Lancashire Sketches / Third Edition

by Edwin Waugh

The evening comes, and brings the dew along,

The rodie welkin sheeneth to the eyne,

Around the alestake minstrels sing the song,

Young ivy round the door-post doth entwine;

I lay me down upon the grass, yet to my will,

Albeit all is fair, there lacketh something still.

Chatterton.

The people of southern England are apt to sneer at the enthusiasm with which Lancashire men speak of Tim Bobbin; and, if this imperfect sketch should fall into the hands of any such readers, it is not improbable that they may look upon the whole thing as a great fuss about next to nothing. One reason for this is, that, for the most part, they know next to nothing of the man—which is not much to be wondered at. But the greatest difficulty in their case is the remote character of the words and idioms used by Tim. To the majority of such readers, the dialogue of "Tummus and Mary" is little more than an unintelligible curiosity; and I believe, speaking generally, that it would be better understood by the natives of the metropolis if it had been written in French. The language in which the commanding genius of Chaucer wrought, five hundred years ago, and which was the common language of the London of those days, is, even in its most idiomatic part, very much the same as that used in all the country parts of Lancashire at this hour. But great changes have come round since the time of Chaucer; and though an Englishman is an Englishman in general characteristics, all the world over, there is as much difference now in the tone of manners and language in the North and South as there is between the tones of an organ and those of a piano. I have hardly ever met with a southern man able to comprehend the quaint, graphic wealth which hutches and chuckles with living fun and country humour, under the equally quaint garb of old language in which Tim clothes his story of "Tummus and Mary." But, on its first appearance, the people of his own district at once recognised an exquisite picture of themselves; and they hailed it with delight. He superintended several editions of his works during his lifetime—a time when the population of Lancashire was very scanty, and scattered over large, bleak spaces; and when publishing was a very different thing to what it is now. Since then, his principal story has continually grown in the estimation of scholars and students, as a valuable addition to the rich treasures of English philology, even apart from the genius which combined its humorous details with such masterly art, and finished and rounded it into the completeness of a literary dewdrop. That tale was calculated to command attention and awaken delight at once—and it will long be cherished with pride, by Lancashire men at least, as an exceedingly natural "glimpse of auld lang syne." But those who wish to understand the force of Tim's character, must look to his letters, and other prose fragments, such as "Truth in a Mask." These chiefly reveal the sterling excellence of the man. He was a clear-sighted, daring, independent politician—one of the strong old pioneers of human freedom in these parts. He had a curious audience in that secluded corner of Lancashire where he lived—in those days—a people who had worn their political shackles so long that they almost looked upon them as ornaments.

But Tim kent what was fu brawly;

and he was continually blurting out some startling truth or another, in vigorous, unmistakable English; and he gloried in the then disreputable and dangerous epithet of "Reforming John." This, too, in the teeth of patrons and friends whose political tendencies were in an entirely opposite direction. Let any man turn to the letter he writes to his friend, the Rev. Mr. Heap, of Dorking, who had desired him to "spare the levitical order," and then say whether there was any shadow of sycophancy in the soul of John Collier. Under the correction of magnifying the matter through the medium of one's native likings then, I will venture to declare a feeling akin to veneration for the spot where he was born; and I know that it is shared by the men of his native county, generally, even by those who find themselves at a difficult distance from his quaint tone of thought and language—for it takes a man thoroughly soaked with the Lancashire soil to appreciate him thoroughly. But, apart from all local inclinings, men of thought and feeling will ever welcome any spark of genuine creative fire, which glows with such genial human sympathies, and such an honourable sense of justice as John Collier evinces, however humble it may be in comparison with the achievements of those mighty spirits who have made the literature of our sea-girt island glorious in the earth. The waters of the little mountain stream, singing its lone, low song, as it struggles through its rocky channel, are dear and beautiful, and useful to that rugged solitude, as is the great ocean to the shores on which its surges play. Nay, what is that ocean, but the gathered chorus of these lonely waters, in which the individual voice is lost in one grand combination of varied tones. With this imperfect notice, I will, at present, leave our old local favourite; and just take another glance at Flixton, before I bid adieu to his birthplace.