Shakspere.
I was a little disappointed at first to find that, wherever I went in the parish of Flixton, the inhabitants showed no strong interest in the quaint man of genius, whose early records I was in search of. But this is no wonder, when one considers what a thinly-inhabited place this must have been at the beginning of Queen Anne's reign; and remembering, also, that nearly the whole of Tim's long life was spent elsewhere; first, as an apprentice to Dutch-loom weaving, which was looked upon as a rather genteel occupation in those days. But, as his friend and biographer, Richard Townley, Esq., of Bellfield Hall, says, "such a sedentary employment not at all agreeing with his volatile spirits and eccentric genius, he prevailed upon his master to release him from the remainder of his servitude. Though then very young, he soon commenced itinerant schoolmaster; going about the country from one small town to another, to teach reading, writing, and accounts; and generally having a night-school as well as a day one." Now, seeing that the theatre of these obscure and honourable struggles of Tim's youth was the town of Oldham, and the villages thereabouts, it is not surprising that the scattered inhabitants of the lonely nook where he was born should have few traditional remembrances of him, who left them when he was yet but a child. Tim's father was only forty years old, when he was overtaken by total blindness; and, this, necessarily, changed the plan he had formed of bringing up his son, our hero, to the Church, for "he had conceived a favourable opinion of his abilities." Now, this calamity did not befall the elder Mr. Collier during the time that he was schoolmaster at Urmston in Flixton: and everything shows that he was not a native of that place, but came from some other part to teach there; remaining only for a short time—during which Tim and his brother Nathan were born—and then moving away again, with his young family of nine children, to another quarter. What Baines says, on the authority of the inhabitants of Flixton, of the elder Collier never being a clergyman, may be true, so far as it relates to Urmston, of which place there never was a curate; nor was he in holy orders during his residence there; and yet he may have been so elsewhere. This supposition is strengthened by Tim's own words: "In the reign of Queen Anne I was a boy, and one of the nine children of a poor Lancashire curate, whose stipend never amounted to thirty pounds a year; and consequently the family must feel the iron teeth of penury with a witness. These, indeed, were sometimes blunted by the charitable disposition of the good rector (the Rev. Mr. H——, of W—— n)." What an interesting glimpse this gives us of the home of Tim Bobbin's childhood! Now, it is just possible that the "good rector" may have been the rector of Warrington of that time; whose name begins with the same initial letter. All things considered, I did not wonder that the family had left but little mark among the people of Flixton.
Seeing that so little was known by the inhabitants, I turned my thoughts towards the parish register, setting an afternoon apart for visiting the incumbent; who had invited me to look through it at his house. At the appointed time, I walked through the village of Flixton, a little way into the country beyond the village; and there, by the wayside, at the top of a little sloping lawn, partially screened by stunted trees and bushes, the "village preacher's modest mansion rose." The incumbent received me courteously, and entered kindly into my purpose. Ushering me into a little parlour at the front, he brought forth the two oldest register volumes of the parish from their hiding-place. The first thing which struck me was the difference in their condition. The oldest was perfectly sound, inside and outside. Its leaves were of vellum; and, with the exception of a slight discolouration in some places, they were as clear and perfect as ever they had been; and the entries in it were beautifully distinct, written in the old English character, and mostly in the Latin language. The change in the latter volume was very remarkable. Its binding was poor and shaky; and its leaves of the softest and most perishable writing paper, many of them quite loose in the book, and so worn, tattered, and crumbly, as to be scarcely touchable without damage. I could not help thinking that if any important question should arise a hundred years hence, the settling of which depended on such a mouldering record as this, is was just possible that decay might have forestalled the inquiry. After a careful examination of the register, I found the following entries relating to Tim's family, and, besides these, there is no mention of any other person of the name of Collier, for the space of half a century before, and a century after that date. First, under the head of "Births and Baptismes, in the year, 1706," appears "Nathan, ye son of John Collier, schoolmaster, borne May 17, baptised May 31."[15] Singularly, I found the same baptism entered a second time, three pages forward in the same year, with a slight variation, in the following manner:—"Baptised Nathan, the son of Master John Collier, schoolmaster, born May ye 18th." And then the last and only other mention of the Colliers, is the register of the baptism of John, the renowned "Tim Bobbin," which is entered thus, among the baptisms of the year 1710: "John, son of Mr. John Collier, of Urmstone, baptised January the 6th." In Baines's "Lancashire," the baptism is given as occurring in 1709, which is a slight mistake. The origin of that mistake was evident to me, with the register before my eyes. The book seems to have been very irregularly kept in those days; and the baptisms in the year 1709 are entered under a headline, "Baptisms in the year 1709:" but at the end of the baptisms of that year, the list runs on into those of the following year, 1710, without any such headline to divide them; and this entry of Tim's baptism being one of the first, might easily be transcribed by a hasty observer, as belonging to the previous year. I thought there was something significant about the curious manner in which these three entries, relating to the Colliers, are made in the register. In the first entry of the baptism of Nathan, Tim's eldest brother, the father is called "John Collier, schoolmaster;" in the second entry of the same baptism, he is called "Master John Collier, schoolmaster;" and in the entry of Tim's baptism, three years later, the clerk, having written down the father's name as "John Collier of Urmstone," has, upon after-thought, made a caret between "the son of" and "John Collier of Urmstone," and carefully written "Mr." above it, making it read "Mr. John Collier, of Urmstone." This addition to the names of schoolmasters, or even of the wealthy inhabitants of the parish, occurs so very rarely in the register, that I could not help thinking this singular exception indicative of an honourable estimate of the character of Tim's father among his neighbours. Such was the result of my search; and it strengthens my conviction that old Mr. John Collier's family were not natives of Flixton, nor dwelt there long, but departed after a short residence to some other quarter, where the family were born, married, died, and buried; except the two before mentioned.
Whilst I was sitting in the incumbent's parlour, looking over these old books on that day, a little thing befell which pleased me, though the reader may think it trifling. The weather was very cold, and I happened to have on one of those red-and-black tartan wool shirts, which are comfortable wear enough in cold weather, though they look rather gaudy; and don't satisfy one's mind so well as a clean white shirt does. As I sat turning over the leaves of these ancient records, in came the incumbent's son, a little, slim, intelligent boy, with large, thoughtful eyes. He watched me attentively for two or three minutes, and then, coming a little nearer, so as to get a good look at the wrists and front of my extraordinary under-gear, he called out, with unreserved astonishment, "Papa! he has got no shirt on!" The clergyman checked the lad instantly; though he could not help smiling at this little burst of frank, childish simplicity. The lad was evidently surprised to see me enjoy the thing so much.
I cannot dismiss this old parish register without noticing some other things in it which were interesting to me. And I can tell thee, reader, by the by, that there are worse ways of spending a few hours than in poring over such a record. How significantly the births, marriages, and deaths, tread upon one another's heels; as they do in the columns of newspapers! How solemnly the decaying pages represent the chequered pattern of our mortal estate! The exits and entrances of these ephemeral players in the drama of life continually interweave in the musty chronicle, as they do in the current of human action. There was a quaint tone running through the whole, which I could not well pass by. In the year 1688, the phrase, "buried in woollen only," first appears, and marks the date of an act for the encouragement of the woollen trade. This phrase is carefully added to every registration of burial, thenceforth for a considerable time; except in a few cases, where the phrase changes to "buried in sweet flowers only." What a world of mingled pathos and prettiness that phrase awakes in the mind! To a loving student of Shakspere, it might, not inaptly, call up that beautiful passage in Ophelia's burial scene:—
Laertes. Lay her i' the earth;—
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring!
Queen. Sweets to the sweet: Farewell!
(Scattering Flowers.)
Sometimes an instance occurs where a burial takes place "in linen only." In this year of 1688, it is singular that there are only two marriages entered in the Flixton parish register. There was, perhaps, some particular reason for this at the time; but the fact will give the reader some idea of the smallness of the population in those days. From this time the phrase, "Sworn by so-and-so, before Justice so-and-so," is attached to some entries of burial, as thus:—"Thomas, ye son of John Owen, of Carrington, buried in sweet floweres, attested by ye wife of George Twickins. Ye same day of burial, viz., 10th Oct. (1705), John, ye son of John Millatt, jun., of Carrington, an infant, buried in sweet floweres only." Then follows, "James Parren was not buried in any materiall contrary to a late act for Buryinge in Woollen.—Sworne by Mary Parren, before Justice Peter Egerton, Jan. 28th, 1705." The burials in the year 1706 are almost all in "sweet floweres only." This is the year when Nathan Collier was born, being the first mention of that family in the register. Three years after, his brother John (Tim Bobbin) was born; after which the Colliers disappear from the register altogether. Some of the burials occurring between 1720 and 1726, are remarkable for the manner of their entry, as, "Sarah, daughter of Schoolmaster Pony;" "James, Thomas Jaddock's father;" "John Swindell, taken out of ye river;" "Widow Peer's child, Aug. 5th;" and this is followed three days after by "Richd., son of Widow Peer's, Aug. 30th;" "Old Ralph Haslam, from Carrington;" "Old Henery Roile, from Stretford;" "Old Mrs. Starkey;" "Old John Groons;" "Moss's wife of Urmeston;" "Horox's child of Urmstone;" and "Hannah, daughter of one Dean, of Stretford." Then come these, in their proper order, entered in a clerkly hand:—"Thomas Willis, of Bleckly, in the county of Buckingham, Esq., and Mrs. Ann Hulme, Heiress of Davy Hulme, and of the lordship and manor of Urmston, were marry'd. Sept. 3rd, 1735;" and then "Anna Willis, the first daughter of Thomas Willis, Esq., born August the 11th, 1736, and baptised ye 14th Aug.—John Willis, clerk of Bleckley, in Bucks." I found the Christian name of Randal very common in this register. The names of Starkey, Holt, Rogers, and Egerton, ever accompanied by the title of gentleman; and for the rest, the names of Warburton, Taylor, Royle, Coupe, Darbishire, Shawcross, Gilbody, and Knight, form the staple of the list, with the addition of the Owens of Carrington Moss; who seem to have been a very prolific generation.