North-Country Sketches, Notes, Essays and Reviews ... With ... illustrations, etc

Front matter

*~ fillotvt** THE JUDGES' COOK. DURHAM CASTLE. . Bi "CUTHBER1 B] Woodbury if om pany Eyrt &• NORTH-COUNTRY SKETCH ES NOTES, ESSAYS AND REVIEWS BY GEO. NEASH AM With 13 Full-Page Illustrations, and 47 Woodcuts by Thomas and John Bewick and their pupils DURHAM : Printed for Tiite Author bv Thos. Caldcleugh mdcccxciii TO THOMAS SPENCER, OF RYTON, ESQUIRE, A PATRON OF THE CHURCH, A FRIEND TO EDUCATION, and the chief benefactor to a place where THE AUTHOR SPENT THE HAPPIEST YEARS OF HIS LIFE, THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED.

Preface

. y^T a public function not long ago, since he began writing this book, the author was asked to express his opinion on a knotty point which had puzzled many people. The writer is able to express his thoughts on paper with facility, but he never possessed the power to address an audience at any length, and all that he could stammer out in reply to the invitation was — " Mr. Chairman, — The problem which you mention will, I think, be found solved in a work which I am now writing ; and if you and the rest of the gentlemen present really feel an interest in it, and wish for enlightenment, I beg to say that I shall be delighted to supply the whole of you with a copy of the book as soon as it is published." Similarly, if the reader, not knowing the writer personally, be curious to learn something respecting him, he is referred to the following pages, wherein his opinions and feelings and sentiments on a variety of subjects, in a wide area, will be found fully reflected.

In writing this book, the author has followed no beaten track. There has been no re-dressing of old figures. His experiences have been the experiences of an active life, and it has been his privilege to cull from storehouses of information which have not been accessible to any previous writer. His opinions throughout are entirely his own ; he has endeavoured to contribute something new to the literature of the two counties of Durham and North umberland ; and if there be any merit in originality he lays claim to it. To interest the reader, and to be instructive where he could, have always been his aims ; and he hopes and trusts that nothing that he has written will cause the least pain or give the slightest offence. Many of the reviews and essays, and a great number of the short

PREFACE.

. VI sketches, have already enjoyed the advantage of a wide and important circulation in the columns of the Newcastle Daily Journal and the Newcastle Daily Chronicle ; and he thinks it but fair to himself to say that the conditions under which the sketches were written were almost as various as the occasions and circumstances which called for them. Many were penned in the quiet solitude of some secluded spot on the banks of his favourite North-country streams, when the trout would no longer be tempted by his lures ; while others were scribbled out when rambling in the neighbouring woods with his children, whose merriment occasionally lent a playfulness to his pen. This explanation he offers as an apology for the style of many of them, and will, he hopes, in some measure plead his excuse for any imperfections which may be found in them.

They were mostly the spontaneous utterances of his mind, and as such, without much emendation or amplification, they are now launched on to the Ocean of Literature, where he leaves them to sink or swim. In concluding these few prefatory remarks, he desires to thank the Rev. J. T. Fowler for looking over the sheets as they passed through the press ; he has to thank the Art Editor of the Illustrated London News for presenting the block showing the Hall of Durham Castle ; he is indebted to Mr. J. W. Barnes for the loan of two of the choicest of Bewick's tail-pieces ; and his thanks are also due to Mr. Holman Hunt, R.A. , and Mr. Robert Barrass, of the Rembrandt Art Studio, Newcastle, for permission to reproduce the portrait of Sir Henry A. Clavering, Bart. The Firs, Langley Park, Durham, Feb. 28th, iSrjj.

LIST OF PLATES. The Judges' Cook, Durham Castle. John Graham Lough. Milo. Robert Smith Surtees. Ebchester Church. Sir Henry A. Clavering, Bart Durham Regatta, 1848. John Annandale. John Murray. Burnhopeside. George Hedley. Crook Hall. William Jenkins.

Chapter I. Art And The Drama

The Origin of "Verdant Green." — Sheridan and Sir Thomas Clavering. — Shakespeariana. — The Bamburgh Castle Pictures. Lough and Milo. — Osmond Tearle and his Interrupter. TITHY did the versatile author of "Verdant Green" adapt this work to the University of Oxford instead of his own Alma Mater? People have often wondered how a Durham man could describe Oxford so well, and it has been said that his descriptions were the more life-like because the author was untrammelled by any of those considerations which membership of the University would have made binding. The fact is that after leaving Durham in 1849, Edward Bradley went to live for a time at Oxford, where he became friendly with the Rev. J. G. Wood and others, who figure in the pages of " Verdant Green." But although the University of Durham is passed over on account of its infancy when choice is being made for Mr. Green's destination, it is evident that much of the colouring and some of the incidents of the book are drawn from Durham.

Bradley was a man of whom the Northern University may be proud, and his fame will last as long as academical life continues to be attractive, and freshmen afford material for a little diversion to humorists of the Bouncer and Charley Larkyns type. The reason why the scene of Verdant Green's adventures was shifted to Oxford is given in a note to the original drawings in which the vagaries of the young freshman are cleverly depicted in pen and ink. Shortly after Bradley's death in 1889, we secured these and other clever drawings which he made while an undergraduate between the years 1846-49. Two of the sketches are now in the Reading Room of the Union Society of the University of Durham, and their history is thus given in a note in Bradley's autograph : — These sketches originated "Verdant Green."

I showed them to Mark Lemon, editor of Punch, to which I was then a contributor with pen and pencil, and he asked me to adapt the sketches to Cambridge, and that he would publish them in Punch, with letterpress by Professor Tom Taylor (of Trinity College, Cambridge, afterwards editor of Punch). I declined this offer ; but said that I would adapt the sketches to Oxford, which I did, and Mark Lemon accepted them for publication in Punch. Some of those on the opposite page were utilized for "Verdant Green." About fifty were drawn and engraved for Punch, where they were to appear, a page at a time, when Mr. Herbert Ingram, of the Illustrated London News, started a series of special supplements to his paper, chiefly contributed by Punch men — Douglas Jerrold, Mark Lemon, Tom Taylor, Shirley Brooks, G. A. A'Becket, John Leech, John Tenniel, &c. — and Mark Lemon proposed to me to exchange the series of sketches to the Illustrated News supplements, where twice the number of sketches could appear at once on their large page.

I consented, and two large pages had appeared when Mr. Ingram changed his mind, and decided to have musical supplements by Charles Mackay and Bishop. So the " Verdant Green " sketches, with their few lines of letterpress, were summarily stopped. Subsequently, I wrote letterpress to the sketches, and they were published as a railway book. — Cuthbert Bede. The drawings are headed, " Ye Freshmonne, his Adventures at Univ. Coll., Durham." The first depicts his arrival at the old Railway Station, which was then in Gilesgate. The scene as the 'bus passes Claypath Chains with its freight of students and boxes is very amusingly depicted. The road here is considerably lower than the footpath on each side, and the surrounding houses are cleverly sketched. The roadway was not then so good as it is now, and as the result of its unevenness a hat-box is seen flying off at one side of the vehicle, while a trunk, labelled "Glass, with care," is dropping off at the other.

There is the original of Verdant's famous dream of future greatness and being made a bishop. In the interview with the Warden, it is not difficult to distinguish Archdeacon Thorp's genial features. The view of University House and the Palace Green, with Verdant in search of rooms, is very funny ; and what he saw on being shown through the interior of the first-named building caused the stick to fall from ART AND THE DRAMA. 3 his fingers and his hair to rise. The bird's-eye sketch of the Castle and its surroundings is also very clever. Having matriculated, Verdant is next seen disporting himself on the Banks, to the great amusement of many young ladies and alarm of several babies, who, with their nurses, are always to be met there. His movements on this occasion are given in three compartments.

In the centre one is a bevy of young ladies, who cast side glances at the freshman as they coyly march across the Prebends' Bridge. On his way to his rooms he meets Dean Waddington, whom he salutes in a characteristic fashion, and of whom there is a striking likeness. After dinner he partakes of the "freshman's wine," of which he had previously drawn a mental picture, and found the reality far beyond his expectation. After having his health drunk as a jolly good fellow, Verdant showed that he was one by taking too much wine, under the influence of which we see him carried to his own rooms by a couple of undergraduates, who seem to be enjoying the fun immensely. Poor Verdant must have passed an uneasy night on his hearth-rug, for it is there that the bed maker finds him when she enters his room next morning.

Her Majesty's Judges of Assize are entertained at the Castle during their stay in Durham, and in the palmy days of the palatinate their cook was a very important functionary indeed. Bradley's drawing facing the title page is a representation of this well-developed individual standing in the kitchen doorway. The characters in the " School for Scandal " and " The Rivals " are made to occupy many curious positions, and to go through many adventures, but none of them ever experienced so many ups and downs as the author himself. The life of the clever but reckless dramatist seems to have been a hand-to-mouth existence. At one time he is holding a levee of Jews and creditors, at another he is elbowing his way through a crowd of such in the lobby of the House of Commons, or holding them at bay in the manager's office at Drury Lane, tiding over one such difficulty after another by sheer dint of luck, audacity, or fascination, till at last the spell would work no more, and he died friendless and alone beneath the bailiff's eye.

In the life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan by Moore, and again in that written by Mr. Saunders, we catch occasional glimpses of his impecuniosity, but you would never gather from their pages that the wily Irishman lived in a roofless house. Yet it was so. The house in which Sheridan lived belonged to a North-country baronet, Sir Thomas Clavering, of Axwell and Greencroft. When the rent day came round, Sheridan usually had some excuse ready. The payments were several years in arrear, and the landlord's patience becoming at length exhausted, he finally intrusted his agent to get rid of the dramatist by hook or by crook. What followed will probably furnish an additional chapter for some future biographer of the author of "The School for Scandal." It is a comedy which is embodied in a series of letters written by Mr. Christopher Ebdon to Sir Thomas Clavering, and which we possess.

A few extracts therefrom will show how difficult the Baronet found it to rid himself of a bad tenant. Sheridan had a lease of the house, and knowing that a year of this was still to run, he not only declined to pay the rent or give up possession, but he would allow no one else to look at the place with a view to taking it. Being unwilling to put the law in force, Sir Thomas instructed his agent to inform Sheridan that he had resolved on selling the house to a Mr. Castell. The shrewd Irishman was equal to the occasion, however, and coolly replied that he himself thought of purchasing it, there being an optional clause in his lease to that effect. On the 21st of April, 1790, Mr. Ebdon informs the landlord that he had been several times to Sheridan's house, but could never get a sight of him.

The place remained in a state of siege till the 5th of May, when the agent thus wrote to Sir Thomas : — Mr. Castell being desirous to have an answer about the house, wrote again to Mr. Sheridan for permission to look at that part of it which would not disturb the family, and the servant was desired to wait for an answer. When he took the letter he was told Mr. Sheridan would not be stirring for two hours, and was desired to call ART AND THE DRAMA. 5 again. He call'd again in about an hour, and then he was informed that Mr. Sheridan had gone out. I had before told Mr. Castell that there would be no chance of getting an answer without the servant waited. Next day he went again, about twelve, and waited till near three, and then sent up word that he was afraid his master would be angry with him for waiting so long, and then he was promised an answer in half an hour ; but after waiting more than that time, Mr. Sheridan sent word that he should send an answer at night, but never took any further notice of Mr. Castell's letter.

I went on the 26th of last month, at twelve, according to his own appointment, to meet Mr. Westley, but after waiting till three, no Mr. Westley came, and I just got a sight of Mr. Sheridan on the stairs, who, after saying he did not know I had been waiting so long, desired me to call next day. I called on the 27th, and had as nearly long attendance with as little effect. I desired the servant to say to Mr. Sheridan that I wished to speak to him, but should not detain him two minutes. Mr. Sheridan sent word down that if it was about the house, he could not give an answer. I then desired the servant to inform him I did not wish to press him for an answer about it ; all I desir'd at present was that he would give Mr. Castell permission to look at the lower part of the house. To this message Mr. Sheridan sent me word he would write to Mr. Castell in the evening.

I saw Mr. Castell on Friday, and he told me Mr. Sheridan had not wrote. Further diplomacy was used to get admission, but it all failed. Finally the agent, accompanied by a witness, made a formal demand for possession of the house, but this had no more effect than the notice intimating that the rent had been doubled. Six months later Sheridan was still master of the situation. On the 10th of December, Mr. Ebdon informed Sir Thomas that he had tried in vain to see Sheridan, and, as a last resort, he had starved him out by removing the roof of the house. As everything Shakespearian is of interest, we may be excused delivering ourselves of some Shakespeariana which will be new to most people. John Boydell, Alder man of London, who did more than any other man to encourage English art and to popularize the works of Shakespeare, belonged to an old family of parsons.

The last of them was the esteemed Vicar of Wingate, the Rev. E. N. V. Boydell. When Mr. Boydell died, in 1884, his library was sold. It contained thousands of manuscript sermons, which had been preached by Mr. Boydell and his ancestors since the days when Charles the Second sat on the throne. They bore evidence of having been dressed and re-dressed by successive generations of the family. Many of them had been in the hands of John Boydell, the founder of the Shakespeare Gallery ; and there are notes in his hand showing that the worthy Alderman himself had preached some of them to the members of his family in his own house. A few years ago, the " copy " of a Newcastle editor was constantly disappearing from his study. At last it was discovered that a maid was curling the children's hair with it.

A worse fate befell hundreds of the Boydell sermons. They had been placed in a store room, where they remained in safety till a scarcity of fire paper occurred in the domestic circle, when the learned and pious discourses of many good men were sacrificed at the shrine of Vesta. There were many left, however, and it is believed that some of these are still doing duty in the North-country. There were many beautiful models for festivals and funeral orations, not the least interesting among the latter being that delivered at the funeral of John Boydell himself. There were a few relics ofthe great Shakespeare Gallery, which we bought, the finest being Boydell's own copy of the print of the scene between Hero and Ursula, with Beatrice listening, in " Much Ado about Nothing." Was there ever an original portrait of Shakespeare?

Grainger, on the authority of Walpole, tells us that there never was one taken from the life, but that Thomas Clarges, after the poet's death, caused a portrait to be drawn for him from a person to whom he bore a close resemblance. Oldys, in a manuscript note to his edition of Langbaine, says that the portrait palmed off on Pope, from which he had his fine plate engraved, was a juvenile portrait of King James the First. There used to be a likeness of Shakespeare at Lumley Castle. It is said to have been one of the famous contemporary portraits collected by John Lord Lumley, ancestor of the Earls of Scarbrough, who died a few years before Shakespeare. A copy of this was published in the middle of the present century. The following history of the portrait is taken from the prospectus which was issued by the publisher.

As will be seen, it possesses local interest from the fact of the original being then in the hands of a gentleman living at North Shields. ART AND THE DRAMA. 7 The picture from which this engraving has been taken was sold at a sale of pictures at Lumley Castle in the year 1783. Subsequently it was, with other pictures, re-purchased by the Earl of Scarbrough, a descendant of Lord Lumley, and remained in the possession of that family until 1807, when the collection was again dispersed. The sale in 1807 appears to have been badly managed, for many of the portraits were sold anonymously, and this of Shakespeare among the number. Fortunately an artist, Mr. Ralph Waters, of Newcastle, was present, who recognized the picture and bought it. The portrait continued in his possession until his death, when the brother of Mr. Waters parted with it to its present owner, George Rippon, Esq., of North Shields.

The obliging communication of Mr. Horatio A. Adamson, of North Shields, enables us to trace the subsequent fortunes of this interesting portrait. " After the death of Mr. Rippon's widow," he writes, "his collection of pictures was dispersed. Some of them were sent to London to Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Co., for sale, and among these was the Shakespeare picture to which you refer. The executor of Mrs. Rippon was unable to verify the pedigree of it, and eventually it was sold to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and I believe it is still in her possession." In one of the public galleries there is a portrait of a gentleman with a fly on his nose. This is so natural and life-like that people are often seen attempting to brush it away. Just in like manner might we be deluded into thinking that it is the heroic Dorothy Forster herself that is smiling on us.

It is only her portrait, however, and her greeting seems to be all the more fervid with the knowledge that her sylph-like form and pouting lips and resplendent orbs have been hidden from the gaze of her kind for more than half a century. To drop the metaphor, we are looking on the revivified portrait of Dorothy, the chivalrous and loving sister of General Forster. It had long hung at Bamburgh Castle, along with other contemporaneous portraits, but so encrusted with successive coverings of varnish and dirt as to be utterly unrecognizable. The whole of the pictures there, about 200, were in 1890 cleaned and repaired by Messrs. Rushworth and Son, of Durham. We happened to see some of the gentlemen before they were operated upon. One, who had a rent in his side and a fracture in his skull, turns out to be Lord Crewe himself.

His lordship looks all the better after his repeated ablutions. The portrait must have been taken early in life, probably immediately after he was made Bishop of Durham. It was his youthfulness then that gave rise to the king's well-known mot, "he will mend of that every day." Crewe, as everybody knows, began a somewhat dis creditable career under the Duke of York, whose marriage with Maria d'Este in 1673 he solemnized, receiving the See of Durham as his reward the year following. Although Crewe showed a time-serving spirit in early life, he made amends for it on accepting the bishopric of Durham. He was a capable administrator of the temporalities of the See, and, like the lamented Bishop Lightfoot, made himself popular in his diocese by his consideration for others and his acts of generosity.

In 1700, he married for his second wife Dorothy, daughter of Sir William Forster, of Bamburgh. He was then 67 and his wife 24 years old. This lady is not to be confounded with the Dorothy who rode to London on a double horse, behind an Adderstone blacksmith, and, getting an impression of the prison key, liberated her brother, the General, and remained a prisoner in his place. Lady Crewe's portrait is in the collection, however, in the character of a shepherdess. By the death of her brothers, Lady Crewe was co-heir with her nephew, the General, to the manors of Bamburgh and Blanchland, but, as the estate was encumbered, it was sold by order of the Court of Chancery in 1704, and was bought by Lord Crewe for It is generally said that Crewe purchased the estates after the Jacobite rising in 1715, which is not the case.

Lady Crewe died in 1715, and was buried at Stene, the Bishop himself dying seven .years later at the age of 88, and by his will leaving the castle of Bamburgh and the estates which he had purchased in Northumberland to trustees for charitable purposes. By Lord Crewe's side is a portrait of the Rev. Sir George Wheler, knight. This austere-looking gentleman in the skull cap lived till he was 74. He was a Prebendary of Durham and Rector of Houghton-le-Spring, to which he was collated and appointed by his patron Lord Crewe, ART AND THE DRAMA. 9 thus accounting for the presence of his portrait at Bamburgh. There were some good traits about Sir George. He was a Christian, and a good tolerant neighbour to boot. Indeed, he was just the sort of man that we should like to grapple to our soul with hooks of steel.

We cannot say what quarry was hunted at Houghton in Sir George's day, but he was of opinion that the liking for it might be indulged very innocently. Shooting and fencing were also both diverting and useful, he thought, " and I had rather hear good music," he says, " and see fine dancing than the harsh rattling of dice and the shuffling of cards." Sir George would turn over in his tomb in the Galilee if he knew how the revenue of. the Cathedral church has been curtailed since the days when he and his brother prebendaries gave their residential entertainments in the College. It may be said that his description is all that is left of them. " Each prebendary in his turn," he writes, " entertains With great liberality the poor and ric.h neighbours and strangers with generous welcome, Christian freedom, modest deportment, good and plentiful cheer, moderate eating and sober drinking.

They give God thanks, read a chapter in the midst between the courses, during which all men reverently uncover their heads, and after grace again there is seldom more drank than the Poculum Charitatis, or the love cup, and the king's good health, and then every one to his own home, business, and studies." The love cup, it may be remarked, holds a pint, which, truly, was not much in these days. There are other fine portraits in the collection, each with a history of its own. One is that of Dr. Sharp, Archbishop of York, and there is also one of his son, the Archdeacon of Northumberland. The proud old castle, " the grace and glory of Northumbria's strand," is represented in a variety of ways and from different points, and by artists who lived long ago and are now almost forgotten. The lives of many local men who have risen to fame and eminence show what may be accomplished by perseverance and self-denial in early life.

John Graham Lough, the NORTH-COUNTRY SKETCHES. 10 sculptor, who was born at Greenhead, about three miles from Shotley Bridge, followed the plough when a boy. He afterwards served his apprenticeship as a stonemason at Shotley Field, and on reaching manhood betook himself to London to push his fortune in the world of art. His journey forms one of the most romantic episodes in his life. He persuaded the captain of a collier who was just sailing for London to take him on board, offering him a guinea for his passage money ; but on their arrival the captain refused to take a farthing. At Lough's request, the captain took him to the British Museum, where in company with this kind, rough companion, he saw what he was panting to find, the Elgin marbles. The captain insisted on Lough returning and sleeping on board his vessel as long as it was detained in the docks, finally urging him not to remain in such a wilderness place as London, adding, " it shall cost you nothing to go back with me to canny Newcastle."1 This was in 1824, and Lough was then twenty-six years old.

Shortly after his going to London, the Squire of Minsteracres, Mr. George Silvertop, called on him and wished him to go to Rome to stud}- the models of the great Italian sculptors, and offered to defray his expenses when in Rome. Lough, however, refused to go, and said that " he would not serve a second apprenticeship." Mr. Silvertop took offence at Lough's refusal, and left him to his unaided resources. It was doubtless during this period, when no hand was stretched out to help him, that he suffered the terrible privations touchingly alluded to by Haydon the painter. After a time, however, it seems that Mr. Silvertop's heart misgave him, and he called on Lough as he was engaged in his room sculpturing his " Milo." Mr. Silvertop addressed him with the familiar words, " Well, Lough, how are you coming on?"

Lough answered, "Oh, very well, sir; I am working away here and living on bread and water, as I have been accustomed to do." While Lough was thus engaged, a circumstance occurred which threatened to be the forerunner of his ruin, but which proved, however, to be the turning point in his fortune. His room being too Particulars supplied 10 the writer by Mrs. Lough. ART AND THE DRAMA. 11 small for the sculpturing of Milo, he could not get to the upper part of the statue so as to be able to use his chisel with sufficient freedom. What was he to do in such a case? He acted like Alexander the Great, who cut the Gordian knot when he could not untie it. With the recklessness of a bold genius reduced to desperation, he actually broke through the ceiling of the room above him, and made for himself sufficient space to work at his statue.

Hue and cry was instantly raised against him for this infraction of the rights of property. The owner began to take steps for instituting legal proceedings, and even consulted Mr. Brougham (afterwards Lord Brougham) for this purpose. Struck with the singularity of the account which was given him, Brougham went to look at the Milo, and see for himself what Lough had done. On his return from viewing Milo, Brougham told some of his friends that he had witnessed the strangest sight that ever came before him during his whole life, and narrated the circumstances. The news of the strange affair soon spread, and, before long, the whole street where Lough's room was situated was lined with the carriages of ladies and gentlemen, who had come to view the place, and to see Milo. The manner of Milo's death is strikingly depicted in the illustration.