Nor did Mr. Childs" labours end here. In Scotland the right of printing Bibles had been granted exclusively to a company of private persons, Blaire and Bruce, neither of whom had any practical knowledge of the art of printing, or took any interest in the different editions of the Bible.
The same men also had the supplying all the public revenue offices of Government with stationery, by which means they enjoyed an annual profit of more than 6,000 a year. When the Government, in an economical mood, ordered them to relinquish the latter contract, not only were they compensated for the loss, but were continued in their vested rights as regards Bible-printing. In Scotland there was no one to interfere with their rights. In England patents had been given not only to the firm of Messrs. Strahan, Eyre and Spottiswoode, but to each of the two Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. Up to 1821 the Bibles of the English monopolists came freely into Scotland, but then a prohibition, supported by decisions in the Court of Sessions and the House of Lords, was obtained. In 1824 Dr. Adam Thompson, of Coldstream, and three ministers were summoned to answer for the high crime and misdemeanour of having, as directors of Bible societies, delivered copies of an edition of Scriptures which had been printed in England, but which the Scotch monopolists would not permit to circulate in Scotland. Bible societies in Scotland had received, in return for their subscription to the London society, copies of an octavo Bible in large type, to which the Scotch patentees had no corresponding edition, and which was much prized by the aged. And it was because Dr. Thompson and others helped to circulate it, as agents of the London Bible Society, that they were proceeded against.
The Scotch Bible, in consequence of the monopoly, was as badly printed as the English one. In order to show how monopoly had failed to secure good work, a gentleman sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury an enormous list of errors which he had found in the Oxford Nonpareil Bible. In an old Scotch edition the apostle is made to say, "Know ye not that the righteous shall _not_ inherit the kingdom of G.o.d?" In another edition "The four beasts of the Apocalypse" are "_sour_ beasts." Dr. Lee, afterwards Princ.i.p.al of Edinburgh University, felt deeply the injustice done by the monopoly, and the heavy taxation consequently imposed upon the British and Foreign Bible Society; but he was a man of the study rather than of the street. Yet in 1837 the monopoly, powerfully defended as it was by Sir Robert Inglis, who dreaded cheap editions of the Word of G.o.d, as necessarily incorrect and leading to wickedness and infidelity of all kinds, fell, and it was to John Childs, of Bungay, that in a great measure the fall was due, while owing to the repeated labours of Dr. Adam Thompson and others, we got cheaper Bibles and Testaments on the other side of the Tweed.
If you turn to the life of Dr. Adam Thompson, of Coldstream, the man who had the most publicly to do with the fall of the monopoly, there can be no doubt on this head. Though specially interested in the English patents, Mr. Childs was aware that the one for Scotland fell, to be renewed sooner by twenty years, and he kept dunning Joseph Hume on the subject, who, Radical Reformer, at that time had his hands pretty full.
Mr. Childs had got so far as to have his Committee, and to get the evidence printed. What was the next step? Dr. Thompson"s biographer shall tell us. "Mr. Childs had been looking out for a Scottish Dissenting minister of proved ability, zeal, and influence, who should feel the immense and urgent importance of the question, and after mastering the unjust principles and the injurious results of the monopoly, should testify to these before the Committee, in a weighty and pointed manner, and effectively bring them also before the ministers and people of Scotland. He fixed upon Dr. Thompson, and the letter in which he wrote to the Doctor to prepare for becoming a witness was the beginning of a ten years" copious correspondence, the first in a series of many hundreds of very lengthy letters, in which Mr. Childs, with great shrewdness, sagacity, and vigour, and with perfect confidence of always being in the right, acted as universal censor, p.r.o.nouncing oracularly upon all ecclesiastical and political men and organs, expressing unqualified contempt for the House of Lords, and very small satisfaction with the House of Commons, showing no mercy to Churchmen, and little but asperity to Dissenters, and denouncing all British journals as base or blind except the _Nonconformist_." Only two of these letters are published in Dr. Thompson"s biography. I give one, partly because it is interesting, and partly because it is characteristic. Unfortunately, of all John Childs" letters to myself, written in a fine, bold hand, exactly reproduced by his son and grandson, so that I could never tell one from the other, I have preserved none. Childs thus wrote to Dr. Thompson, July 15th, 1839:
"MY DEAR FRIEND,
"You will be happy to know that I went into Newgate this morning with my friend Ashurst, and heard their pardon read to the Canadians.
They were released this afternoon, and Mr. Parker and Mr. Wixon have been dining with me, and are gone to a lodging, taken for them by Mr.
A., where they may remain till their departure on Wednesday. I have just sent to Mr. Tidman to inform him they will worship G.o.d and return thanks in his place to-morrow, if all be well. How wonderfully G.o.d has appeared for these people! My dear friend, when I first saw them in January all things appeared to be against them, but all has been overruled for good.
"At the time you left on Monday evening, Lord John was making known to the House of Commons, in your own words, the plan proposed by yourself, and adopted by him, to my amazement. Most heartily do I congratulate you on the termination of the event, so decidedly honourable to yourself in every way. I do not expect you will approve of all that I have done, but I felt it to be my duty to address a letter to the _Pilot_ on the subject, calling attention to the liberty taken with you, and the manner in which you were humbugged when in concert with the London societies, and the absolute triumph of your cause when conducted with single-handed integrity, intelligence, and energy. If it shall happen that you do not approve of all I have said, I am sure you ought, because without you, and with you, if you had left it to the fellows here, Scotland"s Dissenters would have now appeared the degraded things which, on the Bible subject, the English Dissenters have appeared in my eyes for some years past. It is due to you. I was fairly rejoiced when I saw Lord John"s declaration, because I could see from his answer to Sir James Graham that he meant the thing should be done. Scotland ought to have a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving, and as I said to a friend to whom I wrote in Edinburgh, "You ought to have a monument-the Thompson monument." "That, sir," the guide would say, "is erected to honour a man by whose honest energy and zeal Scotland was freed from the most degrading tyranny-that of a monopoly in printing the Word of G.o.d." The tablet should bear that memorable sentence of yours on the first day of your examination, "All monopolies are bad." Of all monopolies religious monopolies are the worst, and of all religious monopolies a monopoly of the Word of G.o.d is the most outrageous." Alas! I have heard nothing of the Thompson monument.
Such a man was John Childs. One more busy in body and brain I never knew. That he was disposed to be cynical was natural. Most men who see much of the world, and who do not wear coloured gla.s.ses, are so. Take the history of the Bible monopoly. The work of its abolition was commenced by John Childs, of Bungay, carried on and completed as far as Scotland was concerned by Dr. Adam Thompson, while the British public in its usual silliness awarded 3,000 to Dr. Campbell, on the plea-I quote the words of the late Dr. Morton Brown, of Cheltenham-that, "G.o.d gave the honour very largely to our friend, Dr. Campbell, to smite this bloated enemy of G.o.d and man full in the forehead." The bloated enemy, as regards Scotland, was dead before Dr. Campbell had ever penned a line.
As regards England, I believe it still exists.
It must have been about 1837 that the name of John Childs, of Bungay, was made specially notorious by reason of his refusal to pay Church-rates, and when he had the honour of being the first person imprisoned for their non-payment. He was proceeded against in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and as his refusal to pay was solely on conscientious grounds, he did not contest the matter. The result was, he was sent to Ipswich Gaol for the non-payment of a rate of 17s. 6d., the animus of the ecclesiastical authorities being manifested by the endors.e.m.e.nt of the writ, "Take no bail." It was the first death-blow to Church-rates. The local excitement it created was intense and unparalleled. In the House of Commons Sir William Foulkes presented several pet.i.tions from Norfolk, and Mr. Joseph Hume several from Suffolk, on the subject. One entire sitting of the House of Commons was devoted to the Bungay Martyr, as Sir Robert Peel ironically termed him. The Bungay Martyr had however, right on his side. It was found that a blot had been hit, and it had to be removed.
The excitement produced by putting Mr. Childs into gaol was intense at that time all over the land. "I beg to inform you," wrote a Halesworth Dissenter, Mr. William Lincoln, to the editor of the _Patriot_, at that time the organ of Dissent, "that my highly-esteemed and talented friend, Mr. John Childs, of Bungay, has just pa.s.sed through this town, in custody of a sheriff"s officer, on his way to our county gaol, by virtue of an attachment, at the suit of Messrs. Bobbet and Scott, churchwardens of Bungay, for non-payment of 17s. 6d. demanded of him as a Church-rate, and subsequent refusal to obey a citation for appearance at the Bishop"s Court." Naturally the writer remarked: "It will soon be seen whether proceedings so well in harmony with the days of fire and f.a.ggot are to be tolerated in this advanced period of the nineteenth century." When, in due time, Mr. Childs obtained his release, the event was celebrated at Bungay in fitting style. I find in a private diary the following note: "This day week was a grand day at Bungay. I heard there were not less than six or seven thousand people there to welcome his return, and the request of the police, that the greatest order might be observed, was fully acted up to. Miss C. did not enter Bungay with her father. I suppose when she found so great a mult.i.tude of hors.e.m.e.n, gigs, pedestrians and banners, they thought it better for the young lady and the younger children to retire to the close carriages. Mr. C. during his imprisonment had letters from all parts of the kingdom." I remember the leading Dissenters came to Bungay with a piece of plate, to present to Mr. Childs, to commemorate his heroism. A dinner was given by Mr. Childs in connection with the presentation. At that dinner, lad as I was, I was permitted to be present. I had never seen anything so grand or stately before; and that was my first interview with John Childs, a dark, restless, eagle-eyed man, whom I was to know better and love more for many a long day. I took to Radical writing, and nothing could have pleased John Childs better. I owed much to his friendship in after-life.
In 1833 the Church-rate question was originally raised in Bungay, and many of the Dissenters refused to pay. The local authorities at once took high ground, and put twelve of the recusants into the Ecclesiastical Court. They caved in, leaving to John Childs the honour of martyrdom.
At the time of Mr. Childs" imprisonment he had recently suffered from a severe surgical operation, and it was believed by his friends impossible that he could survive the infliction of imprisonment. The Rev. John Browne writes: "A committee very generously formed at Ipswich undertook the management of his affairs, and when they learned at the end of eleven days" imprisonment that he had undergone a most severe attack, indicating at least the possibility of sudden death, they sent a deputation to the Court to pay the sum demanded. The Court, however, required, as well as the money, the usual oath of canonical obedience, and this Mr. Childs refused to give. He was told by his friends that he would surely die in prison, but his reply was, "That is not my business." But it seems so much had been made of the matter by the newspapers that Mr. Childs was released without taking the oath. Charles Childs, the son, followed in his father"s steps. At Bungay the Churchmen seemed to have determined to make Dissenters as uncomfortable as possible. Actually five years after they had thrown the father into prison, the churchwardens proceeded against the son, having been baffled in repeated attempts to distrain upon his goods, and cited him into the Ecclesiastical Court, where it took two and a half years to determine whether the sum of three shillings and fourpence was due. At the end of that time the judge decided it was not, and the churchwardens had to pay Mr. Childs" costs as well as their own, which in the course of time amounted to a very respectable sum.
Charles Childs, who died suddenly a few years since, and who never seemed to me to have aged a day since I first knew him, was truly a chip of the old block. He was much in London, as he printed quite as much as his father for the leading London publishers. An enlightened patriot, he was in very many cases successful in resisting the obstacles raised from time to time by party spirit or Church bigotry. On more than one occasion he conducted a number of his workmen through an illegally-closed path, and opened it by the destruction of the fences, repeated appeals to the persistent obstructions having proved unavailing. He was a man of scholarly and literary attainments, a clever talker, well able to hold his own, and during the Corn Law and Currency agitation he contributed one or more articles on these subjects to the _Westminster Review_, then edited by his friend, the late General Perronet Thompson, a very foremost figure in Radical circles forty years ago, always trying to get into Parliament-rarely succeeding in the attempt. "How can he expect it,"
said Mr. Cobden to me one day, "when, instead of going to the princ.i.p.al people to support him, he finds out some small tradesman-some little tailor or shoemaker-to introduce him?" Once upon a time the _Times_ furiously attacked Charles Childs. His reply, which was able and convincing, was forwarded, but only procured admission in the shape of an advertis.e.m.e.nt, for which Mr. Childs had to pay ten pounds. The corner of East Anglia of which I write rarely produced two better men than the Childs, father and son. They are gone, but the printing business still survives, though no longer carried on under the well-known name. By their n.o.ble integrity and public spirit they proved themselves worthy of a craft to which light and literature and leading owe so much. It is to such men that England is under lasting obligations, and one of the indirect benefits of a State Church is that it gives them a grievance, and a sense of wrong, which compels them to gird up their energies to act the part of village Hampdens or guiltless Cromwells. All the manhood in them is aroused and strengthened as they contend for what they deem right and just, and against force and falsehood. Poets, we are told, by one himself a poet,
"Are cradled into poetry by wrong; They learn in suffering what they teach in song."
Nonconformists have cause especially to rejoice in the bigotry and persecution to which they have been exposed, since it has led them by a way they knew not, to become the champions of a broader creed and a more general right than that of which their fathers dreamed. It is easy to swim with the stream; it requires a strong man to swim against it. Two hundred years of such swimming had made the Bungay Nonconformists strong, and gave to the world two such exceptionally st.u.r.dy and strengthful men as John and Charles Childs. I was proud to know them as a boy; in advancing years I am prouder still to be permitted to bear this humble testimony to their honest worth. It is because Nonconformity has raised up such men in all parts of the land, that a higher tone has been given to our public life, that politics mean something more than a struggle between the ins and the outs, and that "Onward" is our battle-cry.
Of the young men more or less coming under the influence of the Childs"s, perhaps one of the most successful was the late Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward, Librarian to her Majesty. When I first knew him he was in a bank at Norwich. Thence he pa.s.sed to Highbury College, and in due time, after he had taken his B.A. degree, settled as the Independent minister at Wortwell, near Harleston, in Norfolk. There he became connected with John Childs, and, amidst much hard work, edited for the firm a new edition of "Barclay"s Universal English Dictionary." In 1860, on the death of Mr. Glover, who had for many years filled the post of Librarian to the Queen at Windsor Castle, Mr. Woodward"s name was mentioned to the Prince, in reply to inquiries for a competent successor. Acting on the advice of a friend at head-quarters, Mr. Woodward forwarded to Prince Albert the same printed testimonials which he had sent in when he was a candidate for the vacant secretaryship of a large and popular society, and to those alone he owed his appointment to the office of Librarian to the Queen. An interview took place at Windsor Castle, which was highly satisfactory; but before the appointment was finally made, Mr. Woodward informed Her Majesty and the Prince that there was one circ.u.mstance which he had omitted to mention, and which might disqualify him for the post.
"Pray, what is that disqualification?" asked the Prince. "It is,"
replied Mr. Woodward, "that I have been educated for, and have actually conducted the services of an Independent congregation in the country."
"And why should that be thought to disqualify you?" asked the Prince.
"It does nothing of the sort. If that is all, we are quite satisfied, and feel perfectly safe in having you for a librarian." Am I not justified in saying that at one time Bungay influences reached far and near?
CHAPTER VI.
A CELEBRATED NORFOLK TOWN.
Great Yarmouth Nonconformists-Intellectual life-Dawson Turner-Astley Cooper-Hudson Gurney-Mrs. Bendish.
When David Copperfield, d.i.c.kens tells us, first caught sight of Yarmouth, it seemed to him to look rather spongy and soppy. As he drew nearer, he remarks, "and saw the whole adjacent prospect, lying like a straight, low line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound or so might have improved it, and also that if the land had been a little more separated from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite so much mixed up, like toast-and-water, it would have been much nicer." He adds: "When we got into the street, which was strange to me, and smelt the fish, and pitch, and oak.u.m, and tallow, and saw the sailors walking about, and the carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I had done so busy a place injustice." In this opinion his readers who know Yarmouth will agree. Brighton and Hastings and Eastbourne might envy Yarmouth its sandy beach, where you can lead an amphibious life, watching the fishing-smacks as they come to sh.o.r.e with cargoes often so heavy as to be sold for manure; watching the merchant-ships and yachts that lie securely in the Roads, or the long trail of black smoke of Scotch or northern steamers far away; watching the gulls ever skimming the surface of the waves; or the children, as they build little forts and dwellings in the sand to be rudely swept to destruction by the advancing tide. In the golden light of summer, how blue is the sky, how green the sea, how yellow the sand, how jolly look the men and handsome the women! What health and healing are in the air, as it comes laden with ozone from the North Sea! You have the sea in front and on each side to look at, to walk by, to splash in, to sail on. The danger is, that you grow too fat, too ruddy, too hearty, too boisterous. As we all know, Venus was born out of the sea, and out there on that eastern peninsula, of which Yarmouth is the pride and ornament, there used to flourish bonny la.s.ses, as if to show that the connection between the ocean and lovely woman is as intimate as of yore. Yarmouth and Lowestoft owe a great deal to the Great Eastern Railway, which has made them places of health-resort from all parts of England; and truly the pleasure-seeker or the holiday-maker may go farther and fare worse.
I was a proud boy when first I set foot in Yarmouth. How I came to go there I can scarcely remember, but it is to be presumed I accompanied my father on one of those grand occasions-as far as Nonconformist circles are concerned-when the brethren met together for G.o.dly comfort and counsel. It is true Wrentham was in Suffolk, and Yarmouth was in Norfolk, but the Congregational Churches of that quarter had always been connected by Christian fellowship and sympathy, and hence I was taken to Yarmouth-at that time far more like a Dutch than an English town-and wonderful to me was the Quay, with its fine houses on one side and its long line of ships on the other-something like the far-famed Bompjes of Rotterdam-and the narrow rows in which the majority of the labouring cla.s.ses were accustomed to live. "A row," wrote Charles d.i.c.kens, "is a long, narrow lane or alley, quite straight, or as nearly so as may be, with houses on each side, both of which you can sometimes touch with the finger-tips of each hand by stretching out your arms to their full extent. Many and many a picturesque old bit of domestic architecture is to be hunted up among the rows. In some there is little more than a blank wall for the double boundary. In others the houses retreat into busy square courts, where washing and clear-starching are done, and wonderful nasturtiums and scarlet-runners are reared from green boxes filled with that scarce commodity, vegetable mould. Most of these rows are paved with pebbles from the beach, and to traverse them a peculiar form of low cart, drawn by a single horse, is employed." This to me was a great novelty, as with waggons and carts I was familiar, but not with a Yarmouth cart-now, I find, replaced by wheelbarrows. In Amsterdam, at the present day, you may see many such quaint old rows. But in Amsterdam you have an evil-smelling air, while in Yarmouth it is ever fresh and crisp, and redolent, as it were, of the neighbouring sea. The market-place and the big church were at the back of this congeries of quays and rows, and the sea and the old pier were at quite a respectable distance from the town. I fancy the Yarmouth of the London bathers has now extended down to the sandy beach, and the rough and rude old pier has given place to one better adapted to the wants and requirements of an increasingly well-to-do community. Far more Dutch than English was the Yarmouth of half a century ago, I again say.
As to the Yarmouth Independent parson, I shall never forget him. He was a very big man, with great red cheeks that hung over his collar like blown bladders, and was always on stilts. He preached in a big meeting-house, now no more, the pillars of which intercepted alike the view and the sound. One winter evening he was holding forth, in his usual heavy style, to a few good people-with whom, evidently, all pleasure was out of the question-who came there, as in duty bound, and sat like martyrs all the while, and all were as grave as the preacher, when a wicked boy rushed in and, in a hurried manner, called out, "Fire!
fire!" The effect, I am told, was electrical. For once the good parson was in a hurry, and moved as quickly and spoke as rapidly as his fellows; but never had there been so much excitement in his chapel since he had been its pastor. Once, I remember, he came to town, and dropped in at the close of a party rather convivially inclined, in the Old London Coffee House. As the reverend gentleman advanced to greet his friends, a London lawyer, with all the impudence of his cla.s.s, muttered, in a whisper intended to be heard, and which was heard, by everyone, "Yarmouth bloater." The good man said nothing, but it was evident he thought all the more, as the group were more or less t.i.ttering over the fitness of the comparison. The lawyer who made the remark was also the son of a London minister, and, therefore, might have been expected to have known better. I fear the Yarmouth minister never forgave him. Well, it only served him right, as he had a horrible way of making young people very uncomfortable. "Well, Master James," said he to me on one occasion, when all the brethren had come to dine at Wrentham, and when I was admitted, in conformity with the golden maxim in all well-regulated family circles, that little children were to be seen and not heard (perhaps in our day the fault is too much in an opposite direction), "can you inform me which is the more proper form of expression-a pair of new gloves, or a new pair of gloves?" Of course I gave the wrong answer, as I blushed up to the ears at finding myself the smallest personage in the room, publicly appealed to by the biggest. He meant well, I dare say. His only object was to draw me out; but the question and the questioner gave me a bad quarter of an hour, and I never got over the unpleasant sensation of which he had unconsciously been the originator in my youthful breast.
At that time Yarmouth people were supposed to be a little superior. They were well-to-do, and lived in good style, and, as was to be expected, considering the sanitary advantages of the situation, were in good health and spirits. They got a good deal of their intellectual character from Norwich, which at the time set the fashion in such matters. In 1790 two societies were established in that city for the private and amicable discussion of miscellaneous questions. One of these, the Tusculan, seems to have devoted the attention of its members exclusively to political topics; while the Speculative, although it imposed no restrictions on the range of inquiry, was of a more philosophical character. William Taylor was a member of both, and it is difficult to say whether he distinguished himself most by his ingenuity in debate, by the novelty of the information which he brought to bear on every point, or by the lively sallies of imagination with which he at once amused and excited his hearers. The papers read by himself embraced an infinite variety of subjects, from the theory of the earth, then unillumined by the disclosures of modern geologists, to the most elaborate and refined productions of its rational tenants, and he was seldom at a loss to place on new ground or in a fresh light the matter of discussion introduced by others. Writers of every tongue, studied by him with observant curiosity, stored his retentive memory with materials ready to be applied on every occasion, moulded by his Promethean talent into the most animated and alluring forms. As a speaker and converser he was eminently characterized by a constant flow of brilliant ideas, by a rapid succession of striking images, and by a never-failing copiousness of words, often quaint, but always correct. A similar society was formed at Yarmouth, under the auspices of Dr. Aiken, at which William Taylor also occasionally attended. The Rev. Thomas Compton has given the following description of these visits: "We were, moreover, sometimes gratified by the presence of our literary friends from Norwich. I have there repeatedly listened to the mild and persuasive eloquence of the late Dr.
Enfield. A gentleman, too, still living, who has lately added to his literary fame by a biographical work of high repute (I scarcely need add that I allude to Mr. W. Taylor) would sometimes instruct us by his various and profound knowledge, or amuse us with his ingenious paradoxes." When we recollect how at this time the poetical puerilities of Bath Easton flourished in the West, we may claim that Norwich and Yarmouth, if not as favoured by fashion, had at any rate a claim to intellectual reputation at least quite equal to that city of the _ton_.
Dr. Sayers, whose biography William Taylor had written, and whose "Dramatic Sketches of Northern Mythology" had created a great sensation at the time, was of Yarmouth extraction.
The Rev. Mr. Compton writes: "In Yarmouth, where I lived at this time, and where Lord Chedworth was accustomed to pay an annual visit, there was then a society of gentlemen who met once a fortnight for the purpose of amicable discussion. Our members-alas! how few remain-were of all parties and persuasions, and some of them of very distinguished attainments. A society thus const.i.tuted was in those days as pleasant as it was instructive. The most eager disputation was never found to endanger the most perfect goodwill, nor did any bitter feuds arise from this entire freedom of opinion till the prolific period of the French Revolution. On this subject our controversies became very impa.s.sioned.
The present Sir Astley Cooper, then a very young man, was accustomed to pa.s.s his vacations with his most excellent father, Dr. Cooper, a name ever to be by me beloved and revered. It was the amus.e.m.e.nt of our young friend to say things of the most irritating nature, I believe-like Lady Florence Pemberton in the novel-merely to see who would make the ugliest face. Thus circ.u.mstanced, it was not in my philosophy to be the coolest of the party." We can well imagine the consequences. There was a row, and the literary society came to grief. As time went on matters became worse instead of better, and the town was split up into parties-Liberal or the reverse, Church or Dissent, but all of one mind as regards their views being correct; and as to the weakness or wickedness of persons who thought otherwise. The evil of this spirit knew no bounds, and the demoralizing effect it produced was especially apparent at election times. When Oldfield wrote his "Origin of Parliaments," the town, he tells us, was under the influence of the Earl of Leicester, and was for many years represented by some of his Lordship"s family. The right of election was in the burgesses at large, of whom there were at that time one thousand. The Reform Bill did little to improve the state of affairs; it led to greater bribery and corruption and intimidation than ever, and now, as a Parliamentary borough, Yarmouth has ceased to exist.
"Sugar," it seems, was the slang term used for money, and the honest voters were too eager to get it. Alas! in none of our seaport towns is the standard of morality very high. Yarmouth, at any rate, is not worse than Deal. In old days the excitement of a Yarmouth election much affected our village. It lasted some days. The out-voters were brought from the uttermost parts of the earth. As there were no railways, stage-coaches were hired to bring them down from town; and when they changed horses at Wrentham, quite a crowd would a.s.semble to look at the flags, and the free and independents on their way to do their duty, overflowing with enthusiasm and beer.
Sir Astley Cooper was much connected with Yarmouth in his young days, when his father was the inc.u.mbent of the parish church. Some of his boyish pranks were peculiar. Here is one of them: "Having taken two pillows from his mother"s bed, he carried them up the spire of Yarmouth Church, at a time when the wind was blowing from the north-east; and as soon as he had ascended as high as he could, he ripped them open, and, shaking out their contents, dispersed them in the air. The feathers were carried away by the wind, and fell far and wide over the surface of the market-place, to the great astonishment of a large number of persons a.s.sembled there. The timid looked upon it phenomenon predictive of some calamity; the inquisitive formed a thousand conjectures; while some, curious in natural history, actually accounted for it by a gale of wind in the north blowing wild-fowl feathers from the island of St. Paul"s."
On another occasion he got into an old trunk, which the family had agreed to get rid of as inconvenient in the house. In this case he had to pay the penalty, when he emerged from the chest in the carpenter"s shop. The men, who had complained terribly of its weight, were not inclined to allow young Astley to get off free. One of Astley"s tricks had, however, a good motive, as it was intended to cure an old woman of her besetting sin-a tendency to take a drop too much. In order to cure the old woman of this weakness, he dressed himself as well as he could to represent the sable form of his satanic majesty. Alas! instead of being surprised, the old lady was too far-gone for that, and listened with tipsy gravity to the distinguished visitor"s discourse. In her case it was true, as Burns wrote:
"Wi" tipenny we fear nae evil; Wi" usquebae we"ll face the deevil."
One of his tricks nearly led to unpleasant consequences. Whilst out shooting one day, near Yarmouth, he killed an owl-a bird familiarly known in Yarmouth by the sobriquet of "Brother Billy." Having arrived at home, he went up into his mother"s room, with the bird concealed behind his coat, and, a.s.suming a countenance full of fear and sorrow, exclaimed, "Mother, mother, I"ve shot my brother Billy!" but the alarm and distress instantly depicted on the distracted countenance of his parent induced him as quickly as possible to pull the owl from under his coat. This at once exposed the truth and allayed the apprehensions of his mother"s mind, but the effects of the shock it caused did not so immediately pa.s.s away. Dr. Cooper determined to punish his son, and he therefore confined him, according to his usual mode of correction, in his own house. Astley was, however, but little disposed to remain pa.s.sive in his imprisonment, and in the wantonness of his ever-active disposition amused himself by climbing up the chimney, and having at length reached the summit, endeavoured, by imitating the well-known tone of the chimney-sweeper, and calling out as l.u.s.tily as he could, "Sweep, sweep!" to attract the attention of the people below. Even on his father the incorrigible lad seems on more than one occasion to have tried his little game. One day, while the worthy Doctor was marrying a couple in the church, Master Astley concealed himself in a turret close by the altar, and, imitating his father"s voice, repeated in a subdued tone the words of the marriage-service as the ceremony proceeded, to the consternation of his father, who said that he had never observed an echo in that place before.
Once or twice the lad"s life was in peril, as when his foot slipped on the top of the church, and he was unpleasantly suspended for some time between the rafters of the ceiling and the floor of the chancel. On another occasion he had a narrow escape from drowning. It seems that on the Yare are little boats out together very slightly, for the purpose of carrying a man, his gun, and dog over the shallows of Braydon, in pursuit of the flights of wild-fowl which at certain seasons haunt these shoals.
When the boat is thus loaded, it only draws two or three inches of water, and is quite unfit for sea. Young Astley nearly lost his life in attempting to take one of these boats out to open sea. In this way young Astley Cooper, from his fearless and enterprising disposition, soon became a sort of leader of the Yarmouth boys, and at their head, for a time, seems to have devoted himself to every kind of amus.e.m.e.nt within his reach-riding, boating, fishing, and not unfrequently sports of a less harmless character, such as breaking lamps and windows, ringing the church bells at all hours, disturbing the people by frequent alterations of the church clock, so that if any mischief were committed it was sure, says his admiring biographer, to be set down to him.
The two men who shed most literary fame on the Yarmouth of my childhood were Dawson Turner and Hudson Gurney, who in this respect resembled each other, that they were both bankers and both antiquarians more or less distinguished. Dawson Turner was a man of middle height and of saturnine aspect, who had the reputation of being a hard taskmaster to the ladies of his family, who were quite as intelligent and devoted to literature as himself. He published a "Tour in Normandy"-at that time scarcely anyone travelled abroad-and much other matter, and perhaps as an autograph-collector was unrivalled. Most of his books, with his notes, more or less valuable, are now in the British Museum. Sir Charles Lyell, when a young man, visited the Turner family in 1817, and gives us a very high idea of them all. "Mr. Turner," he says, in a letter to his father, "surprises me as much as ever. He wrote twenty-two letters last night after he had wished us "Good-night." It kept him up till two o"clock this morning." Again Sir Charles writes: "What I see going on every hour in this family makes me ashamed of the most active day I ever spent at Midhurst. Mrs. Turner has been etching with her daughters in the parlour every morning at half-past six." Of Hudson Gurney in his youth we get a flattering portrait in one of the charming "Remains of the Late Mrs.
Trench," edited by her son, Archbishop of Dublin. Writing from Yarmouth in 1799, she says: "I have been detained here since last Friday, waiting for a fair wind, and my imprisonment would have been comfortless enough had it not have been for the attention of Mr. Hudson Gurney, a young man on whom I had no claims except from a letter of Mr. Sanford"s, who, without knowing him, or having any connection with him, recommended me to his care, feeling wretched that I should be unprotected in the first part of my journey. He has already devoted to me one evening and two mornings, a.s.sisted me in money matters, lent me books, and enlivened my confinement to a wretched room by his pleasant conversation. Mr. Sanford having described me as a person travelling about _for her health_, he says his old a.s.sistant in the Bank fancied I was a decrepit elderly lady who might safely be consigned to his youthful partner. His description of his surprise thus prepared was conceived in a very good strain of flattery. He is almost two-and-twenty, understands several languages, seems to delight in books, and to be uncommonly well informed." Little credit, however, is due to Mr. Hudson Gurney for his politeness in this case. The lovely and lively widow-she had married Colonel St. George at the age of eighteen, and the marriage only lasted two or three years, the Colonel dying of consumption-must have possessed personal and mental attractions irresistible to a cultivated young man of twenty-two. Had she been old and ugly, it is to be feared his business engagements would have prevented the youthful banker devoting much time to her ladyship"s service.
Yarmouth is intimately connected with literature and the fine arts. It was off Yarmouth that Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked; and the testimony he bears to the character of the people shows how kindly disposed were the Yarmouth people of his day. "We," he writes, "got all safe on sh.o.r.e, and walked afterwards on foot to Yarmouth, where, as unfortunate men, we were used with great humanity, not only by the magistrates of the town, who a.s.signed us good quarters, but also by particular merchants and owners of ships, and had money given us, sufficient to carry us either to London or back to Hull, as we thought fit." It was from Yarmouth that Wordsworth and Coleridge sailed away to Germany, then almost a _terra incognita_. Leman Blanchard was born at Yarmouth, as well as Sayers, the first, if not the cleverest, of our English caricaturists. One of the most brilliant men ever returned to Parliament was Winthrop Mackworth Praed, M.P. for Yarmouth, whose politics as a boy I detested as much as in after-years I learned to admire his genius. One of the most fortunate men of our day, Sir James Paget, the great surgeon, was a Yarmouth lad, and the See of Chester was filled by an accomplished divine, also a Yarmouth lad. Southey, when at Yarmouth, where his brother was a student for some time, was so much struck with the uniqueness of the epitaphs in the Yarmouth Church, that he took the trouble to copy many of them. One was as follows:
"We put him out to nurse; Alas! his life he paid, But judge not; he was overlaid."
And hence it may be inferred that in Yarmouth the custom of baby-farming has long flourished. Possibly thence it may have extended itself to London. Amongst the truly great men who have lived and died in Yarmouth, honourable mention must be made of Hales, the Norfolk Giant. In times past soldiers and sailors and royal personages were often to be seen at Yarmouth. It was at Yarmouth the heroes, returning from many a distant battle-field, often landed. Nelson on one occasion-that is, after the affair of Copenhagen-when he landed, at once made his way to the hospital to see his men. To one of them, who had lost his arm, he said, "There, Jack, you and I are spoiled for fishermen."
A good deal of Puritanism seems to have come into England by way of Yarmouth. In Queen Elizabeth"s time, 300 Flemings settled there, who had fled from Popery and Spain in their native land. In Norwich the Dutch Church remains to this day. Some of them seem to have been the friends and teachers of the far-famed, and I believe unjustly maligned, Robert Browne. In Norfolk the seed fell upon good soil. While sacerdotalism was more or less being developed in the State Church, the Norfolk men boldly protested against Papal abominations, as they deemed them, and swore to maintain the gospel of Geneva and Knox. One of the men imprisoned when Bancroft was Archbishop of Canterbury, for attending a conventicle, was Thomas Ladd, "a merchant of Yarmouth." The writ ran: "Because that, on the Sabbath days, after the sermons ended, sojourning in the house of Mr. Jachler, in Yarmouth, who was late preacher in Yarmouth, joined with him in repeating the substance and heads of the sermons that day made in the church, at which Thomas Ladd was usually present." In 1624 the penal laws for suppressing Separatists were strictly enforced in Yarmouth, and one of the teachers of a small society of Anabaptists was cast into prison, and the Bishop of Norwich wrote a letter of thanks to the bailiffs for their activity in this matter, which is preserved to this day. But, nevertheless, people still continued to worship G.o.d according to the dictates of conscience; we find the Earl of Dorset in his reply to the town of Yarmouth, as to the way in which the town should be governed, adds: "I should want in my care of you if I should not let you know that his Majesty is not only informed, but incensed against you for conniving at and tolerating a company of Brownists among you. I pray you remember there was no seam in the Saviour"s garment." Bridge was the founder of the Yarmouth Congregational Church, somewhere about the time of the commencement of the Civil War. The people declared for the Parliament. Colonel Goffe was one of its representatives in the House of Commons. All along, the town seems to have been puritanically inclined, and to have been in this matter more independent than neighbouring towns. At one time they were so tolerant that the Independents seem to have worshipped in one end of the church while the regular clergyman performed the service in the other; but that did not last long, and when the Independents had a place of worship of their own, they were not a little troubled by Friends and Papists claiming for themselves the liberty the Independents had sought and won. In 1655 the peace of the Church was disturbed by Quaker doctrines. It appears two females, members of the Church, had joined them, and refused to return. We read: "The messenger appointed to visit May Rouse, brought in an account of her disowning and despising the Church; she would not come at all unless she had a message from the Spirit moving her." She came, however, a week after (December 11), but by reason of the cold weather was desired to come in again the next Tuesday. She did so, and gave in these two reasons why she forsook the Church: 1. Because the doctrine of the Gospel of Faith was not holden forth; 2. Because there wanted the right administration of baptism.
In 1659 the Church at Yarmouth, feeling the times to be full of trouble and of peril, said:
"1. We judge a Parliament to be expedient for the preservation of the peace of these nations; and withal, we do desire that all due care be taken that the Parliament be such as may preserve the interests of Christ and His people in these nations.
"2. As touching the magistrates" power in matters of faith and worship, we have declared our judgments in our late (Free Savoy) confession, and though we greatly prize our Christian liberties, yet we profess our utter dislike and abhorrence of a universal toleration, as being contrary to the mind of G.o.d in His Word.
"3. We judge that the taking away of t.i.thes for the maintenance of ministers until as full a maintenance be equally secured and as legally settled, tends very much to the destruction of the ministry, and the preaching of the Gospel in these nations.
"4. It is our desire that countenance be not given unto, nor trust reposed in, the hand of Quakers, they being persons of such principles as are destructive to the Gospel, and inconsistent with the peace of modern societies."
In five years the Yarmouth people had a Roland for their Oliver; the King had got his own again, and he and the Parliament of the day looked upon the Independents or Presbyterians as mischievous as the Quakers; and as to t.i.thes, they were quite as much resolved, the only difference being that King and Parliament insisted on their being paid to Episcopalians alone. In 1770 Lady Huntingdon writes: "Success has crowned our labours in that wicked place, Yarmouth."
Mrs. Bendish, in whom the Protector was said to have lived again, was quite a character in Yarmouth society. Bridget Ireton, the granddaughter of the Protector, married in 1669 Mr. Thomas Bendish, a descendant of Sir Thomas Bendish, baronet, Amba.s.sador from Charles I. to the Sultan. She died in 1728, removing, however, in the latter years of her life to Yarmouth. Her name stands among the members of the church in London of which Caryl had been pastor, and over which Dr. Watts presided. To her the latter addressed at any rate one copy of verses to be found in his collected works. She recollected her grandfather, and standing, when six years old, between his knees at a State Council, she heard secrets which neither bribes nor whippings could extract from her. Her grandfather she held to be a saint in heaven, and only second to the Twelve Apostles.
Asked one day whether she had ever been at Court, her reply was, "I have never been at Court since I was waited upon on the knee." Yet she managed to dispense with a good deal of waiting, and never would suffer a servant to attend her. G.o.d, she said, was a sufficient guard, and she would have no other. She is described as loquacious and eloquent and enthusiastic, frequenting the drawing-rooms and a.s.semblies of Yarmouth, dressed in the richest silks, and with a small black hood on her head.
When she left, which would be at one in the morning, perched on her old-fashioned saddle, she would trot home, piercing the night air with her loud, jubilant psalms, in which she described herself as one of the elect, in a tone more remarkable for strength than sweetness. In the daytime she would work with her labourers, taking her turn at the pitchfork or the spade. The old Court dresses of her mother and Mrs.
Cromwell were bequeathed by her to Mrs. Robert Luson, of Yarmouth, and were shown as recently as 1834, at an exhibition of Court dresses held at the Somerset Gallery in the Strand. As was to be expected, Mrs. Bendish was enthusiastic in the cause of the Revolution of 1688, and the printed sheets relating to it were dropped by her secretly in the streets of Yarmouth, to prepare the people for the good time coming. Her son was a friend of Dr. Watts as well as his mother. He died at Yarmouth, unmarried, in the year 1753, and with him the line of Bendish seems to have come to an end. Another daughter of Ireton was married to Nathaniel Carter, who died in 1723, aged 78. His father, John Carter, was commander-in-chief of the militia of the town in 1654. He subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant, being then one of the elders of the Independent congregation. He was also bailiff of the town, and an intimate friend of Ireton. He died in 1667. On his tombstone we read:
"His course, his fight, his race, Thus finished, fought, and run, Death brings him to the place From whence is no return."