BAMFORD WOOD.
So rich a shade, so green a sod,
Our English fairies never trod;
Yet who in Indian bower has stood,
But thought on England's "good green wood?"
And bless'd, beneath the palmy shade,
Her hazel and her hawthorn glade,
And breath'd a prayer (how oft in vain!)
To gaze upon her oaks again?
HEBER.
Forty years ago no part of our neighbourhood more abounded in natural
attractions than the district which comprises Moston, Blackley,
Boggart-hole Clough, Middleton, Bamford Wood, and the upper portions
generally of the valleys of the Medlock and the Irk, the latter
including that pretty little cup amid the grassy and tree-clad slopes
still known as "Daisy Nook." How charmingly many of these places have
been introduced into our local literature needs no telling. Samuel
Bamford was not the man to misapprehend the beauty of nature. Throstle
Glen was one of his favourite resorts. Edwin Waugh, happily, is still
with us, not alone in perfect story, but ready with the always welcome
living voice. The spread of building and of manufacturing has induced
heavy changes in almost every portion of the district mentioned,
changes partaking, only too often, of the nature of havoc, especially
in the immediate vicinity of the streams. So long, however, as it holds
centres of social and intellectual culture and refinement--Mr. George
Milner lives at Moston--the mind does not care to contrast the present
with the past, accepting the record, and in that quite willing to rest.
The district in question is peculiarly interesting also from the fact
of its having been one of the principal scenes of the work done by the
old Lancashire "naturalists in humble life" during the time that they
earned their reputation. A noted locality for hand-loom silk weaving,
it was long distinguished in particular for its resident entomologists,
the delicacy of touch demanded by that elegant art being just that
which is needed when one's play-hours are spent with Psyche; upon the
same occupation would seem indeed to have arisen yet another of the
old characteristic local tastes--that for the cultivation of dainty
flowers, such as the auricula and the polyanthus. Floriculture is still
pursued with fair success, though on a smaller scale; entomology, we
fear, is like the hand-loom, almost forgotten. We should remember,
also, that Alkrington Hall, near Middleton, was the residence of the
celebrated Sir Ashton Lever, gentleman, scholar, and naturalist, and
that it was by him that the innumerable objects of the famous Leverian
Museum were brought together. While a resident at Alkrington Hall (the
ancient family seat) he had the best aviary in the kingdom. In 1775 the
museum was removed to London, and ten years afterwards it was sold by
auction piecemeal. Sir Ashton's Manchester town house was that one in
"Lever's Row," now called Piccadilly, which has for many years been the
"White Bear" hotel. When he died, in 1788, this house was advertised
as eligible for a ladies' school, being so far away from the centre of
business, and fields within a few yards!
"White Moss," as before-mentioned (p. 60), has long since been
converted into farm-land, but in the days referred to was still in
its glory, dull to look at, no doubt, but to the interrogator a local
garden of Eden. Never shall we forget the genial smile that rippled old
George Crozier's broad, round, rosy, white-fringed face as one sunny
afternoon in Whitsun-week, 1839, we stepped with twenty or more under
his guidance for the first time upon the elastic peat, and beheld the
andromeda and the pink stars of the cranberry, these also for the first
time. To Crozier the pretty flowers were familiar as the hills; his
joy was to watch the delight they gave the juveniles. Presently a man
came up and asked if we were "looking for _brids_." A little puzzled at
first by the strange inquiry, the mystery was soon solved by his taking
off his hat and showing it stuck full of butterflies, the "birds,"
or in his homely Anglo-Saxon, the "brids" caught during his ramble.
Among the more remarkable insects then to be captured on White Moss
were the showy beetle called _Carabus nitens_, the glittering green
stripes of its wing-cases edged with a band of brilliant copper-colour;
the fox-moth, _Lasiocampa rubi_, so called from its peculiar foxy
colour; and the emperor-moth, _Saturnia pavonia_, for which the moss
had been from time immemorial a noted locality. Great has been the
sport of many an entomologist, as, sitting on White Moss on a fine
day in early summer, with a captured virgin female of this beautiful
creature, the _antennæ_ of which are like ostrich plumes, the males
have flocked to him, or rather to _her_, by the hundred, for the virgin
female of the emperor-moth, though she can fly, prefers to sit still
until she has been visited by an individual of the other sex. Up to
this period she exudes a delicate odour which attracts the latter from
long distances, those which have far to come, and arrive late, or not
till after the advent of the first, turning back, unless captured by
the entomologist's net, as soon as they perceive by their wonderful
instinct that she is virgin no longer. The wings of the males, as with
most other kinds of butterfly, are rarely found perfect, except when
first fledged. Flying about in ardent search of the female, they tear
and chip them against the heath and other plants with which they come
in contact through their impatience. The plant that chiefly attracted
attention on that memorable day was the cotton-sedge, the most
beautiful production of the moorlands, and conspicuous from afar as its
silvery-white tassels bend and recover before the breeze. Carrying off
a great handful, "Look!" said the rural children in the lanes, amazed
that any one could care for such rubbish, "there's a man been getting
moss-crops!" All the mosses about Manchester produce the cotton-sedge,
but never have we seen such luxuriant specimens as in the ditches that
were then being cut for the draining of White Moss. Three species
occur, the broad-leaved, the narrow-leaved, and the single-flowered,
the tufts of the latter being upright instead of pendulous. Their
beauty, unhappily, is their only recommendation, for the herbage is
rough and coarse, and altogether unfit for pasture, and the cotton, so
called, is cotton only in name. It cannot be manufactured; the hairs
are too straight and too brittle. Instead of twining and entangling,
like the filaments of true cotton, they lie rigidly side by side,
resembling true cotton merely in their whiteness, and could no more be
spun into yarn than slate-pencils could be twisted into a cable.
Boggart-hole Clough, a little nearer Manchester, was reached most
readily at the time spoken of, and of course is so still, by way of
Oldham Road, going by omnibus or tram-car as far as the end of the
first lane carried over the railway. There are plenty of roads _under_
arches formed by the railway, but these will not do; it must be the
first that goes _over_ the embankment. Crossing the line at the point
in question, a descending path presently brings us to Jack's Bridge,
a sweet little dell, consecrated by one of nature's own poets, then a
resident at Newton Heath:
Jack's Bridge! thy road is rough,
But thy wild-flowers are sweet!
Other fields gradually lead on towards Moston, several of them
containing large "pits," or ponds, where, in July the white water-lily
may be seen in its lustrous bloom, and the Comarum, covered with its
deep-red blossoms and ripening fruit; and from there the way is easily
found into the clough, which is entered about the middle. On the left,
from this point, there is an enticing field-path by the side of the
stream to the Blackley road; on the right we mount into the sylvan
part, and see for ourselves how well merited is the reputation of
this once-affrighting haunt of the boggart. All the charms of a leafy
and flowery solitude are there assembled. Not those of the old, old
forest, perfect in forest-ways, these we must not look for; but of the
gentle ravine, wherein we cannot be lost, and which often pleases so
much the more because less grand, since in all things while it is the
great and sublime that we _admire_, that which we _love_ is the little
and measurable. Beautiful trees are here, that among their boughs
give ever-pleasing glimpses of soft scenery, and in its season, white
patches of bridal May,
The milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale,
and that never hinder the sight of the azure overhead; and if while
pushing our way through the brown remains of last year's ferns,
brambles with their long arms and claws always seeking to clutch at the
traveller, insist on plucking off one's cap just to show that the way
is "on sufferance;" well, never mind, a lively little rill running in
parts through beds of wild mint makes a pleasant noise, and wherever a
sparkle is wanted to relieve the still and motionless, a silver eye or
a glittering rapid is not awanting. Of course we must take with us a
disposition to enjoy. "A song," says some author, "is thrown away that
is not in the same key as the listener."
The clough is not distinguished by anything special in the way of
plants, though we have gathered there fine sprigs of the sweet
woodruff. As a retreat, however, from the noise and bustle of the town,
and the only place of the kind in that direction, it must always be
precious to the lover of nature. Unfortunately, the path has of late
years become very much disturbed through the falling away of the bank,
the steepness of which, and the weight of the trees, unprovided with
sufficient anchorage by reason of the lightness of the soil, causes
continual landslips, so that now there are in many places rather
dangerous declivities. Many of the trees that once stood erect upon
the brows, now lie ingloriously with their heads in the brook beneath,
and their roots in the air. The increase of buildings about Newton and
Failsworth, and the consequent incessant raids of destroying boys,
have also tended of late years to mar the place considerably; and
now, in 1882, it has to be said with deep regret, that the regular
Sunday resort to Boggart-hole of the lowest roughs of the neighbouring
villages, leaves it for the week-day visitor tattered and torn and
soiled beyond recovery. The signal, with every new season, for renewed
mischief, is the opening of the golden sallow-bloom, now not a tenth
in quantity of what it was even in 1850. These roughs are the thousand
times more affrighting boggarts of to-day, masters, permittedly by the
authorities, of a place once another Kelvin Grove,
Where the wild rose in its pride
Paints the hollow dingle side,
And the midnight fairies glide,
Bonnie lassie, O!
We have spoken of Boggart-hole Clough in conformity with the generally
current idea, namely, that in the olden time it was a haunt or
habitation of "boggarts." Boggart-_hole_ is thought by some to be a
mistaken and enlarged spelling of Boggart _Hall_, the appellation of a
house near the head of the clough, once and for a long while of evil
repute as the home of an unclean spirit. Samuel Bamford seems to favour
the popular conception, probably because unwilling to disturb it,
though he himself never hints at the existence in this clough of any
particular uncanny inmate. The boggart of the hall was no other, it is
further contended, than the "brownie" found in some shape or other all
the world over, superstitions of this character being co-extensive with
human nature, sometimes vulgarized, sometimes exquisitely etherialised,
and taking as many forms as there are powers of fancy in the human
mind. The pixies of Devonshire and Titania's "Sweet Puck" belong to
the poetical line of thought; the ugly and mischievous "boggarts" to
the rustic one. The entire subject has been dealt with by Harland and
Wilkinson in the _Lancashire Folk-lore_. The legend is also given
in the _Traditions of Lancashire_, the compiler of which would seem
to have adopted an earlier version in the _Literary Gazette_ for
1825. There is yet another surmise, that "boggart" in this particular
instance is a mistake for "Bowker," a family of which name is said to
have once occupied the hall. Possibly. Admitting either explanation to
be the true one and finally established, the received idea still goes
abreast of that beautiful old tendency of the universal human heart to
assign spiritual beings to every part of physical nature, the basis
of all the primitive religions, and which will endure when etymology
is dead. Mrs. Banks supplies yet another version, referring us to the
time of Prince Charles Edward, the Pretender, one of whose unfortunate
followers was constrained to hide himself in the clough, friends who
were in the secret giving out, in order to hinder search by the enemy,
that the place of refuge was the abode of demons.
The path through the fields referred to as the best for approaching
the clough from Manchester, turns up when near Blackley through a
little wood, and thence into meadows, which very agreeably abridge the
distance homeward, especially if we go at that best season of all for
visiting Boggart-hole, when the newly-cut hay is scenting the air, and
tiny hands are trying to help the great rakes and forks of the farmer's
troop, and the beautiful crescent of the young moon hangs golden in
the sky, and the bright reluctant twilight almost lasts to another
day, lingering like a lover at the hand of his betrothed. The stream,
it may be added, that winds its way along the bottom of the clough is
a tributary of the Irk,--that unfortunate little river which, rising
in or near tree-crested Tandle Hill, north-east of Middleton, seems
to grow ashamed of its blackened waters as it creeps into the town
by Collyhurst, and which, as it hastens to its oblivious refuge in
the Irwell, is known to every one in its last leap,--the hideous fall
underneath the Victoria Station, on the side next Millgate. "Manchester
Rivers, their Sources and Courses," would form a capital subject for
a book. The Mersey, the Irwell, the Irk, the Tame, the Etherowe,
the Bollin, the Goyt, and several others, are full of interesting
associations; and if they be not of the clearest water in their lower
portions, remember the work they do. A limpid stream among the hills
is lovely and poetical; but the most pleasing of all rivers are those
of which the banks are occupied by an industrious and intelligent
population; and we must not cry out too vehemently about the soiling
and spoiling, unless it be easily avoidable and a piece of downright
and wilful damage, when their first and highest value is that of
facilitating industrial efforts, and helping on the prosperity of a
town and nation. The truly poetical man is never a sentimentalist; and
though he may pity the destruction of beautiful objects, he is content
to see them converted into sources of general welfare, and to look
elsewhere for new materials of enjoyment.
Bamford Wood is a cluster of leafy dells or dingles, reached, in
the first instance, by going to Heywood, the rather tedious and
uninteresting streets of which have to be pursued till we come to
"Simpson Clough." The dells are disposed in the form of a V, the upper
extremities again forked, and feathering away until at last they merge
into fields. Down every dell comes a stream, rushing over large stones,
the various waters all meeting eventually in the angle of the V, and
soon afterwards swelling the river Roche, which in turn flows into the
Irwell not far from Radcliffe. The various portions have all their
distinctive names, "Dobb-wood," upon the left, holds "Cheeseden-brook."
Beyond this we have Windy-cliff-wood, Carr-wood and Jowkin-wood; while
upon the right are Ashworth-wood and Bamford-wood, emphatically so
called. The stream descending the latter is Norden-water. Exact routes
through these pretty glades it is impossible to prescribe, so much must
depend upon personal taste and leisure. The extent, the beauty, and
the wildness, require in truth many visits to be appreciated. There is
more than one round natural lawn in the curves of the stream, where
the silence has often been broken by pic-nics and music. Most parts
may be trodden dry-shod, but it is well always to reckon upon four or
five miles and a few adventures. All ladies who go the entire circuit
deserve to be commended as Bamford heroines.
Not to leave the way altogether undescribed, the best mode of procedure
upon arrival at Simpson Clough is perhaps, soon after entering, to
ascend the path among the trees upon the left, then into some fields
and to the edge of a precipice, from which a view is obtained of a
considerable portion of the wood, where an idea may be formed of the
route it may be pleasantest now to follow. No part is uninteresting;
the question is simply where to begin. Compared with the warm glades of
Cheshire, Bamford Wood is upon the average quite a fortnight later in
escaping from winter. Spring's "curled darlings" have already stepped
into the green parlours of the Bollin valley, while up here a leaf is
scarcely open; even the palm-willow, elsewhere always ready for the
earliest April bee, is cautious and dilatory. The most interesting
plant of the wood is the _Rubus saxatilis_, which, though found
nowhere else in the neighbourhood of Manchester, is abundant near
Coal-bank Bridge, but very seldom flowers. On some of the cliffs, at a
tantalizing height, just out of reach of the longest arm, grows that
beautiful sylvan shrub the Tutsan, _Hypericum Androsæmum_. The sides
of the glen are in most parts lofty and steep, clothed with trees, and
often decorated with little waterfalls, while the bed of the stream
itself is so rugged that the wood after much rain is filled with the
sound of its hindered efforts to escape. On emerging from the wood,
at the upper extremity, or furthest from Simpson Clough, there is a
fine walk over Ashworth Moor to Bury, from which place also it may be
approached.
In 1839 there was no "Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway." Now by
its help we reach the beautiful sheet of water called, popularly,
"Hollingworth _Lake_," but which, like the water at Lymm, Rudyard, and
Taxal, is really no more than a reservoir, constructed about seventy
years ago to supply, in part, the Rochdale and Manchester Canal. The
circumference, which is very irregular, exceeds two miles. Rising high
upon every side, the encircling hills have a wild and rugged grandeur
that contrasts most agreeably with the smooth and tender beauty of
the environments of the meres of Cheshire,--from their summits, upon
a sunny afternoon, the effects are quite as pleasing as the average
of those gathered above Ullswater. An obelisk upon the highest point
marks Whiteley Dean, the view from which is wonderfully fine, reaching
southwards to Manchester; while beyond Littleborough, amid great piles
of hills, stands Brown Wardle, famous, like Bucton Castle, as an
ancient signal station. Amid them is a mamelon quite equal in graceful
outline to Shutlings Low, and decidedly taking precedence of the more
familiar one called Rivington Pike, since the latter, when looked for
at particular angles, disappears; whereas the Brown Wardle mound keeps
fairly true to its outline from whatever point observed, at all events
upon the southern side. The best view of it, so far as we know, is
obtained from near "Middleton Junction." As the word "mamelon" does not
occur in English dictionaries, it may be well to say that it denotes
a smooth, round, evenly-swelling eminence, thrown up from amid hills
already high, a feature in mountain scenery greatly admired by the
ancient Greeks, who gave it a name of precisely similar signification,
as in the case of that classic one at Samos which Callimachus connects
so elegantly with the name of the lady Parthenia.
Moving along the western borders of the lake, it is impossible for
the eye not to catch sight of some curious projecting crags upon the
topmost crest of the highest ground in front. These are the noted
"Robin Hood Rocks" of the legend, the lofty hill upon which they are
perched being Blackstone Edge itself, with, just below them, the
remains of the still more famous Roman road. That Littleborough stands
on the site of an ancient Roman station is well known. The road mounted
the steep slope, crossed it, and then descended into Yorkshire, running
as far as the city where Severus died. By reason, it would seem, of
the extreme steepness, the construction is different from that of any
other Roman road in the country, there being a deep groove along the
middle of the accustomed pavement, designed apparently with the help of
proper wheels to steady the movement of heavily laden trucks. In any
case, there is not a more interesting scene near Manchester than is
supplied upon the slopes of this grand range--Blackstone Edge--which
if unpossessed of the drear wildness of mighty Kinder, is solaced by
the placid bosom of distant Hollingworth. Two ways give access. We may
ascend either from the margin of the water, proceeding through fields
and the little glen called Clegg's Wood; or from Littleborough by the
turnpike-road, turning off when about half-way up to the right, and
then mounting again. At the height of about a quarter of a mile the
road will be discovered--a belt of massive pavement, about forty feet
in width, quite smooth, and overgrown with whortle and crowberry,
except in parts where these have been cleared away with a view to
minute examination of the stone-work. So bright is the colour of this
heathy covering, compared with that of the general vegetation of the
hill, that when the atmosphere is clear, and the sunshine favourably
subdued, the road may be plainly discerned from the opposite side of
the valley, a regular and well-defined streak of green. Arrived at the
summit, a few yards over the level brow, we find the boundary-stone
between the two counties, and from this point may trace the road for
some distance onwards.
Running on, past Rochdale and through the tunnel, again there is a
quite new sphere of enjoyment in the country which lies on the northern
side of the Todmorden valley, everywhere picturesque, and constantly
branching into subordinate valleys with never-silent streams. The
finest of them are the Burnley valley and the vast and romantic defile
called, as a whole, Hardcastle Crags, though this name applies strictly
to no more than the singular insulated masses of rock at the upper
extremity or beyond the bridge. A more charming resort for two-thirds
of a day the West Riding scarcely offers. The path is first through
the so called "streets," at an angle of forty-five degrees, that lead
towards Heptonstall, then along the crest of the hill until the point
is reached for descending through the wood, at the foot of which, if
the water be low enough, the stream may be crossed by stepping-stones.
Clinging to them will be found in plenty that curious aquatic moss the
_Fontinalis antipyretica_, so named by Linnæus in reference to the
use which he says it was put to by the peasantry in Sweden. Possessed
of properties so much the more singular from their occurrence in a
water-plant, the country people, he tells us, were accustomed to use
it to fill up the spaces between the chimneys and the walls of their
houses, so as to exclude the air and serve as a protection against
fire. The wood is in many parts quite a little natural fernery. We
have on various occasions seen no fewer than five different species
all growing so near together that they could be touched without
moving a single step--the common shield-fern, the broad-leaved sylvan
shield-fern, the hard-fern, the oak-fern, and the beech-fern. Oak-fern,
_Polypodium Dryopteris_, is a frequent inhabitant of the dells
hereabouts where moist, growing in patches more than a foot across.
[Illustration: W. Hull.
Tho. Letherbrow.
Halewood Church.]
Like the rocks of Whaley Bridge, Kinder Scout, Greenfield, and Seal
Bark, those of the Hebden valley consist of millstone-grit, alternating
with shale, the latter cropping out chiefly along the course of the
river. It was among these shales, though perhaps more particularly
in portions laid bare during the construction of the line along the
main or Todmorden valley, that Samuel Gibson, the once celebrated
blacksmith-naturalist of Hebden Bridge, pursued his researches in
connection with fossil shells, as described in the first volume of the
_Transactions of the Manchester Geological Society_ (1841). His work
is said, in the volume in question, to have been carried on in "High
Green Wood," and as regards the common use of this name, correctly
so, as it is applied very generally to the entire valley, or from the
village up to the insulated rocks. Properly, however, it denotes only
a small portion near the latter. Gibson, a man wholly self-taught,
and who kept to his anvil till nearly the time of his death, in
the spring of 1849, possessed a vast amount of knowledge of almost
every department of natural history. A considerable portion of his
collection, comprising a cabinet of seeds of British plants, ferns,
lichens, Marchantias, shells, and insects, was purchased, after his
decease, for the Peel Park Museum. Another portion went to the museum
once existing in Peter-street. The herbarium of flowering plants,
valued at £75, went into the hands of Mr. Mark Philips. Most men suffer
from some kind of constitutional malady. Poor Gibson laboured under
an infirmity of temper which constantly brought him into collision
with his fellow-students. He always meant well, as proved in his last
famous battle over the _Carex paradoxa_; and probably had his life
been a less lonely one the roughness would have got smoothened, and he
would have been as friendly with all other men as with the writer of
this little notice, which is intended rather to preserve the memory
of a singularly acute and industrious observer of nature, working
single-handed, in the face of enormous difficulties, than to imply the
least reflection on his tendency to warfare. The distance of Gibson's
home, twenty-four miles of coach-road, prevented his often coming to
Manchester; but no man was ever more welcome. How different some of
those he came among! As for old Crozier, whose name we have already
mentioned two or three times, and whose work was so largely identified
with White Moss, Boggart-hole Clough, and Bamford-wood, in temper and
disposition he was Gibson's completest antithesis. No man has ever
done more, in his own circle, to foster and diffuse the love of nature
and of natural science--accomplishing this, as Crozier did, not so
much through the variety and exactitude of his knowledge, as through
the urbanity of his manner. Few are now living who remember Crozier;
it may be allowed, therefore, to repeat what we said of him in 1858,
wishing only that space would allow of an ample biography, since,
although not a life of stirring incident, it was one of generous and
unsophisticated good example. When first acquainted with him, the
year after the accession of Her Majesty, he was curator of the Museum
of Natural History then possessed by the Mechanics' Institution, and
distinguished for his skill as a bird-stuffer, though his occupation
by day, and up to six p.m., was that of a master saddler. The chief
portion of that excellent collection, long since unhappily sold off,
had been accumulated by the earliest of the Manchester Field Natural
History Societies--a band of zealous, practical men who had associated
themselves, in 1829, for the furtherance of botany, entomology,
ornithology, and the allied sciences. The register of names includes
those of the celebrated Edward Hobson, whose volumes of moss-books
are contained in our Free Libraries, of Rowland Detrosier, of all,
indeed, of the earnest scientific men of the time, Crozier of
course in the front. They called themselves the "Banksians," and had
regular indoor meetings up to 1836, when, owing to the loss of many
members, Edward Hobson, the president, in particular, who died that
year, there came a lull, and eventually a break-up. But Crozier was
alive: that was enough; no world is ever so drowned but some little
Ark floats on the surface of the waters; younger men arrived on the
scene, the Directors of the Institution gave them every encouragement
in their power, and in less than eighteen months the celebrated old
Cooper-street "Natural History Class" came into existence. At intervals
there were delightful evening meetings of the character, though less
pretentious, that now-a-days are called _soirées_,--more than once
under the presidentship of the late Mr. James Aspinall Turner, always
a warm and liberal patron of natural history; honoured also by the
presence of visitors from Preston, Halifax, Warrington, and other towns
from which the journey was then possible only by whip. After coffee
had been served short essays were read, and from nine o'clock until
half-past ten or so the company promenaded, examining the curiosities
in the glass cases that covered the wall or those laid out upon the
tables, and enjoying the social pleasure which grows so largely out
of consociation based upon a definite and intelligent idea, and where
there is plenty to feast the eye. No man entered more thoroughly into
the spirit of these gatherings than George Crozier. They were his
festivals and harvest-homes, prepared for long beforehand, and looked
back upon as isles of light and verdure in his wake. His love of social
gatherings, his skill as a practical naturalist, were equalled by his
sagacity and shrewdness. "There," said he once, on the conclusion of
the reading of a paper, "that is what we want; that wasn't learnt
out of a book." His courtesy and generosity rose to the same level.
Every Tuesday evening, when the members of the class assembled to
compare their notes and discoveries of the past week, there was old
Crozier, busy as usual with his birds, and only too glad to chat with
his young disciples, withholding nothing he could tell that would
interest and amuse, and, what was far more valuable, inspiring them
with his own enthusiasm. This kind, warm-hearted, cheerful old man
it was who, taking the young naturalists by the hand, first showed
many of them the way to Baguley and to Carrington, to Greenfield and
to Rostherne, pointing out the rarities which his large experience
knew so cleverly how to find, and communicating his various knowledge
with the unselfishness of one in a thousand. Nothing seemed to come
strange to him. Great as was his botanical information, he excelled
in a still higher degree as an entomologist and ornithologist; he was
acquainted with the shape and habits of every bird and every butterfly,
every branch of his knowledge helping him to enlarged success in the
prosecution of the others, botany aiding entomology, and entomology
facilitating botany. It was his extensive and accurate knowledge of
plants that rendered him so expert in finding rare insects, being
aware what species the latter feed upon, and familiar with their forms.
He showed, in the highest degree, how happy a man can make himself by
the study of natural history, however humble his station in life, and
however confining his employment. For Crozier, like all the rest of
the old Lancashire naturalists, got his living, as already indicated,
by manual labour, exercised in a shop on Shudehill, the last place in
the world one would look to for the abode of a naturalist, yet made by
his intelligent pastimes one of the most contented in Manchester. Here
we have looked over his dried plants, his choice exotics given him by
friendly gardeners, examined his birds and shells, and listened while
he told his adventures "by flood and field." Of such he was always
ready with large store, being, as an old Banksian associate reminds me,
in a letter of pleasant anecdote and reminiscence, "one of those plain,
plodding, practical naturalists, whose knowledge the field and forest,
the uplands and the watery cloughs, had far more contributed to give
than the lore of books." * * * "The quiet, unromantic study of books,"
he continues, "would never have made either him or them what they
were. Active adventure, real life within the whole domain of nature,
was their condition of enjoyment; and, consequently, the secluded
footpaths, the fine old green and lonely lanes, the umbrageous bosky
dell, with its clear babbling brook, and rich with plants, insects,
and minerals, were their haunts." In all his excursions he was joined
by from three to a dozen of his companions in the love of science and
nature; it should rather be said, perhaps, that he was generally one
of every party made up by the naturalists of the day for the purpose
of visiting the country, as there was but a single purpose among the
whole. One of his warmest friends was Thomas Townley, originally
of Blackburn, where the two men became acquainted, subsequently of
Liverpool, and eventually of our own city. The circumstance is worth
mentioning on two accounts. Next to a man's acts and principles, it is
interesting to know who were his closest and oldest associates, since
there is always a reciprocal though unconscious influence passing from
one to the other, which explains a good deal of character; and in the
second place, in addition to being an excellent botanist, Townley was a
neat painter in water-colours, and claimed, with a justice that is most
willingly acknowledged, the credit of drawing forth the youthful genius
of his friend's son, the Robert Crozier of to-day. It is pleasant to
think that the beautiful pictures which now decorate so many walls had
their impulse in the little palette of the old botanist. Townley and
Crozier were the first to design a "Manchester Flora," and but for
Crozier's infirm health during the latter years of his life, the crude
catalogue of 1840 would have been followed by a complete work, in which
his own long observations and those of the other leading botanists of
the district would have been consolidated. Crozier died before he could
do the part intended. Townley, however, never let go the idea, and two
years after Crozier's death his zeal and willingness as wielder of
the "pen of the ready writer," and his wonderful memory for poetry,
which here had congenial exercise, appeared in the work commonly known
as "Buxton's Guide." So much poetry had Townley ready for introduction
into it, that the useful and accurate little volume in question might
easily have been swelled to double the size.[20] Townley could recite
passages from any part of Pope's Homer, and such was his admiration
of that poem, that he repeatedly declared if he had his younger days
before him he would learn Greek in order to peruse it in the original.
It may be added, in reference to Crozier, who was a well-built, portly
man, quiet but merry, fond of a joke and a good story, mild and gentle,
yet thoroughly independent, that his long and upright life, rejoiced
by hearty and abiding love of nature, and the respect of every one
who truly knew him, closed in 1847. He died in Peel-street, Hulme, on
Friday, the 16th of April, and was interred at the Harpurhey Cemetery
on the following Tuesday. Never was there a better example of the
scientific man in humble life, or of the practical kind-heartedness
and generosity that spring from simple, God-fearing virtue. His
old friend, Townley, survived him ten years, coming to his own end
September 9th, 1857.
The old Banksian minute-books and other records and illustrations of
the work of fifty years ago have, very fortunately, been preserved,
and are now in the safe keeping of their proper inheritor. No written
memorials of the Natural History class are extant, but four or five of
the original members still venerate the name of their ancient leader.
[Illustration]
Footnote
[20: In indicating the share, unacknowledged and unrewarded,
which Townley had in the compilation of the "Guide," we merely wish to
give honour where honour is due, neither on the one hand suppressing
truth, nor on the other saying a word that shall look like unfair
disparagement. It is but just to the memory of a worthy man, now no
more, that the living should know what they owe to him.]
[Illustration]