Centennial edition of the Works of H. Heavisides ... With a memoir written by his daughter ... J. A. H. Simpson

Front matter

Centennial Edition OF THE WORKS OF HENRY HEAVISIDES. HU LI- PRINTED BY WILLIAM ANDREWS AND CO., THE HULL PRESS. In hii. 7E1 ' Centennial Ebttton OF THE WORKS OF HENRY HEAVISIDES OF STOCKTON-ON-TEES. WITH a MEMOIR WRITTEN BY HIS DAUGHTER, Mrs. JANE ANN HEAVISIDES SIMPSON. " Celebrating his natal day After one hundred years have passed away." LONDON : Mrs. J. A. H. SIMPSON, i, HARGWYNE STREET, STOCKWELL, S.W. 1895. TO THE MEMORY OF HENRY HEAVISIDES i A LOVER OF FREEDOM, OF HUMANITY, AND OF ENGLAND, HIS NATIVE LAND, THIS Centennial Edition of bie Worsts IS DEDICATED BY HIS LOVING CHILDREN AND FRIENDS. 2Qth November, iSgi. " Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever." — Shelley. Contents. ?~>^_s

Introduction

. Portrait of Henry Heavisides in his Seventy-Second Year ... ... ... ... ... Facing title page Memoir of Henry Heavisides (born 1791) by his Daughter, Mrs. Jane Ann Heavisides Simpson (including a Sketch written by her brother, Edward Marsh Heavisides) ... ... ... ... ... ... Page 1 Press Notices which appeared at the time of the Death ok Henry Heavisides in 1870 ... Page 22 THE WORKS OF HENRY HEAVISIDES. " The Pleasures of Home and other Poems." First Published in 1837 Page 33 Parti 39 Part II 48 Part III 5§ My Flute 65 The Maiden's Dream .... 66 Uncertainty ... ... ••• 69 To the Memory of Burns ... 70 The Mariner's Home .. 72 To a Butterfly 74 To Single Ladies 75 Stanzas ... ••■ ■•• 76 Home 77 The Bride 7*> Stephen Kemble and the Jew So Emigrant's Farewell to Cleveland 82 To my Sister ... ...' 84 Man was made to Mourn ... 86 The Beauty of Woman ... 87 To the Press 90 To a Linnet ... ... ... 91 Moonlight Musings... ... 92 The Maid of Colbleen ... 95 The Spectre ... ... ... 9S The Close of the Vear .. 99 The Banks of the Tees ...

IOO England 101 Song contents. " Henry Fitzgerald ; or, the Folly of being Discontented with our Lot." A Tale Published in the Stockton Magazine in 1859 Page 108 The Minstrelsy of Britain." Published in 1860. Page 145 '' Courtship and Matrimony : their Lights and Shades." Published in 1864 ... ... ... ... Page 217 " The Annals of Stockton-on-Tees." With Biographical Notices. Published in 1865 ... ... Page 289 " Stanzas on the Author attaining the Seventy-Fifth Year of his Age." Written in 1866 ... Page 446 " An Address to the Stockton Co-Operative Society." 1868 Page 448 "To My Granddaughter, Emily Simpson " (Verses). With Verses by Emily Simpson in reply. 1868... Page 451 Postscript Page 453 List of Subscribers ... ... Page CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE WORKS OF HENRY HEAVISIDES. MEMOIR OF HENRY HEAVISIDES, PRINTER, RADICAL, POET.

IT has been doubted whether a near relative of man or woman is the fittest to write his or her biography, but if love is the sharpest-sighted thing in the universe, as Emerson affirms, and as I most devoutly believe, then is it not amiss that I should seek to let the world know what manner of man my father vvas in the threefold capacities alluded to above, however unworthy I may be, mentally, to aspire to such a distinction, for I loved him truly, and cherish his memory tenderly, feeling conscious that any good I ever attempted to do vvas due to him, and the remembrance I have of him, now that he has been removed from my sight for upwards of twenty years, is one of my most prized possessions. I feel that no elaborate enumeration of facts is necessary in the case of one whose career could be summed up in the words of Shakespeare, " His life vvas gentle," for whatever of storm and struggle he had to encounter, Henry Heavisides was like Brutus in one particular, i.e., he was distinguished for his disinterestedness, and that, I take it, is to be gentle in the truest sense of the word.

In 1849, 'he following sketch, one of a series called " Characteristics of South Durham," was contributed by my brother, Edward Marsh Heavisides, who was also a journey man printer when he wrote it, though he was carried off by cholera in September of the same year. Local Poets. Agreeably with our promise, we proceed to give some account of the modem poets of South Durham. There may HENRY HEAVISIDES. 2 be some who question whether the sacred name of poet can be justly given to any writer that has yet appeared in this county, or at least that portion of it to which these sketches are limited. There may be some, also, who estimate too.highly the productions of men born and bred in their immediate neighbourhood. But the number of questioners will, we are afraid, be found to preponderate. To these we would say, that there are grades in poetry as in people, and in the whole range of natural phenomena, and, as before stated, we have no characters in South Durham, poetical or otherwise, that have reached the highest excellence.

But though we cannot cull from our native bards such " flowers of fadeless hue " as bloom on the broad and luxuriant surface of English literature, we are proud to assert that the literary soil of South Durham has produced, of late years, germs and flowers which have the true tinge and odour of genuine poesy. We do not write this in the spirit of presumption — far from it — for we have fell the expressed thoughts of the poets in question awake within us a finer sense of feeling. Apart from sentimentality, we are free to confess that their writings have purified many passions, subdued many vicious propensities, turned aside the shafts of untoward circumstances, and agreeably paved the way to a higher source of intellectual enjoyment. We are personally acquainted with most of the rhyming gentry in the district, and have spent many pleasant hours with most of them, now living, who are none such stupid companions, as the world goes, though they have a predilection for the subject of poetry.

Every man, however, rides a hobby, and we respect those most who exercise their equestrian abilities on intellectual ones. We were saying we knew the local writers. Yes ! we have seen the sharp eyes of Watson twinkle as he finished a metaphor, or gave the last touch to a flowery simile. We have seen Webber at his labours, and the serious physiognomy of Heavisides, senior, illuminated with a happy thought. We have heard G. W. Sutton in his poetic ectasies — are familar with Jordison, the talented translator of " Elisha " — have listened to the musical, yet somewhat monotonous, voice of Thomas John Cleaver, and smiled and laughed at the wit and humour of Edmund Teesdale. None of these, however, will feel themselves in any way slighted, or quarrel for a moment with our judgment, when we give the first place amongst our local poets to Henry Heavisides.

Henry Heavisides was born at Darlington in 1791, where he received a tolerable education at the Grammar School there, and was afterwards put apprentice to his father, who carried on a respectable bookselling and printing business in that town for a ndmber of years. The father was, however, we believe, unfortunate in trade, and obliged, ultimately, from ill-health, and a disposition unfit to battle with his difficulties, to retire from it altogether. His son Henry, the subject of the present sketch, had at this critical period nearly finished the term of his apprenticeship, and was left to make his way in the world as a journeyman printer. After many change's, both as regards place and circumstances, he at length became permanently settled at Stockton-on-Tees, where he has resided sot upwards of thirty years, taking an active part in whatever tended to further the intellectual and social progress of the town.

The first efforts of Mr. Heavisides in poetical composition display little of that fine finish and genuine feeling Which so strongly mark his late poems. Gifted with great natural powers, he seems to have been a considerable time before he brought them to that degree of cultivation which enabled him to pro duce the " Pleasures of Home." Early imbibing a taste for politics, it would appear that he had devoted most of his youthful attention to that particular study, and 'mid the contentions and universal excitement of the reform movement, had little time or inclination to cultivate an art that stands among the lasting glories of the whole world. In 1837, when he had reached his forty-fifth year, Mr. Heavisides published his first edition of the " Pleasures of Home, and other Poems," which at once established his fame as a poet of no mean order.

Choosing a subject that was familiar to him in all its striking and poetical features — with a mind naturally sensitive to the charms of domestic life — he pourtrayed in vivid colours all that his heart had experienced or his mind conceived. Without possessing a brilliant imagination or a prolific fancy, his pen traced with earnest truth the lights and shadows that alternately brighten and darken the family circle — revelling in pictures of extreme natural tenderness, describing the strong influences of home, with all its hallowed ties and lasting affections, and awakening in his own heart, and in every heart that can reflect, think, feel, and sympathise, thoughts that breathe " Pure as the prayer that childhood wafts above, Soft as the memory of buried love. " HENRY HP2AVISIDES. 4 Very few are aware of the difficulties to be encountered and overcome by a working man who seeks to excel, or even to reach mediocrity, in any branch of art.

Night is the only time he has for composition, and the mind of a printer, especially when kept in a state of action during the day, is more inclined for easy recreation in an evening than close application to a subject which requires at least the full exercise of the mental faculties. The working man cannot shut himself up in his study, where " none intrude " in the hour of inspiration, and calmly develop the powers of his mind. It is too frequently amongst the noise of many tongues that the flights of his fancy are taken, or the deep thoughts of his inward nature expressed. Labouring under many disadvantages, struggling at times with appalling privations and innumerable cares, subject to sudden and almost overwhelming adversities, it is surprising to contemplate the immense amount of intellec tual wealth that has from time to time emanated from this class of men.

Justly has it been said, that genius can surmount any obstacle, and overcome any difficulty ; for, without this truth to guide us, we would be lost in amazement and wonder at the apparent impossibilities which have been accomplished by its instrumentality. But we digress from our subject. Graceful in its style, yet displaying sudden bursts of strong feeling and vigorous expression, the " Pleasures of Home " runs on through a variety of scenes, unfolding bright glimpses of natural beauty not unworthy the pen of a Goldsmith or a Campbell, both of whose writings the poem strongly resembles. Well-drawn pictures of in-door life, contrasted beautifully with the perilous hardships of life at sea — the charms of Peace contrasted with the horrors of War — sobriety with drunkenness, illustrated so truthfully in the story of " Benevolus" — the tale of the village maiden, " Mary "—and the " Arab Chiefs love of Home," will bear comparison with some of our best writers.

There is an earnestness of feeling and expression about the whole poem that redeems every little artistic fault it may possess. We might, if so inclined, notice a passage or two rather carelessly constructed— we might pick out, perhaps, a line or two that have not the true strength and compactness, if we may use the term, of the heroic measure ; but we have not great love for the critics that fastidiously and often narrow-mindedly shew up the defects of authors. We would rather dwell upon their perfections ; consequently, we have not the qualifications necessary for the manufacture of the critic's cayenne, and therefore it will be little of that easily concocted but disagreeable ingredient which creeps into these sketches of the local poets of South Durham. Our limits will not allow us to enter upon the minor poems of Mr. H., of which the " Maiden's Dream " and the verses " To a Butterfly " are our especial favourites.

One single extract from the " Pleasures of Home " must conclude our notice. " Imagination, swift as liquid light, O'er earth and ocean wings her rapid flight, Darts through the ether, soars beyond the sky, And scans the bright world there with piercing eye, While at her call soft music charms the ear, Genii arise, or angel forms appear, As vivid scenes, in light and shade combined, Glow on the breathing canvas of the mind And lift, as shapes ideal spring to birth, The dreaming poet's ravished soul from earth ; But the fond heart, unused at will to range, Through every circumstance, through every change, When far away, as soft emotion moves, Turns ever true to that it dearly loves, And sighs to beat where friends familiar smile, And home-felt joys the evening hours beguile." To what my lamented brother wrote I add the particulars that the name of my father's father vvas Michael Heavisides, and that of his mother Mary Marsh.

Though I have consulted Longstaffe's " History of Darlington " at the British Museum, and found therein, in the portion devoted to literature, notices of Henry Heavisides and Edward Marsh Heavisides, as authors, I could get no information about Michael, the Darlington tradesman, but when I visited Darlington in the centenary year of my father's birth, a gentleman, named Bousfield, told my brother Michael, who accompanied me, that he had the impression that Michael Heavisides carried on business in High Row. Michael Heavisides, the printer, of Darlington, and his ancestors, as I have heard my father say, came from Billingham, near Norton, in the county of Durham, and Mary Marsh came from Croydon, in Surrey. They met in London at Longmans, the publishers, he being there on business, and she as a purchaser of books.

It has been stated in a notice of my father, which was contributed to " North Country Poets " by Joseph Readman, that my grandmother was for two years governess to the children of Bishop Thurlow, at Bishop Auckland, but I don't think this is accurate, as I have a perfect recollection of hearing my father say that she served Bishop Barrington, who vvas always called the good Bishop, because his whole concern vvas how to promote the welfare of his flock. I have heard my father speak of Bishop Barrington as the first co-operator in England, he having shown the people how to combine to purchase their necessaries at a time of great scarcity and privation in the county. My grandmother, Mary Marsh, must have been a woman of intellect and refinement, as the following verse is from a poem written by her on the death of one of her children : — " Dear little tenant ofthe silent grave, Thou sleep'st unconscious of thy mother's grief The adverse storms of life Thou could'st not brave, Death, therefore, kindly came to thy relief."

The tender pathos of this comes home to every heart, besides teaching to mothers the duty of resignation to the inevitable laws of life, such as she understood them. Not only was Mary Marsh, however, a woman of culture and refinement ; she had great energy of character, and a detestation of all meanness. The first was shown in the fact that she carried on a Boarding School at Darlington, and instructed her children, and the second in her having written a pamphlet to expose the hypocrisy of a Sectarian body with which she was connected, and for which piece of presumption she was turned out. This my father always considered her highest achievement. Mary came of a musical family, and I have heard my father speak of her brother Jack as a naval officer, who played the pianoforte and distinguished himself in battle.

The rest of the family having a prejudice against trade, gave her the cold shoulder for marrying the man of her choice, but this brother Jack, sailor like, was true to her, and left his prize money to be divided amongst her children. My father's eldest sister, Maria who married Robert Young, a Scotchman (for sixteen years one of Sir Francis Chantry's principal workmen), as my father mentioned when he published the literary remains of my brother in 1850, told me she remembered her mother rebuking my father for not pulling off his hat to his uncle Jack, where upon the good-natured Jack Tar would say, " Let the lad alone ; let him keep his hat on." Singularly independent and self-reliant, according to my aunt's account, was my father in his boyhood, and so unworldly, that when his father became bank rupt, and the creditors gave his son the option of choosing any book in the stock, he chose " George Buchanan ; or, the King's Jester," value threepence.

My earliest remembrance of my father is as a workman in the employment of Messrs. Jennett's office in the High Street, where he taught me to make paste, and showed me how to roll the ink over the type, and pull the press till an impression of a bill was produced. He used to look so noble, to my thinking, for he was tall and handsome, of dark complexion, and genial presence. No workman that I ever met made manual work so dignified a thing as did my father. And then what a worker he was ; everything was easy to him, printing, wood engraving,* writing reports for the York Herald, and composing and arranging music for the amateur band he led, were only some of the things he engaged in, for he delighted in dramatic representation, and use to attend the theatre every night when it was open, two of my brothers, Edward and John, playing in the orchestra.

It was his wont to take a walk into the country before he went to work, as he was a true lover of Nature, and learned in her lore. His coming in to meals was hailed with delight by one and all, for truly he was the sunshine that made our humble home a bright place. And how he loved that home ! has it not been shown in the poem he bequeathed to his fellow-workmen ? His passionate love was of liberty, and his belief vvas that England was the Home of Liberty. When he was fifty-nine I heard him sing Dibdin's "Tight Little Island" in public, and every word of that song I am sure found an echo in his heart. The year before, he had lost his comrade in literature and music, Edward Marsh Heavisides, who not long before his lamented death, in answer to some remarks of mine on the " Pleasures of Home," said he had studied the poem deeply, and had ever risen from its perusal with feelings of satisfaction and pride — satisfaction that it presented those pictures which were within everyone's experience, and pride that it was the work of one in the humblest rank of life, and who in the simple integrity of his character would, without the gift of genius, have at all times been honoured and respected.

In order that no one may suppose that this was an extravagant estimate of my father's character, I here record what vvas once said of him by a gentleman who was an apprentice with Thomas Jennett when a lad, but was afterwards post-master of the borough of Middlesborough, i.e., John Jordison, who told me that to have been with my father + Though only an amateur engraver, my father executed the woodcuts for Brewster's "History of Stockton," and his initials II. H. attest that fact. in Jennett's printing office had been to him an education. No workman was ever more simple in his habits than Henry Heavisides, both in his home and outside of it. I have known him dine off potatoes, and thank God for a good dinner, and if he had a hare, or a goose, or game sent by his friend George H. Sutton, of whom he writes in " Local Poets." then he was sure to invite someone to share the feast with us.

My father was temperate in all things, but his detestation of despotism. He was a smoker, generally taking one pipe after dinner or supper, which had always to be a long clay pipe and clean, but he never smoked in the streets or at his work. My brothers were taught music, swimming, cricket, and skating on the ice in winter ; my sisters and I were taught household work, and used to go gleaning in the harvest time (my sister Maria, a famous gleaner), and I remember accompanying my father in his fishing expeditions, his bumble kite gatherings, and to pick watercresses from the brooks. Two things were regarded as luxuries in our home ; one was brown bread, and the other pickled samphire. Samphire is mentioned by Shakespere as growing on Dover cliff, but ours used to be gathered at a place called " Samfra Batts," near Seaton, and I have never tasted any anywhere else.

Despite the humble surroundings of our home as regards furniture, et cetera, it was a pleasant place, looking out upon a railed round garden, which was kept by the well-to-do in Stockton, and called The Green. It grieved me to find in September, 1891, that the once beautiful green on which my eyes loved to dwell had been converted into a cattle market, where no ray of beauty met the eye. This would have grieved my father, too, for dearly he loved the "Green Lanes of England." Many people of literary fame were wont to seek out my father, who was never so poor that he could not afford to ask them to have a dish of tea or coffee, for so he phrased it. My father having served Messrs. Jennett & Company for forty-two years, it is clear that he was master of his craft, and it might reasonably be supposed that he would be provided for in his old age.

This was not the case, for Thomas Jennett, who was a good man, having passed away, and through the marriage of the shopman to one of Mr. Jennett's granddaughters, Mr. Appleby, the shopman in question, questioned my father's right, when he was sixty-four years of age, to claim the noble sum of twenty-four shillings per week, which had always been the wages he had received from the firm. My father had been ill, and was little fitted to begin business. Nevertheless, owing to the advice and assistance of John Jordison, and the pecuniary help of six gentlemen, one of whom vvas the late Joseph Dodds, he ventured to do so. For nearly twenty years he, with the assistance of my brother Michael, worked as hard, or even harder, than ever he did in his prime ; he had the assistance of his wife, my stepmother, and mother of Michael, who used to do washing, and have a gentleman to board and lodge.

In this way was established the printing business that my brother now carries on in the name of Heavisides & Son, at 4, Finkle Street, which is just out of the High Street at one end, and at the other leads to the Quaysides, where flows the River Tees. My father took a great interest in the Mechanics' Institute at Stockton, and I have heard that he even taught grown men to read there ; so impressed was he with the Dignity of Labour that he never lost an opportunity of pleading its cause ; except for the purpose of resisting invasion, my father was against physical force, and always preferred public discussion. The last time I heard him speak in public was against the capital punishment by hanging, which still disgraces the statutes of this land. He spoke to his audience as one who had the poetic gift, and well I remember him saying that a great English poet had declared that " poets were the unacknowledged legislators of the world," and that it was quite time they were acknowledged to be that.

He reminded his hearers that in that very county men used to be hanged for stealing sheep and for committing forgery, and since both punishments had given place to milder corrections, these crimes had been fewer, though there were now more sheep bred and larger transactions carried on in the commercial world. The majority of the audience belonged to the un enfranchised section of the community, and one asked my father to suggest a substitute for hanging ; this he declined to do, on the ground that if you had a class who considered them selves born to govern they ought to find the remedy for social grievances. Amongst his fellow-workmen my father was looked on as a leader, he so thoroughly identified himself with their hopes and aspirations, and when he began business and they shut him out of their meetings because he vvas a tradesman, he was mightily amused, as he vvas then working ten hours per day in order to clear off the pecuniary debt he contracted when he ceased to serve Thomas Appleby, who was the antithesis of my father's beloved master, Thomas Jennett, in every respect.

Well do I remember Mr. Thomas Jennett, the Mayor of Stockton ! In the benevolence of his disposition he was a real Pickwick, and if he did not serve Dickens for a model, he might have done. If Mr. Jennett saw me hovering about the shop window looking admiringly at the books, he used to say, " Are you one of Henry Heavisides' little girls?" Then when I said I was, he would give me a story book, and send me on my way rejoicing. Books were my delight, and such an appetite had I for giant and fairy lore, that I was called Mattie Marvellous by my father, who never prohibited me from reading his books, though my ruin was often predicted by those who were always trying to convert me into something Nature never intended me for; that I would not be so converted I owe to my dear father, and have to thank him for countless hours of converse with the greatest minds of this and other countries.

In " The Annals of Stockton-on-Tees " my father has given his own account of what he did to forward the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. It is a modest statement, and George Markham Tvveddell, in his " Bards and Authors of Cleveland," has given a much fuller account, wherein he shows that when all those who had so bitterly opposed the passing of the Reform Bill, feasted in the aforesaid Green and rejoiced over the victory won, my father, who was the leader of the band of music hired for the occasion, was without a vote, and utterly unnoticed. This did not trouble him, as it was not for self aggrandisement that he cared, but for the well-being of his beloved England. I do not remember that time, as I was born in 1826, when the struggle for Parliamentary representation was going on, but at the time when Richard Cobden and John Bright had by their unanswerable arguments induced Sir Robert Peel to repeal the Corn Laws and give the people cheap bread, my father told me something about the earlier political battle, and how he had sent a letter to the York Herald setting forth the claims of the middle classes to the Parliamentary franchise, not as Mr. Gladstone now avers about women, because that class asked for it, but on the ground that they were bearing their share of the burdens of the State, and were justly entitled to it.

He said his letter was signed " An Englishman who loves his Country," and he was proud to see it quoted when the Free Trade struggle was at its fiercest. This was in 185 1, the great year of the Exhibition that was opened by Prince Albert in Hyde Park, and I, having inherited my father's political principles, urged that all this only con firmed me in the idea that possessed my mind of the reason ableness of enfranchising women. Radical, however, as he undoubtedly was in all that related to his own sex, and honouring women in his " heart of hearts," my father was against women being politically enfranchised, though he admitted to me that the logical outcome of the first Reform Bill was adult suffrage. I remember saying to him that the penalty he had to pay for the political work of his manhood was to have a daughter whose ardent desire it was to see the political disability of sex got rid of for ever.

"Aye," he answered, "one little knows what one is doing." But though my father would lend no helping hand, he never sought to fetter either my thought or my action, and I was left at liberty to render what aid I could to the movement championed by John Stuart Mill. " To thine own self be true," was pre-eminently my father's maxim, and he taught his children both by precept and example to strive for what they believed to be right ; nevertheless, we were taught to respect the conventions of society, and to pay due respect to everyone, whatever might be their rank or riches. My father's intellectual endowments secured him the friendship of the cultivated gentlemen of the neighbourhood, one of whom was George William Sutton, of Elton Hall, near Stockton. Mr. Sutton was a Tory, and opposed to my father in politics, but this never let him budge one iota from his Radicalism, which he translated as " getting to the root of the matter," saying that a Radical was one who wanted law to be made for the whole nation, and not for a class.