A memoir of Robert Surtees, esq., M. A., F. S. A., author of the History of the county palatine of Durham

Front matter

PUBLICATIONS

SURTEES SOCIETY

ESTABLISHED IN THE YEAR M.DCCC.XXXIV.

Preface

It having been determined by the Surtees Society, to publish in an octavo form a reprint of the Memoir in folio of Mr. Surtees, by the late Geo. Taylor, Esq., with additions, consisting of some of his unpublished Poems and Letters, I have been solicited to be the Editor of the Yolume, and I have undertaken the task under feelings of no ordinary kind.

For upwards of twenty years, it was my happiness to enjoy the friendship of Mr. Surtees ; a friendship which was on his side uniformly characterized by sincerity, and evidenced by numerous acts of kindness. In our respective ages there was a disparity ; but in the memorable words of Dr. Johnson, when writing of his early friend Gilbert Walmsley,* although " I was only not a boy, he never received my notions with contempt. I honoured him, and he tolerated me. He was one of the first friends that literature procured me, and I hope that, at least, my gratitude made me worthy of Iris notice. His studies had been so various, that I am not able to name a man of equal knowledge. His acquaintance with books was great ; and what he did not immediately know, he could at least tell where to find. Such was his amplitude of learn -

* Li his Life of Smith the Poet.

357495 yi PREFACE.

ing, and such his copiousness of communication, that it may be doubted whether a day now passes in which I have not some advantage from his friendship."

It was probably in consequence of our long acquaintance, and the similarity in one respect at least of our pursuits, that upon the death of Mr. Surtees I was solicited by some of those to whom his memory was dear to undertake a Memoir of his Life, to be prefixed to the fourth volume of his History, which it was proposed to publish under my superintending care, in the unfinished state in which he had left it. No one was more urgent in the request than Mr. Taylor.

Happily for the name and fame of Mr. Surtees, I declined one part at least of the solicitation ; and Mr. Taylor himself was prevailed upon to undertake a task for which I felt myself incompetent, and which he has so admirably performed.

A new edition of that Memoir has been entrusted to my care; the Life of one friend written by the pen of another, and he, the writer, now also numbered with the dead. Need I say, that it has been my most earnest endeavour in the following pages to keep this affecting combination of circumstances in view; and in such additions to the Memoir as I am required to make, not to lose sight of those reverential feelings which guided the pen of its author. If in the Memoir Mr. Taylor presented to the world a faithful delineation of the life and character of Mr. Surtees, he at the same time exhibited a no less accurate manifestation of his own taste, and his affectionate feeling for the memory of his departed

PREFACE. Ml

friend. In my attempt to add to the picture which he has drawn, it has been my endeavour to catch his spirit and follow his example.

In the execution of my undertaking, Mr. Taylor's Memoir has been reprinted, word for word, with only one or two alterations sanctioned by his authority. The few notes also with which he illustrated his text, have been carefully preserved. To those notes, for which I am responsible, I have, for the sake of distinction, subjoined the word Editor in an abridged form.

And here, with respect to the notes in further illustration of Mr. Surtees's character, for which I am answerable, a few words may perhaps be necessary.

Most of them were originally submitted to Mr. Taylor, whilst he was engaged in his task, to be adopted or rejected at pleasure, and were returned to me by him, with an expression of regret for want of room and time. In space he was limited, and the publication of the fourth volume of the History was urgent. Again, some of them from their light character may perhaps appear to be somewhat out of place in a memoir of a deceased friend. If this objection should haply be made, it must be stated in reply, that they are all of them closely, and even personally, connected with the subject of the Memoir ; that they have, more or less, a direct tendency to throw light upon his character; and, as so many gentle touches, and minute lights and shades, tend to complete the sketch which Mr. Taylor has so ably drawn. Others equally faithful and useful for the purpose might have been added in abundance,

Vlll PREFACE.

Southey, in illustration of his own early life, has told us some amusing stories of his aunt Alice. Who is there who would not wish to know more of Richard Hooker's proceedings with his parish clerk ?

For some of the Letters printed in the Additions to the Memoir the same apology must he made, if an apology should be needed. They are all indications of the character of their writer, and they have this additional recommendation as evidence of that character, that they were written without the slightest notion that they should ever be submitted to any eye save that of him to whom they were addressed.

Eor reasons above stated, those I mean which involved the question of time and space, the publication of a copious selection from Mr. Surtees's poetical compositions was not included by Mr. Taylor in his plan. He printed a few, however, of those compositions as specimens of the poetical powers and playfulness of their author. To me no limit has been assigned, and if I have rejected some of Mr. Surtees's compositions, it has either been on account of their private and personal character, or from the apparently unfinished state in which I have found them. Under this freedom it may probably be alleged against me thai 1 have given publicity to some pieces which a more judicious editor woidd have suffered to remain in manuscript, and perhaps there may be justice in the charge. A friend is not always the best judge of what may be creditable to the memory of a friend, or the contrary. I may, however, be permitted to express a hope that Mr. Surtees's personal friends, and

PREFACE. IX

the Members of this Society, will not blame me for what I have clone. Of the opinion of the public at large, I write with less confidence. And here again, as in the case of the Letters, it must be observed that, with the exception of a very few only, these compositions, whatever may be their character or merit, were not intended by their author for the public eye.

With respect to Mr. Surtees's poetical powers, or the versatility of his pen and style, any critical remarks do not come within my province. It will readily be observed that he was intimately acquainted with our best poets. I have not thought it necessary to point out the use which he has occasionally made of the thoughts or modes of expression of those in whom he took particular delight. In some cases it amounts to little more than the borrowing of an idea. In others, but seldom only, a greater liberty is taken. In his imitation of the old ballad style of by-gone days, he has had no equal in modern times ; and the regret that he did not live to finish the History of the County, upon which he had so long been engaged, is increased when it is made known that after its completion it was his settled plan to compose what he often spoke of as his Bishopric Garland, to consist of a publication of ballads by his own pen, founded on the historical events and legendary traditions of the county.

The profile of Mr. Surtees prefixed to the Memoir is taken from an outline made soon after his marriage

\ PREFACE.

in 1807. It is much to be regretted that no more finished likeness was ever taken. He had at all times the greatest reluctance to sit for his picture, and when, soon after the publication of the first volume of his History in 1816, a few of his friends expressed an anxious wish for permission to prefix to his second volume a portrait of its author, at their expense, the request was declined.

The fac-simile of Mr. Surtees's usual mode of proceeding in the composition of his History, inserted at p. 187, is perhaps too faithful a copy by the artist of the letter-back which was placed in his hands.

Of the defects in the paper, by which the free course of the pen was impeded, there was no necessity for an imitation.

Of Mr. Taylor himself, the author of the Life of Mr. Surtees, a brief notice may not be out of place. A niche may with propriety be assigned to him in the porch of that temple which he has so skilfully erected to the fame of his friend.

George Taylor, Esq. was a younger son of a family of some standing and of great respectability, who were owners of the estate of Swinhoe, in Northumberland ; mid, having lost his parents at an early age, was brought up aloug with his brothers and a sister under the care of his uncle, John Taylor, Esq. who for many years resided in Durham, in the South Bailey, and afterwards at Sunderland, where he died in 1818.

Mr. Taylor received the rudiments of his education at

PREFACE. XI

the school of Witton-le-Wear, under the tuition of the Reverend John Earrer, of whom he has feelingly spoken in the Memoir (p. 3), and of whom, upon his death, he compiled a short biographical account, which was afterwards printed and illustrated by a likeness in profile (see p. 169). He was also the writer of the inscription upon a tablet erected in the church of Witt on, by Mr. Farrer's pupils, in memory of their master ; and, such was the deeply-rooted affection which he had imbibed in his schoolboy days for the place of his education, that in his declining years, after long residences in other places, he returned thither to spend the remainder of his life.

Mr. Taylor appears to have been removed from "Witt on School when a boy only, and it is known that he received no other scholastic education. It was his good fortune, however, to have an elder brother who had graduated at an English University, and by that brother, as he himself informs us (p. 12), he was " inspired with a love of literature," which, under regular and judicious cultivation, was in after years productive of such happy fruits. In his younger years his time was entirely his own, and it was duly devoted, under such superintendence, to the improvement of his mind. In after years, when the business of life required his care and attention, under the same eager anxiety for the attainment of knowledge, it was his habit for many years to rise at an early hour and pursue his studies, in order to have after-leisure for the necessary duties of the day. In prosecuting those studies, however, he laboured under considerable bodily disadvantages.

Xll PREFACE.

In one of his eyes he at no period of his life enjoyed the power of vision. Of the other, the sight was defective. In addition to these obstacles in the way of study, he laboured also under a weakness in his wrist, which rendered it difficult for him to write. This latter infirmity, however, he, to a certain extent, obviated by a piece of machinery extending from his hand to his neck, which served in some measure to steady his pen.

Mr. Taylor began at an early period to devote himself to agricultural pursuits. In 1797, in conjunction with his brother, the graduate above alluded to, he became the tenant of a farm at Bishop Middleham, near Mainsforth, and here it was that he first became acquainted with Mr. Surtees, then a youth of eighteen, of whose character and attainments at that early period of his life he has given such a lively picture in the Memoir (pp. 11, 12).

Prom Bishop Middleham, Mr. Taylor removed to a farm at St. Helen's Auckland, upon which he resided for several years, until, foreseeing the effect upon agricultural pursuits of a change from war to peace prices, consequent upon the restoration of peace in the year 1815, he prudently gave up his farm, and retired to Witton le Wear, where, devoting himself to his books and his friends, in the choice of which he was careful, having spent several happy years in private life — private not by accident and circumstance only, but from a real choice and love of privacy, he died on the 2 Jan. 1851, in the 79th year of his age.

Mr. Taylor was twice married. By his first wife, a

PREFACE. Xlll

daughter of Mr. Ashworth, of Durham, he was the father of three sons, one of whom alone survives, Henry Taylor, Esq. of the Colonial Office, Hon. M.A. of the University of Durham, and the well-known author of Philip Van Artevelde, Edwin the Eair, &c. &c. His second wife was Jane, daughter of Henry Mills, Esq. of Willington, who is still living.

In his description of Mr. Surtees's political opinions (p. 136), Mr. Taylor has correctly described his own. He advocated and even took an active part in the promulgation of Liberal opinions, and acted as one of "the friends of the people," until, for the well-being of the Constitution, a balance was needed in the opposite scale. At the Election for the Southern Division of the county of Durham, in 1841, he voted for Mr. Earrer, the Conservative candidate.

In the year 1832, Mr. Taylor for a short time quitted his retirement at Witton, having been appointed Secretary to the Commission of Inquiry into the Poor Laws, but, owing to domestic circumstances, which rendered it difficult for him to remain in London, he shortly afterwards resigned that appointment. This step was much regretted by the Commissioners, one of whom was the present Archbishop of Canterbury. Mr. Taylor, however, left behind him an able and elaborate Pteport on the subject of the Poor Laws, which was afterwards laid before Parliament with that of the Commissioners. He was also an occasional contributor to the Quarterly Review, not only on subjects of political economy and statistics, but on the literature and political history of the day.

XIV PEEFACE.

The following Reviews in that repository are from his pen : —

1. On Dunlop's History of Fiction, vol. xiii. p. 384. 1815.

2. On Godwin's Book against Malthus, vol. xxvi. p. 149. 1822.

3. On Prisons and Penitentiaries, vol. xxx. p. 404. 1824.

4. On Banking, vol. xxxi. p. 126. 1825.

5. On Bowles's Edition of Pope's Works, vol. xxxii. p. 272. 1825.

6. On Latin Literature, vol. Hi. p. 57. 1834.

7. On the Census of 1831 and 1841, vol. lxxvi. p. 11. 1845.

8. On the Private Life of the Greeks and Romans (Becker's Gallus and Charicles), vol. lxxix. p. 337. 1847.

together with an article on French Finance, in the Foreign Review. His modesty was such that he never attached any importance to these Essays, most of which made at the time a considerable impression on the public mind, and it was generally with some difficulty that he could be prevailed upon to take up his pen as a reviewer.

With the classical authors of Greece and Rome, and also with the Greek and Latin writers of a later elate and less pure style, Mr. Taylor was well acquainted ; and that he read with care and attention, and for more purposes than one, is proved by a Common-Place Book, in which he had arranged, upon a comprehensive and intelligible plan, a collection of apt quotations and illustrations from the authors which passed through his hands, under the heads of the respective subjects to which they were relevant. Of this voluminous collection— the work of forty years — to which he gave

PREFACE. XV

She appropriate title of " Index Idoneorum," he made a fair transcript a short time before his death, which remains in the hands of his son as a striking proof of the great judgment and painful perseverance of its compiler.*

In nothing was Mr. Taylor more remarkable than for his habits of method and regularity. Every thing he did or said gave proof of thought and reflection. No word, even in the ordinary daily businesses of life, ever fell from his lips without due premeditation.

His way of life was quiet and unostentatious. "With Mr. Surtees, whom he had long known, although in later years they seldom saw each other, he continued to live upon the most friendly terms. The two always spoke of each other in words of the most affectionate mutual esteem and kindness. Mr. Taylor's opinion of the character of Mr. Surtees is fully developed in the Memoir of his friend ; and in finishing that portrait no fictitious tints were sought for or applied. Mr. Surtees, on his part, always looked up to Mr.

* In a short notice of Mr. Taylor which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine soon after his lamented death, it was remarked that the Common-Place Book above mentioned " is one which, from its magnitude, it is not likely that any publisher would venture upon, but that if there be (as surely there ought to be) some fund at the disposal of the Universities for defraying the cost of publishing laborious and valuable but unmarketable books, the publication of this work might justly be charged on such a fund.'* This remark led to the discovery that at Oxford, and at Cambridge also, there is a fund for printing special works, but that that at Cambridge had been anticipated for some years to come. The Editor is not aware whether the attention of the authorities of Oxford has been directed to the subject.

XYi PREFACE.

Taylor with the most sincere regard, as to a senior in age and experience, on whose judgment he could rely. The friendship which was formed between them in 1797 continued in all its force and integrity till death made a separation, and then the survivor undertook to perpetuate the character and memory of the friend whom he had lost, in a Memoir to be prefixed to his History. A new edition of that Memoir has been called for. The Society instituted in honour of the name of Mr. Surtees, and in accordance with his pursuits and intentions, has, in a most becoming way, taken that new edition under its patronage; and I, who, to my advantage and happiness, was admitted to the friendship and confidence of two such men, have taken upon me the task of conducting it through the press. The undertaking has brought with it much of renewed regret for the loss of two such friends at that period of my life in which new attachments are rarely made, and much of grave responsibility for the due performance of an engagement of such tender delicacy — the Life of one friend (let me repeat) written by the pen of another, and both of them now numbered with the dead.

JAMES RAINE.