Edward Taylor of whom I have just written was baptized by him. One day, being under examination as a witness in court, Alderson questioned him as to his age. "Why," said Taylor, a little nettled, "you ought to know, for you baptized me." "I baptized you!" exclaimed Alderson. "What do you mean?" The Recorder never liked to be reminded of his having been a preacher. The Marchioness of Salisbury is of this family. Perhaps, of these Unitarian preachers, one of the most distinguished was Dr. William Enfield, whose "Speaker" was one of the books placed in the hands of ingenuous youth, and whose "History of Philosophy" was one of the works to be studied in their riper years. Norwich, indeed, was full of learned men. Its aged Bishop, Bathurst, was the one voter for Reform, much to the delight of William IV., who said that he was a fine fellow, and deserved to be the helmsman of the Church in the rough sea she would soon have to steer through. His one offence in the eyes of George III. was that he voted against the King-that is, in favour of justice to the Catholics. With such a Bishop a Reformer, no wonder that all Norwich went wild with joy when the battle of Reform was fought and won. Bishop Stanley, who succeeded, was also in his way a great Liberal, and invited Jenny Lind to stay with him at the palace. I often used to see him at Exeter Hall, where his activity as a speaker afforded a remarkable contrast to the quieter style of his more celebrated son.
Accidentally looking into the life of Bishop Bathurst, I find printed in the Appendix some interesting conversations at Earlham, where Joseph John Gurney lived. On one occasion, when Dr. Chalmers was staying there, Joseph John Gurney writes: "W. Y. breakfasted with us, and with his usual strong sense and talent called forth the energies of Chalmers" mind.
They conversed on the subject of special Providence, and of the unseen yet unceasing superintendence of the Creator of all the events which occur in this lower world. Said W. Y.: "Mr. Barbauld, the husband of the auth.o.r.ess, was once a resident in my house. He was a man of low opinions in religion, and denied the agency of an unseen spirit on the mind of man." I remarked that when the mind was determined to a certain right action by a combination of circ.u.mstances productive of the adequate motives, and meeting from various quarters precisely at the right point for the purpose in view, this was in itself a sufficient evidence of an especial Providence, and might be regarded as the instrumentality through which the Holy Spirit acts. Mr. Barbauld admitted the justice of this argument." Again I read: "W. Y. supported the doctrine that nature is governed through the means of general laws-laws which broadly and obviously mark the wisdom and benevolence of G.o.d." One extract more: "W.
Y. expressed his admiration of the masterly manner in which Dr. Chalmers, in his "Bridgewater Treatise," has fixed on the atheist a moral obligation to inquire into the truth of religion; but, said he, might not the disciples of Irving, by the same rule, oblige us to an inquiry into the supposed evidences of their favourite doctrine that Christ is about to appear and to reign personally on earth? Might not even the Mahometan suppose in the Christian a similar necessity as it relates to the pretensions of the false prophet?" If Joseph Gurney sent for W. Y. to converse with Dr. Chalmers as a genial spirit, surely the name of one so honourable and of one so friendly both to my father and myself should not be omitted. W. Y. loved a joke. He was very stout, and wore tight black knee breeches with shoes and silk stockings. I remember how he made me laugh one day as he described what happened to his knee-breeches as he stooped to tie up his shoes ere attending a place of worship. To cut a long story short, I may add W. Youngman did not go to church that day.
Originally I think he was a dyer.
Harriet Martineau, as all the world knows, was born at Norwich. In her somewhat ill-natured autobiography she writes: "Norwich, which has now no social claims to superiority at all, was in my childhood a rival of Lichfield itself, in the time of the Sewards, for literary pretensions and the vulgarity of pedantry. William Taylor was then at his best, when there was something like fulfilment of his early promise, when his exemplary filial duty was a fine spectacle to the whole city, and before the vice which destroyed him had coa.r.s.ened his morale and destroyed his intellect. During the war it was a great distinction to know anything of German literature, and in Mr. Taylor"s case it proved a ruinous distinction. He was completely spoiled by the flatteries of shallow men, pedantic women, and conceited lads." Yet this man was the friend of Southey and opened up a new world to the English intellect, and perhaps in days to come will have a more enduring reputation than Harriet Martineau herself. The lady does not err on the side of good nature in her criticism. All she can say of Dr. Sayers is: "I always heard of him as a genuine scholar, and I have no doubt he was superior to his neighbours in modesty and manners. Dr. Enfield, a feeble and superficial man of letters, was gone also from the literary supper-table before my time. There was Sir James Smith, the botanist, made much of and really not pedantic and vulgar like the rest, but weak and irritable. There was Dr. Alderson, Mrs. Opie"s father, solemn and sententious and eccentric in manner, but not an able man in any way;" and thus the leading lights of Norwich are contemptuously dismissed. "The great days of the Gurneys were not come yet. The remarkable family from which issued Mrs. Fry and Priscilla and Joseph John Gurney were then a set of dashing young people, dressed in gay riding habits and scarlet boots, as Mrs. Fry told us afterwards, and riding about the country to b.a.l.l.s and gaieties of all sorts. Accomplished and charming young ladies they were; and we children used to overhear some whispered gossip about the effects of their charms on heart-stricken young men; but their final characteristics were not yet apparent."
It is to a Norwich man that we owe the publication of Hansard"s Parliamentary Debates. Luke Hansard, to whom they owe their name, was born in Norwich, 1725, was trained as a printer, went to London with but a guinea in his pocket, was employed by Hughes, the printer of the House of Commons, succeeded to the business and became widely known for his despatch and accuracy in printing Parliamentary papers and debates. He died in 1828, but the business was continued by his family, and to refer to Hansard became the invariable custom when an M.P. was to be condemned out of his own mouth-as Hansard was supposed never to err. Recently Hansard has been carried on by a company, but the old name still remains.
Dr. Stoughton has in vain, in a number of the _Congregationalist_, attempted to record the memory of a man well known and much honoured in his day-the Rev. John Alexander, of Norwich. The portrait is a failure.
It gives us no idea of the man with his rosy face, his curly black hair, his merry, twinkling eye, his joyous laugh, when mirth befitted the occasion, or his tender sympathy where pain and sorrow and distress had to be endured. Mr. Alexander"s jubilee was celebrated in St. Andrew"s Hall in 1867, when the Mayor and a crowd of citizens did him honour, and a sum of money for the purchase of an annuity was presented, thus obviating the necessity of doing to him as on one occasion he in his humorous way suggested should be done with old ministers when past work-that they should be shot. In 1817 Mr. Alexander had come to Norwich to preach in the old Whitfield Tabernacle in place of Mr. Hooper, one of the tutors at Hoxton Academy. When I went to Norwich he had built a fine chapel in Prince"s Street, and amongst the hearers was Mr. Tillet, then in a lawyer"s office, a young man famous for his speeches at the Mechanics" Inst.i.tute and in connection with a literary venture, the _Norwich Magazine_, not destined to set the Thames on fire; latterly an M.P. for Norwich and proprietor and editor, I believe, of one of the most popular of East Anglian journals, the _Norfolk News_. It was in Prince"s Street Chapel I first learned to realize how influential was the Nonconformist public, of which I frankly admit in our little village, with Churchmen all round, I had but a limited idea. It seemed to me that we were rather a puny folk, but at Norwich, with its chapels and pastors and people, I saw another sight. There was the Rev. John Alexander, with an overflowing audience on the Sunday and an active vitality all the week, now dining at the palace with the Bishop or breakfasting at Earlham with the Gurneys, now meeting on terms of equality the literati of the place (at that time Mrs. Opie was still living near the castle, and Mr.
Wilkins was writing his life of the far-famed Norwich doctor, the learned and ingenious author of the "Religio Medici"), now visiting the afflicted and the dest.i.tute, now carrying consolation to the home of the mourner.
John Alexander was a man to whom East Anglian Nonconformity owes much.
In the old city there was a good deal of young intelligence, and a good deal of it amongst the Noncons. Dr. s.e.xton was one of the Old Meeting House congregation, as was Lucy Brightwell, a lady not unknown to the present generation of readers. To a certain extent a Noncon. is bound to be more or less intelligent. He finds a great State Establishment of religion wherever he goes. It enjoys the favour of the Court. It is patronized by the aristocracy. It enlists among its supporters all who wish to rise in the world or to make a figure in society. By means of the endowed schools of the land, it offers to the young, even of the humblest birth, a chance of winning a prize. Conform, it says, and you may be rich and respectable. It was said of a late Bishop of Winchester that he would forgive a man anything so long as he were but a good Churchman, and even now one meets in society with people who regard a Dissenter as little better than a heathen or a publican. A man who can thus voluntarily place himself at a disadvantage, to a certain extent, must have exercised his intellect and be ready to give a reason for the faith that is in him. Naturally, men are of the religion of the country in which they are born-Roman Catholics in Italy, Mahometans in Turkey, Buddhists in the East. It requires more power and strength of mind and decision of character to dissent from the Church of the State than to support it. "How was it," asked Dr. Storrar, Chairman of the Convocation of the University of London, the other day, "that the lads educated at Mill Hill Grammar School had done so well at Cambridge and Oxford?" The reply, said the Doctor, was-I don"t give his words, merely the idea-to be found in the fact that a couple of centuries ago there were men of strong intellect and tender consciences who refused to renounce their opinions at the command of a despotic power. They had been succeeded by their sons with the same quickness of intellect and conscience. Generations one after another had come and gone, and the children of these old Nonconformists thus came to the school with an hereditary intelligence, destined to win in the gladiatorship of the school, the college, or the world.
Let me now give an anecdote of Dr. Bathurst, the Lord Bishop of Norwich, too good to be lost. It is told by Sir Charles Leman, who described him in 1839 as gradually converting his enemies into friends by his uniform straightforwardness and enlarged Christian principle. One of his clergy, who had been writing most abusively in newspapers, had on one occasion some favour to solicit, which he did with natural hesitation. The Bishop promised all in his power and in the kindest manner, and when the clergyman was about to leave the room he suddenly turned with, "My lord, I must say, however, I much regret the part I have taken against you; I see I was quite in the wrong, and I beg your forgiveness." This was readily accorded. "But how was it," the clergyman continued, "you did not turn your back on me? I quite expected it." "Why, you forget that I profess myself a Christian," was the reply.
Of a later Bishop-Stanley-whom I can well remember, a dark, energetic little man, making a speech at Exeter Hall, we hear a little in Caroline Fox"s memories of old friends. In 1848 she writes: "Dined very pleasantly at the palace; the Bishop was all animation and good humour, but too unsettled to leave any memorable impression. I like Mrs. Stanley much-a shrewd, sensible, observing woman. She told me much about her Bishop, how very trying his position was on first settling at Norwich; for his predecessor was an amiable, indolent old man, who let things take their course, and a very bad course too, all which the present man has to correct as way opens, and continually sacrifice popularity to a sense of right."
The following anecdote of Miss Fox and her friends calling at a cottage in the neighbourhood of Norwich is too good to be lost. "A young woman,"
she writes, "told us that her father was nearly converted, and that a little more teaching would complete the business," adding, "He quite believes that he is lost, which is, of course, a great consolation to the old man." That story is racy of the soil. It is in that way the East Anglian peasantry who have any religion at all talk; they have no hope of a man who does not feel that he is lost. Well, there are many ways to heaven, and that must comfort some of us who still believe that man was made in the image of his Maker, a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour, and not destined to an eternity of misery for the sins of a day.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SUFFOLK CAPITAL.
The Orwell-The Sparrows-Ipswich notabilities-Gainsborough-Medical men-Nonconformists.
Those who imagine Suffolk to be a flat and uninteresting county, with no charms for the eye and no a.s.sociations worth speaking of, are much mistaken. There are few lovelier rivers in England than the Orwell, on which Ipswich stands, up which river the fiery Danes used to sail to plunder all the country round, and on the banks of which Gainsborough learned to love Nature and draw her in all her charms. The town itself stands in a valley, but it has gradually crept up the hills on each side, so that almost everywhere you have a pleasing prospect and breathe a bracing air. A few miles, or, rather, a short walk, brings you to Henley, which has the reputation of being the highest land in Suffolk, and on the other side there is a railway that connects Ipswich with Felixstowe, just as the Crystal Palace is connected with the City.
Ipswich may claim to be the most prosperous and enterprising of all the Suffolk towns. It goes with the times. Its citizens are active and pushing men of business, and have enlightened ideas as well. They are also Liberal in politics and practical in religion, and are never behind in coming forward when there is a chance of benefiting themselves or their fellow-creatures. And yet Ipswich has a history as long as the dullest cathedral town. It was a place of note during the existence of the Saxon Heptarchy. Twice it had the honour of publicly entertaining King John; and there is a tradition that in the curious and beautifully-ornamented house in the b.u.t.ter Market-formerly the residence of Mr. Sparrow, the Ipswich coroner, whose old family portraits, including one of the Jameses, presented to an ancestor of the family, filled me not a little with youthful wonder-Charles II. was secreted by one of the Sparrows of that day, when he came to hide in Ipswich after the battle of Worcester. "The house is now a shop," but, observes Mr.
Glyde, a far-famed local historian, "a concealed room in the upper story of the house, which was discovered during some alterations in 1801, is well adapted for such a purpose." And, at any rate, the gay and graceless monarch, in search of a hiding-place, might have gone farther and fared worse. Be that as it may, Ipswich can rejoice in the fact that it was the birthplace of Cardinal Wolsey; and that he was one of the first educational reformers of the day must be admitted, at any rate, in Ipswich, of which, possibly, he would have made a second Cambridge.
Alas! of his efforts in that direction, the only outward and visible sign is the old gateway in what is called College Street, which remains to this day. Ipswich fared well in the Elizabethan days, when her Gracious Majesty condescended to visit the place. Sir Christopher Hatton, the dancing Lord Chancellor, who led the brawls, when
"The seals and maces danced before him,"
lived in a house near the Church of St. Mary-le-Tower. Sir Edward c.o.ke resided in a village not far off, and in 1597 the M.P. for Ipswich was no other than the great Lord Bacon, who by birth and breeding was emphatically a Suffolk man. From Windham"s diary, it appears that at Ipswich that distinguished statesman experienced a new sensation. In 1789 he writes: "Left Ipswich not till near twelve. Saw Humphries there, and was for the first time entertained with some sparring; felt much amused with the whole of the business."
In the early part of the present century Miss Berry, on returning from one of her Continental trips, paid Ipswich a visit, having landed at Southwold. "Appearance of Ipswich very pretty in descending towards it,"
is the entry in her diary. About the same time Bishop Bathurst made his visitation tour, and he writes to one of his lady correspondents: "You will be glad that, during the three weeks I pa.s.sed in Suffolk, I did not meet a single unpleasant man, nor experience a single unpleasant accident." With the name of the Suffolk hero Captain Broke, of the _Shannon_. (I can well remember the Shannon coach-which ran from Yoxford to London-the only day-coach we had at that time), Ipswich is inseparably connected. He was born at Broke Hall, just by, and there spent the later years of his life. Another of our naval heroes, Admiral Vernon, the victor of Porto Bello, resided in the same vicinity. At one time there seems to have been an attempt to connect Ipswich with the Iron Duke. In the memoir of Admiral Broke we have more than one reference to the Duke"s shooting in that neighbourhood, and actually it appears that, unknown to himself, he was nominated as a candidate to the office of High Steward.
Ipswich, however, preferred a neighbour, in the shape of Sir Robert Harland. At a later day the office was filled by Mr. Charles Austin, the distinguished writer on Jurisprudence.
One of the celebrated n.o.blemen who lived in Ipswich was Lord Chedworth.
He wore top-boots, and wore them till they were not fit to be seen. When new boots were sent home he was accustomed to set them on one side, and get his manservant to wear them a short time to prepare them for his own feet. Sometimes the man would tell his lordship that he thought the boots were ready, but his lordship would generally reply, "Never mind, William; wear them another week." While at Ipswich his lordship was frequently consulted, owing to his legal attainments and well-known generous disposition, by tradesmen and people in indigent circ.u.mstances.
The applicants were ushered into the library, where, surrounded by books, they found his lordship. The chairs and furniture of the room, like his lordship"s clothes, had not merely seen their best days, but were comparatively worthless, and the old red cloak which invariably enveloped his shoulders made him look more like a gipsy boy than a peer of the realm. His lordship"s legacies to Ipswich ladies and others, especially of the theatrical profession, were of the most liberal character.
Ipswich in its old days had its share of witches. One of the most notorious of them was Mother Hatheland, who in due course was tried, condemned and executed. From her confession in 1645 it appears "the said Mother Hatheland hath been a professor of religion, a constant hearer of the Word for these many years, yet a witch, as she confessed, for the s.p.a.ce of nearly twenty years. The devil came to her first between sleeping and waking, and spake to her in a hollow voice, telling her that if she would serve him she would want nothing. After often solicitations she consented to him. Then he stroke his claw (as she confessed) into her hands, and with her blood wrote the covenant." Now, as the writer gravely remarks, the subtlety of Satan is to be observed in that he did not press her to deny G.o.d and Christ, as he did others, because she was a professor, and he might have lost all his hold by pressing her too far.
Satan appears to have provided her with three imps, in the shape of two little dogs and a mole.
As the home of Gainsborough Ipswich has enduring claims on the English nation and on lovers of art and artists everywhere. That must have been a Suffolk man who pa.s.sed the following criticism on Gainsborough"s celebrated picture of "Girl and Pigs," of which Sir Joshua Reynolds became the purchaser at one hundred guineas, though the artist asked but sixty: "They be deadly like pigs; but who ever saw pigs feeding together, but one on "em had a foot in the trough?" Gainsborough had an enthusiastic attachment to music. It was the favourite amus.e.m.e.nt of his leisure hours, and his love for it induced him to give one or two concerts to his most intimate acquaintances whilst living in Ipswich. He was a member of a musical club, and painted some of the portraits of his brother members in his picture of a choir. Once upon a time, Gainsborough was examined as a witness on a trial respecting the originality of a picture. The barrister on the other side said: "I observe you lay great stress on a painter"s eye; what do you mean by that expression?" "A painter"s eye," replied Gainsborough, "is to him what the lawyer"s eye is to you." As a boy at the Grammar School of his native town, it is to be feared he loved to play truant. One day he went out to his usual sketching haunts to enjoy the nature which he loved heartily, previously presenting to his uncle, who was master of the school, the usual slip of paper, "Give Tom a holiday," in which his father"s handwriting was so exactly imitated that not the slightest suspicion of the forgery ever entered the mind of the master. Alas!
however, the crime was detected, and his terrified parent exclaimed in despair, "Tom will one day be hanged." When, however, he was informed how the truant schoolboy had employed his truant hours, and the boy"s sketches were laid before him, forgetful of the consequences of forgeries in a commercial society, he declared, with all the pride of a father, "Tom will be a genius," and he was right.
Worthy Mr. Pickwick seems to have known Ipswich about the same time as myself. "In the main street of Ipswich," wrote the biographer of that distinguished individual, "on the left-hand side of the way, a short distance after you have pa.s.sed through the open s.p.a.ce fronting the Town Hall, stands an inn known far and wide by the appellation of the Great White Horse, rendered the more conspicuous by a stone statue of some rapacious animal, with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an insane carthorse, which is elevated above the princ.i.p.al door. The Great White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood in the same degree as a prize ox, a county paper chronicled turnip, or unwieldy pig, for its enormous size. Never were such labyrinths of uncarpeted pa.s.sages, such cl.u.s.ters of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens for eating or sleeping in, beneath any one roof as are collected together between the four walls of the Great White Horse of Ipswich." This was the great hotel of the Ipswich of my youth. As regards hotels, Ipswich has not improved, but in every other way it has much advanced. One of the old inns has been turned into a fine public hall, admirably adapted for concerts and public meetings. The new Town Hall, Corn Exchange, and Post-office are a credit to the town. The same may be said of the new Museum and the Grammar School and the Working Men"s College and that health resort, the Arboretum; while by means of the new dock ships of fifteen hundred tons burden can load and unload. Nowadays everybody says Ipswich is a rising town, and what everyone says must be right. The Ipswich people, at any rate, have firmly got that idea into their heads.
Its fathers and founders built the streets narrow, evidently little antic.i.p.ating for Ipswich the future it has since achieved. The Ipswich of to-day is laid out on quite a different scale. It has a tram road service evidently much in excess of the present population, and as you wander in the suburbs you come to a sign-post bearing the name of a street in which not even the enterprise of the speculative builder has been able at present to plant a single dwelling. When Ipswich has climbed up its surrounding hills, and taken up all the building sites at present in the market, it will be a goodly and gallant town, almost fitted to invite the temporary residence of holiday-making Londoners who are fond of the water. At all times it is a pretty sail to Harwich and thence to Felixstowe, that quiet watering-place, a seaside residence that has still a pleasant flavour of rusticity about it, with a fine crisp sea-sand floor for a promenade.
When I was a boy Ipswich was resorted to by Londoners in the summer-time.
As an ill.u.s.tration, I give the case of Mr. Ewen, one of the deacons of the Weigh House Chapel, when the Rev. John Clayton was the pastor. In his memories of the Clayton family, the Rev. Dr. Aveling writes of Mr.
Ewen, that "he was so sensitively conscientious in the discharge of his official duties at the Weigh House, that he was never absent from town on the days when the Lord"s Supper was administered, and when he was expected to a.s.sist in the administration of the elements. His London residence was in Lincoln"s Inn Fields, but having a house and property in the town of Ipswich, he pa.s.sed his summer months there. Yet so intent was he upon duly filling his place in the sanctuary of G.o.d, that he regularly travelled by post-chaise once in every month, and returned in the same manner, that he might be present, together with his pastor and the brethren, at the table of the Lord. The length and the expense of the journey (and travelling was not then what it is now) did not deter him from what he at least deemed to be a matter of Christian obligation."
Dr. Aveling is quite right when he tells us travelling is not what it was. It took almost a day to go from Ipswich to London when I was a boy, and now the journey is done by means of the Great Eastern Railway in about an hour and a half. It seems marvellous to one who, like myself, remembers well the past, to leave Liverpool Street at 5.0 p.m. precisely, and to find one"s self landed safe and well in Ipswich soon after half-past six. The present generation can have no conception of travelling in England in the olden time.
There were some wonderful old Radicals in Ipswich, though it was, and is, the county town of the most landlord-ridden district in England. Some of them got the great Dan O"Connell to pay the town a visit, and some of them n.o.bly stood by old John Childs when he became famous all the world over as the Church-rate martyr. The lawyers and the doctors were mostly Tories, but the tradesmen and the merchants were not a little leavened with the leaven of Dissent. Mr. Hammond was, however, a Liberal surgeon, and as such flourished. His Whig principles, writes Mr. Glyde, brought him many patients, and his skill and sound qualities retained them. Dr.
Garrord, the well-known London pract.i.tioner, was an apprentice of Mr.
Hammond"s; and this reminds me that among the Ipswich men who have risen is Mr. Sprigg, the Premier of Cape Colony when Sir Bartle Frere was at the head of affairs there. The father of Mr. Sprigg was the respected pastor of a Baptist chapel in the town. The only Ipswich minister whom I can remember was the Rev. Mr. Notcutt, who preached in the leading Independent chapel, now pulled down to make way for a much more attractive building. All I can recollect about him is, that once, when a lad, I fainted away when he was preaching. No sermon ever affected me so since; and that effect was due, it must be confessed, not to the preacher, who seemed to me rather aged and asthmatic, but to the heat of the place, in consequence of the crowd attracted to the meeting-house on some special occasion.
But to return to the doctors. Of one of them, who was famed for his love of bleeding his patients, not metaphorically, but in the old-fashioned way, with the lancet, it is recorded that on the occasion of his taking a holiday two of his patients died. Lamenting the fact to a friend, the following epigram was the result:
"B--- kills two patients while from home away- A clever fellow this same B---, I wot; If absent thus his patients he can slay, How he must kill them when he"s on the spot!"
Perhaps one of the noted physicians of my boyhood was Mr. Stebbing. "He was once," writes Mr. Glyde, "called in to see one of the Ipswich Dissenting ministers, who had taken life very easily, and had grown corpulent. After examining the patient and hearing his statement as to bodily state, he replied: "You"ve no particular ailment; mind and keep your eyes longer open, and your mouth longer shut, and you will do very well in a short time."" On another occasion a raw and very poor-looking young fellow called upon him for advice. The doctor told him to go home and eat more pudding, adding, "That"s all you want; physic is a very good thing for one to live by, but a precious bad thing for you to take." One of the Ipswich characters of my boyhood, of whom Mr. Glyde has preserved an anecdote, was old Tuxford, the veterinary surgeon. He used to declare that he never took more than one meal a day-a breakfast; but when asked of what that consisted, he said, "A pound of beefsteak, seven eggs, three cups of tea, and a quartern of rum." It may also be mentioned that before Mrs. Garrett Anderson was born, Ipswich had a lady physician in the person of Miss Stebbing, daughter of the doctor to whom I have already referred. "She was," says one who knew her well, "a woman of general education, with more than ordinary tact and discernment, combined with the true womanly power of a.n.a.lyzing and observing. She had good physical powers, and, like her worthy father, was somewhat pungent in her remarks and eccentric in her habits. She entered the ranks as a medical pract.i.tioner during her father"s life. The benefit of his advice so aided her perceptive powers as to make her quite an expert in various ways, and she continued to practise long after his decease, occasionally attending males as well as females. Her knowledge of midwifery caused a large number of ladies to engage her services.
Of the Radicals of Ipswich, the only one with whom I came into contact was Mr. John King, the proprietor and editor of what was then, at any rate, a far-famed journal-the _Suffolk Chronicle_. Astronomy was his hobby, and he had ideas on the subject which, unfortunately, I failed to catch. He had built himself an observatory, if I remember aright, at his residence on Rose Hill, where he would sweep the heavens nightly, to see what could be seen. He was a Radical of the old type, a tall, dark, bilious-looking man, a little hard and dry, perhaps, who seemed to think that it was no use to throw pearls before swine, and to serve up for the chaw-bacons a too rich intellectual treat, and his policy was a successful one. Priest-ridden as Suffolk was, the _Suffolk Chronicle_ was the leading paper of the county, and had a large circulation, and, let me add, did good service in its day. Now I find Ipswich rejoices in a well-conducted daily journal, the _East Anglian Times_, which I hear, and am glad to hear, is a fine property, and I see all the leading towns in Suffolk have a paper to themselves, even if they can"t get up a decent paragraph of local news-and some of them I know, from my experiences of Suffolk life, are quite unequal to that-once a week. The plan is to have some sheets already printed in London, at some great establishment, whence perhaps a hundred little towns are supplied, and then the local news and advertis.e.m.e.nts are added on, and Little Pedlington has its _Observer_, and Eatanswill its _Gazette_. When I was a boy, such a thing was out of the question, as to each paper a fourpenny-halfpenny stamp was attached. As the stamps had to be paid for in advance, and as, besides, there was an eighteen-penny duty on every advertis.e.m.e.nt, it was not quite such an easy matter to run a paper then as it has since become. I fancy the old-established journals suffered much by the change, which completely revolutionized the newspaper trade; at any rate, so far as the country was concerned. In this connection, let me add that it was to an Ipswich journalist we owe the establishment of penny readings on anything like a large and successful scale. They were originated by Mr. Sully, at that time the proprietor and editor of the _Ipswich __Express_, a paper intended to steer between the ferocious Toryism of the _Ipswich Journal_, and the equally ferocious Radicalism of the _Suffolk Chronicle_. As was to be expected, the attempt did not succeed. As in love and in war, so in politics and theology, moderation is a thing hateful to G.o.ds and men.
The electioneering annals of Ipswich can testify to that fact. I have a dim recollection of an election pet.i.tion which ended in Sir Fitzroy Kelly"s admitting that he had stated what was not true, but he did it as a lawyer, not as a gentleman, and in sending one of the finest old gentlemen I ever knew to gaol, because he would not tell what he knew of the matter. There was not much half-and-half work in the Ipswich politics of my young days.
When people fight fiercely in politics, it is natural to expect an equal earnestness in religious matters. It was so emphatically with respect to the Ipswich of the past. "The Reformed religion, after those fiery days of persecution," writes John Quick, "was now revived, and flourished again in the country, under the auspicious name of our English Deborah, Queen Elizabeth; and Ipswich, the capital town of Suffolk, was not more famous for its s.p.a.cious sheds, large and beautiful buildings, rich and great trade, and honourable merchants, both at home and abroad, than it was for its learned and G.o.dly ministers and its religious intolerants."
Of the G.o.dly ministers, one of the most famous was Samuel Ward, who was buried in St. Mary-le-Tower Church. In 1666 he preached a sermon at St.
Paul"s Cross. But he meddled with politics. For instance, in 1621 he published a caricature picture, ent.i.tled "Spayne and Rome Defeated." It is thus described: The Pope and his Council are represented in the centre of the piece, and beneath, on one side the Armada, and on the other the Gunpowder Treason. Gondomar, the Spanish Amba.s.sador, complained of it as insulting to his master. Ward was placed in custody. Being Puritanically inclined, he was, in addition, prosecuted in the Consistory Court of Norwich by Bishop Harsnet for Nonconformity. Ten years later, when 600 persons were contemplating a removal from Ipswich to New England-as a place where they could worship G.o.d without fear of priest or king-the blame was cast by Laud on Ward. Rushworth informs us that the charges laid against him were that he preached against the common bowing at the name of Jesus and against the King"s "Book of Sports," and further said that the Church of England was ready to ring changes in England, and that the Gospel stood on tiptoe as ready to be gone; and for this he was removed from his lectureship and sent to gaol. John Ward, his brother, Rector of St. Clement"s, was a member of the a.s.sembly of Divines, and was called to preach two sermons before the House of Commons, for which he received the thanks of the House. At that time we find a reference to Ipswich as a place which "the Lord hath long made famous and happy as a valley of Gospel vision." Such places, alas! seem to have been commoner formerly than they are now.
One of the Congregational churches of Ipswich, at any rate, has very interesting historical a.s.sociations. "Salem Chapel," writes the Rev.
John Browne, in his "History of Congregationalism in Suffolk and Norfolk," "stands in St. George"s Lane, opposite the place where St.
George"s Chapel formerly stood, where Bilney was apprehended when preaching in favour of the Reformation, and where he so enraged the monks that they twice plucked him out of the pulpit." The last time I was at Ipswich I saw bricklayers at work at the old Presbyterian church in St.
Nicholas Street, which it would be a pity to see modernized, being such a fine ill.u.s.tration of the old-fashioned Dissenting Meeting-house, before it became the fashion to have a taste and to build Gothic chapels in which it is difficult to see or hear, and the only advantage of which is that they are an exact copy of the steeple-houses against which at one time Nonconformist England waged remorseless war. One of the pastors of this congregation removed to Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds, where he succeeded Dr. Priestley; another was the author of a "History and Description of Derbyshire"; while one of the supplies was the Rev. Robert Alderson, afterwards of the Octagon Chapel, Norwich, who ultimately became a lawyer and Recorder of Norwich. Perhaps one of the most singular scenes connected with Dissenting chapels in Ipswich was that which took place in the old chapel in Tackard, now Tacket, Street. In 1766 the minister there was the Rev. Mr. Edwards, who, it appears, was sent for to the gaol to see two men who had been found guilty of house-breaking, and who, according to the law as it then stood, were to be hung. Mr. Edwards did so, and stayed with them two hours. As the result of this visit they were brought to a penitent state of mind. They had heard that Mr.
Edwards had prepared a sermon for them and desired them to attend. This was a mistake, but notwithstanding they obtained permission to go to the chapel, where Mr. Edwards was conducting a church meeting. A report of the purpose got abroad, and many persons came to the meeting, upon which it was thought most proper that the church business should be laid aside, and that Mr. Edwards should go into the pulpit. This he did, and after singing and prayer the prisoners came in with their shackles and fetters on. Mr. Edwards, in describing the scene, says:
"Many were moved at the sight. As for myself, I was obliged for some time to stop to give vent to tears. When I recovered I gave out part of a hymn suitable to the occasion, then prayed. The subject of discourse was, "This is a faithful saying," and the poor prisoners shed abundance of tears while I was explaining the several parts of the text, and especially when I turned and addressed myself immediately to them. The house was thronged, and I suppose not a dry eye in the whole place-nothing but weeping and sorrow; and the floods of tears which gushed from the eyes of the two prisoners were very melting."
The good man continues: "When we had concluded I went and spoke some encouraging words by way of supporting them under their sorrow. They then desired I should see them in the evening, which I did, and called upon Mr. Blindle on the way; the old gentleman went along with me to the prison, and was one who prayed with them with much fervour and enlargement of heart. We spent nearly two hours with them, and a crowd of people were present." On another occasion we find an American Indian preaching in the pulpit-a novelty in 1767. He came over with a Dr.
Whitaker, of Norwich, in America, to collect money for the education and conversion of Indians, and at Tackard Street the people raised the very respectable sum of 80 for the purpose. In 1561 Queen Elizabeth paid Ipswich a visit. At that time the place was a little too Protestant for her. Strype writes: "Here Her Majesty took a great dislike to the impudent behaviour of most of the ministers and readers, there being many weak ones among them, and little or no order observed in the public service, and few or none wearing the surplice, and the Bishop of Norwich was thought remiss, and that he winked at schismatics. But more particularly she was offended with the clergy"s marriage, and that in cathedrals and colleges there were so many wives and children and widows seen, which, she said, was contrary to the intent of the founders, and so much tending to the interruption of the studies of those who were placed there. Therefore she issued an order to all dignitaries, dated August 9, at Ipswich, to forbid all women to the lodgings of cathedrals or colleges, and that upon pain of losing their ecclesiastical promotion."
From this it is clear that when Elizabeth was Queen there was little chance of the Women"s Rights Question finding a favourable hearing. The Queen was succeeded by monarchs after her own heart. In 1636 Prynne published his "Newes from Ipswich," "discovering certain late detestable practices of some domineering Lordly Prelates to undermine the established doctrine and discipline of our Church, extirpate all orthodox sincere preachers and preaching of G.o.d"s Word, usher in popery, idolatry and superst.i.tion." For this publication Prynne was sentenced to be fined 5,000 to the King, to lose the remainder of his ears, to be branded on both cheeks, and to be perpetually imprisoned in Carnarvon Castle. At that time the Ipswich people were far too Liberal for the powers existing. Ipswich news nowadays is little calculated to displease anyone, and governments and kings are less p.r.o.ne to take offence at the exercise of free thought and free speech.
Ipswich people make their way. Miss Reeve-who wrote the "Old English Baron," a popular tale years ago-was the daughter of the Rev. William Reeve of St. Nicholas Church. Another Ipswich lady, Mrs. Keeley, who lives on in her grand old age, was certainly one of the most popular performers of her day.
Two hundred years ago, no city man was better known than Thomas Firmin, who was born at Ipswich, described in his biography as "a very large and populous town in the county of Suffolk," in 1632. He was of Puritan parentage, and bound apprentice in the city of London, and then began business as a linen-draper on the modest capital of 100. In a little while he married and was enabled to dispense a generous hospitality, seeking all opportunities of becoming acquainted with persons of worth, whether foreigners or his fellow-countrymen. Amongst his special friends were Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, and Archbishop Tillotson, at that time the afternoon lecturer at St. Lawrence"s. During the time of the plague he managed to secure work for the London poor, and after the fire he erected a warehouse on the banks of the Thames, where coal and corn were sold at cost price. In 1676 he built a great factory in Little Britain, for the employment of the needy and industrious in the linen manufacture; he also relieved poor debtors in prison. The great work of his later years was in connection with the Blue Coat School. He was also one of the Governors of St. Thomas"s Hospital, which he did much to rescue from the wretched condition in which he found it. When the French refugees, in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, were driven over to this country, Firmin exerted himself powerfully on their behalf, and sent some of them to Ipswich to engage in manufacturing there. He also had a good deal to do with Ireland, when, as now, the country was torn by contending factions. At a large expense he also educated many boys and set them up in trade. He was also one of the first of the avowed and ardent friends and advocates of a free thought, of which there were few supporters in England at that day-even among the countrymen of Milton and John Locke. Unitarians were rare in the days when Firmin proclaimed himself one. Altogether he was one of the best men of his age, and well deserved to be buried in Christchurch, Newgate, among the Bluecoat School boys, to whom he had ever been such a friend, and to have the memorial pillar erected in his honour by Lady Clayton in Marden Park, Surrey. It is to be hoped that the memorial remains, though, alas! the n.o.ble mansion at one time inhabited by Wilberforce, and where the great philanthropist"s celebrated son, the Bishop of Oxford was born, and where I have spent more than one pleasant day when Sir John Puleston lived there, has been since burnt down.