145. Only 250 copies were printed. It was dedicated to his old college friend, Dr. Herbert Marsh, then Lady Margaret's Professor, and after- wards Bishop of Llandaff and Peterborough, and reviewed2 very carefully by a critic no less competent than Mr. (afterwards Bishop) Copleston 3 in the Quarterly Review, February 1811, vol. v. p. 84,.
In 1810 Dr. Whitaker edited " The Life and Original Correspondence of Sir George Radcliffe, Knt. LL.D. the friend of the Earl of Stratford," in 4to. pp. 296. Of this volume 600 copies were printed, of which 100 were on royal paper. Its materials were derived from original papers which had remained in an old chest at Overthorpe near Dewsbury, the residence of Sir George Radcliffe ; * for access to which the Editor was indebted to " the friendship and curiosity of Mr. Beaumont," and Dr. Whitaker took this opportunity to acknowlege the favours which he had previously received from the same hand in the Histories of Whalley and Craven. The volume was inscribed " To Richard Henry Beaumont, Esq. of Whitley Beaumont in Yorkshire, E.S.A. as a memorial of the uninter- rupted and pleasing intercourse on antiquarian subjects which has long subsisted between
Published by the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In small folio. Part I. 1870. Part II. 1871. A third part will complete the work.
1 The second volume of the Imperial Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, published in 18G9, consists of Inscriptiones Hispania Latince edidit ^Emilms Hiibner.
2 More briefly, but less favourably, in the Monthly Review for September 1810. Also in the Gentleman's Magazine for April 1809. By a note written in Llssex Street, January 24, 1809, Dr. Whitaker directed presentation copies of this little book to be sent to—" John Towneley, Esq. 7, Park Street, Westminster ; the Rev. Thomas Sheepshanks, Wimpole, near Royston; the Rev. Dr. Marsh, Cambridge; Richard Heber, Esq. near Elliott's Brewery, Westminster; the Rev. Reginald Heber; the Bishop of Chester (Dr. Majendie), Amen Corner;" and one to Mr. Nichols himself.
3 Mr. Copleston writes to his father, 13th Jan. 1811: "The employments which have detained me here are various. One of them is that which you guess — a contribution to the Quarterly Revieiv. Much communication has passed between me and the editor (Gifford) on that subject." See the rest of this letter in the Memoir of Edward Copleston, D.D., Bishop of Llandaff, 1851, p. 40, and at p. 347 the list of the Bishop's contributions to the Quarterly Review, of which this was the first.
4 "Dr. Whitaker has the pleasure of informing Mr. Nichols that having now obtained most of Sir George Radcliffe 's original papers he can say with something like accuracy, that the work will afford matter for a thin Quarto about the size of Dr. Zouche's Life of Sir Philip Sidney, and in the same type." (Letter from Holme, October 14, 1808.)
XXXVI
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
himself and the compiler, and as an acknowledgement of the many literary obligations conferred by him upon the latter, during the progress of two laborious works,' already in the possession of the public."
" On the whole, this volume may be considered as a sequel to the Collection of Lord Stafford's Letters (1739), to the Editor of which (W. Knowler) the contents of it were evidently unknown ; and for that reason, had the quantity of matter permitted, it would have been expanded into a thin folio, in order to bind up uniformly with that magnificent work. By means, indeed, of Carte's Life of Ormond, andThurloe's State Papers, this object might still have been accomplished, had not an aversion to the modern art of book-making long since determined me, in every collection I might lay before the public, to confine myself to original matter." Preface, p. vi.
1 Namely, the History of Whalley and the History of Craven. In the Preface to the Second Edition of the latter, Dr. Whitaker introduced the following passages:
" Scarcely had Mr. Beaumont, whose latest correspondence with the Author was on the subject of the present volume (the Second Edition of the History of Craven) received from him a public testimony of grateful friendship, in the Dedication to the Life and Correspondence of Sir George liadcliffe, when he also was no more. On this occasion the writer waited till those who stood nearer, or were more obliged than himself, had time to discover that talents for panegyric are best directed to living objects. This silence, however, far better than ill-judged flattery, has left space for fact and truth. Let it now therefore be told, without offence, that his peculiarities were great, and his prejudices strong ; he had a clear understanding and a tenacious memory, which, after his return from Italy, were devoted principally to the study of English History and Antiquities. Inheriting a fine estate, and having never married, he became, through the ardour of this pursuit, an hermit in a palace ; for such was his house at Whitley. At his other mansion of Little Mitton, in which he took great delight, he was wont to say, that he contended with the owls for possession. His apartments were not merely strewed, but piled, with books and papers of his own transcribing. No man living had taken the same pains with Dodsworth's MSS. or was so well qualified to make an Index to that confused but valuable collection. As a Magistrate, he was skilful aiid upright, but very irascible, and altogether irreconcilable to everything which he thought improper in the conduct of his brethren. He was a warm and faithful friend, and more especially u literary friend ; but subject to fits of resentment, which, if he thought well of the objects of them on the whole, were easily appeased. To his indigent acquaintance the large sums which he professed to lend were eventually given. His liberality to his immediate relatives knew no bounds but the extent of his means, and scarcely even that. With an income of little less than 10,000/. per annum and no personal expense (for he was remarkably inattentive both to his own comforts and to external appearance), his estate was left somewhat in debt. He had all the pride of ancient descent, and with it an high sense of honourj which, together with his good understanding, would not permit him to be either duped or flattered by the ascription of alliances to which he had no claim. He knew and despised all the tricks of pedigree-mongers, and when some herald, whom he employed to marshal the bearings of his family, had officiously inserted that of the Viscounts and Barons Beaumont, he struck the quartering out with his own hand, saying to the writer of the present article, — ' These are honourable bearings, but they belong not to me.' [There is a large folio plate of the arras and quarterings, the latter twenty-eight in number, of Beaumont of Whitley Beaumont, in the History of Leeds, p. 338.] His eye, when an object could be brought within its short focus, was perfectly microscopical; and he was perhaps the best reader of ancient charters in his time. For the same reason he was an excellent judge of forgeries. Such were the mixed qualities, such the head and heart, of this singular man, delineated at a distance of time sufficient to allow the first feelings of surviving friendship to cool ; without partiality therefore, but not without affection. He died November 22, 1810, aged 61, and was interred in the family chapel within the church of Kirk Heaton."
I have judged it not inappropriate to transplant this from the Preface to the History of Craven, where few would think of looking for it, to the present place, after having in vol. ii. p. 25 of the present volume extracted the slighter tribute to the memory of Mr. Beaumont which I found under Whitley in the Loidis and Elmete. (J. G. N.)
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. xxxvii
.
Whilst inquiring into the History of Lonsdale, the attention of Dr. Whitaker was directed to the works of Archbishop Sandys, a native of Hawkshead in Furness, which led him to re-edit, in 1812, " The Sermons of Dr. Edwin Sandys, formerly Archbishop of York ; with a Life of the Author," in Svo.1
At the same time Dr. Whitaker was engaged upon the works of an old poet, from whose graphic and caustic lines he has made frequent quotations in the course of the present volume.2 The History of Craven had introduced him to the family of Heber,3 and that circumstance had farther introduced him to an intimate acquaintance with the works of William Langland, " the first English satirist," * of which Mr. Richard Heber placed two . MS. copies at his service.5 These poems had been printed shortly after the Reformation, in the years 1550 and 1561, but at no later date, and when Dr. Whitaker devoted his attention to them they were known chiefly from the comments of Tynvhitt and Warton. Dr. Whitaker determined to follow for his text one of the MSS. lent him by Mr. Heber, which he was disposed to regard as a monument of " the true Mercian language, as far as it remained uncorrupted by additions since the Conquest : 6 " affirming, further,7 " that the orthography and dialect in which this MS. is written approach very near to that semi- Saxon jargon, in the midst of which he was brought up, and which, notwithstanding some
1 The previous editions of these Sermons had been in 1585 (during the Archbishop's life), and in 1016. More recently they have been republished in 1841, by the Parker Society, under the superintendence of the Rev. John Eyre, M.A. ; who, strange to say, neither recognises Dr. Whitaker's edition nor his biographical memoir. But the latter is " generally followed " (xxvii. 136) by Alexander Chalmers in his Biographical Dictionary 1816 : see also the Athena; Cantabrigienses, by Cooper, ii. 24.
3 See pp. 102, 122, 126, 137. It is asserted in Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual, that "The value of the old editions is not at all lessened by the reprint of Dr. Whitaker, as he has carefully suppressed all the passages relating to the indecent lives and practices of the Romish Clergy ; " and this statement, having been adopted by Mr. Grenville, is repeated in the Catalogue of the Grenville Library. But what can have suggested this imputation upon Whitaker's editorial fidelity it is difficult to conceive. His quotations made in The History of Whalley have rather the opposite tendency ; and I learn from Mr. Skeat that any omissions of lines in Dr. Whitaker's edition are evidently accidental, arising from editorial oversight and not from intention.
3 " Richard Heber, of Marton, esq. a name familiar to every scholar, has obligingly communicated all that was of importance in the evidences of his family, together with a plate of Marton Hall ; and his brother Thomas Heber, esq. of Brazennose College, Oxford, has kindly transcribed several curious particulars from the MSS. of Dodsworth and Ashmole. It is not the least useful or pleasing circumstance attending such undertakings that they introduce their author to the acquaintance of men whose virtues and accomplishments he could otherwise have known only through the medium of general reputation." Preface to the History of Craven, 1805.
* Dr. Whitaker dedicated " To Richard Heber, esq. of Hodnet, co. Salop, this edition of the first English satirist, his old and spirited countryman," — adopting the statement of Bale that Langland was a native of Shropshire. The designation was borrowed from Bishop Hall, who, in his own satires, claimed to be the second English satirist, referring to the author of Piers Ploughman as his predecessor.
8 Both Mr. Heber's MSS. passed into the collection of the late Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., of Middlehill and Cheltenham. That from which Dr. Whitaker printed is now the MS. Phillipps 8231, formerly Heber 973. Of the other, MS. Phillipps 8252, formerly Heber 1088, he made but little use, nor of a MS. which was lent him from Oriel College, by the favour of Mr. Copleston (afterwards Bishop of Llandaff). But a full description of the last will be found in Mr. Skeat's Preface to his B. text, pp. xvi — xx.
6 Introduction, p. xxxii. T Ibid.
xxxvm
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
inroads within the last half-century upon its archaisms, he continues to hear daily spoken on the confines of Lancashire, and the West Riding of the county of York."
Dr. Whitaker had made arrangements for this work with Mr. John Murray the publisher, then of Fleet Street, and soon after of Albeniarle Street, before the close of the year 1810 ; ' but the book was not produced until 1813, when it appeared under the following title :
Visio WilVi de Petro Plonhman , Item Visiones ejusdem de Dowel, Dobet, et Dobest, or, The Vision of William toncerning Piers Plouhman, and The Visions of the same concerning the Origin, Progress, and Perfection of the Christian Life. Ascribed to Robert Langland, a secular priest of the County of Salop ; and written in, or immediately after, the year MCCCLXII. Printed from a MS. contemporary with the Author, collated . with two others of great antiquity, and exhibiting the original Text; together with an Introductory Discourse, a Perpetual Commentary, Annotations, and a Glossary. By THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER, LL.D. F.S.A. Vicar of Whalley, and Rector of Heysham, in Lancashire. London : printed for John Murray, Albemarle Street, MDCCCXIII.
The dissertation which is prefixed to this volume may, for the elegance of its style and language, if not for the accuracy of all its conclusions, be still read with pleasure and advantage : but as a critical work this edition of Piers Plowman has been completely superseded by the labours of subsequent editors,2 and the more exact scholarship in the
1 " Mr. Murray, the bookseller in Fleet Street, has undertaken to publish for me an edition of Peirce Plowman's Visions, which I mean to print from two original MSS. with a Commentary, Notes, Glossary and preliminary Disser- tation. I have made it a condition that you should print it if you thought proper, as also a new edition of the History of Whalley. With respect to the first book, Mr. Murray wishes it to be a large Octavo. I should certainly prefer a Quarto, especially as I doubt whether one octavo volume will contain the Text, Notes, &c., but I shall not vehemently contend about it. Booksellers are the best judges of the mechanical parts of authorship ... As Mr. Murray is your neighbour, may 1 beg the favour of you to confer with him on these subjects, and inform me of the result." (Letter to Mr. Nichols, Dec. 20, 1810.) Eventually the book was printed by Mr. Joseph Harding, of St. John's Square, London. It is printed in black letter, with many rubrications, and decorated with woodcut head and tail pieces, and is said to have cost 400Z. The price at which it was published was eight guineas.
1 Mr. Thomas Wright, M.A. F.S.A. has published two popular editions, in 1843, and 1856; and more recently the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A., besides producing a manual edition of the first seven Passus of the Visions in the Clarendon Press Series, 18C9, has bestowed, and is still bestowing, the most persevering attention on the writings of this great mediasval poet in the series of the Early English Text Society. There Mr. Skeat's labours are in five divisions: 1. Parallel extracts from twenty-nine manuscripts of Piers Plowman, 1866. (Mr. Skeat has now, May 1872, traced as many as forty-two MSS.) 2. The Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman, together with Vita de Doivel, Dobet, et Dobest, secundum Wit et Resoun, by William Langland, Part I. the text (written about 1362) from the Vernon MS. in the Bodleian Library. 1867. 3. Part II. the text (circ. 1377), from a Laud MS. in the Bodleian Library, being nearly identical with that printed by Crowley in 1550. 1869. 4. Part III., the text (circ. 1390), from MS. Phillipps 8231, being the same as that edited by Dr. Whitaker, but with many hundred emendations and collations from several other MSS. This will be accompanied by a revised edition of Langland's very striking poem on the Deposition of Richard II. of which only one MS. has been found, but which has been twice edited by Mr. Wright, first for the Camden Society and afterwards in his Political Poems, in the Master of the Rolls' Series. 5. A General Preface, Notes, and a Glossary to all the three texts.' The two latter volumes have still to appear. An essay by Mr. Skeat, on the life and writings of William Langland, may also be found in Hazlitt's Edition of Warton's History of English Poetry, 1871, vol. ii. p. 244.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. xxxix
ancient forms of the English language which has since heen cultivated ; indeed, Dr. Whitaker felt himself bound to make many apologies for " the languor of bad health," and his want of leisure, in excuse for faults that might possibly have been attributed to the indolence and carelessness of the Editor,1 and many of which he himself admitted in a very long list of Corrigenda.
But even his title-page contains several errors. The author's name was really William Langland, not Robert, though this misnomer is as old as his earliest biographer, John Bale. There is no proof that he was a secular priest of the county of Salop ; and though his Visions were first written in 1362, or immediately after, the version edited by Dr. Whitaker is of a considerably later date (circ. 1390). Langland had nothing to do with the North of England : but all the localities he mentions are towards the South, and most of his allu- sions are to London. In the prologue to his Visions he imagines himself dreaming on the Malvern hills ; but his presumed connection with the county of Salop rests only upon the unsupported assertion of Bale that he was born at Cleobury Mortimer ; whereas another account states that his father was a gentleman at Shipton under Wichwood in Oxfordshire,2 and, though he styles himself a clerk, he could scarcely have been either a secular priest or a monk, as he mentions both Kitte his wife and his daughter Calotte.3 In regard to language Dr. Whitaker's text is not that peculiar to his own district, but rather a West Midland dialect with admixture of Southern forms : and he was very much mistaken in regarding it as the " original " text of the poet.4
In 1814 Dr. Whitaker edited "Pierce the Ploughman's Crede,"5 uniformly with his edition of the Visions, but reprinted from its first edition in 1553, for he was not aware of
1 Preface, pp. xl. xli.
9 " Memorandum quod Stacy de Rokayle, pater Willielmi de Langlond, qui Stacius fuit generosus, et morabatur in Schiptone under Whicwode, tenens domini le Spenser in comitatu Oxon. qui prsedictus Willielmus fecit librum qui vocatur Piers Ploughman." (MS. in Trin. Coll. Dublin.) This may account for his naming the neighbouring abbey of Abingdon as the representative of monastic institutions in general, in that remarkable passage which in the opinion of some of his admirers has raised him almost to the dignity of a prophet.
And thanne shal the Abbot of Abyndoun and alle his issu for evere Have a knokke of a Kynge and incurable the wounde.
Passus x. 326.
3 Whether the author adopted this as a blind may perhaps be a question, but Mr. Skeat is disposed to understand him as speaking literally and truly. Kitte is mentioned twice at least. See Mr. Skeat's observations on the author's name and life in the Preface to his Part I. of the Vision, p. xxxiv : also the catalogue of the poet's allusions to himself, to places, and to circumstances, in Mr. Skeat's Preface to Part II. p. xl.
4 I state this as the conclusion formed by Mr. Skeat, who remarks, further, " Of course there are certain words which also occur in the Lancashire dialect, and quite enough similarity to the Lancashire dialect to have led Dr. Whitaker to his opinion ; but the true locality of the version is more towards Worcestershire, Herefordshire, or Shropshire." The author's own language is thought to be most faithfully represented in the Laud MS., from which Mr. Skeat's B-Text (in his Part II.) has been edited ; and that MS. is possibly an autograph of Langland. Mr. Wright's text is substantially the same.
5 The title is: " Pierce the Ploughman's Crede. London: Reprinted by T. Bensley, Bolt Court, Fleet Street, for Lackington, Allen and Co. Finsbury Square, and Robert Triphook, St. James's Street, 1814." It was published at 1Z. Us. 6d.
/2
xl BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
the existence of any manuscript copies.1 He wrote only a single page of introduction, dated April 20, 1814.
The relish which Dr. Whitaker had always possessed for philological inquiries was sharpened by the study of Piers Plowman, which impelled him to take a still deeper interest than before in the vernacular speech of his humble neighbours. John Collier, a schoolmaster at Milnrow, near Rochdale, had during the last century set forth with much dexterity and mother-wit some specimens of that vernacular, under the assumed character of "Tim Bobbin," which soon attained an extended popularity that has endured to the present day. The Historian of Whalley, in a note which will be found at p. 234 of the pre- sent volume, has expressed an enthusiastic commendation of Collier's compositions ; and in a letter to the late J. H. Marklancl, esq. D.C.L. F.R.S. and F.S.A. (dated Holme, Aug. 20, 1818), Whitaker writes: — " Were there not something indecorous in my undertaking the office of Editor to such a performance, I should undoubtedly do it ; and perhaps, after striking out a few passages, I may even now venture upon it, though anonymously. In that event I will ask the favour of the use of your copy, in order to enable me to give an account of the insertion."
The MS. alluded to, possessed by Mr. Markland, was an autograph of Collier, of eleven octavo pages, being the episode which is printed in Bamford's edition (1850) of the Lanca- shire Dialect, but with many remarkable variations. 2 It was wholly in Collier's hand- writing, though Dr. Whitaker had been inclined to attribute it in part to some clever imitator of Tim Bobbin's compositions.3
At an early stage of The Quarterly Eevleio Dr. Whitaker was invited to take a part in it : he consented, and for many years was one of its most constant contributors. The following list of his articles, though probably not complete, is so far as it goes authentic,4 and is sufficient to show the range of subjects upon which he undertook to write. : —
1 It had been appended to the Vision by Owen Rogers in 1561, but does not occur in all his copies. It also accompanies the Visions in Mr. Wright's editions. Mr. Skeat has edited it separately, as No. xxx. of the Works of the Early English Text Society, and has appended to it God spede the Plough, a short poem written about A.D. 1500. Mr. Skeat has availed himself of two MSS. of the Crede, which furnish many improvements upon the old printed copies. The Crede was not composed by the same author as the Visions, but by one who imitated his metre and satirical tone, about A.D. 1394. The later writer was an avowed Wyclilfite. There is nothing to show that Langland was a follower of Wycliffe, though he may have regarded his teaching with complacency. The author of the Crede is unknown, but Mr. Skeat attributes to his pen The Complaint of the Ploughman, one of the poems formerly assigned to Chaucer. (Preface, pp. xi. xiv.)
2 In the same letter he thanks Mr. Markland for a copy of his " elegant and curious edition of the Chester Myste- ries, (printed for the Roxburghe Club,) which exhibit a singular and interesting picture of ancient manners in the combi- nation of religion, grossness, and buffoonery." I quote from a transcript made by Mr. Markland for Mr. Canon Kaines in 1855.
* For further particulars on this subject reference should be made to the essays on the South Lancashire Dialect by the late Thomas Heywood, esq. F. S. A., published in the third volume of the Chttham Miscellanies; the second of which is particularly on " Tim Bobbin and its author."
4 It is formed from two lists kindly furnished by James Crossley, esq. F. S. A. of Manchester, one of which was given by Bishop Heber to the Doctor's widow. See also the list of writers in the Quarterly given in the Gentleman's
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER.
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Sermons by Dr. Paley, and Meadley's Life of Paley. l Bawdwen's Translation of the Eecord called Domesday. Bishop Warburton's Letters. Churton's Life of Dean Nowell. Milner's History of Winchester. Bishop Horsley's Sermons, vols. I. and II. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography. Chalmers's Caledonia.
Sir R. Colt Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire, Part I. Lysons's Magna Britannia. Milner's Ecclesiastical Architecture. Churton's Life of Archdeacon Townson. Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire, Part II. Buchanan's Christian Researches in Asia. Lingard's Antiquities of the Saxon Church. Kurd's Edition of Warburton's Works.3 Gait's Life of Cardinal \Volsey. Belsham's Memoirs of the Kev. Theophilus Lindsay. Bishop Horsley's Sermons, vol. III. MacCrie's Life of John Knox. Gray's Works, by Mathias.
Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, edited by Lord Sheffield. Wordsworth's Poems. 3
Cox's Life of Melancthon, and Bonney's Life of Jeremy Taylor. The Works of Mason. Chalmers on the Christian Revelation. The Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of LandafF. Gisborne's Natural Theology.
During the prevalence of that system of publication which issued books at very high prices, hut for which the number of purchasers was necessarily limited, the stipulation of the Copyright Act by which so many as eleven copies were required to be supplied gratuitously to the universities and other public libraries, was felt to be a very severe tax
Magazine, Feb. 1844. From the present Mr. Murray I have received confirmation as to the authorship of the articles on Jeremy Taylor, Mason, and Gisborne; but he possesses no list of the writers before No. xxiii.
1 " The estimation of Paley's talents (in this article, remarks Dr. Dibdin. in his Library Companion, p. 88,) seems to me to be a little unworthy of that great man's name ;" but in a note attention is directed to Dr. Whitaker's subsequent article on Gisborne, in which Paley is termed an " admirable writer — wherever he turned his eyes, the prospect was illuminated by bright skies and cloudless sunshine." And in the History of Craven, p. 129, he says " if any earthly object can render extreme old age desirable (as in the case of Dr. Paley's parents) it must be to see a beloved son risen to great literary reputation and advanced by his own merit to wealth and dignities in the church."
* " The review of Warburton's Works (supposed to have been written by the late Rev. Dr. Whitaker) is perhaps one of the most perfect specimens of acute analysis and impassioned eloquence that the pages of modern criticism record." Dibdin's Library Companion, 1824, p. 88.
8 A previous article on Wordsworth in vol. xii. was by Charles Lamb ; " but so mercilessly mangled by Mr. Gifford the Editor that I entreated Wordsworth not to read it." — Charles Lamb's Letters, p. 323.
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xlii BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
by publishers and authors. One of the Petitions that were from time to time presented to the House of Commons for the redress of this grievance, bears the name of Dr. Whitaker as the first of its numerous signatures, and possibly the petition itself was in whole, or in part, drawn by him.1
In the composition of Latin Inscriptions he had much taste and skill. Besides those to his own family at Holme, others will be found in this work to the memory of Dr. Holmes at Haslingden, and Mr. Wilson at Clitheroe. The epitaph of Mr. Charles Towneley at Burnley has been attributed 2 to his pen ; but the terms in which he intro- duces it at the close of his memoir of Mr. Towneley makes this very doubtful. Two inscriptions which he wrote, for the tomb of Archdeacon Paley, and for an intended monument to Ralph Thoresby the historian, are preserved only upon paper.3
The peace of Dr. Whitaker's latter years, and his literary leisure, if not his health also, were considerably disturbed by the public commotions of the times, with which his residence at Blackburn, and his determination to fulfil all the duties of an acting magis- trate, brought him directly into contact. It was remarked by one of his intimate friends, the Rev. William Parker,4 that, "Though possessing a delicate frame, no violence of the Jacobinical mob, however malignant, no threatenings however diabolical, excited his fears, or prevented him from discharging the most laborious and dangerous office of a magistrate , in the disaffected district of Lancashire where he resided." Ordinarily (according to the same writer) " his eloquence was rarely exerted on political occasions. A friend of mine expressed his utmost astonishment when Dr. Whitaker addressed the meeting at Blackburn convened by the magistrates in order to support the arm of Government, and to check the nefarious designs of the lower ranks. The hall was crowded to excess, particularly by the Radicals. When the Doctor unexpectedly rose to address the meeting, he instantly poured forth such a torrent of eloquence, that the higher ranks were completely electrified, and the disaffected sneaked out one by one, overpowered by his arguments, or convicted by their consciences."
1 On further examination I have no doubt that this petition was prepared by Mr. Sharon Turner, F.S.A., a solicitor in Red Lion Square, and the well-known historian, whose signature is last of the " 65 authors of the first respectability," from whom it proceeded, as Dr. Whitaker's is the first. It was presented to the House of Commons April 6, 1818. My attention has been directed to it by its being entered under Dr. Whitaker's name in the Catalogue of the British Museum Library, where it forms part of a very curious volume (shelf-mark 515 1. 20) consisting of pamphlets and other documents on the Copyright question, collected by the Rev. Rogers Ruding, B.D., F.S.A., Vicar of Maldon in Surrey. This gentleman individually petitioned Parliament upon the same subject, stating that in his Annals of the Coinage of Great Britain, the value of the eleven copies taken was 1MI., and that if he attempted a second edition, with any improvements, which he could not deliver separately, he must deliver eleven copiss again. At the same time the loss arising from this cause on Dr. Whitaker's Leeds was reckoned as 16U. 14s. ; on Mr. Omerod's Cheshire 2381. 10s.
2 Baines, History of Lancashire, 1836, iii. 258; 1870, ii. 38; and Wilkinson's History of Burnley Church, 1869, p. 11. It seems unlikely that Dr. Whitaker would describe his own composition as " chosen for its classical purity and elegance." History of Whalley, Third edit., p. 487.
* See the former in Wilsons Miscellanies, p. 187 (its place in Carlisle Cathedral is occupied by a very few words in English,) and the latter in Mr. Hunter's preface to Thoresby's Diary, 1830, p. viii.
4 Under the lignature P. W. in the Leeds Intelligencer, shortly after Dr. Whitaker's death.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. xliii
It was considered desirable to confirm the impression made by Dr. Whitaker's efforts on this occasion by the publication of his address, which was printed as " The substance of a Speech delivered at a meeting of the Magistrates, Clergy, and other inhabitants of the Hundred of Blackburn, convened in order to enter into certain Resolutions, tending to support the Laws and Constitution of England. Blackburn, 1817." 8vo. This was also inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. Ixxxvii. i. 213.
On other occasions in the years which ensued there were further demands on Dr. "Whitaker's energies as a magistrate; as is still remembered by some living witnesses. Mr. Canon Raines, now Vicar of Milnrow, was present at Burnley, when during Henry Hunt's political disturbances in 1819 the Riot Act was read by Dr. Whitaker ; whose fine voice, dignified bearing, and haughty independence of manner, as displayed on that occasion, he has never forgotten.
Scarcely a year before his death there was a turn-out of the colliers of Altham, Padiham, and Hapton, who assembled in large numbers at Padiham, threatening to march riotously into Burnley. Many parties recommended that they should not be allowed to approach the town, but that they should be dispersed by the military. Dr. Whitaker, although an invalid, drove into Burnley on the day when the colliers were expected, and declared that he would not order the military out, until he had tried, in person, to persuade the mob to return. Accordingly he met them near Gannow, a mile out of the town, in a post-chaise; he was there helped into the driver's seat, from whence he harangued them so successfully that they agreed to go home quietly ; and such was the respect paid to him when he had finished, that the strong rough men lifted him down, like a child, and told him, " Doctor, put your foot here ; we will take care that you shall not be hurt."
When the political atmosphere had somewhat cleared, it was resolved that a public testimonial should be offered to Dr. Whitaker for these patriotic services ; and, upon the arrangements being completed, this was presented to him at a dinner held in the Assembly Room at Blackburn on St. George's day, April 23, 1821. The chair was filled by William Feilden, esq. (afterwards Sir William Feilden, hart.) of Feniscowles ; and John Hargreaves, esq. John Hornby, esq. and William Maude, esq. acted as Vice-Presidents. The offering consisted of a silver soup tureen, and four corner dishes, upon each of which was engraved the following inscription, with the armorial shield of Whitaker :
THOMAE • DVNHAM • WHITAKER • I • C • D • A • S • ATQVE • R • S • SODALI.
BLACKBVRNIAE • ET • WALLEIAE • SVAE • VICARIO. QVI • IN • MOTV • CIVILI • COERCENDO • MAGISTRATVM • GERENS •
OPTIME • DE • PATRIA • MERITVS • EST • ANIMIS • GRATIS • EX • AMICIS • NONVLLI • ET • VICIN1S •
D- D • D • ANNO • SACRO • M • D • C • C • C • X • X • I.
The Chairman, in his address to Dr. Whitaker, desired his acceptance of this testimony of the esteem which the subscribers entertained for him " as a Man and a Christian, and as
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
a token of their approbation of the great services he had afforded to the town and neighbourhood in his capacity of a Magistrate, during the late most aAvful and perilous times of Radicalism."
Dr. Whitaker replied in the following speech :•—
Mr. CHAIRMAN, — Permit me to return to yourself and to the Gentlemen now assembled, my heartfelt acknowlegements for the magnificent present which you have offered to my acceptance.
While I reflect upon the short and inconsiderable services rendered by me as a Magistrate in the town and neighbourhood of Blackburn, I cannot but be filled with confusion, when compelled to institute a comparison between two objects so incommensurate as those services and the splendid recompense which has been offered for them. Much rather therefore do I receive that recompense as a stimulus to future activity, an inducement to future usefulness. Never blessed however with a robust constitution, and shattered of late by attacks of actual disease. I feel my hopes and anticipations considerably damped, and the alliance almost inevitable between sickness and approaching age cannot, to the reflecting mind, but draw a dark cloud over the prospect. From one circumstance, however, I derive great encouragement, — the struggle of the last years we hope is over for ever; the people, too long wrought up by their deceivers, are returning to a better under- standing; our persons and our houses arc no longer threatened, and the great body of the inferior orders, long misled, are beginning to perceive and to feel the difference between real friends and artful seducers.
The most p nverful medicines are perhaps the most distasteful; and the exertions of a Magistrate who seeks not the praise of man are the same; but the favourable opinions expressed by spontaneous offerings of the wise, the wealthy, and the good, while they are not unfrcqucntly wanted, countervail very far all the irritation excited by the waywardness of others, and leave the object of them flattered at least by the assurance that his endeavours however imperfect, however unskilful, have not wholly been disapproved.
My connexion with you, though not of long continuance, has in many respects to myself been eminently delightful. How long it may be continued, and whether usefulness may not depart before life, it is impossible for you or for me to predict; but of one fact I feel assured, that if, in the close of life, bodily debility should leave any portion of mental energy, its last aspirations will be directed to the best interests, present and future, of the Parishes of Blackburn and Whalley.
After many months of impaired health Dr. Whitaker died at his vicarage in Blackburn on the 18th of December, 1821, in the G3rd year of his age. His funeral took place on the following Monday the 24th of December, when his body was conveyed for interment to his ancestral chapel at Holme. Many of the townsmen of Blackburn accompanied the procession, and others from Burnley and its neighbourhood testified their respect by joining it at that place.
Mr. Allen, who had long acted as Dr. Whitaker's amanuensis, had at this period deter- mined to enter the ministry of the Church, and it is remarkable that his ordination took place in the interval between the death and funeral of his revered master. The following letter (partly published at the time in the Gentleman's Magazine) may now be printed as it was written.
The Rev. S. J. Allen to Mr. Nichols.
Blackburn, December 26, 1821. Mr DEAR SIR,
I presume you have long before now received the sad tidings of our friend Dr. Whitaker's death. They were communicated to me on the Bishop of Chester's threshold just as I was entering to encounter his exami-
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER.
xlv
nation, and you may readily imagine what kind of a preparation they would be for that trial. I did however pass through without difficulty, was ordained on Sunday, and entered this Town on the day following, where the first sound I heard was that of the passing bell which announced that the grave had closed on all that was mortal of that excellent man, on whose loss I believe I cannot utter a sentiment in which you will not cor- dially unite.
It is impossible to describe what I felt at the sound ; every incident of the three happy weeks we spent together in Richmondshire, our journeys from Heysham, and indeed every circumstance of my intercourse with him at Holme and elsewhere, arose as vividly on my recollection as if they were but now transacting, and when I recalled to mind the fire of his eye, his eloquence and energy of manner, with his animated and venerable form, I could hardly persuade myself it was possible he could be dead.
You will I believe give me credit when I assert that the blasting of the small expectations I might have entertained of his patronage seemed the least part of my loss. The advice and countenance of such a man, the fund of information to be derived from his conversation, and the constant resource I should have had in his friendship, in a place where I knew nobody beside, seemed far more irreparable privations, and I still con- sider them so, though I have been received here in a very friendly manner, and have every prospect of com- fort during my stay.
I was at first disposed to regret deeply that I had not arrived in time to get a last glance of him living or dead, but from Mrs. Whitakerand family I received such information as much to diminish any regret on this account. He had never fully recovered the attack of paralysis he had last year, brought on by constant alarm and fatigue during the Eadical disturbances: it terminated in a nervous asthma from which, after experiencing incessant sufferings for some months, he was relieved by dropsy, the sure harbinger of dissolution. His mind also had suffered, and the fine imagination, retentive memory, and other faculties, at whose fancied decay we used to smile, were indeed in ruins before the body decayed, though intervals occurred to the last, in which, like the remains of those venerable structures he has so nobly described, his former brilliance seemed to return as an arch or a column erect amidst desolation, to tell how magnificent the structure had been. He was himself long conscious of the manner in which his disorder must terminate ; and before he left the Holme for the last time, he who had shivered to cross a stream, or descend a hill, for fear of death, walked calmly into his woods, and setting his back against a master tree of his own planting, compared its bulk with his own, and ordered it to be cut down and hollowed to form his coffin, which was done accordingly. In this he lies interred in the Holme Chapel, attended to the grave by all the Clergy and most of the Gentry of Blackburn, Whalley, and the neighbourhood.
The King has not living a more true and loyal subject, the Church a more useful and zealous minister, or the literary world a more distinguished ornament.
Yours sincerely,
S. J. A.
At the invitation of Mr. Nichols, the same gentleman undertook to compose, for insertion in the Gentleman's Magazine, a more extended memorial of his deceased patron, and, as no contemporary writer appears to have performed the task hetter, we will now avail ourselves of some of his remarks upon one whose manners and character he enjoyed so much opportunity to observe.
As a literary man, in which character he is most generally, though perhaps not most deservedly, known, lie was distinguished not less for industry and acuteness in research, accuracy of reasoning, and extent of knowledge, than warmth of imagination and vigour of style. To the study of English Antiquities, which the lovers of Greek and Roman lore too often affect to despise as barbarous and uninteresting, he brought a rich store of classical information, and, what is of much rarer occurrence, a correct and classical taste ; and
9
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
when to these we add the knowledge of such modern languages as throw most light on the subject, an intimate acquaintance with the Anglo-Saxon and Gothic dialects, on which our own is chiefly founded, and the habit of close attention to those numerous traces they have left in the rude tongue of the people around him, it may be admitted that few champions have appeared in the arena of antiquarian warfare more completely armed for the field.
To him we are chiefly indebted, if it has, in modern times, been discovered, that Topography may be united with the keenest relish for natural beauty, with the most devoted attachment to the Fine Arts, with the grave contemplation of the Moralist, the edifying labours of the Biographer, and the loftiest flights of
the Bard.
»**•*•
In the fields of verse he never rambled, though no man could better appreciate the merits of poetry,1 or more readily transfuse its chief graces into his own compositions. His style was nervous, yet elegant ; concise, yet fluent ; averse to the modern barbarisms and affectation which degrade the English tongue, but never hesitating to naturalize a foreign word, so it were of respectable origin, and would conform to the usages of its adopted country. In the use of simile and quotation he was remarkably happy ; but, above all, excelled in the faculty of painting (if it may be so called) the object before him — of seizing at once the chief features, whether of scenery, architecture, or human character, and, by a few well-chosen epithets, or by one masterly stroke, conveying a rapid but finished picture to the mind. In this respect he strongly resembled Camden ; and, had the custom of publishing in a learned language prevailed now, as it did in the Elizabethan age, we have reason to suppose, from his little work, " De Motu per Britanniam Civico," &c., that he would not have fallen short of that great Master in his Latin style.2 To his characteristic warmth, however, the defects as well as the merits of his works may be mainly ascribed ; nor is it to be wondered, that, though for the most part no less accurate than vivid in his ideas, his rapidity should now and then have overlooked an object worthy of notice, or represented it in a manner which a second glance would infallibly have corrected ; that in his opposition to principle, he should occasionally have appeared somewhat too unsparing of persons ; and that his zeal.when counteracted by those with whom reason and authority had about equal weight, should sometimes have defeated its own object, where partial concession, and a more conciliatory tone, might have prevailed.
1 Mr. Mitford in his Preface (p. xxi.) to the Correspondence of Gray and Mason, remarks that Dr. Whitaker " added to great acquirements much of the elegance and enthusiasm of the poetic mind." Gibbon, in a note to his History, had lamented " that Gray, instead of compiling tables of chronology and natural history, did not apply the powers of his genius to finish the philosophical poem of which he left so exquisite a specimen," — but a later writer, Dr. Whitaker, (remarks Mr. Mitford,) in his admiration of Gray's genius, has far exceeded the cautious language and the moderate desires of the Historian, and has regretted to behold " that fatal gulf of pertinacious industry in which the fire and genius of Gray were swallowed up, and which perhaps extinguished in its first conception some great epic work which would have placed the author on the level which he was entitled to ascend — that of Spenser or Tasso." (Quarterley Review, xi. 306: Whitaker's own words are now given, which the printer of Mr. Mitford's Preface, doubt- less in consequence of his very bad manuscript, has materially altered.)
1 The admiration which Whitaker entertained of Camden's style of composition may be perceived, not only in his review of the Britannia of Lysons, (Quarterly Review, May, 1811,) but in that he wrote upon Chalmers's Caledonia (November 1810). Of the latter work he says, " Written in a very inferior language, it will notwithstanding be allowed to rank with the immortal Britannia of Camden, which it as much surpasses in industry of research and accumulation of matter, as it falls short of it in purity and elegance of style." Of the first edition of the Britannia he adds, " The information which it contained was of course superficial, but the matter was well arranged, the style good the reasoning clear, and the whole work classical."
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKEB. xlvii
His Theological Works were confined to the publication of occasional Sermons, but he had the enviable art of making every literary undertaking subservient to the great interests of religion and morality, without violating the proprieties of the subject in hand ; an object which certainly no Clergyman should ever suffer to escape his view, whatever be the lighter studies or amusements he may think proper to indulge.
In this character, indeed, Dr. Whitaker was most exemplary. Placed in situations which gave him a sort of episcopal superintendance over a district no less than thirty miles in extreme length, nearly the same in breadth, containing twenty-four dependant chapelries, and occupied by more than 100,000 inhabitants, he exercised this important influence in a manner which might well have become a still wider sphere of labour. In his appointments to the chapels which came under his own immediate patronage, he was ever actuated by the purest and most disinterested motives; nor could any practicable scheme for promoting the temporal or spiritual welfare of his parishioners be proposed to him, which did not meet his ready concurrence, and active co-operation. More frequently, indeed, these plans originated with himself; and while he was thus enabled to place around him a body of zealous and useful clergy, his own conduct in the discharge of his more personal functions furnished an excellent model to all. To this part of his character such ample justice was done him by one of the correspondents to the Gentleman's Magazine,1 during his life-time, that I need not dwell on it in this work.
His discourses partook largely of the peculiarities already noticed in his other works: they had the same fire, the same strength and fluency of language, the same acuteness of reasoning and originality of illustration. the same happy use of ornament; but they were also so perfectly simple, and intelligible to the humblest of his auditors, and delivered with eloquence so natural and impressive, that, though far from courting popularity, he never failed to attract overflowing congregations.
But the principles which regulated his whole conduct as a Clergyman cannot be better expressed than in his own words: "The dispensation of the Gospel has been committed to me within a certain district, and under certain forms and limitations. I owe, under the most solemn obligations, obedience to my immediate superiors in the Church, and conformity to all its established rules: here I have no option; I eat my bread on that condition; if I transgress it, I am a dishonest man. I see, indeed, the genuine doctrines of my own Church entirely neglected by some of its ministers, and mingled with fanaticism, democracy, and other poisonous combinations, by others ; nevertheless, I know them to be the word of truth. I will, by God's grace, not reject, but separate them from these admixtures ; preach them boldly, yet rationally ; and if, in so doing, my motives are mistaken, my principals decried, and myself am classed with a sect to which I do not belong, I will bear my cross in patience." These observations occur in a note to the History of Whalley, p. 389, the whole of which is well deserving the attention of all friends of the Establishment, and merits a more general circulation than the particular object of the work is likely to afford. It has, I believe, seldom happened, that men so gifted for the pulpit and the press, have as successfully interchanged the retirement of the study for the more active walks of life; but with all the aversion to minute calculation, and the detail of mechanical arrangement, which the most abstracted student could have expressed, no man could more practically weigh the merits of an extended plan ; and with nerves that shrunk at the very shadow of trivial and imaginary danger, none could more firmly encounter its real form, when duty led the way. Composition, also, with him required little or no effort; and while he could dictate his most finished descriptions on the spot, or lay up in the solitude of a morning walk abundant employment for the too tardy pen, many a tract was recovered from the encroachments of time, which his activity never allowed to remain long uncultured. Hence he was no less busily employed in the preservation of old and the erection of new churches, through- out his parishes, than in providing for the furtherance of the great objects to which they were dedicated ; nor
1 See the Gentleman's Magazine, 1820, vol. xc. part ii. p. 402. The more remarkable passages have been already extracted in p. xv.
xlviii
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
could the trustees of the parliamentary fund, lately applied to those purposes, have selected a more active and useful associate. Blessed early in life with the possession of a patrimonial estate, to which he was ever enthusiastically attached, he became a planter and improver on no narrow scale, and in this profitable and patriotic pursuit received the gold medal of the Society of Arts, while more than half a million of trees, rising gradually beneath his hand, gave grace and dignity to the rugged scenery around him. To watch their growth and beauty was the frequent solace of his lighter hours; and when, at his last visit to the Holme, declining health admonished him that he should see them no more, he calmly selected one of the comeliest of his own planting to be the depositary of his mortal remains.
In a district where the non-residence or extinction of the ancient gentry had much weakened the civilizing influence of polished manners on the humbler classes of society, and even the restraints of law were but feebly exerted, the office of a magistrate, for which his education and pursuits had so well qualified him, was accepted as a duty, and at Holme might have been exercised with unmixed pleasure to himself, and advantage to others ; but, transplanted into the midst of a manufacturing population, at a time when sedition and blasphemy were unusually prevalent, and the poison of a system, whose evils he had from the first foretold and resisted, was fermented to its utmost height of malignity, the conscientious discharge of his duty, rewarded as it was by the approbation of his sovereign, and the warm thanks of his neighbours and country- men, was attended with sacrifices which his friends and the lovers of literature may be excused for thinking almost too great even in the best of causes — the suspension of those calmer studies in which he delighted; and, as it may be feared, the introduction of that distressing disorder to which he fell a victim.
Adorned with these accomplishments, as an author, a clergyman, a subject, a man, and endowed by nature and age with a commanding person, a venerable and expressive countenance, and a peculiarly animated eye, he seemed to possess the faculty of impressing his own image on the mind no less vividly than the features of landscape were depicted by his pen. An image which no one who has once beheld him in the pulpit, amidst the trophies of antiquity, or the peaceful seclusion of domestic life, will ever be able to efface from recollection.
One material feature of Dr. Wkitaker's manners Mr. Allen has omitted. This is sup- plied by his friend the Rev. William Parker, the Vicar of Waddington, in a tribute to Dr. "Whitaker's memory (under the signature P. W.) communicated to the Leeds Intelli- gencer. After remarking that "Among strangers Dr. Whitaker was silent and reserved," Mr. Parker afterwards adds, " In the company of a few select friends, his conversation was of a very superior cast ; full of acute remarks, of argument, or of anecdote. Modo tristi, sapc jocoso. To affectation, to disguise, or hypocrisy his heart was a stranger. He was sometimes accused of severity. But piety and modest worth ever found in him a protector and a friend. The vanity of ignorance, or the presumption of the upstart, he held in equal contempt. If he were severe, he was, to use his own words, sola in vitia asper."
I have great pleasure in being allowed to add in this place the following interesting reminiscences of the historian's daily habits, from the authentic information of his son the present Vicar of Whalley. " Dr. Whitaker was an early riser : he breakfasted before eight o'clock, and immediately went into his study, where he at once occupied himself in writing. The study at Holme was a pleasant room up-stairs, and the window near which he wrote looked directly upon a noble yew-tree, called Dean Nowell's Yew, because it was tradi- tionally said to have been planted by the Dean in his boyhood. Dr. Whitaker always wrote upon a volume of Tacitus, resting upon an easel or stand of yew. He scarcely ever omitted
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER.
xlix
to read a page or two of Tacitus every day, excepting on a Saturday, when he read one of the Fathers, preferring Chrysostom ; this was preparatory to his extempore sermon on the following day,1 when one of the great charms of his discourse would be the introduction of historical notices and anecdotes taken from the Fathers. But Tacitus in prose, Juvenal in verse, were his favourite authors. He remained in the study writing, or arranging papers to he copied by his amanuensis Mr. Allen, who sat in a room below, until he went out about noon to his workmen in the woods, and it was among his favourite plantations that the most admired and beautiful portions of his writings were composed, for subsequent transference to paper. The great delight of Ids life was planting, and the beautiful woods and demesnes at the Holme are the result of his wise expenditure and forethought. He came into the possession of a tree-denuded estate, when there were not above six or seven acres of wood upon it, and he left it covered with thriving plantations of all sizes, and trees of various growth. It was the finest larch in the Old Clough, planted by himself, that was felled to form his coffin, which was hewn out from its bulk like a canoe, according to his own directions given to his bailiff William Edrnundson.2 Addison asserts, in his Spectator,
1 " His extempore eloquence in the pulpit was rapid, energetic and impressive. His language was so terse, so correct, and, at the same time, so elegant, that the most learned and polished audience could not but admire it." Eev William Parker, (P. W.) in the Leeds Intelligencer.
2 By the kindness of Mrs. Crossley of Scaitcliffe, I am able to append the following letter addressed to her late husband's father.
Mr. William Edmundson to John Crossley, Esq. F.S.A.
SIR, Knowing you have a valuable collection of ancient and curious documents, and an anxious desire to extend the same, I beg leave to hand you a few very memorable particulars of the last days of the learned Thomas Dunham Whitaker, LL.D. which will be the more esteemed by you, because of your particular friendship with the Doctor.
On the 21st August, 1821, the Doctor sent for me from the hay-field, to go with him into the wood — and when we got there, he walked to the side of a larch tree, and said, " William, I planted this tree with my own hands, and intend to have my coffin made of it; have you your two-foot in your pocket ?" I said I had, " Then (says he,) measure it." Afterwards he turned his back to the said tree, closed his arms up, and said, " Will it hold my body when it is hollowed out of the solid ?" I replied, " It will be little enough;" and he immediately observed, — " The tree is growing bigger, and I am growing less."
On the 17th of October following, he sent his servant with a letter, (sealed with black wax, and with his own seal of arms,) directed to me, as follows:
" Mr. W. EDMUNDSON, Cliviger.
" To be opened and read as soon as I am dead. T. D. W."
A copy of which Letter I also beg to hand you, viz.
" I, Thomas Dunham Whitaker, Clerk, LL.D. do hereby direct my body to be interred in the Chapel under the old pulpit, as it now stands, and on the north side of the body of my father ; and I also direct that as soon as I am dead two graves, one beneath the other, be made for the reception of my own body and that of my dear wife, both bricked, and each covered and bottomed with flags, one upon the other.
" And as soon as I am dead, I also direct, that a Larch Tree planted by me A.D. 1786, and now standing at the entrance of the Old Clough, be cut down and be hollowed out into one excavation for my body, after which it is to be lined with lead for my interment; and I desire these directions may be fully and literally complied with.
" T. D. WHITAKER."
This larch tree had been planted about 35 years, and was 63 feet long, and contained 31J feet of wood, and
1
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
that ' The love of woods, of fields, of flowers, of rivers, and waterfalls seems to be a pas- sion implanted in our nature the most early of any, and is one not unbecoming of serious thought.' This "Whitaker fully enjoyed. The waterfalls in Dodbottom and at the Earl's Bower, — a spot which he has noticed in his description of Cliviger, attracted him by their beauty. Among these woods he remained with his workmen until three o'clock, and he liked to have two greyhounds with him, as he was fond of dogs, and they were as fond of him, and awaited his coming out in the morning. Neither the distinguished honour with which the first edition of his History of Whalley was received by the public, nor the com- plimentary letters addressed to him by his literary contemporaries and friends, — by Marsh, Bishop of Peterborough, his old and intimate friend at St. John's ; by Richard Heber of Hodnet ; by Archdeacon Churton ; or George Law, Bishop of Chester, and others ; not even his appointment to his favourite church of "Whalley so flatteringly made. by Arch- bishop Manners Sutton, none of them carried with them half the delight that he derived from the love of his plantations, and walks in them, and the improvements which he was continually making in them. He received the gold medal of the Society of Arts ' (which is now at the Holme,) for the greatest number of larch trees planted in one year ; and his example and that set on a still larger scale by Mr. Towneley, were afterwards followed by many of his friends, to the great benefit of their estates, in the vallies of the Calder and Rlbble, — by Mr. Taylor of Moreton, by Colonel Hargreaves of Ormerod, by Colonel Clayton of Carr Hall, by Mr. Lister Parker, and others.
" He returned from his walks to dinner at three ; and from dinner to six, or half-past, he did little. At that time we had tea ; after which, he went up to the study, and read or wrote, until half past seven. His family then joined him, and one of his sons read aloud, whilst the ladies worked, from such authors as Clarendon, Robertson, Southey, &c. and, above all, each of Sir Walter Scott's novels, as they came out, which were sent by Mr. Murray, in the box with books to be reviewed in the Quarterly. One evening, while we were so engaged, he was called down stairs to see a gold chain, which it was said the ploughman had just found. The plough had turned over, but not broken, a very beautiful gold torques on his own land. The gold glittered in the furrow, and hence it was dis- covered; and it remains at the house still, the celebrated Holme Torques."
after 22 inches of the bottom of the tree was cut off, a proper length was obtained for his coffin. The piece pre- sented to you was cut off the same tree about 14 feet from the bottom, which I cut off myself with a handsaw, on the 13th April 1822.
I am, Sir, &c. &c.
WILLIAM EDMUNDSON. Cliviger, April 15, 1822.
1 It was in their Session of 1794 that the Society of Arts adjudged their Gold Medal to the Rev. Thomas Dunham Whitaker, of Holme, in Cliviger, in Lancashire, for having planted 64,135 larches between June 1790 and June 1791 ; and at the same time their Silver Medal to Mr. Thomas Gaitskell, of Little Braithwait, in Cumberland, for having planted 43,300 larches between 1st February and 1st April 1791.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER.
li
To these anecdotes may be added one which appeared first in the Gentleman's Magazine for Feb. 1822 : " In the year 1809, on the occasion of the consecration of Grindleton Chapel, a party consisting of the Rev. Thomas Starkie, the Rev. Thomas "Wilson, Dr. Watson the Bishop of Landaff, and Dr. "Whitaker, met at Browsholme Hall, the hospitable seat of Thomas Lister Parker, esq. The Bishop, whose powers of conversation and retentive memory were conspicuous on all occasions, was so forcibly struck with Dr. "Whitaker's profound learning in divinity, that he afterwards observed to Mr. Parker : ' Though I have so long filled the Professor's chair, yet I was obliged yesterday to go to my fourth, nay even to my fifth shelf, to cope with the Doctor's knowledge of the old and learned authors in Divinity.' "
Another writer, signing P. W., and who we have reason to know was Mr. Lister Parker's brother, the Rev. William Parker before named, soon after l made some comments on this anecdote, to the following effect :
Not long after this visit, Dr. Whitaker gave me a particular account of the conversation which he had with Bishop Watson. His Lordship having advanced some doctrine a little heterodoxical, the Doctor thought himself bound to confute his assertion, by adducing various passages from the Fathers and Orthodox Divines of the Church of England. So forcible and appropriate were the Doctor's arguments, that the Bishop was absolutely posed, and though he might have recourse to the fourth or fifth shelf, he was unable to cope with the Doctor, but gently took him by the hand, and jocosely though artfully waved the argument by saying, "My good friend, when you come to see me at Calgarth I shall be happy to resume the subject." Notwith- standing Dr. Watson's excessive vanity, he was a most pleasant companion. I will now, said Dr. Whitaker, give you one example of it. " I never," remarked his Lordship, " expect to rise higher in the Church, though all the world knows it is not for want of abilities."
In accordance with directions left by Dr. Whitaker in his will, a vault was formed for the reception of his coffin, and that of his wife, in his own pew in the chapel at Holme, "as nearly as possible under the place where the old pulpit now stands," and, also by his testamentary desire, a slab of black Kendal marble was placed over the spot bearing this inscription :
DEPOSITUM
THOMjE D. WHITAKER, LL. D. S. R. ET S. A. VJCARII DE WHALLEY ET BLACKBURN
QUI DIEM OBI1T SUPREMUM
XV CAL. JAN. A. S. MDCCCXXI.
IN SPE BEAT^E RESURRECTIONIS
PER SOLA CHRISTI MERITA.
NECNON LUCI^E CONJUGIS
FORM^E PARITER AC INDOLIS ELEGANTISSIM^E
IV NON. FEB. MDCCCXXXVII. QUORUM E PROGENIE DORMUERUNT IN XTO MARIA CARALOTA XIII CAL. MA. MDCCCXVI.
1 Gentleman's Magazine, April 1822, p. 312.
Hi BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
THOS. THORESBEIUS M. A. IV CAL. SEP. MDCCCXVII. GULIELMUS IX TD. AUG. MDCCCXXXV. LUCIA XVI CAL. JUN. MDCOCXXXVIII. CONSORS THO* STARKEI A. M. DE TWISDEN (i.e. TWISTON)
CONS1LIAR. DOM. REG. AD LEGEM ET COL. DOWN. CANTAB. LEGU5I PROFESS. JOHANNES RICHARDUS VII NO. AP. SIDCCCXL.
There are two Portraits of Dr. Whitaker : one by W. D. Fryer of Knaresborough,1 from which the engraving prefixed to this work is taken ; the other (at the age of 56) by John Northcote, R.A.2 of which there is an engraving (W. Holl sc.) in the Loidis and Elmete, and a smaller copy (P. Audinet sc.) in the Gentleman's Magazine for Feb. 1822, and also in Nichols's Literary Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century. The former is prefei-red by his family as being the most characteristic likeness, for Northcote's is heavy and wants animation.
A monument to the memory of Dr. Whitaker was prepared by subscription of his friends, and placed on the north side of the chancel at Whalley in the year 1842. It was designed by Anthony Salvin, esq. F.S.A. and is of Caen stone, in the form of an altar-tomb, upon which rests a cumbent effigy of the deceased, from the chisel of Mr. C. Smith of London.
The following inscription was supplied by the Rev. Dr. Cardwell, Principal of St. Alban's hall, Oxford, and Camden Professor of Ancient History :
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER, LL.D., R.S. et A.S. Sodalis, Paroecliiarum de Whalley et Blackburn Vicarius, ex antiqua littcratorum liominum stirpe oriundus,
ipse litteratissimus,
vixit annos LXII — menses VI — dies X.
et mortuus est decimo quinto cal. Januar.
anno sacro MDCCCXXII.
Inerant in hoc viro sensus
ad excogitandum acris et subtilis, ad ornandum ferax et profluens,
ingenium doctrinarum capax atque avidum, animique ardor vehemens ille quidem sed assiduus et indefessus.
Hue accesserunt
in omni litterarura genere copiosa et limata eruditio, in explorandis histories et philosophise fontibus,
1 Of this there is one painting at the Holme, and another in the possession of Mrs. Power, Dr. Whitaker's grand- daughter, at Dublin. The name of " Mr. Fryer, Portrait Painter, Knaresborough," is in the list of Subscribers to the History of Craven 1805, and he is noticed in the Preface to that volume as " a rising artist in Knaresborough, of whom it is sufficient praise to say that he drew the wild cattle at Gisburne Park " engraved in two plates in the same volume. His name is also attached to the views of Sallay Abbey, Hallifield Peel, and Broughton Hall, and to some plates of monuments.
g Northcote's picture is at the Vicarage, Whalley.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. liii
quam in artem se penitus demittebat,
curiosa sollertia,
et mirifica turn in loquendo turn in orando turn in scribendo eloquentia,
qua nihil enucleatius, nihil gravius aut distinctius,
nihil autem ubertate ac splendore speciosius.
Prsecipue vero in eo elucebant indoles quasi -ruris et nemorum dulcedine perfusa,
voluntas ad instituta majorum propensissima,
mores intimo gravitatis ct sanctitatis studio firmati,
sincera erga Ecclcsiam Anglicanam pietas,
fides unice in Christo posita, quaeque omnibus animi motibus erat eadem origo et terminus,
summa Dei veneratio. Ut in iis potissimum locis,
quos eruditis cujusquc famaj scriptis commendaveret, et oratione et exemplo implcverat ipse mira sui reverentia,
tanti viri consisteret atque commoraretur memoria, hoc monumentum collata pecunia posuerunt amici ejus superstites.
The likeness of Dr. "Whitaker in his sepulchral effigy is considered to he excellent. The features were derived from a hust by Macdoiiald (which is now at the Holme), with some advice from his surviving relatives.
Dr. Whitaker's lihrary was sold hy Mr. Sothehy in a sale of three days, Jan. 23 — 25, 1823, and produced the sum of 814Z. From the priced Catalogue (now preserved in the British Museum) the following items may he extracted as more immediately connected with his own studies :
85 Crosley's Funeral Discourse on the Death of L. Britliffe, 1743, with an interesting MS. note by Dr.
Whitaker: bought by Mr. Ormerod for 8s.
87 Dallaway on English Architecture, 1806, with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 16s. (Priestley and Weale.) 164 Evelyn's Sylva, printed at York, 1776, with numerous MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 11. 7s. (Heber.) 233 Lord Clarendon's History of the Kebellion, 1707, illustrated with drawings and engravings, in 3 vols
large paper. 111. 6s. 6d. (J. Taylor.) 253 Examinations, &c. of persons concerned in the noted Plot at Farnley Wood;1 transcribed from the
originals by Thomas Wilson. 31. 10s. (Triphook.)
266 Gisborne's Moral Philosophy, 1789, with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 6s. Gd. (Burn.) 235 Milton's Poems, edited by Thomas Warton, 1785, with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 13s. (Burn.) 378 Gray's Poems, and Memoirs by Mason, 1775, with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. (Heber.) 391 Home's History of the Kebellion, in 1745, 4to 1802, with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. H. 13s. (Heber.) 413 Mason's English Garden, Goldsmith's Deserted Village, with other Poems, in 1 volume, some of them containing MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 11. 4s. (Heber.)
1 An attempt in favour of the restoration of King James II. See Loidis and Elmete, pp. 106 — 113. Mr. Thomas Wilson, F.S.A., was master of the Charity School at Leeds, a very industrious historical collector, many of whose MSS. are preserved in Leeds Library : see Taylor's Biographic, Loidiensis, p. 587, where it is suggested that Whitaker (in his Life of Thoresby, p. ix.) too hastily condemned Wilson of ingratitude towards Thoresby, with whom there is no evidence that he had personal acquaintance.
h
liv BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF
435 Richard Greenham's Works, by H. Holland, 1612, with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 15s. (Heber.)
461 Horsley's Britannia Romana, 1732, with MS. notes and several documents. 71. 5s. (Heber.)
583 Survey of the County of York, from Domesday Book, a MS. transcribed by T. Wilson, in two volumes,
1768. 41. 5s. (Rodd.)
624 West's Antiquities of Furness, by Close, Ulverstone, 1813, with MS. notes. 13s. (Rodd.) 663 Stukeley's Account of Richard of Cirencester, 1757, with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 31. 5s. (Heber.) 677 Vision of Piers Plowman, edited by Dr. Whitaker. 1831. 41. 12s. (Rodd.) 682 Isaac Walton's Lives of Donne, Wotton, &c. York, 1796, with numerous MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker.
41. (S .)
6S3 Bishop Warburton's Works, 1788, 7 vols., with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 10Z. 10s. (Thorpe.)
685 Watson's History of Halifax, 1775, with numerous notes by Dr. Whitaker. 21. 10s. (Rodd.)— This
volume, with several others in this list, is now in the possession of James Crossley, esq. F.S.A., the President of the Chetham Society.
686 Watson's Memoirs of the ancient Earls of Warren and Surrey, 1782, with additional plates and MS.
notes. 3/. 19,?. (Rodd.)
691 J. Whitaker's History of Manchester, in 2 vols. 1771, with numerous MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker.
51. 10s. (Heber.)
692 Dr. Whitaker's Life of Sir G. Radcliffe, 1810, with letters from Mr. Bindley, Mr. R. H. Beaumont, and
Mr. Joseph Hunter, ll. 10s. (Rodd.)
711 Saxton's Maps of England, 1642, with autograph of H. Bradshawe and MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 61. 15s. (R. Jones.)
771 Dr. Whitaker's History of Craven, 1812, large paper, with several illustrative documents, and two letters
from the Duke of Devonshire and Dr. Paley. 131. 5s. (Rodd.)
772 The History of Whalley, 1818, large paper, illustrated with MS. documents, drawings, and marginal
notes. 171. 17s. (Rodd.) These last two volumes were resold, January 21, 1864, for 77/. (Boyne's Yorkshire Library, p. 133.)
In Second Sale, Jan. 1824 :
75 Boscobel ; with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 11. 2s. (Dodd.) 78 Shakespeare's Plays ; with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. (Starkie.)
Dr. Whitaker's collection of Greek, Roman, and English Coins, Roman Antiquities, Prints, and Drawings, together with a few remaining Books, were sold at the same place on the 14th January, 1824. Their total produce was 175/. 14s. 6d. ; of which the Coins amounted to 58/. 4s. and the Armour to 46/. 15s. 6d. Among the Drawings were several of those which were engraved to illustrate the Histories of Whalley and Craven.
The Antiquities which appeared at this sale were : —
A curious ancient Ring, probably that described in p. 30 of the present volume. 21. 14s. (Starkie.)
Eight fossil bones. 11. 2s. (Jarman.)
Fourteen Eoman Antiquities, consisting of belts, spear-heads, &c., &c., found at Ribchester and other places
in Yorkshire. 4Z. 19s. (Cuerton.) The Torques found at Holme. 51. (Starkie.) Silver Arm of Victory [see p. 45 of the present volume] 21. 4s. (Starkie.)
The first and two last, being purchased by Mr. Starkie, the Doctor's son-in-law, were restored to Holme.
THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. lv
Among the Drawings were the following, the first seven "by Turner : —
Ancient Seals. 14s. (White.)
Crosses and Inscriptions (drawn for the Plate at p. 69 of this Volume.) 12s. (White.)
Townley Hall (for Plate in Volume II.) 3(. 7s. (Colnaghi.)
Stonyhurst (for Plate in Volume II.) 41. 7s. (Colnaghi.)
Whalley Abbey (Plate at p. 83 of this volume.) SI. 3s. (Colnaghi.)
Nearer view of the Ruins (Plate at p: 139.) 41. 4s. (Colnaghi.)
Inside of Mitton Church (Plate in Volume II.) 21. 19s. (Colnaghi.)
Inside of Mitton Hall, by W. Craig (for the large Plate in Volume II.) 11. 10s. (Triphook.)
Eadcliffe Tower Hall, by the same (for the Plate in Volume II.) 8s. (Dodd.)
Shipping near Newcastle-on-Tyne, by Clennell. 41. 4s. (White).
Ancient steelyards found at Eibchester, a Roman vessel by Lowe, ground-plan of Eavensworth Castle by Bradley, and a stone Font (four drawings.) 3s. C(/. (Dodd.)
Views in Yorkshire, by Dr. Griffith, Master of University College, engraved for the History of Craven (eleven in number.) I/. 9s. (Graves.)
An inside View of the Chapter-house of Cockersand Abbey, now the burial-place of the Daltons of Thurnhani, by Taylor the architect (sold for 4s. Gd. to Mr. Bentham,) was probably connected one of the latest of Dr. Whitaker's productions ; see his account of the parish of Cockerham, in Lonsdale, inserted with starred pages 325* — 335*, in vol. ii of the Richmondshire, but unaccompanied by engravings.
Some more important Roman Antiquities were bequeathed to St. John's College, Cambridge, by the following clause of his will : —
" I also give and bequeath to the Master, Fellows, and Scholars of St. John's College, Cambridge, all my Koman Altars and Inscriptions on Stone, to be placed by them in the Bow Window of the College Library, with this inscription in a small Tablet of Marble, at the expense of my Executors: Legatum Thomas Dunham Whitaker, LL.D. hujus Collegii." The Will is dated Blackburn, March 10, 1818.
One of the most remarkable of the altars from Bibchester now stands at the Xew Bridge of St. John's College, with the inscription printed hereafter, at p. 29.
Among the curiosities collected by the late John Crossley, esq., E.S.A. and now preserved at Scaitcliffe, near Todmorden, are several relics of Dr. Whitaker ; among them, the bands he wore, sent by Mrs. Whitaker ; part of the larch tree out of which his coffin was hewn (already mentioned in William Edmundson's letter), and the MS. of his first sermon preached at Blackburn. A large 4to Commonplace Book kept by Dr. Whitaker at Cambridge is now in the possession of Mr. Canon Raines, at Milnrow. It contains the lectures which he heard whilst at the University, " on the Roman, Civil, and Canon Laws, and their authority in England ; " also critical annotations on the Gospels ; Latin themes ; two Latin letters to Mr. Sheepshanks ; an ode by Mason whilst an undergraduate at St. John's, from a copy in the possession of Dr. Balguy, &c. Mr. Crossley preserves some of the proof- sheets of the History of Leeds, which are chiefly curious from little notes to the printer, evincing the Editor's disgust when a pedigree came in his way.
Of his literary correspondence but little has hitherto been published ; none indeed, but the few letters addressed to Mr. Wilson of Clitheroe, ranging in date from 1800 to 1809, which are contained in the Wilson Miscellanies, (edited by Mr. Canon Raines for
A 2
Ivi
BIOGKAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF T. D. WHITAKER.
the Chetham Society, vol. xlv.), and the few others which have been introduced into the present memoir. But many of his letters must still be preserved that are sure to be deemed hereafter of sufficient interest to deserve publication, and among them are known to be some addressed to his intimate friend James Maden of Greens, near Bacup, esq. who was nominated one of his executors, together with Mr. Starkie (the testator's son-in-law), and Adam Cottam, esq. of Whalley. The great bulk of the letters of his friends, many of them written by men of eminence not inferior to his own, and which would now have been of the highest literary value, was unfortunately destroyed by Mrs. Whitaker shortly after his death, and it is believed that whatever literary essays or unpublished collections then remained in his study shared the same disastrous fate.
In reference to this circumstance, and to the MS. volume in the possession of Mr. Canon Raines already described, I add the following extract from a letter addressed to that gentleman by the Rev. S. J. Allen, dated from Easingwold, June 6, 1852 : —
I imagine few authors who wrote so much and so well [as Dr. W.] have left so little for posterity, in addition to his printed works. I have a vogue recollection of having some time seen such a volume [as the Common Place Book], but never examined it. The notes of Lectures on Civil Law in 1777 I con- clude are of a course by Bishop Hallifax, of whom Dr. W. thought very highly. The Doctor was once a candidate for that Professorship at Cambridge, but he did not succeed in his application. Your MS. book is a great rarity.
JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS.
Ivii
TO
CHARLES TOWNLEY,
OF
TOWNLEY, ESQ. F.S.S. F.S.A.
ONE OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
SIR,
-LIAD it been as unusual, as it is the contrary, to prefix to works of this description
the amulet of a distinguished name, I might have been tempted to trespass upon the rules of literary decorum, in inscribing the HISTORY OF WHALLEY to yourself. — For, in truth, your personal and hereditary connection with the subject, and the many obligations both of the work and the author to you, would have iustified some deviation from the common forms of prefatory address.
The subject of this history in each of its great divisions will be found to possess one excellence, which few works of so local and circumscribed a nature can pretend to, and that is unity; so that, in a lar<ro tract of country, now broken into many subordinate districts, ecclesiastical and civil, we are enabled to trace a very numerous and ramified church establishment to one benefice of a singular constitution, and of an antiquity almost beyond example in the history of the English church : that we are empowered also, at a later period, to contemplate the local effects of the Norman conquest in consolidating more than thirty primitive manors into a single barony, which under various tenures, and in different degrees of dependence, now forms one common centre of property within its ample bounds.
The fortunes of these, with their several dependencies, constitute the principal subject of this volume : one, however, has long been dissolved, — and the other, after various changes of fortune, has merged in the Crown ; but a clear and connected chain of evidence will conduct us to the period when your ancestors in the male or female line were possessed of both : in the latter it will direct our inquiries to the house of Lacy, the foim- daries of monasteries, and the heroes of crusades ; and, in the former, it will carry them up to an rera of high Saxon antiquity, in which another branch of this distinguished race is found in the hereditary exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the same limits.
In comparison of this duration, every other name and interest in the original parish of Whalley, however dignified by rank and titles, is but of yesterday.
But, from the period at which this peculiar function became extinct, a period beyond which no authentic memorials of any other family within the compass of this history can be proved to extend, the posterity of the Deans of Whalley, seated upon the villa de Tunlay, by their descents and alliances, their activity and useful- ness,* their devotion and munificence, their loyalty and sufferings, appear for several centuries principal actors in the scene before us.
In later days, however, when motives respectable in every cause removed them in a great measure from the scene of active life, superior intelligence and love of literature have been propagated through the line by a kind of hereditary descent, till they are become characteristic of the family — Vigebat in ilia dome patrins mos et disciplina.
•
* In his " Additional Corrections to Part I." the author directed the words activity and usefulness to be altered to public spirit.
Iviii
DEDICATION.
Traduction of character, like that of countenance, after a long interval of cessation, is one of the best attested though least explicable facts in the history of human nature, and if example and early habit, domestic intercourse with living talents, or an affectionate remembrance of recent and departed excellence, might in your instance account for an eager and successful application to general literature, yet we must have recourse to the former principle to discover the source of that ardent love and critical knowledge of ancient art, which, more than a century ago, shone with so much lustre in your maternal ancestor the great Earl of Arundel, and which now preside over a museum that he would have beheld with admiration.
To an eye, therefore, exercised in contemplating the fairest forms of Grecian sculpture, it may be deemed a misplaced and preposterous expression of respect, to hold up the coarse though picturesque efforts of Gothic art, or to obtrude upon a mind familiarized with the scenery and manners of classical antiquity a rude survey of a remote district, or a barbarous detail of obscure families, most of which are distinguished for little but having long been rooted, like their own hereditary oaks, to their own paternal acres.
But, after all, there is a charm in contrast, and as the palate, satiated by habitual indulgence, some- times feels itself stimulated by the coarsest fare, so it is possible that in the intervalla ac spiramenta temporum^ which long literary indulgence may be compelled to resort to, an homely and frugal repast upon domestic history may not want its relish.
Yet I will not affect to suppose you indifferent to a place which your taste has so much contributed to adorn, or to a subject which your exertions have been so actively employed to elucidate. That place, at least, has been endeared to you by early possession, by temporary absence, by a system of progressive and successful improvement, and, above all, by the consciousness of much happiness produced, in a long course of years, and among a numerous body of dependants.
That the same habits of beneficence, together with the reflections which ever accompany them, will continue to spread a calm and sunshine over your later days, I persuade myself not only from general observation of the effects of conduct upon happiness, but from the authority of a great master in the science of manners — artes exercltationesque virtutum, cum diu multumque vixeris, miriftcos efferunt fructus, non solum quia minquam deserunt, ne in extremo quidem tempore cetatis, verum etiam quia multorum lene factorum recor- datio jucundisslma est. — Est etiam quiete et eleganter actce cstatis placida ac lenis senectus. — Cicero in Cat. Maj. In a species of playful divination long in exercise among men of letters, the sortes TullianeB have often oeen resorted to ; but that the last words of this citation, as now applied, may be seriously prophetic, is the sincere and affectionate wish of,
SIR,
Your most obliged
And most faithful servant,
T. D. WHITAKER.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, IN 1800.
J.T is now more than seventy years since a writer,* whose eminence, in his later days, confers some degree of importance even upon the crude and hasty dogmas of his youth, was pleased to lament the decay of our national taste for genuine historical composition, and the growing prevalence of a vicious appetite in its stead, by which any uninformed, senseless heap of rubbish, under the name of an history of a town, society, college, or province, have long since taken from us the very idea of a genuine composition ; and, to give authority to his opinion, he has cited a critical edict of Boccalini, in which that lively writer expressly f>rohibits, on pain of perpetual infamy, any attempts, in future, to ivrite an history, of ivhich the subject is inferior in dignity to the metropolis of a kingdom, or, at least, a considerable province.^
Our countrymen, however, in the genuine spirit of English freedom, seem to have resisted the introduc- tion of foreign laws in criticism, as well as civil polity; and the promulgation of this formidable edict amongst us is so far from having checked the evil against which it was directed, that the practice has ever since been increasing, and, having called in the charms of sculpture to its aid, is now become more prevalent than ever.
But in this long period of topographical improvement, the taste and spirit of genuine history have revived, and, though modern times have produced nothing like the spirit and originality of Clarendon, in any great writer who had the fortune to bear a dignified part in the transactions which he records, yet the present age has raised up one English historian, J who, had the purity and sincerity of his mind been in any degree comparable to his acuteness and erudition, would have equalled the greatest of his predecessors, and two, who in elegance and correctness have surpassed them all.§
And henceforward, the muse of History [| having come forth once more in her native dignity and vigour, Topography, though little disposed to withdraw from her own station at the mandate of a capricious foreigner, has no higher claim than to be considered as the humble handmaid of the other, and to be permitted to glean after her those less important, but interesting and amusing, facts, which she, in her rapid and comprehensive views of antiquity, must necessarily overlook.
With these inferior pretensions, however, Topography has charms for a writer, and those too resulting even from her want of dignity and of distance: to exalt scenes of daily observation into subjects of literary inquiry, to account for striking but obscure appearances in his own vicinity, to reconcile apparent contradic- tions in ancient dates or facts, of which the objects are familiar; to trace some neighbouring work of ancient art, which is now magnificent in decay, to its perfection or its commencement; to compare some great revo- lution of a kingdom with its effects upon private property, provincial dialect, or domestic manners ; to develope the progress of parochial endowments, in which himself has an interest ; to trace the origin and alliances, the advancement or decline of families, with whom he is connected ; and to combine them all with
* Dp. Warburton'i Critical Inquiry into the causes of Prodigies as related by Historians, published in 1727.
f Di pin, sotto la pena della perpetua infamia cxpressamente prohibiamo il potersi per Pavcnire scrivere historic particolare di citta alcuna, se ella non sara metropoli d'Imperio, di Eegno, o di provincia grande.
t ffibbon.
§ Hume and Robertson.
|| Warbnrton's account of the malady into which the historic mnse had fallen is too coarse to be transcribed, and too well known, perhaps, to need transcribing.
lx PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
objects endeared by early habit and long association, cannot but afford a mingled exercise, to the powers of reason and fancy, of observation and memory, gratifying, in an high degree, to the topographical writer.
But if there be no radical defect in the powers of the writer, or in the feelings and faculties of his readers, topography will not be without an interest in them : ingenuous curiosity, indeed, is rarely united to sordid tempers, or to mean understandings, but there are few, perhaps, exempted from those disqualifications, who have not felt what, however, it is difficult to describe, namely, the power of mere representation, in exciting a lively attention to scenery which we have been accustomed to contemplate without emotion, or to manners in which we have mingled even with disgust.
But inhabitants of remote districts, especially where they are marked with any peculiarities of dialect or manners, are addicted to a singular species of local partiality, not perhaps illaudable in itself, which, from a quick perception, even of fancied contempt, and something of the spirit of opposition resulting from it, strongly disposes them to magnify the importance, to admire the beauty, or to pride themselves in the antiquity of their native province ; and, when the aspect of their country is also wild and picturesque, this feeling is also heightened to a pitch of enthusiasm, which seems to have been intended by Providence to counterbalance the power of interest, the love of societv, and the advantages of climate, in order to prevent the desertion of tracts, which, without such a fascination, would be abandoned to beasts, or to the meanest of mankind.
But, supposing the particular object of topographical inquiry to have no such attractions, the subject itself deserves somewhat better treatment than the severe interdict of the Italian critic : it is very true, that readers, as well as writers, may addict themselves in this walk of literature as well as others to an habit of laborious trifling, which will debar them from the intercourse, and disqualify them for the duties of life ; — for such indolent and useless pedantry I am not concerned to apologize : but no ingenuous mind can conceive itself to be disgraced, nay, I will venture to add, no serious mind ought to fear itself to be misemployed, in devoting a few hours of relaxation to a subject, which is in fact history upon a narrower and therefore a more useful scale, in which the scenery is familiar, the examples are domestic, in which the topics of praise and censure are drawn from instances in common life, and accessible ranks in society. — Thus much for the uses of topography, when written upon proper principles, to the serious and the conscientious mind.
And, as an occasional exercise of the understanding, to an ingenuous and cultivated reader, to attend to a series of transactions which involved all the interests, and agitated almost all the passions, of our immediate countrymen, from the earliest period, cannot but lead to some discovery of what every such inquirer would previously have wished to learn — some solution of present appearances for which he has heretofore inquired in vain — some recovery of facts hitherto forgotten, which are rendered interesting by the intervention perhaps of a venerated ancestor, or their effects on property and manners.
A severe censor, however, may urge that no part of this apology, either for the writers or readers of topographical works, applies to the author of the work now before him. By such an estimator of the value of time, and the application of talents, it may be said that, for a man occupied in the active discharge of a serious and important profession, to have devoted somewhat more than the leisure hours of three whole years, to an employment which scarcely deserves a gentler name than solemn and elaborate trifling, even if it have never interfered with the calls of duty, must at least infer an idle curiosity, and an unbecoming levity of mind : to this accusation he is willing to concede, that, without any consciousness of diminished attention to the duties of his profession, he has however felt and lamented the interruption which the present work has occasioned in his professional studies ; but an early and ardent propensity to these pursuits, an enthusiastic attachment to a country endeared to him by long residence and many family considerations, the possession of many valuable documents which several fortunate coincidences had thrown into his hands, and an unwill- ingness that much local information, accumulated by the inquiries of many years, should perish with himself; all these motives, and another which will soon be mentioned, induced him to undertake the present work, and, that resolution once formed, a strong sense of the value of time, and, may he be allowed to add, his own con-
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
Ixi
stitution and temper, impelled him to pursue it in the spirit and for the reason of the preacher, Whatsoever thine hand find eth to do, do it ivith thy might, for there is no icork, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest*
But the lightest effusions of a serious mind ought to be directed to the use of edifying ; and while histories and novels, works the most popular in their nature, and the most extensive in their circulation, were daily issuing from a licentious press as the vehicles of impiety and sedition, he does not wish to dissemble, that he entered upon the present work with a deliberate purpose, which the ensuing pages, it is hoped, will prove that he has not forgotten, of giving a contrary and perhaps a new direction to topography, that is, of vindi- cating the present constitution of England, and of serving the interests of religion, by the occasional intro- duction of such remarks as appeared to arise out of the subject.
After an apology for so much egotism, it may be necessary to add a few observations on the conduct of the present work —
With respect to the British and Roman periods, it will be remarked that the subject has been treated in a short and cursory manner : and for a very obvious reason : the author having been forestalled in that part of his work by a writer who, to all the stores of erudition, adds an ardour of spirit which no difficulties can discourage, a penetration which no obscurity can baffle, and a splendour, yet perhaps a M-iklness of imagina- tion, which, if it throws over the page of historical antiquity somewhat of the air of romance, seldom fails to delight, where it is impossible that it should convince : and if a calm investigation of facts and appearances have sometimes led the historian of Whalley to differ very widely in his conclusions from the historian of Manchester, if in particular, after much reflection, he has been compelled to reject the authority of an Itinerary, which, as it seconded the great antiquary's impetuous spirit of topographical discovery, was adopted by him with too little investigation of the evidences on which it rested, he has endeavoured at least to bear in mind that the eccentricities of genius, like the extravagances of virtue, are to be touched with a tender and respectful hand.
The following periods afford however abundant scope for new and original information, and1 after the Status de Blackburnshire, an authentic and singular memoir, happily preserved in the Monasticon, had sketched an outline of our early ecclesiastical history, and the labours of Dugdale and Sir Peter Leicester had retrieved with some degree of exactness a genealogical account of the house of Lacy, nothing either remained, or, indeed, was wanted to the completion of the present work, but the evidence of written authorities, from which, with these two exceptions, it has been principally compiled.
To detail these authorities will be the more grateful to the writer, as it will afford an opportunity of com- memorating those benefactors by whose kindness he has obtained access, as he persuades himself, to all the authentic and important information which now exists upon the subject.
His first and warmest acknowledgments then are due to Charles Townley, of Townley, Esq. not only for a most zealous and indefatigable patronage of this work in general, but for the liberal communication of the Townley MSS. so often referred to in the history.
These are contained in sixteen folio volumes, the labour of Christopher Townley, son of Richard Townley, Esq. who, uniting indefatigable industry to a fair, though singular hand-writing, in pursuance of a great plan, carried on in concert with his illustrious friends Dugdale and Dodsworth, occupied a long life of leisure, part of which was spent in the troublesome times of the last century, in the painful but useful task of transcribing all the charters and ancient evidences of the parish and neighbourhood.
From these he compiled, besides, two large volumes of pedigrees, in which, if he does not appear to have fully availed himself of his own materials, he has at least afforded the means to those who come after him, of supplying casual omissions, especially in the more ancient times. A transcript of these was made by Mr. John Hopkinson of Lofthouse, a laborious disciple of the same school, who, from his official situation, was
* Eceles. xi. 10.
Ixii
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
enabled to retrieve many valuable documents, relating to the Lacies, from the castle of Pontefract, imme- diately before its demolition. The originals of these are now in the library of Bierley near Bradford, but copies were taken from them about forty years ago by the late Thomas Wilson of Leeds, F.S.A. a man of obscure and blundering diligence.
To the Right Hon. Assheton Lord Curzon, and the Right Hon. Baroness Howe, the author is indebted for unlimited access to the Coucher-book of Whalley, which is a fair and handsome transcript of the last century, from the original chartulary of abbot Lyndlay, now, it is to be feared, irreparably lost. By favour of the same noble personages the author has been enabled to make many important discoveries, from a vast collection of original evidences, now filling two large chests at Whalley, and consisting of a series of original authorities, from the foundation of the abbey of Stanlaw to the dissolution of Whalley, and afterwards, during the possession of the Assheton family, nearly to the close of the last century. From these, together with some other original charters which fell, at the dissolution, into the hands of the Braddylls, and have been commu- nicated by the kindness of Mr. Cottam of Whalley, together with many scattered memorials in the Cotton and Harleian libraries, the history of the Abbey of Whalley has been principally compiled.
By Thomas Lister Parker, Esq. Bowbearer of Bowland, he has been gratified with the perusal of some valuable MS. collections made by his ancestors, and now in the library at Browsholme ; and he is happy in this opportunity of acknowledging, that he has received many other kindnesses in the progress of this work from the same young and zealous benefactor.
From William Assheton of Uownham and Kuerdale, Esq. he has received several valuable drawings and other important communications relating to the manor of Downham and the family of Assheton. A similar acknowledgment is due to Legendre Piers Starkie, Esq. of Iluntroyd, for having imparted several evidences to elucidate the later passages of the manor of Merlay.
He has also to acknowledge his obligations to Richard Henry Beaumont, Esq. F.S.A. of Whitley Beaumont and Little Mitton, for many evidences relating to the Holts of Grislehurst and Mitton; and for many valuable extracts from Dodsworth's MSS.
To his learned and excellent friends the Rev. Thomas Starkie, A.M. vicar of Blackburn, the Rev. Tliomas Wilson, of Clitheroe, B.D. and the Rev. William Barton, of Whalley, M.D. he is indebted for innumerable instances of friendly assistance ; and to the first especially for his indefatigable attention to a country press, working upon an half-legible manuscript.
The Rev. Dr. Drake, vicar of Rochdale, has made several communications ; the Rev. Mr. Adamson, of Padiham, has furnished much useful matter with respect to his own church, together with that of Colne; and the clergy of the parish in general have been extremely liberal in imparting the use of their registers.
But in this catalogue of benefactors few have contributed more effectually to the History of Whalley than Henri/ Greenwood of Burnley, Esq. who, with much information upon this subject, and a very accurate knowledge of the original sources whence it may be derived, has, with great industry, arranged, abstracted, and communicated many evidences relating to the neighbourhood of Burnley, a large collection of which is now in the possession of Nicholas Halsted, of Rowley, Esq. who has withheld no information which was in his power to impart.
From these collections, which altogether consist of unnumbered and almost innumerable charters, besides the local and personal information which they afford, a few general conclusions have been drawn, for the insertion of which a preface seems the proper place.
By those who have attended to the chronology of charters, it is well known that dates do not generally occur till the reign of Henry III. or even his son. But among those which relate to the subject of this work, one bears date 22d Henry II. and another the 6th of John. Our oldest charters are Latin ; the earliest of Henry I. ; no remains of legal transactions in the Saxon language having descended to us, if they ever existed. The reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. were seasons of great activity in grants and transfers of lauds: about
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
Ixiii
this time instances of subinfeudation wore common, — a practice which, whenever it occurs in an undated charter, fixes its sera to a period before the statute of Quia Emptores, or 18 Edward I. Henceforward, and to the reign of Edward III. they gradually diminish in number. French charters commence in the reign of Edward I. and terminate in that of Richard II. Of the reign of Henry IV. out of a miscellaneous collection which may be estimated at more than 20,000 charters, not more than 10 occur ; * a fact which I barely mention without pretending to account for it. The number in Henry the Fifth's reign is also inconsiderable. In that of his son the English language was first used in our legal transactions. At the same period the titles of esquyer and gentleman first occur, knights having been designed by their proper distinction from the earliest times. In the reign of Henry VIII. parties first appear subscribing at the bottom of deeds in their own hands, and witnesses upon the back. In awards of the same period, arbitrators and parties are sometimes found subscribing together.
The clergy were much in the confidence of families, and therefore perpetually occur in trusts, but rectors and vicars only are mentioned with the addition of their churches, chaplains being simply entitled capellani, which is the reason that, though many names of these inferior ecclesiastics occur, we are able to assign very few to their proper chapels or altars, — a very great desideratum in writing the history of an establishment in which these small foundations were so numerous.
But to return,
In assistance so flattering, in materials so copious and original, a compiler may be allowed to take pleasure, yet this sensation is far from being unmixed, for with advantages such as have fallen perhaps to the lot of few topographers, he is appalled by the reflection that his own responsibility is increased in propor- tion; and having seen few objects through the obscure or distorting medium of printed books, having written in general with original charters before him, and where they failed, having always been able to avail himself of correct and authentic transcripts, he feels how seldom the charge of incorrectness can be transferred to careless epitomizers, or unfaithful reporters of ancient evidence, who have gone before him. With respect, however, to any inaccuracies which may be discovered in facts or dates (and in so long a work what author shall promise himself a total exemption from them ?) deliberate fraud, he hopes, will not be imputed to him ; a want of ordinary care he cannot impute to himself; some faults, after all his own vigilance, and that of his friends, will still adhere to the press ; and, for what remains, he has to claim the general indulgence due from man to man, for mere incogitancy and involuntary error.
But in a subject, of which the very essence is conjecture, working upon remote facts, and often upon • uncertain chronology, f he has to remind, at least one class of readers, that his conclusions are only to be tried by laws which belong to them, namely, by the laws of probable evidence, and of literary honor; — that in the investigations of an antiquary he reasons well who guesses happily, — and ho, perhaps, best of all, who neither to support an hypothesis, nor to indulge in the exercise of intellectual playfulness, will ever undertake to establish a fact, however trifling or indifferent, when he does not believe it to be probable, in the same degree of which he would persuade his reader.
For, even in these lighter exercises of the understanding, so much is due to the sanctity of truth, that where no other possible evil can follow from misleading, a dealer in probabilities ought to make it a matter of conscience never to mislead.
With these views of his subject, and with a consciousness of many imperfections in himself, yet remem- bering that what is amiss will not be amended by apologies, and what is otherwise does not require them, the author now commits his work to the candor of a discerning public.
* The Townley MSS. and the same deficiency occurs in other collections.
f It must be remembered that our oldest charters are without date, and their seras can therefore be ascertained only from circum- stances, and particularly from the names of witnesses, which aro themselves liable to much uncertainty.
i2
Ixiv
SUBSCRIBERS TO THE HISTORY OF WHALLEY, 1802-1806.
A.
llEV. J. Adamson, Minister of
Padiham Rev. R. Assheton, D.D. Warden of
M an cli ester W. Assheton, Esq. Cuerdale Lodge,
2 copies
H. Aspinall, Esq. Rcedley J. Aspinall, Esq. London T. Astle, Esq. F.R.S. F.S.A. Bat-
tersca Rise J. Addison, Esq. Preston
B.
The lion. Lady Bromley
Rt. Hon. Sir J. Banks, Bart. etc. &c.
Sir J. Beaumont, Bt. .South Audley-
street
J. Blacklmrnc, Esq. M.P. Park- street, Westminster Major-General Barnard, Heaton
Lodge
R. II. Beaumont, Esq. F.S.A. Whit- ley, 2 copies
Wade Browne, Esq. Leeds F. S. Brydges, Esq. Little Horton T. Browne, Esq. Grassington Rev. W. Breithwaite, D.L>. Arch- deacon of Richmond Miss Brownes, Leeds Mr. Bolton, Attorney at Law, Colne R. Birley, Esq. Blackburn Mr. J. Birley, do. Mr. H. H. Birley, do. Rev. W. Barton," M.D. Whalley J F. Butler, Esq. Pleasington Rev. Mr. Bellas, A.M. Rector of
Holdenby
E. Ball, Esq. Wardleworth Rev. Mr. Balme
W. Bray, Esq. Russell-street, Blooms- bury Rev. R. C. Bernard, B.C. Rector of
Withersfield Book Society, Colne Mrs. Wilbraham Bootle, Latham
House
Subscription Library, Blackburn W. Bentham, Esq. Lincoln's Inn Book Society at Newchurch, in Ros- sendale
Boddenham, Esq. Rotherwas,
Herefordshire H. Blnndell, Esq. Incc Blundell
C. The Rt. Rev. William, Lord Bishop
of Chester
Rt. Hon. Lord Curzon Hon. G. A. Curzon Hon. Miss Curzon Major Clayton, Little Harwood Rev. W. Henry Coulthurst, D.D.
Vicar of Halifax Rev. T. Collins, D.D. Minister of
Burnley Rev. W. Carr, B.D. Fellow of the
Magdalen College, Oxford H. C). Cunliffe, Esq. Wycoller R. Cross, Esq. Burgh Hall J. Calverley, Esq. Leeds Capt. Cable, Isle of Man R. Card well, Esq. Blackburn Mr. A. Cottam, Whalley W. Cubbin, Esq. Liverpool Elijah Cobham, Esq. Everton Miss Crosley,