DONCASTRIANA. GUY'S DEATH. SEARCH FOR HIS TOMB-STONE IN INGLETON
CHURCH-YARD.
Go to the dull church-yard and see
Those hillocks of mortality,
Where proudest man is only found
By a small hillock in the ground.
TIXALL POETRY.
The first years of Daniel's abode in Doncaster were distinguished by
many events of local memorability. The old Friar's bridge was taken
down, and a new one with one large arch built in its stead. Turnpikes
were erected on the roads to Saltsbrook and to Tadcaster; and in 1742
Lord Semple's regiment of Highlanders marched through the town, being
the first soldiers without breeches who had ever been seen there since
breeches were in use. In 1746 the Mansion House was begun, next door
to Peter Hopkins's, and by no means to his comfort while the work was
going on, nor indeed after it was completed, its effect upon his
chimnies having heretofore been noticed. The building was interrupted
by the rebellion. An army of six thousand English and Hessians was
then encamped upon Wheatley Hills; and a Hessian general dying there,
was buried in St. George's Church; from whence his leaden coffin was
stolen by the grave-digger.
Daniel had then compleated his twenty-second year. Every summer he
paid a month's visit to his parents; and those were happy days, not
the less so to all parties because his second home had become almost
as dear to him as his first. Guy did not live to see the progress of
his pupil; he died a few months after the lad had been placed at
Doncaster, and the delight of Daniel's first return was overclouded by
this loss. It was a severe one to the elder Daniel, who lost in the
Schoolmaster his only intellectual companion.
I have sought in vain for Richard Guy's tombstone in Ingleton
churchyard. That there is one there can hardly, I think, be doubted;
for if he left no relations who regarded him, nor perhaps effects
enough of his own to defray this last posthumous and not necessary
expence; and if Thomas Gent of York, who published the old poem of
Flodden Field from his transcript, after his death, thought he
required no other monument; Daniel was not likely to omit this last
tribute of respect and affection to his friend. But the churchyard,
which, when his mortal remains were deposited there, accorded well
with its romantic site, on a little eminence above the roaring
torrent, and with the then retired character of the village, and with
the solemn use to which it was consecrated, is now a thickly-peopled
burial-ground. Since their time manufactures have been established in
Ingleton, and though eventually they proved unsuccessful, and were
consequently abandoned, yet they continued long enough in work largely
to encrease the population of the church-yard. Amid so many tombs the
stone which marked poor Guy's resting-place might escape even a more
diligent search than mine. Nearly a century has elapsed since it was
set up: in the course of that time its inscription not having been
re-touched, must have become illegible to all but an antiquary's
poring and practised eyes; and perhaps to them also unless aided by
his tracing tact, and by the conjectural supply of connecting words,
syllables or letters: indeed the stone itself has probably become half
interred, as the earth around it has been disturbed and raised. Time
corrodes our epitaphs, and buries our very tombstones.
Returning pensively from my unsuccessful search in the churchyard to
the little inn at Ingleton, I found there upon a sampler, worked in
1824 by Elizabeth Brown, aged 9, and framed as an ornament for the
room which I occupied, some lines in as moral a strain of verse, as
any which I had that day perused among the tombs. And I transcribed
them for preservation, thinking it not improbable that they had been
originally composed by Richard Guy for the use of his female scholars,
and handed down for a like purpose, from one generation to another.
This may be only a fond imagination, and perhaps it might not have
occurred to me at another time; but many compositions have been
ascribed in modern as well as ancient times, and indeed daily are so,
to more celebrated persons, upon less likely grounds. These are the
verses;
Jesus permit thy gracious name to stand
As the first effort of an infant's hand;
And as her fingers on the sampler move,
Engage her tender heart to seek thy love;
With thy dear children may she have a part,
And write thy name thyself upon her heart.