The eye having now satisfied itself with what was notable in and about Milnrow, I took my way home, with a mind more at liberty to reflect on what I had seen. The history of Lancashire passed in review before me; especially its latest history. I saw the country that was once thick with trees that canopied herds of wild animals, and thinnest of people, now bare of trees, and thickest of population; the land which was of least account of any in the kingdom in the last century, now most sought after; and those rude elements which were looked upon as "the riddlings of creation," more productive of riches than all the Sacramento's gold, and ministers to a spirit which is destined to change the social aspect of Britain. I saw the spade sinking in old hunting grounds, and old parks now trampled by the fast-increasing press of new feet. The hard cold soil is now made to grow food for man and beast. Masses of stone and flag are shaken from their sleep in the beds of the hills, and dragged forth to build mills and houses with. Streams which have frolicked and sung in undisturbed limpidity thousands of years, are dammed up, and made to wash and scour, and generate steam. Fathoms below the feet of the traveller, the miner is painfully worming his way in labyrinthine tunnels; and the earth is belching coals at a thousand mouths. The region teems with coal, stone, and water, and a people able to subdue them all to their purposes. These elements quietly bide their time, century after century, till the grand plot is ripe, and the mysterious signal given. Anon, when a thoughtful barber sets certain wheels spinning, and a contemplative lad takes a fine hint from his mother's tea-kettle, these slumbering powers start into astonishing activity, like an army of warriors roused to battle by the trumpet. Cloth is woven for the world, and the world buys it, and wears it. Commerce shoots up from a poor pedlar with his pack on a mule, to a giant merchant, stepping from continent to continent, over the ocean, to make his bargains. Railways are invented, and the land is ribbed with iron, for iron messengers to run upon, through mountains and over valleys, on business commissions; the very lightning turns errand-boy. A great fusion of thought and sentiment springs up, and Old England is in hysterics about its ancient opinions. A new aristocracy rises from the prudent, persevering working-people of the district, and threatens to push the old one from its stool. What is to be the upshot of it all? The senses are stunned by the din of toil, and the view obscured by the dust of bargain-making. But, through an opening in the clouds, hope's stars are shining still in the blue heaven that over-spans us. Take heart, ye toiling millions! The spirits of your heroic forefathers are watching to see what sort of England you leave to your sons!
The Birthplace of Tim Bobbin.
CHAPTER I.
A merrier man,
Within the limits of becoming mirth,