AN OLD-FASHIONED TOWN.
Woodbridge and the country round--Bernard Barton--Dr. Lankester--An old
Noncon.
The traveller as he leaves the English coast for Antwerp or Rotterdam or
the northern ports of Germany, may remember that the last glimpse of his
native land is the light from Orford Ness, which is a guiding star to the
mariner as he ploughs his weary way along the deep. Of that part of
Suffolk little is known to the community at large. When I was a boy it
was looked upon as an _ultima Thule_, where the people were in a
primitive state of civilization; where shops and towns and newspapers and
good roads were unknown; where traditions of smuggling yet remained. Few
ever went into that region, and those who did, when they returned, did
not bring back with them encouraging reports. Barren sandy moors, along
which the bitter east wind perpetually blew, fatal alike to vegetation
and human life, were the chief characteristics of a district the natives
of which were not rich, at any rate as regards this world's goods.
Orford, like Dunwich, was once a place of some importance. 'A large and
populous town with a castle of reddish stone,' writes Camden, but in his
time a victim of the sea's ingratitude; 'which withdraws itself little by
little, and begins to envy it the advantages of a harbour.' In the time
of Henry I., writes Ralph de Coggeshall, when Bartholomew de Glanville
was Governor of its castle, some fishermen there caught a wild man in
their nets. 'All the parts of his body resembled those of a man. He had
hair on his head, a long-peaked beard, and about the breast was exceeding
hairy and rough. But at length he made his escape into the sea, and was
never seen more,' which was a pity, as undoubtedly he was the 'missing
link.' Besides, as Camden remarks, the fact was a confirmation of what
the common people of his time remarked. 'Whatever is produced in any
part of nature is in the sea,' and shows 'that not all is fabulous what
Pliny has written about the Triton on the coasts of Portugal, and the sea
man in the Straits of Gibraltar.' Nor is that the only wonder connected
with the district. Close by is Aldborough, where the poet Crabbe learned
to become, as Byron calls him,
'Nature's sternest painter, but the best;'
and as Camden writes, 'Hard by, when in the year 1555 all the corn
throughout England was choakt in the ear by unseasonable weather, the
inhabitants tell you that in the beginning of autumn there grew peas
miraculously among the rocks, and that they relieved the dearth in those
parts. But the more thinking people affirm that pulse cast upon the
shore by shipwreck used to grow there now and then, and so quite exclude
the miracle.' At the present the crag-beds are the most interesting
feature to the visitor, especially if he be of a geological turn. These
are so rich in fossil shells that you may find some of the latter in
almost every house in Ipswich. The Coralline Crag is the oldest bed; but
this formation does not occur in an undisturbed state, except in
Sudbourne Park and about Orford. A drive thither from Ipswich, through
Woodbridge, conveys the traveller through some of the loveliest scenery
in Suffolk, and the numerous exposures of Coralline Crag in Sudbourne
Park, which is about two miles from Orford, will amply repay the
traveller, on account of the number of fossils which he can there obtain,
and the ease with which he can extract them. In this neighbourhood live
the far-famed Garrett family, one of whom, as Mrs. Dr. Anderson, is well
known in London society, as is also her sister, Mrs. Fawcett, the wife of
the late popular M.P. for Hackney. Close by is Leiston Abbey, originally
one of Black Canons, consisting of several subterranean chapels, various
offices and a church, which appears to have been a handsome structure,
faced with flint and freestone. The interior was plain and undecorated,
yet massive. A large extent of the neighbouring fields was enclosed with
walls, which have been demolished, as was to be expected, for the sake of
the materials. We hear much of the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee. On
her eastern coast England has her dead cities. Dunwich, of which I have
already spoken, is one. Orford, now known solely by its lighthouse, is
another; Blythburgh, in the church of which is the tomb of Anna, King of
the East Angles, who was slain in 654, is a third. Like Tyre and Sidon,
these places had their merchant princes, who lived delicately, and whose
ships traded far and near. It is said incorrectly of Love, that it
'At sight of human ties
Spreads its soft wings and in a moment flies.'
The remark is truer of commerce, which is a law to itself, and which
defies Acts of Parliament and royal patronage. Hence it is the east
coast of Suffolk is so rich in melancholy remains of ancient cities, now
given over to decay. In my young days the chief town of this district
was Woodbridge. Manufactories were then unknown. The steam-engine had
not then been utilized for the everyday use of man, and farmers,
peasants, coal and corn merchants, solely inhabited the district, and in
Woodbridge especially the latter rose and flourished for a time.
How it was, I know not, but nevertheless such was the fact, that the
Ipswich of my youthful days seemed to have little, if any, literary
associations connected with it. The celebrated Mr. Fulcher published his
'Ladies' Pocket-book' at Sudbury, which had a great reputation in its
day, and for which very distinguished people used to write. It was, in
fact, more of an annual than a pocket-book, and was patronized
accordingly. Then there was James Bird, living at Yoxford, 'the garden
of Suffolk,' as it was called. Woodbridge had a still higher reputation.
James Bird kept a shop, and was supposed to be a Unitarian; but Bernard
Barton was in a bank, and, besides, he was a Quaker, and Quakers all the
world over are, or were, famous for their goodness and their wealth. The
fame of the Quaker-poet conferred quite a literary reputation on the
district, and the more so as no one at that time associated Quakerism
with literary faculty in any way. Now and then, it is true, the
Stricklands talked of a charming young Quaker, who indeed once or twice
called at our house to see Susanna when she was staying there; but Allan
Ransome--for it is to him I refer--did not pursue literature or poetry to
any great extent, and instead preferred to develop the manufacture of
agricultural implements--a manufacture which, carried on under the same
name, is now one of the chief industries of the busy and thriving town of
Ipswich, and employs quite a thousand men. Woodbridge then bore away the
palm from the county capital, as the home of literature and poetry and
romance. As a town, it is more prettily situated than are most East
Anglian villages and towns. The principal thoroughfare, as you rode
through it by one of the Yarmouth coaches, that connected it at that time
with the Metropolis, was long and narrow. If you turned off to the right
you came to the Market-place, where were the leading shops. On your left
you reached the Quay and the river, where a few coasters were employed,
chiefly in the coal and corn trade. In our time Woodbridge has done its
duty to the State. Dr. Edwin Lankester the well-known coroner for
Middlesex, came from Melton, close by, the High Street of which gradually
terminates in the Woodbridge thoroughfare; and the lately deceased Lord
Hatherley, one of England's most celebrated lawyers, was educated in that
district, and took his wife from the same happy land. The body of the
late Lord Hatherley, the great Whig Lord Chancellor, we were told the
other day, was interred in the family vault of Great Bearings, Suffolk.
His mother was a Woodbridge lady, a Miss Page. Lord Hatherley's father
was the far-famed Liberal Alderman, Sir Matthew Wood, for many years M.P.
for the City of London, and Queen Caroline's trusted friend and
counsellor. Lord Hatherley married, in 1830, Charlotte, the only
daughter of the late Major Edward Moore, of Great Bealings, Suffolk, but
was left a widower in 1878. He devoted much time to religious work, so
long as he had the strength to undertake it. He was the author of a work
entitled 'The Continuity of Scripture, as declared by the Testimony of
Our Lord and the Evangelists and the Apostles', which has passed through
three or four editions. He was created an Hon. D.C.L. of Oxford in 1851,
was an Hon. Student of Christ Church, Oxford, a Governor of the
Charterhouse, and a member of the Fishmongers' Company, of which his
father had at one time been Prime Warden. Major Moore himself was a
great authority on Suffolk literature and antiquities, and published more
than one book--now very scarce--on the interesting theme.
As to Dr. Lankester, all Woodbridge was scandalized when it was announced
that he was articled to a medical man. 'What, make a doctor of him!'
said the local gossips at the time. 'They had much better make a butcher
of him.' And not a little were the good people astonished when he came
to town, and was signally successful as a medical lecturer, and as an
advocate of the sanitary principles which in our day have come to be
recognised as essential to the welfare of the State. Dr. Lankester was
in great request as a writer on medical subjects in a popular manner, and
did undoubtedly much good in his day. A good many genteel people lived
in the neighbourhood of Woodbridge, and it had a society to which it can
lay no claim at the present time. Edward Fitzgerald, the friend of
Thackeray and Carlyle, himself an author of no mean repute, lived close
by.
That genteel people should have pitched their tents in or around
Woodbridge is not much to be wondered at, as the neighbourhood was
certainly attractive and convenient at the same time. The scenery around
is as interesting as any that could be found, at any rate, in that part
of England. The drive from Tuddenham to Woodbridge, says Mr. Taylor, in
his 'Ipswich Handbook,' is perhaps unequalled in Suffolk. On the road
you pass through the villages of Little and Great Bealings, and if you
are on the look-out for spots which an artist would love to study, you
may make a very short detour to Playford. The churches, both of Little
and of Great Bealings, are very ancient, and well deserve a visit; but
the Woodbridge Road itself passes through some very pretty scenery.
Rushmere Heath, in the early summer time, when the gorse is in bloom, is
one mass of yellow, in the cleared spaces of which may usually be seen a
gipsy encampment. The gibbet once stood on this heath, and in former
times it seems to have been the place where executions usually took
place. It was here that in 1783 a woman, named Bedingfield, was burnt
for murdering her husband. In the early part of this century, when there
were many alarms as to a French invasion, and it was the firm belief of
the old ladies that one fine morning Bony would land upon our shores, and
carry them all away captive, many were the reviews of soldiers held there
by the Duke of Cambridge--whose house has been pointed out to me at
Woodbridge--and the Duke of Kent. At that time it was the fashion to
exercise the volunteers on a Sunday, a practice which would not be
sanctioned in our more religious age. It is a beautiful ride through
Kesgrave. Dense plantations abound on both sides, and in May the chorus
of nightingales is described as something wonderful. In the word
'Kesgrave' we have an allusion to the barrows or tumuli to be seen on
Kesgrave Heath. There are several of these erections remaining to this
day, and perhaps tradition is warranted in speaking of the spot as the
site whereon the Danes and Saxons met in deadly fight. It is certain
that the former frequently came up the Deben and the Orwell. At
Martlesham you see a creek, richly wooded on both sides, which flows up
from the River Deben. It is a striking object at high water, but by no
means so striking as the sign of the village public-house--the head of a
huge wooden lion painted with the brightest of reds. It was originally
the figure-head of a Dutch man-of-war, one of the fleet defeated at the
famous battle of Sole Bay. Be that as it may, no sign is better known
than that of Martlesham Red Lion. 'As red as Martlesham Lion' is still a
common figure of speech throughout East Suffolk, and I am glad to see
that in the beautiful East Anglian etchings of Mr. Edwards, a Suffolk
lawyer, who turned artist, Martlesham Red Lion has justice done to it at
last.
Woodbridge, which the guide-book in 1844 described as a thriving town and
port--I question whether it is thriving now--is situated on the western
bank of the Deben, about nine miles above the mouth of the river, and
about eight miles to the north of Ipswich. In Domesday Book the place is
called Udebridge, of which its present name is no doubt a corruption.
Mr. William White, whom I have already quoted, says: 'Fifty years ago
only one daily coach and a weekly waggon passed through the town to and
from London; but more than twelve conveyances (coaches, omnibuses and
carriers' waggons) now pass daily between the hours of six in the morning
and twelve at noon, and persons may travel from Woodbridge to London in a
few hours for ten shillings, instead of paying three times that amount,
and being thirteen hours on the road, as was formerly the case.' The
railway has now rendered it possible for people to travel at a quicker
speed and at a cheaper rate. In London we have a Woodbridge Street, in
the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell Green, which points to a connection
between the poorer part of the City and the picturesque Suffolk town on
the banks of the Deben, and this gives me occasion to speak of Thomas
Seckford, Esq., one of the masters of the Court of Requests, and Surveyor
of the Court of Wards and Liveries in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He
was not less distinguished in the profession of the law than in the other
polite accomplishments of the age in which he lived, and to his patronage
of his servant, Christopher Saxton, the public were indebted for the
first set of county maps, which were engraved by his encouragement and at
his request. He represented Ipswich in three Parliaments, and died
without issue in 1588, aged seventy-two. In Woodbridge his name is
perpetuated by a handsome pile of buildings known as the Seckford
Almshouses and Schools, to which the property in Clerkenwell is devoted.
At the time of his decease that property produced about 112 pounds a
year; in 1768 it was said to be of the yearly value of 563 pounds. In
1826 an Act of Parliament was obtained to enable the governors of the
almshouses to grant building and other leases, to take down many of the
old buildings, to erect new premises, and repair and alter old ones, and
to lay out new streets on the charity estate in Clerkenwell, and, in
consequence, we find in 1830 the estate producing a rental of more than
3,000 pounds a year. In 1844 the yearly rental had risen to 4,000
pounds. Since then it has much increased, and all this is devoted to the
benefit of the Woodbridge poor.
In 1806 Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet, came to live at Woodbridge.
When fourteen years old he was apprenticed to Mr. Samuel Jessup, a
shopkeeper in Halstead, Essex. 'There I stood,' he writes, 'for eight
years behind the counter of the corner shop at the top of Halstead Hill,
kept to this day (November 9, 1828) by my old master and still worthy
uncle, S. Jessup.' In Woodbridge he married a niece of his old master,
and went into partnership with her brother as corn and coal merchant.
But she died in giving birth to the Lucy Barton whose name still, unless
I am mistaken, adorns our literature. Bernard gave up business and
retired into the bank of the Messrs. Alexander, where he continued for
forty years, working within two days of his death. He had always been
fond of books, and was one of the most active members of a Woodbridge
Book Club, and had been in the habit of writing and sending to his
friends occasional copies of verse. In 1812 he published his first
volume, called 'Metrical Effusions,' and began a correspondence with
Southey. A complimentary copy of verses which he had addressed to the
author of the 'Queen's Wake,' just then come into notice, brought him
long and vehement letters from the Ettrick--letters full of thanks to
Barton and praises of himself, and a tragedy 'that will astonish the
world ten times more than the "Queen's Wake,"' to which justice could not
be done in Edinburgh, and which Bernard Barton was to try to get
represented in London. In 1825 one of Bernard's volumes of poems had run
into a fifth edition, and of another George IV. had accepted the
dedication. Thus prompted to exertion, he worked too hard; banking all
day and writing poetry all night were too much for him. Lamb, however,
cheered up the dyspeptic poet. 'You are too much apprehensive about your
complaint,' he wrote. 'I know many that are always writing of it and
live on to a good old age. I knew a merry fellow--you partly know him,
too--who, when his medical adviser told him he had drunk all _that part_,
congratulated himself, now his liver was gone, that he should be the
longest liver of the two.' Southey wrote in a soberer vein. 'My friend,
go to bed early; and if you eat suppers, read afterwards, but never
compose, that you may lie down with a quiet intellect. There is an
intellectual as well as a religious peace of mind, and without the former
be assured there can be no health for a poet.'
At times Bernard Barton seems to have been troubled about money matters.
On one occasion he appears to have made up his mind to have done with
banking and devote himself to literature. 'Keep to your bank,' wrote
Lamb, 'and the bank will keep you. Trust not to the public: you may
hang, starve, drown yourself, for anything that worthy personage cares.
I bless every star that Providence, not seeing good to make me
independent, has seen it next good to settle me on the stable foundation
of Leadenhall. Sit down, good B. B., in the banking office. What! is
there not from six to eleven p.m. six days in the week? and is there not
all Sunday?' Fortunately for B. B., friends came to his rescue. A few
members of his Society, including some of the wealthier of his own
family, raised among them 1,200 pounds for his benefit. The scheme
originated with Joseph John Gurney, of Norwich, and in 1824 when the
money was collected, it was felt that 1,200 pounds was a great deal for a
poet to receive. Bernard Barton's daughter married a Suffolk gentleman,
well-to-do in the world, but the lady and gentleman had not congenial
minds, and parted almost as soon as the honeymoon was over.
B. B. was a great correspondent. As a banker's clerk, necessarily his
journeys were few and far between. Once or twice he visited Charles
Lamb. He once also met Southey at Thomas Clarkson's, at Playford Hall,
perhaps the most picturesque old house in East Anglia, where the latter
resided, and of which I have a distinct recollection, as, on the terrace
before the moat with which it was surrounded, I once saw the venerable
philanthropist and his grandchildren. Now and then B. B. also visited
the Rev. Mr. Mitford at Benhall, a village between Woodbridge and
Saxmundham, who was then engaged in editing the Aldine edition of the
English Poets. But B. B.'s correspondents were numerous. Poor,
unfortunate L. E. L. sent him girlish letters. Mrs. Hemans was also a
correspondent, as were the Howitts and Mrs. Opie and Dr. Drake, of
Hadley, whose literary disquisitions are now, alas! forgotten; and poor
Charles Lloyd, whose father wrote of his son's many books 'that it is
easier to write them than to gain numerous readers.' Dr. Bowring and
Josiah Conder were also on writing terms with the Quaker poet. His
excursions, his daughter tells us, rarely extended beyond a few miles
round Woodbridge, to the vale of Dedham, Constable's birthplace and
painting-room; or to the neighbouring seacoast, including Aldborough,
doubly dear to him from its association with the memory and poetry of
Crabbe. Once upon a time he dined with Sir Robert Peel, when he had the
pleasure of meeting Airy, the late Astronomer Royal, whom he had known as
a lad at Playford. The dinner with Sir Robert Peel ended satisfactorily,
as it resulted in the bestowal by the Queen on the poet of a pension of
100 pounds a year. He was now beyond the fear of being tempted to commit
forgery, and being hung in consequence--a possibility, which was the
occasion of one of Lamb's wittiest letters. The gentle Elia made merry
over the chance of a Quaker poet being hung.
Amiable and liberal as was Bernard Barton, he could and did strike hard
when occasion required. In East Anglia, when I was a lad, there was a
great deal of intolerance--almost as much as exists in society circles at
the present day--and that is saying a great deal. Churchmen, in their
ignorance, were ready to put down Dissent in every way, and occasionally,
by their absurdity, they roused the righteous ire of the Quaker poet.
One of them, for instance, had said at a public meeting: 'This was the
opinion he had formed of Dissenters, that they were wolves in sheep's
clothing.' Whereupon B. B. wrote:
'Wolves in sheep's clothing! bitter words and big;
But who applies them? first the speaker scan;
A suckling Tory! an apostate Whig!
Indeed a very silly, weak young man!
'What such an one may either think or say,
With sober people matters not one pin;
In _their_ opinion his own senseless bray
Proves _him_ the ASS WRAPT IN A LION'S SKIN!'
Better is the following address to a certain Dr. E.:
'A bullying, brawling, champion of the Church,
Vain as a parrot screaming on her perch;
And like that parrot screaming out by rote,
The same stale, flat, unprofitable note;
Still interrupting all debate
With one eternal cry of "Church and State!"
With all the High Tory's ignorance increased,
By all the arrogance that makes the priest;
One who declares upon his solemn word
The Voluntary system is absurd;
He well may say so, for 'twere hard to tell
Who would support him did not law compel.'
A prophet, it is said, is not honoured in his own country. Bernard
Barton was happily the rare exception that proves the rule. I remember
being at the launching of a vessel, bought and owned by a Woodbridge man,
called the _Bernard Barton_; it was the first time I had ever seen a ship
launched, and I was interested accordingly. The ultimate fate of the
craft is unknown to history. On one occasion she was reported in the
shipping list amongst the arrivals at some far-off port as the _Barney
Burton_. Such is fame!
Of his local reputation Bernard was not a little proud. His little town
was vain of him. It was something to go into the bank and get a cheque
cashed by the poet. The other evening I went to the house of a
Woodbridge man who has done well in London, and lives in one of the few
grand old houses which yet adorn Stoke Newington Green--just a stone's
throw from where Samuel Rogers dwelt--and there in the drawing-room were
Bernard Barton's own chair and cabinet preserved with as much pious care
as if he had been a Shakespeare or a Milton. Bernard Barton made no
secret of his vocation, and when the time had come that he had delivered
himself of a new poem, it was his habit to call on one or other of his
friends and discuss the matter over a bottle of port--port befitting the
occasion; no modern liquor of that name--
'Not such as that
You set before chance comers,
But such whose father grape grew fat
On Lusitanian summers.'
And then there was a good deal of talk, as was to be expected, on things
in general, for B. B. loved his joke and was full of anecdote--anecdote,
perhaps, not always of the most refined character. But what could you
expect at such happy times from a man brimful of human nature, who had to
pose all life under the double weight of decorum imposed on him, in the
first place as a Quaker, and in the second place as a banker's clerk?
Bernard Barton, as I recollect him, was somewhat of a dear old man--short
in person, red in face, with dark brown hair. He was, as I have said, a
clerk in a bank, but his poetry had elevated him, somehow, to the rank of
a provincial lion, and at certain houses, where the dinner was good and
the wine was ditto, he ever was a welcome guest. I dined with him at the
house of a friend in Woodbridge, and it seemed to me that he cared more
for good feeding and a glass of wine and a pinch of snuff than the sacred
Nine. Of course at that time I had not been educated up to the fitting
state of mind with which the philosopher of our day proceeds to the
performance of the mysteries of dinner. Dining had at that time not been
elevated to the rank of a science, to the study of which the most acute
intellects devote their highest energies; nor had flowers then been
invoked to lend an additional grace to the dining-table. Besides,
dinners such as Mr. Black gives at Brighton, scientific dinners, such as
those feasts with which Sir Henry Thompson regales his friends, were
unknown. Nevertheless, now and then we managed to dine comfortably off
roast beef or lamb, a slice of boiled or roast fowl, a bit of
plum-pudding or fruit tart, a crust of bread and cheese, with--tell it
not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askalon--sherry and Madeira
at dinner, and a few glasses of fine old fruity port after. Some
Shakespearian quotations--unknown to me then, for Shakespeare was little
quoted in purely evangelical circles, either in Church or Dissent--a
reference to Sir Walter Scott's earlier German translations, formed about
the sum and substance of the conversation which took place between the
poet and my host; all the rest was principally social gossip and an
exchange of pleasantries between the poet and his friend, whom he
addressed familiarly as 'mine ancient.' It was a great treat to me, of
course, to dine with Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet. Once upon a time a
Quaker minister had come to Woodbridge on a preaching tour, and all the
Quakers, male and female, small and great, rich and poor, were ranged
before him. When Bernard Barton was announced, the good old man said,
'Barton--Barton--that's a name I don't recollect.' The bearer of the
name replied it would be strange if he did, seeing that they had never
met before. Suddenly looking up, the minister exclaimed, 'Art thou the
versifying man?' Unlike the venerable stranger, I had no need to ask the
question, as in my mother's album there was more than one letter from the
genial B. B.
I can well recall the room in which I dined with the poet. My host had
come into a handsome fortune by marrying a wealthy widow--one of the
possibilities of a Dissenting minister's situation--and he had retired
from the ministry to cultivate literature and literary men. As I think
of that room and that dinner, I am reminded of the wonderful contrast
effected within the last age. At that time the dinner-table presented a
far less picturesque appearance than it does now. We had always pudding
before meat; the latter was solid, and in the shape of a joint. Nor was
it handed round by servants, but carved by the host or his lady. Silver
forks were unknown, and electro-plate had not then been invented.
Vegetables, also, were deficient as regards quantity and quality compared
with the supply at a respectable dinner nowadays. In manners the change
is equally remarkable. It was said of a nobleman, a personal friend of
George III., and a model gentleman of his day, that he had made the tour
of Europe without ever touching the back of his travelling carriage.
That includes an idea of self-denial utterly unknown to all the young
people of to-day. The study now is how to make our houses more
comfortable, and to furnish them most luxuriously. Then, perhaps, there
was but one sofa in the house, and that was repellent rather than
attractive. Easy-chairs were few and far between. Lounging of any kind
was out of the question. In the drawing-room, the furniture was of the
same uncomfortable description, and there were none of the modern
appliances which exist to make ladies and gentlemen happy. Couches,
antimacassars, photographs, were unknown. One picture invariably to be
seen was a painting of a favourite steed, with the owner looking at it in
a state of intense admiration; and a few family portraits might be
ostentatiously displayed. As to pianos, there never was but one in the
house; and a billiard-table would have been considered as the last refuge
of human depravity. In sitting-rooms and bedrooms and passages there was
a great deficiency of carpets and of oilcloth. But furniture was
furniture then, and could stand a good deal of wear and tear; while as to
the spare bed in the best room, with its enormous four posts and its
gigantic funereal canopy and its heavy curtains, through which no breath
of fresh air could penetrate, all I can say is that people slept in it
and survived the operation--so wonderfully does nature adapt itself to
circumstances the most adverse.
This reference to Bernard Barton reminds me of a portrait he has left in
one of his pleasant letters of a Suffolk yeoman, a class of whose virtues
I can testify from personal experience. 'He was a hearty old yeoman of
eighty-six, and had occupied the farm in which he lived and died about
fifty-five years. Social, hospitable, friendly, a liberal master to his
labourers, a kind neighbour, and a right merry companion within the
limits of becoming mirth. In politics a stanch Whig, in his theological
creed as sturdy a Dissenter; yet with no more party spirit in him than a
child. He and I belonged to the same book-club for about forty years.
. . . Not that he greatly cared about books or was deeply read in them, but
he loved to meet his neighbours and get them round him on any occasion or
no occasion at all. As a fine specimen of the true English yeoman, I
have met with few to equal, if any to surpass him, and he looked the
character as well as he acted it, till within a few years, when the
strong man was bowed by bodily infirmity. About twenty-six years ago, in
his dress costume of a blue coat and yellow buckskins, a finer sample of
John Bullism you would rarely see. It was the whole study of his long
life to make the few who revolved round him in his little orbit as happy
as he seemed to be himself. Yet I was gravely queried when I happened to
say that his children had asked me to write a few lines to his memory,
whether I could do this in keeping with the general tone of my
poetry--the speaker doubted if he was a decidedly pious character! He
had at times in his altitude been known to vociferate a song, of which
the chorus was certainly not teetotalism:
'"Sing old Rose, and burn the bellows,
Drink and drive dull care away."'
Bernard Barton goes on to describe the deceased yeoman as a diligent
attendant at the meeting-house, a frequent and serious reader of the
Bible, and the head of an orderly and well-regulated house. He is
described as knowing Dr. Watts' hymns almost by heart, and as singing
them on Sunday at meeting with equal fervour and unction. Bernard Barton
feared in 1847--the date of his epistle--the breed of such men was dying
out. It is to be feared in East Anglia the race is quite extinct. In
our meeting-house at Wrentham, when I was a lad, there were several such.
I am afraid there is not one there now. The sons and daughters have left
the old rustic houses, and gone out into the world. They have become
respectable, and go to church, and have lost a good deal of the vigour
and independence of their forefathers. In all the East Anglian
meeting-houses fifty years ago such men abounded. Of a Sunday, with
their blue coats and kerseymere knee-breeches, and jolly red laces, they
looked more like country squires than common farmers. They drove up to
the meeting-house yard with very superior gigs and cattle. In their
houses creature comforts of all known kinds were to be found. Tea--a
hearty meal, not of mere bread-and-butter, but of ham and cake as
well--was served up in the parlour, with a glass or two of real
home-brewed ale, amber-coloured, of a quality now unknown, and which was
wonderfully refreshing after a long walk or drive. Then, if it were
summer, there was a stroll in the big garden, well planted with
fruit-trees and strawberry-beds, and adorned with flowers--old-fashioned,
perhaps, but rich, nevertheless, in colour and perfume. In one corner
there was sure to be an arbour, all covered with honeysuckle, such as
Izaak Walton himself would have approved; and there, while the seniors
over their long pipes discussed politics and theology, and corn and
cattle, the younger ones would make their first feeble efforts, all
unconsciously, perhaps, to conjugate the verb 'to love.' Outside the
church organizations these old yeomen lived and died. There was a
flavour of the world about them. They would dine at market ordinaries,
and perhaps would stop an hour in the long room of the public-house,
where they put up their horses, to smoke a pipe and take a drop of
brandy-and-water for the good of the landlord. Now and then--sometimes
to the sorrow of their wives, who were often church-members--they would
join, as I have indicated, in a song of an objectionable character when
severely criticised. Perhaps their parson would be much exercised on
their behalf; but surely the noble spirit of humanity in these old
yeomen, at any rate, was as worthy of admiration as the Puritanic faith
of the past--or as the honest doubt of the present age. If I mistake
not, the fine old yeoman to whom Bernard Barton referred lived not far
from Seckford Hall.
Woodbridge has some claim to consideration from the Nonconformist point
of view. In 1648 a schoolmistress, Elizabeth Warren, published a
pamphlet, 'The Old and Good Way Vindicated, in a Treatise, wherein Divers
Errours, both in Judgment and Practice incident to these Declining Days,
are Unmasked for the Caution of humble Christians.' From the same town
also there issued 'The Preacher Sent: a Vindication of the Liberty of
Public Preaching by Some Men not Ordained.' The author of this book, or
one of the authors of it, was the Rev. Frederick Woodall, the first
pastor of the Free Church--'a man of learning, ability, and piety, a
strict Independent, zealous for the fifth monarchy, and a considerable
sufferer after his ejectment.' He had, we are told, to contend with a
tedious embarrassment, through the persecuting spirit that for many years
prevailed, and considerably cramped the success of his ministry.
Woodbridge is one of the churches which Mr. Harmer refers to in his
'Miscellaneous Works,' as being rigidly Congregationalist, and which
conducted its affairs rather according to the heads of Savoy Confession
than the heads of Agreement. When I was a boy the pastor was a Mr.
Pinchback, who seems to have been a worthy successor of godly men,
equally attractive and successful. He had previously settled at Ware.
It is recorded of the good divine that on one occasion he had to leave
his wife at the point of death, as it seemed, to go to chapel. In the
course of the service he mentioned the fact of her illness, and announced
in consequence that he would preach her funeral sermon on the following
Sunday. But when the following Sunday came the lady was better, and
lived for many years to assist her husband in his godly work. In the
rural districts the Baptists flourished immensely.
At Grundisburgh there preached for many years to a large congregation a
worthy man of the name of Collins, who was one of the leading lights of
the body which rejoiced in a John Foreman and a Brother Wells. People
who live in London cannot have forgotten Jemmy Wells, of the Surrey
Tabernacle, and his grotesque and telling anecdotes. One can scarcely
imagine how people could ever believe the things Wells used to say as to
the Lord's dealings with him; but they did, and his funeral--in South
London, at any rate--was almost as numerously attended as that of Arthur,
Duke of Wellington. I expect high-and-dry Baptists have been not a
little troublesome in their day, and in East Anglia they were more
numerous than in London. It may be that they have helped to weaken
Dissent in that part of the world. Men of independent intellect must
have been not a little shocked by that unctuous familiarity with God and
the devil which is the characteristic of that class. On a Sunday morning
Jemmy Wells, as his admirers called him, would describe in the most
graphic manner what the devil had said to him in the course of the week;
and on one memorable occasion, at any rate, described with much force the
shame he felt at having to tell the gentleman in black that his people's
memories, unfortunately, were somewhat remiss in the matter of pew-rents.
Brother Collins avoided such flights, but he was an attractive preacher
to all the country round, nevertheless. Truly such a one was needed in
that district. At Rendham, a village near Saxmundham, lived a godly
minister of the Church of England. In 1844, speaking to a friend of the
writer, he said that when he came into the county, between thirty and
forty years before, there was only one other clergyman and himself
between Ipswich and Great Yarmouth who preached the Gospel, and that
sometimes the squire of the parish would hold up his watch to him to bid
him close his sermon. In some places where he went to preach he had to
have a body-guard to prevent his being mobbed and pelted with rotten eggs
on account of his evangelical principles.