East Anglia: Personal Recollections and Historical Associations

I was a proud boy when first I set foot in Yarmouth. How I came to go there I can scarcely remember, but it is to be presumed I accompanied my father on one of those grand occasions – as far as Nonconformist circles are concerned – when the brethren met together for godly comfort and counsel. It is true Wrentham was in Suffolk, and Yarmouth was in Norfolk, but the Congregational Churches of that quarter had always been connected by Christian fellowship and sympathy, and hence I was taken to Yarmouth – at that time far more like a Dutch than an English town – and wonderful to me was the Quay, with its fine houses on one side and its long line of ships on the other – something like the far-famed Bompjes of Rotterdam – and the narrow rows in which the majority of the labouring classes were accustomed to live. ‘A row,’ wrote Charles Dickens, ‘is a long, narrow lane or alley, quite straight, or as nearly so as may be, with houses on each side, both of which you can sometimes touch with the finger-tips of each hand by stretching out your arms to their full extent. Many and many a picturesque old bit of domestic architecture is to be hunted up among the rows. In some there is little more than a blank wall for the double boundary. In others the houses retreat into busy square courts, where washing and clear-starching are done, and wonderful nasturtiums and scarlet-runners are reared from green boxes filled with that scarce commodity, vegetable mould. Most of these rows are paved with pebbles from the beach, and to traverse them a peculiar form of low cart, drawn by a single horse, is employed.’ This to me was a great novelty, as with waggons and carts I was familiar, but not with a Yarmouth cart – now, I find, replaced by wheelbarrows. In Amsterdam, at the present day, you may see many such quaint old rows. But in Amsterdam you have an evil-smelling air, while in Yarmouth it is ever fresh and crisp, and redolent, as it were, of the neighbouring sea. The market-place and the big church were at the back of this congeries of quays and rows, and the sea and the old pier were at quite a respectable distance from the town. I fancy the Yarmouth of the London bathers has now extended down to the sandy beach, and the rough and rude old pier has given place to one better adapted to the wants and requirements of an increasingly well-to-do community. Far more Dutch than English was the Yarmouth of half a century ago, I again say.

As to the Yarmouth Independent parson, I shall never forget him. He was a very big man, with great red cheeks that hung over his collar like blown bladders, and was always on stilts. He preached in a big meeting-house, now no more, the pillars of which intercepted alike the view and the sound. One winter evening he was holding forth, in his usual heavy style, to a few good people – with whom, evidently, all pleasure was out of the question – who came there, as in duty bound, and sat like martyrs all the while, and all were as grave as the preacher, when a wicked boy rushed in and, in a hurried manner, called out, ‘Fire! fire!’ The effect, I am told, was electrical. For once the good parson was in a hurry, and moved as quickly and spoke as rapidly as his fellows; but never had there been so much excitement in his chapel since he had been its pastor. Once, I remember, he came to town, and dropped in at the close of a party rather convivially inclined, in the Old London Coffee House. As the reverend gentleman advanced to greet his friends, a London lawyer, with all the impudence of his class, muttered, in a whisper intended to be heard, and which was heard, by everyone, ‘Yarmouth bloater.’ The good man said nothing, but it was evident he thought all the more, as the group were more or less tittering over the fitness of the comparison. The lawyer who made the remark was also the son of a London minister, and, therefore, might have been expected to have known better. I fear the Yarmouth minister never forgave him. Well, it only served him right, as he had a horrible way of making young people very uncomfortable. ‘Well, Master James,’ said he to me on one occasion, when all the brethren had come to dine at Wrentham, and when I was admitted, in conformity with the golden maxim in all well-regulated family circles, that little children were to be seen and not heard (perhaps in our day the fault is too much in an opposite direction), ‘can you inform me which is the more proper form of expression – a pair of new gloves, or a new pair of gloves?’ Of course I gave the wrong answer, as I blushed up to the ears at finding myself the smallest personage in the room, publicly appealed to by the biggest. He meant well, I dare say. His only object was to draw me out; but the question and the questioner gave me a bad quarter of an hour, and I never got over the unpleasant sensation of which he had unconsciously been the originator in my youthful breast.

At that time Yarmouth people were supposed to be a little superior. They were well-to-do, and lived in good style, and, as was to be expected, considering the sanitary advantages of the situation, were in good health and spirits. They got a good deal of their intellectual character from Norwich, which at the time set the fashion in such matters. In 1790 two societies were established in that city for the private and amicable discussion of miscellaneous questions. One of these, the Tusculan, seems to have devoted the attention of its members exclusively to political topics; while the Speculative, although it imposed no restrictions on the range of inquiry, was of a more philosophical character. William Taylor was a member of both, and it is difficult to say whether he distinguished himself most by his ingenuity in debate, by the novelty of the information which he brought to bear on every point, or by the lively sallies of imagination with which he at once amused and excited his hearers. The papers read by himself embraced an infinite variety of subjects, from the theory of the earth, then unillumined by the disclosures of modern geologists, to the most elaborate and refined productions of its rational tenants, and he was seldom at a loss to place on new ground or in a fresh light the matter of discussion introduced by others. Writers of every tongue, studied by him with observant curiosity, stored his retentive memory with materials ready to be applied on every occasion, moulded by his Promethean talent into the most animated and alluring forms. As a speaker and converser he was eminently characterized by a constant flow of brilliant ideas, by a rapid succession of striking images, and by a never-failing copiousness of words, often quaint, but always correct. A similar society was formed at Yarmouth, under the auspices of Dr. Aiken, at which William Taylor also occasionally attended. The Rev. Thomas Compton has given the following description of these visits: ‘We were, moreover, sometimes gratified by the presence of our literary friends from Norwich. I have there repeatedly listened to the mild and persuasive eloquence of the late Dr. Enfield. A gentleman, too, still living, who has lately added to his literary fame by a biographical work of high repute (I scarcely need add that I allude to Mr. W. Taylor) would sometimes instruct us by his various and profound knowledge, or amuse us with his ingenious paradoxes.’ When we recollect how at this time the poetical puerilities of Bath Easton flourished in the West, we may claim that Norwich and Yarmouth, if not as favoured by fashion, had at any rate a claim to intellectual reputation at least quite equal to that city of the ton. Dr. Sayers, whose biography William Taylor had written, and whose ‘Dramatic Sketches of Northern Mythology’ had created a great sensation at the time, was of Yarmouth extraction.

The Rev. Mr. Compton writes: ‘In Yarmouth, where I lived at this time, and where Lord Chedworth was accustomed to pay an annual visit, there was then a society of gentlemen who met once a fortnight for the purpose of amicable discussion. Our members – alas! how few remain – were of all parties and persuasions, and some of them of very distinguished attainments. A society thus constituted was in those days as pleasant as it was instructive. The most eager disputation was never found to endanger the most perfect goodwill, nor did any bitter feuds arise from this entire freedom of opinion till the prolific period of the French Revolution. On this subject our controversies became very impassioned. The present Sir Astley Cooper, then a very young man, was accustomed to pass his vacations with his most excellent father, Dr. Cooper, a name ever to be by me beloved and revered. It was the amusement of our young friend to say things of the most irritating nature, I believe – like Lady Florence Pemberton in the novel – merely to see who would make the ugliest face. Thus circumstanced, it was not in my philosophy to be the coolest of the party.’ We can well imagine the consequences. There was a row, and the literary society came to grief. As time went on matters became worse instead of better, and the town was split up into parties – Liberal or the reverse, Church or Dissent, but all of one mind as regards their views being correct; and as to the weakness or wickedness of persons who thought otherwise. The evil of this spirit knew no bounds, and the demoralizing effect it produced was especially apparent at election times. When Oldfield wrote his ‘Origin of Parliaments,’ the town, he tells us, was under the influence of the Earl of Leicester, and was for many years represented by some of his Lordship’s family. The right of election was in the burgesses at large, of whom there were at that time one thousand. The Reform Bill did little to improve the state of affairs; it led to greater bribery and corruption and intimidation than ever, and now, as a Parliamentary borough, Yarmouth has ceased to exist. ‘Sugar,’ it seems, was the slang term used for money, and the honest voters were too eager to get it. Alas! in none of our seaport towns is the standard of morality very high. Yarmouth, at any rate, is not worse than Deal. In old days the excitement of a Yarmouth election much affected our village. It lasted some days. The out-voters were brought from the uttermost parts of the earth. As there were no railways, stage-coaches were hired to bring them down from town; and when they changed horses at Wrentham, quite a crowd would assemble to look at the flags, and the free and independents on their way to do their duty, overflowing with enthusiasm and beer.

Sir Astley Cooper was much connected with Yarmouth in his young days, when his father was the incumbent of the parish church. Some of his boyish pranks were peculiar. Here is one of them: ‘Having taken two pillows from his mother’s bed, he carried them up the spire of Yarmouth Church, at a time when the wind was blowing from the north-east; and as soon as he had ascended as high as he could, he ripped them open, and, shaking out their contents, dispersed them in the air. The feathers were carried away by the wind, and fell far and wide over the surface of the market-place, to the great astonishment of a large number of persons assembled there. The timid looked upon it phenomenon predictive of some calamity; the inquisitive formed a thousand conjectures; while some, curious in natural history, actually accounted for it by a gale of wind in the north blowing wild-fowl feathers from the island of St. Paul’s.’ On another occasion he got into an old trunk, which the family had agreed to get rid of as inconvenient in the house. In this case he had to pay the penalty, when he emerged from the chest in the carpenter’s shop. The men, who had complained terribly of its weight, were not inclined to allow young Astley to get off free. One of Astley’s tricks had, however, a good motive, as it was intended to cure an old woman of her besetting sin – a tendency to take a drop too much. In order to cure the old woman of this weakness, he dressed himself as well as he could to represent the sable form of his satanic majesty. Alas! instead of being surprised, the old lady was too far-gone for that, and listened with tipsy gravity to the distinguished visitor’s discourse. In her case it was true, as Burns wrote:

‘Wi’ tipenny we fear nae evil;
Wi’ usquebae we’ll face the deevil.’

One of his tricks nearly led to unpleasant consequences. Whilst out shooting one day, near Yarmouth, he killed an owl – a bird familiarly known in Yarmouth by the sobriquet of ‘Brother Billy.’ Having arrived at home, he went up into his mother’s room, with the bird concealed behind his coat, and, assuming a countenance full of fear and sorrow, exclaimed, ‘Mother, mother, I’ve shot my brother Billy!’ but the alarm and distress instantly depicted on the distracted countenance of his parent induced him as quickly as possible to pull the owl from under his coat. This at once exposed the truth and allayed the apprehensions of his mother’s mind, but the effects of the shock it caused did not so immediately pass away. Dr. Cooper determined to punish his son, and he therefore confined him, according to his usual mode of correction, in his own house. Astley was, however, but little disposed to remain passive in his imprisonment, and in the wantonness of his ever-active disposition amused himself by climbing up the chimney, and having at length reached the summit, endeavoured, by imitating the well-known tone of the chimney-sweeper, and calling out as lustily as he could, ‘Sweep, sweep!’ to attract the attention of the people below. Even on his father the incorrigible lad seems on more than one occasion to have tried his little game. One day, while the worthy Doctor was marrying a couple in the church, Master Astley concealed himself in a turret close by the altar, and, imitating his father’s voice, repeated in a subdued tone the words of the marriage-service as the ceremony proceeded, to the consternation of his father, who said that he had never observed an echo in that place before. Once or twice the lad’s life was in peril, as when his foot slipped on the top of the church, and he was unpleasantly suspended for some time between the rafters of the ceiling and the floor of the chancel. On another occasion he had a narrow escape from drowning. It seems that on the Yare are little boats out together very slightly, for the purpose of carrying a man, his gun, and dog over the shallows of Braydon, in pursuit of the flights of wild-fowl which at certain seasons haunt these shoals. When the boat is thus loaded, it only draws two or three inches of water, and is quite unfit for sea. Young Astley nearly lost his life in attempting to take one of these boats out to open sea. In this way young Astley Cooper, from his fearless and enterprising disposition, soon became a sort of leader of the Yarmouth boys, and at their head, for a time, seems to have devoted himself to every kind of amusement within his reach – riding, boating, fishing, and not unfrequently sports of a less harmless character, such as breaking lamps and windows, ringing the church bells at all hours, disturbing the people by frequent alterations of the church clock, so that if any mischief were committed it was sure, says his admiring biographer, to be set down to him.

The two men who shed most literary fame on the Yarmouth of my childhood were Dawson Turner and Hudson Gurney, who in this respect resembled each other, that they were both bankers and both antiquarians more or less distinguished. Dawson Turner was a man of middle height and of saturnine aspect, who had the reputation of being a hard taskmaster to the ladies of his family, who were quite as intelligent and devoted to literature as himself. He published a ‘Tour in Normandy’ – at that time scarcely anyone travelled abroad – and much other matter, and perhaps as an autograph-collector was unrivalled. Most of his books, with his notes, more or less valuable, are now in the British Museum. Sir Charles Lyell, when a young man, visited the Turner family in 1817, and gives us a very high idea of them all. ‘Mr. Turner,’ he says, in a letter to his father, ‘surprises me as much as ever. He wrote twenty-two letters last night after he had wished us “Good-night.” It kept him up till two o’clock this morning.’ Again Sir Charles writes: ‘What I see going on every hour in this family makes me ashamed of the most active day I ever spent at Midhurst. Mrs. Turner has been etching with her daughters in the parlour every morning at half-past six.’ Of Hudson Gurney in his youth we get a flattering portrait in one of the charming ‘Remains of the Late Mrs. Trench,’ edited by her son, Archbishop of Dublin. Writing from Yarmouth in 1799, she says: ‘I have been detained here since last Friday, waiting for a fair wind, and my imprisonment would have been comfortless enough had it not have been for the attention of Mr. Hudson Gurney, a young man on whom I had no claims except from a letter of Mr. Sanford’s, who, without knowing him, or having any connection with him, recommended me to his care, feeling wretched that I should be unprotected in the first part of my journey. He has already devoted to me one evening and two mornings, assisted me in money matters, lent me books, and enlivened my confinement to a wretched room by his pleasant conversation. Mr. Sanford having described me as a person travelling about for her health, he says his old assistant in the Bank fancied I was a decrepit elderly lady who might safely be consigned to his youthful partner. His description of his surprise thus prepared was conceived in a very good strain of flattery. He is almost two-and-twenty, understands several languages, seems to delight in books, and to be uncommonly well informed.’ Little credit, however, is due to Mr. Hudson Gurney for his politeness in this case. The lovely and lively widow – she had married Colonel St. George at the age of eighteen, and the marriage only lasted two or three years, the Colonel dying of consumption – must have possessed personal and mental attractions irresistible to a cultivated young man of twenty-two. Had she been old and ugly, it is to be feared his business engagements would have prevented the youthful banker devoting much time to her ladyship’s service.

Yarmouth is intimately connected with literature and the fine arts. It was off Yarmouth that Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked; and the testimony he bears to the character of the people shows how kindly disposed were the Yarmouth people of his day. ‘We,’ he writes, ‘got all safe on shore, and walked afterwards on foot to Yarmouth, where, as unfortunate men, we were used with great humanity, not only by the magistrates of the town, who assigned us good quarters, but also by particular merchants and owners of ships, and had money given us, sufficient to carry us either to London or back to Hull, as we thought fit.’ It was from Yarmouth that Wordsworth and Coleridge sailed away to Germany, then almost a terra incognita. Leman Blanchard was born at Yarmouth, as well as Sayers, the first, if not the cleverest, of our English caricaturists. One of the most brilliant men ever returned to Parliament was Winthrop Mackworth Praed, M.P. for Yarmouth, whose politics as a boy I detested as much as in after-years I learned to admire his genius. One of the most fortunate men of our day, Sir James Paget, the great surgeon, was a Yarmouth lad, and the See of Chester was filled by an accomplished divine, also a Yarmouth lad. Southey, when at Yarmouth, where his brother was a student for some time, was so much struck with the uniqueness of the epitaphs in the Yarmouth Church, that he took the trouble to copy many of them. One was as follows:

‘We put him out to nurse;
Alas! his life he paid,
But judge not; he was overlaid.’

And hence it may be inferred that in Yarmouth the custom of baby-farming has long flourished. Possibly thence it may have extended itself to London. Amongst the truly great men who have lived and died in Yarmouth, honourable mention must be made of Hales, the Norfolk Giant. In times past soldiers and sailors and royal personages were often to be seen at Yarmouth. It was at Yarmouth the heroes, returning from many a distant battle-field, often landed. Nelson on one occasion – that is, after the affair of Copenhagen – when he landed, at once made his way to the hospital to see his men. To one of them, who had lost his arm, he said, ‘There, Jack, you and I are spoiled for fishermen.’

A good deal of Puritanism seems to have come into England by way of Yarmouth. In Queen Elizabeth’s time, 300 Flemings settled there, who had fled from Popery and Spain in their native land. In Norwich the Dutch Church remains to this day. Some of them seem to have been the friends and teachers of the far-famed, and I believe unjustly maligned, Robert Browne. In Norfolk the seed fell upon good soil. While sacerdotalism was more or less being developed in the State Church, the Norfolk men boldly protested against Papal abominations, as they deemed them, and swore to maintain the gospel of Geneva and Knox. One of the men imprisoned when Bancroft was Archbishop of Canterbury, for attending a conventicle, was Thomas Ladd, ‘a merchant of Yarmouth.’ The writ ran: ‘Because that, on the Sabbath days, after the sermons ended, sojourning in the house of Mr. Jachler, in Yarmouth, who was late preacher in Yarmouth, joined with him in repeating the substance and heads of the sermons that day made in the church, at which Thomas Ladd was usually present.’ In 1624 the penal laws for suppressing Separatists were strictly enforced in Yarmouth, and one of the teachers of a small society of Anabaptists was cast into prison, and the Bishop of Norwich wrote a letter of thanks to the bailiffs for their activity in this matter, which is preserved to this day. But, nevertheless, people still continued to worship God according to the dictates of conscience; we find the Earl of Dorset in his reply to the town of Yarmouth, as to the way in which the town should be governed, adds: ‘I should want in my care of you if I should not let you know that his Majesty is not only informed, but incensed against you for conniving at and tolerating a company of Brownists among you. I pray you remember there was no seam in the Saviour’s garment.’ Bridge was the founder of the Yarmouth Congregational Church, somewhere about the time of the commencement of the Civil War. The people declared for the Parliament. Colonel Goffe was one of its representatives in the House of Commons. All along, the town seems to have been puritanically inclined, and to have been in this matter more independent than neighbouring towns. At one time they were so tolerant that the Independents seem to have worshipped in one end of the church while the regular clergyman performed the service in the other; but that did not last long, and when the Independents had a place of worship of their own, they were not a little troubled by Friends and Papists claiming for themselves the liberty the Independents had sought and won. In 1655 the peace of the Church was disturbed by Quaker doctrines. It appears two females, members of the Church, had joined them, and refused to return. We read: ‘The messenger appointed to visit May Rouse, brought in an account of her disowning and despising the Church; she would not come at all unless she had a message from the Spirit moving her.’ She came, however, a week after (December 11), but by reason of the cold weather was desired to come in again the next Tuesday. She did so, and gave in these two reasons why she forsook the Church: 1. Because the doctrine of the Gospel of Faith was not holden forth; 2. Because there wanted the right administration of baptism.

In 1659 the Church at Yarmouth, feeling the times to be full of trouble and of peril, said:

‘1. We judge a Parliament to be expedient for the preservation of the peace of these nations; and withal, we do desire that all due care be taken that the Parliament be such as may preserve the interests of Christ and His people in these nations.

‘2. As touching the magistrates’ power in matters of faith and worship, we have declared our judgments in our late (Free Savoy) confession, and though we greatly prize our Christian liberties, yet we profess our utter dislike and abhorrence of a universal toleration, as being contrary to the mind of God in His Word.

‘3. We judge that the taking away of tithes for the maintenance of ministers until as full a maintenance be equally secured and as legally settled, tends very much to the destruction of the ministry, and the preaching of the Gospel in these nations.

‘4. It is our desire that countenance be not given unto, nor trust reposed in, the hand of Quakers, they being persons of such principles as are destructive to the Gospel, and inconsistent with the peace of modern societies.’

In five years the Yarmouth people had a Roland for their Oliver; the King had got his own again, and he and the Parliament of the day looked upon the Independents or Presbyterians as mischievous as the Quakers; and as to tithes, they were quite as much resolved, the only difference being that King and Parliament insisted on their being paid to Episcopalians alone. In 1770 Lady Huntingdon writes: ‘Success has crowned our labours in that wicked place, Yarmouth.’

Mrs. Bendish, in whom the Protector was said to have lived again, was quite a character in Yarmouth society. Bridget Ireton, the granddaughter of the Protector, married in 1669 Mr. Thomas Bendish, a descendant of Sir Thomas Bendish, baronet, Ambassador from Charles I. to the Sultan. She died in 1728, removing, however, in the latter years of her life to Yarmouth. Her name stands among the members of the church in London of which Caryl had been pastor, and over which Dr. Watts presided. To her the latter addressed at any rate one copy of verses to be found in his collected works. She recollected her grandfather, and standing, when six years old, between his knees at a State Council, she heard secrets which neither bribes nor whippings could extract from her. Her grandfather she held to be a saint in heaven, and only second to the Twelve Apostles. Asked one day whether she had ever been at Court, her reply was, ‘I have never been at Court since I was waited upon on the knee.’ Yet she managed to dispense with a good deal of waiting, and never would suffer a servant to attend her. God, she said, was a sufficient guard, and she would have no other. She is described as loquacious and eloquent and enthusiastic, frequenting the drawing-rooms and assemblies of Yarmouth, dressed in the richest silks, and with a small black hood on her head. When she left, which would be at one in the morning, perched on her old-fashioned saddle, she would trot home, piercing the night air with her loud, jubilant psalms, in which she described herself as one of the elect, in a tone more remarkable for strength than sweetness. In the daytime she would work with her labourers, taking her turn at the pitchfork or the spade. The old Court dresses of her mother and Mrs. Cromwell were bequeathed by her to Mrs. Robert Luson, of Yarmouth, and were shown as recently as 1834, at an exhibition of Court dresses held at the Somerset Gallery in the Strand. As was to be expected, Mrs. Bendish was enthusiastic in the cause of the Revolution of 1688, and the printed sheets relating to it were dropped by her secretly in the streets of Yarmouth, to prepare the people for the good time coming. Her son was a friend of Dr. Watts as well as his mother. He died at Yarmouth, unmarried, in the year 1753, and with him the line of Bendish seems to have come to an end. Another daughter of Ireton was married to Nathaniel Carter, who died in 1723, aged 78. His father, John Carter, was commander-in-chief of the militia of the town in 1654. He subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant, being then one of the elders of the Independent congregation. He was also bailiff of the town, and an intimate friend of Ireton. He died in 1667. On his tombstone we read:

‘His course, his fight, his race,
Thus finished, fought, and run,
Death brings him to the place
From whence is no return.’

He lived at No. 4, South Quay, and it was there, so it is said, that the resolve was made that King Charles should die.

He is gone, but his room still remains unaltered – a large wainscoted upper chamber, thirty feet long, with three windows looking on to the quay, with carved and ornamented chimney-piece and ceiling. A great obscurity, as was to be expected, hangs over the transaction, as even now there are men who shrink from lifting up a finger against the Lord’s anointed. Dinner had been ordered at four, but it was not till eleven, that it was served, and that the die had been cast. The members of the Secret Council, we are told, ‘after a very short repast, immediately set off by post – many for London, and some for the quarters of the army.’ Such is the account given in a letter, written in 1773, by Mr. Mewling Luson, a well-known resident in Yarmouth, whose father, Mr. William Luson, was nearly connected the Cromwell family. Nathaniel Carter, the son-in-law of Ireton, was in the habit of showing the room, and relating the occurrence connected with it, which happened when he was a boy. Cromwell was not at that council. He never was in Yarmouth; but that there was such consultation there is more than probable. Yarmouth was full of Cromwellites. In the Market Place, now known as the Weavers’ Arms, to this day is shown the panelled parlour whence Miles Corbet was used to go forth to worship in that part of the church allotted to the Independents. Miles Corbet was the son of Sir Thomas Corbet, of Sprouston, who had been made Recorder of Yarmouth in the first year of Charles, and who was one of the representatives of the town in the Long Parliament. The son was an ardent supporter of the policy of Cromwell, and, like him, laboured that England might be religious and free and great, as she never could be under any king of the Stuart race; and he met with his reward. ‘See, young man,’ said an old man to Wilberforce, as he pointed to a figure of Christ on the cross, ‘see the fate of a Reformer.’ It was so emphatically with Miles Corbet. Under the date of 1662 there is the following entry in the church-book:

‘1662. – Miles Corbet suffered in London.’

He was a member of the church there, and was one of the judges who sat on the trial of King Charles I. His name stands last on the list of those who signed the warrant for that monarch’s execution. Corbet fled into Holland at the Restoration, with Colonels Okey and Barkstead. George Downing – a name ever infamous – had been Colonel Okey’s chaplain. He became a Royalist at the Restoration, and was despatched as Envoy Extraordinary into Holland, where, under a promise of safety, he trepanned the three persons above named into his power, and sent them over to England to suffer death for having been members of the Commission for trying King Charles I. For this service he was created a baronet. The King sent an order to the Sheriffs of London on April 21, 1662, that Okey’s head and quarters should have Christian burial, as he had manifested some signs of contrition; but Barkstead’s head was directed to be placed on the Traitor’s Gate in the Tower, and Corbet’s head on the bridge, and their quarters on the City gates.

Foremost amongst the noted women of the Independent Church must be mentioned Sarah Martin, of whose life a sketch appeared in the Edinburgh Review as far back as 1847. A life of her was also published by the Religious Tract Society. Sarah, who joined the Yarmouth church in 1811, was born at Caistor. From her nineteenth year she devoted her only day of rest, the Sabbath, to the task of teaching in a Sunday-school. She likewise visited the inmates of the workhouse, and read the Scriptures to the aged and the sick. But the gaol was the scene of her greatest labours. In 1819, after some difficulty, she obtained admission to it, and soon seems to have acquired an extraordinary influence over the minds of the prisoners. She then gave up one day in the week to instruct them in reading and writing. At length she attended the prison regularly, and kept an exact account of her proceedings and their results in a book, which is now preserved in the public library of the town. As there was no chaplain, she read and preached to the inmates herself, and devised means of obtaining employment for them. She continued this good work till the end of her days in 1843, when she died, aged fifty-three. A handsome window of stained glass, costing upwards of £100, raised by subscription, has been placed to her memory in the west window of the north aisle of St. Nicholas Church. But her fame extends beyond local limits, and is part of the inheritance of the universal Church. It was in Mr. Walford’s time that Sarah Martin commenced her work. Mr. Walford tells us, in his Autobiography, that the Church had somewhat degenerated in his day, that the line of thought was worldly, and not such as became the Gospel. It is clear that in his time it greatly revived, and, even as a lad, the intelligence of the congregation seemed to lift me up into quite a new sphere, so different were the merchants and ship-owners of Yarmouth from the rustic inhabitants of my native village. In this respect, if I remember aright, the family of Shelley were particularly distinguished. One dear old lady, who lived at the Quay, was emphatically the minister’s friend. She had a nice house of her own and ample means, and there she welcomed ministers and their wives and children. It is to be hoped, for the sake of poor parsons, that such people still live. I know it was a great treat to me to enjoy the hospitality of the kind-hearted Mrs. Goderham, for whose memory I still cherish an affectionate regard. To live in one of the best houses on the Quay, and to lie in my bed and to see through the windows the masts of the shipping, was indeed to a boy a treat.

A little while ago I chanced to be at Norwich, when the thought naturally occurred to me that I would take a run to Yarmouth – a journey quickly made by the rail. In my case the journey was safely and expeditiously accomplished, and I hastened once more to revisit the scenes and associations of my youth. Alas! wherever I went I found changes. A new generation had arisen that knew not Joseph. The wind was howling down the Quay; the sand was blown into my mouth, my nose, my ears; I could scarcely see for the latter, or walk for the former; but, nevertheless, I made my way to the pier. Only one person was on it, and his back was turned to me. As he stood at the extreme end, with chest expanded, with mouth wide open, as if prepared to swallow the raging sea in front and the Dutch coast farther off, I thought I knew the figure. It was a reporter from Fleet Street and he was the only man to greet me in the town I once knew so well. Yes; the Yarmouth of my youth was gone. Then a reporter from Fleet Street was an individual never dreamt of. And so the world changes, and we get new men, fresh faces, other minds. The antiquarian Camden, were he to revisit Yarmouth, would not be a little astonished at what he would see. He wrote: ‘As soon as the Yare has passed Claxton, it takes a turn to the south, that it may descend more gently into the sea, by which means it makes a sort of little tongue or slip of land, washt on one side by itself, on the other side by the sea. In this slip, upon an open shore, I saw Yarmouth, a very neat harbour and town, fortified both by the nature of the place and the contrivance of art. For, though it be almost surrounded with water, on the west with a river, over which there is a drawbridge, and on either side with the sea, except to the north, where it is joined to the continent; yet it is fenced with strong, stately walls, which, with the river, figure it into an oblong quadrangle. Besides the towers upon these, there is a mole or mount, to the east, from whence the great guns command the sea (scarce half a mile distant) all round. It has but one church, though very large and with a stately high spire, built near the north gate by Herbert, Bishop of Norwich.’ In only one respect the Yarmouth of to-day resembles that of Camden’s time. Then the north wind played the tyrant and plagued the coast, and it does so still.

CHAPTER VII.

THE NORFOLK CAPITAL

Brigg’s Lane – The carrier’s cart – Reform demonstration – The old dragon – Chairing M.P.’s – Hornbutton Jack – Norwich artists and literati – Quakers and Nonconformists.

Many, many years ago, when wandering in the North of Germany, I came to an hotel in the Fremden Buch, of which (Englishmen at that time were far more patriotic and less cosmopolitan than in these degenerate days) an enthusiastic Englishman had written – and possibly the writing had been suggested by the hard fare and dirty ways of the place:

‘England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.’

Underneath, a still more enthusiastic Englishman had written: ‘Faults? What faults? I know of none, except that Brigg’s Lane, Norwich, wants widening.’ For the benefit of the reader who may be a stranger to the locality, let me inform him that Brigg’s Lane leads out of the fine Market Place, for which the good old city of Norwich is celebrated all the world over, and that on a recent visit to Norwich I found that the one fault which could be laid at the door of England had been removed – that Brigg’s Lane had been widened – that, in fact, it had ceased to be a lane, and had been elevated into the dignity of a street.

My first acquaintance with Norwich, when I was a lad of tender years and of limited experience, was by Brigg’s Lane. I had reached it by means of a carrier’s cart – the only mode of conveyance between Southwold, Wrentham, Beccles and Norwich – a carrier’s cart with a hood drawn by three noble horses, and able to accommodate almost any number of travellers and any amount of luggage. As the driver was well known to everyone, there was also a good deal of conversation of a more or less friendly character. The cart took one day to reach Norwich – which was, and it may be is, the commercial emporium of all that district – and another day to return. The beauty of such a conveyance, as compared with the railway travelling of to-day, was that there was no occasion to be in a flurry if you wanted to travel by it. Goldsmith – for such was the proprietor and driver’s name – when he came to a place was in no hurry to leave it. All the tradesmen in the village had hampers or boxes to return, and it took some time to collect them; or messages and notes to send, and it took some time to write them; and at the alehouse there was always a little gossip to be done while the horses enjoyed their pail of water or mouthful of hay. Even at the worst there was no fear of being left behind, as by dint of running and holloaing you might get up with the cart, unless you were very much behind indeed. But you may be sure that when the day came that I was to visit the great city of Norwich I was ready for the carrier’s cart long before the carrier’s cart was ready for me. Why was it, you ask, that the Norwich journey was undertaken? The answer is not difficult to give. The Reform agitation at that time had quickened the entire intellectual and social life of the people. At length had dawned the age of reason, and had come the rights of man. The victory had been won all along the line, and was to be celebrated in the most emphatic manner. We Dissenters rejoiced with exceeding joy; for we looked forward, as a natural result, to the restoration of that religious equality in the eye of the law of which we had been unrighteously deprived, and in consequence of which we had suffered in many ways. We joined, as a matter of course, in the celebration of the victory which we and the entire body of Reformers throughout the land had gained; and how could that be done better than by feeding the entire community on old English fare washed down by old English ale? And this was done as far as practicable everywhere. For instance, at Bungay there was a public feast in the Market Place, and on the town-pump the Messrs. Childs erected a printing-press, which they kept hard at work all day printing off papers intended to do honour to the great event their fellow-townsmen were celebrating in so jovial a manner. In Norwich the demonstration was to be of a more imposing character, and as an invitation had come to the heads of the family from an old friend, a minister out of work, and living more or less comfortably on his property, it seemed good to them to accept it, and to take me with them, deeming, possibly, that of two evils it was best to choose the least, and that I should be safer under their eye at Norwich than with no one to look after me at home. At any rate, be that as it may, the change was not a little welcome, and much did I see to wonder at in the old Castle, the new Gaol, the size of the city, the extent of the Market Place, the smartness of the people, and the glare of the shops. It well repaid me for the ride of twenty-six miles and the jolting of the carrier’s cart along the dusty roads.

As I look into the mirror of the past, I see, alas! but a faded picture of that wonderful banquet in Norwich to celebrate Reform. There was a procession with banners and music, which seemed to me endless, as it toiled along in the dust under the fierce sun of summer, the spectators cheering all the way. There were speeches, I dare say, though no word of them remains; but I have a distinct recollection of peeping into the tents or tent, where the diners were at work, and of receiving from some one or other of them a bit of plum-pudding prepared for that day, which seemed to me of unusual excellence. I have a distinct recollection also of the fireworks in the evening, the first I had ever seen, on the Castle plain, and of the dense crowd that had turned out to see the sight; but I can well remember that I enjoyed myself much, and that I was awfully tired when it was all over.

Another memory also comes to me in connection with the old Dragon, – not of Revelation, but of Norwich – a huge green monster, which was usually kept in St. Andrew’s Hall, and dragged out at the time of city festivities. Men inside of it carried it along the street, and the sight was terrible to see, as it had a ferocious head and a villainous tail, and resembled nothing that is in the heaven above or the earth beneath or the waters under the earth. I fancy, however, since the schoolmaster has gone abroad, that kind of dragon has ceased to roar. I think it was at a Norwich election that I saw it for the first and the only time, and it followed in the procession formed to chair the Members – the Members being seated in gorgeous array on chairs, borne on the heads of people, and every now and then, much to the delight of the mob, though I should imagine very little to his own, the chair, with the Member in it, was tossed up into the air, and by this means it was supposed the general public were able to get a view of their M.P. and to see what manner of man he was. It was in some such way that I, as a lad, realized, as I never else should have done, the red face and the pink-silk stockings of the Hon. Mr. Scarlett, the happy candidate who pretended to enjoy the fun, as with the best grace possible under the circumstances he smiled on the ladies in the windows of the street, as he was borne along and bowed to all. From my recollection of the chairing I saw that time, I am more inclined to admire the activity of Wilberforce, of whom we read, when elected for Hull, ‘When the procession reached his mother’s house, he sprang from the chair, and, presenting himself with surprising quickness at a projecting window – it was that of the nursery in which his childhood had been passed – he addressed the populace with such complete effect that he was afterwards able to decide the election of its successor.’ At Norwich the Hon. Mr. Scarlett did well in not attempting a similar display of agility. Perhaps, however, it is quite as well that we have got rid of the chairing and the humour – Heaven help us! – to which it gave rise on the part of an English mob.

There was a delightful flavour of antiquity about the Norwich of that day – its old fusty chapels and churches, its old bridges and narrow streets. All the people with whom I came into contact on that festival seemed to me well stricken in years. It was not so very long since, old Hornbutton Jack had been seen threading his way along its ancient streets. With a countenance much resembling the portraits of Erasmus, with gray hair hanging about his shoulders, with his hat drawn over his eyes and his hands behind him, as if in deep meditation; John Fransham, the Norwich metaphysician and mathematician, might well excite the curiosity of the casual observer, especially when I add that he was bandy-legged, that he was short of stature, that he wore a green jacket, a broad hat, large shoes, and short worsted stockings. A Norwich weaver had helped to make Fransham a philosopher. Wright said Fransham could discourse well on the nature and fitness of things. He possessed a purely philosophical spirit and a soul well purified from vulgar errors. Fransham made himself famous in his day. There is every reason to believe that he had been for some time tutor to Mr. Windham. He is once recorded to have spent a day with Dr. Parr. Many of his pupils became professional men; with one of them, Dr. Leeds, the reader of Foote’s comedies, if such a one exists, may be acquainted. The tutor and his pupil, as Johnny Macpherson and Dr. Last, were actually exhibited on the stage. But to return to Norwich antiquities. I have a dim memory of some old place where the Dutch and Huguenot refugees were permitted to meet for worship, and even now I can recognise there the possibility of another Sir Thomas Browne – unless the Norwich of my boyhood has undergone the destructive process we love to call improvement – not even disturbed in his quiet study by the storm of civil war, inditing his thoughts as follows: ‘That crystal is nothing else but ice strongly congealed; that a diamond is softened or broken by the blood of a goat; that bays preserve from the mischief of lightning and thunder; that the horse hath no gall; that a kingfisher hanged by the bill showeth where the wind lay; that the flesh of peacocks corrupteth not;’ and so on – questions, it may be, as pertinent as those learnedly discussed in half-crown magazines at the present day.

As a boy, I was chiefly familiar with Norwich crapes and bombazines and Norwich shawls, which at that time were making quite a sensation in the fashionable world. It was at a later time that I came to hear of Old Crome and the Norwich school. Of him writes Mr. Wedmore, that ‘he died in a substantial square-built house, in what was a good street then, in the parish of St. George, Colegate, having begun as a workman, and ended as a bourgeois. He was a simple man, of genial company. To the end of his life he used to go of an evening to the public-house as to an informal club. In the privileged bar-parlour, behind the taps and glasses, he sat with his friends and the shopkeepers, talking of local things. But it is not to be supposed that because his life was from end to end a humble one, though prosperous even outwardly after its kind, Crome was deprived of the companionship most fitted to his genius, the stimulus that he most needed. The very existence of the Norwich Society of Artists settles that question. The local men hung on his words; he knew that he was not only making pictures, but a school. And in the quietness of a provincial city a coterie had been formed of men bent on the pursuit of an honest and homely art, and of these he was the chief.’ Dying, his last words were, ‘Hobbema, oh, Hobbema, how I loved thee!’ In my young days Mr. John Sell Cotman chiefly represented Norwich, although in later times he became connected with King’s College, London. A lady writes to me: ‘I think it was in the summer of 1842 Mr. Cotman came down to Norwich to visit his son John, who at that time was occupying a house on St. Bennet’s Road. He visited us at Thorpe several times, and was unusually well and in good spirits, with sketchbook or folio always in hand. His father and sisters, too, were then living in a small house at Thorpe, and from the balcony of their house, which looked over the valley of the Wensum, he made one of his last interesting sketches, twelve of which, after his death, the following year, were selected by his sons for publication.’

Evelyn gives us a pleasant picture of Norwich when he went there ‘to see that famous scholar and physitian, Dr. T. Browne, author of the “Religio Medici” and “Vulgar Errors,” etc., now lately knighted.’ Evelyn continues: ‘Next morning I went to see Sir Thomas Browne, with whom I had corresponded by letter, though I had never seen him before, his whole house and garden being a Paradise and cabinet of rarities, and that of the best collection, especially medals, books, plants and natural things. Amongst other curiosities, Sir Thomas has a collection of all the eggs of all the foule and birds he could procure; that country, especially the promonotary of Norfolck, being frequented, as he said, by severall kinds, which seldom or never go further into the land, as cranes, storkes, eagles, and a variety of water-foule. He led me to see all the remarkable places of this ancient citty, being one of the largest and certainly, after London, one of the noblest of England, for its venerable cathedrall, number of stately churches, cleannesse of the streetes and building of flints so exquisitely headed and squared, as I was much astonished at; but he told me they had lost the art of squaring the flints, in which at one time they so much excelled, and of which the churches, best houses, and walls are built.’ Further, Evelyn tells us: ‘The suburbs are large, the prospect sweete with other amenities, not omitting the flower-gardens, in which all the inhabitants excel. The fabric of stuffs brings a vast trade to this populous towne.’

Long has Norwich rejoiced in clever people. In the life of William Taylor, one of her most distinguished sons, we have a formidable array of illustrious Norwich personages, in whom, alas! at the present time the world takes no interest. Sir James Edward Smith, founder and first President of the Linnæan Society, ought not to be forgotten. Of Taylor himself Mackintosh wrote: ‘I can still trace William Taylor by his Armenian dress, gliding through the crowd in Annual Reviews, Monthly Magazines, Athenæums, etc., rousing the stupid public by paradox, or correcting it by useful and seasonable truth. It is true that he does not speak the Armenian or any other tongue but the Taylorian, but I am so fond of his vigour and originality, that for his sake I have studied and learned the language. As the Hebrew is studied by one book, so is the Taylorian by me for another. He never deigns to write to me, but in print I doubt whether he has many readers who so much understand, relish, and tolerate him, for which he ought to reward me by some of his manuscript esoteries.’ More may be said of William Taylor. It was he who made Walter Scott a poet. Taylor’s spirited translation of Burger’s ‘Leonore’ with the two well-known lines —

‘Tramp, tramp along the land they rode,
Splash, splash along the sea,’

opened up to Scott a field in which for a time he won fame and wealth.

Of Mrs. Taylor, wife of the grandson of the eminent Hebraist, Mackintosh declared that she was the Madame Roland of Norwich. We owe to her Mrs. Austen and Lady Duff Gordon. Mr. Reeve, the translator of De Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy,’ has preserved the memory of his father, Dr. Henry Reeve, by the republication of his ‘Journal of a Tour on the Continent.’ Let me also mention that Dr. Caius, the founder of Caius College, Cambridge, was a Norwich man.

To Noncons Norwich offers peculiar attractions. We have in Dr. Williams’s library ‘The Order of the Prophesie in Norwich’; and Robinson, the leader of the Pilgrim Fathers, had a Norwich charge. Even in a later day some of the Norwich divines had a godly zeal for freedom, worthy of Milton himself, and on which the Pilgrim Fathers would have smiled approval. It is told of Mark Wilks, the brother of Matthew, and the grandfather of our London Mark Wilks, that when a deputation went from Norwich during the Thelwall and Horne Tooke trials, when, if the Castlereagh gang had had their will, there would have been found a short and easy way with the Dissenters, and came back on the Sunday morning, entering the place after the service had commenced, that he called out, ‘What’s the news?’ as he saw them enter. ‘Acquitted,’ was the reply. ‘Thank God!’ said the parson, as they all joined in singing

‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow.’

It is a fact that Wilks’s first sermon in the Countess of Huntingdon’s Chapel at Norwich was from the text, ‘There is a lad here with five barley loaves and a few small fishes.’ Let me tell another story, this time in connection with that Old Meeting which has so much to attract the visitor at Norwich. It had a grand old man, William Youngman, amongst its supporters; I see him now, with his choleric face, his full fat figure, his black knee-breeches and silk stockings, his gold-headed cane. He was an author, a learned man, as well as a Norwich merchant, the very Aristarchus of Dissent – a kind-hearted, hospitable man withal, if my boyish experience may be relied on. One Sunday there came to preach in the Old Meeting a young man named Halley from London, who lived to be honoured as few of our Dissenting D.D.’s have been. He was young, and he felt nervous as he looked from the pulpit on the austere critic in his great square pew just beneath. Well, thought the young preacher, a sermon on keeping the Sabbath will be safe, and he selected that for his morning discourse. The service over, up comes the grand old man. ‘The next time, young man, you preach, preach on something you understand;’ and, having said so, he bought a pennyworth of apples of a woman in the street, leaving the young man to digest his remarks as best he could. Again the service was to be carried on. The young man was in the pulpit, the grand old man below. There was singing and prayer, but no sermon, the young man having bolted after opening the service. I like better the picture of Norwich I get in Sir James Mackintosh’s Life, where Basil Montague tells us how he and Mackintosh, when travelling the Norfolk circuit, always hastened to Norwich to spend their evenings in the circle of which Mrs. Taylor was the attraction and the centre. The wife of a Norwich tradesman, we see her sitting sewing and talking in the midst of her family, the companion of philosophers, who compared her to Lucy Hutchinson, and a model wife. Far away in India Sir James writes to her: ‘I know the value of your letters. They rouse my mind on subjects which interest us in common – friends, children, literature, and life. Their moral tone cheers and braces me. I ought to be made permanently happy by contemplating a mind like yours; which seems more exclusively to derive its gratifications from its duties than almost any other.’ It was in the Norwich Octagon that these Taylors worshipped. Their Unitarianism seemed to have affected them more favourably than it did Harriet Martineau, whose family also attended there. I remember Edward Taylor, who was the Gresham Professor of Music. But theologically, I presume, the palm of excellence in connection with the Octagon is to be awarded to Dr. Taylor, the great Hebrew scholar. He wrote to old Newton: ‘I have been looking through my Bible, and can’t find your doctrine of the Atonement.’ ‘Last night I could not see to get into bed,’ replied old Newton, ‘because I found I had my extinguisher on the candle. Take off the extinguisher, and then you will see.’

Leaving theology, let us get up on the gray old castle, which is to be turned into a museum, and look round on the city lying at our feet. Would you have a finer view? Cross the Yare and walk up the new road (made by the unemployed one hard winter) to Mousehold Heath, and after you have done thinking of Kitt’s rebellion – an agrarian one, by-the-bye, and worth thinking about just at this time – and of the Lollards, who were burnt just under you, look across to the city in the valley, with its heights all round, more resembling the Holy City, so travellers say, than any other city in the world. In the foreground is the cathedral, right beyond rises the castle on the hill; church spires, warehouses, public buildings, private dwellings, manufactories, chimneys’ smoke, complete the landscape fringed by the green of the distant hills. There are a hundred thousand people there – to be preached to and saved.

Windham was rather hard on the Norwich of his day. In his diary, in 1798, he records a visit to Norwich, of which city he was the representative. On October 9 he dined at the Swan – ‘dinner, like the sessions dinner, but ball in the evening distinguished by the presence of Mrs. Siddons.’ On the 10th he dined at the Bishop’s – ‘A party, of, I suppose, fifty, chiefly clergy. I felt the same enjoyment that I frequently do at large dinners – they afford, in general, what never fails to be pleasant – solitude in a crowd.’ On the 11th he writes: ‘Dined with sheriffs at King’s Head. Robinson, the late sheriff, was there, and much as he may be below his own opinion of himself, he is more to talk to than the generality of those who are found on those occasions. I could not help reflecting on the very low state of talents or understanding in those who compose the whole, nearly, of the society of Norwich. The French are surely a more enlightened and polished people.’ Perhaps Windham would have fared better had he dined with some of the leading Dissenters. Few of the clergy of East Anglia at that time would have been fitting company for the friend of Johnson and Burke. In Norwich, Mr. Windham often managed to make himself unpopular. For instance, towards the end of the session of 1788, Mr. Windham called the attention of Government to a requisition from France, which was then suffering the greatest distress from a scarcity of grain. The object of this requisition was to be supplied with 20,000 sacks of flour from this country. So small a boon ought, he thought, to be granted from motives of humanity; but a Committee of the House of Commons having decided against it, the Ministers, though they professed themselves disposed to afford the relief sought for, could not, after such a decision, undertake to grant it upon their own responsibility. The leading part which Mr. Windham took in favour of this requisition occasioned, amongst some of his constituents at Norwich, considerable clamour. He allayed the storm by a private letter addressed to those citizens of Norwich who were most likely to be affected by a rise in the price of provisions; but the fact that Norwich should thus have backed up the inhuman policy of refusing food to France showed how strong at that time was the force of passion, and how hard it is to break down hereditary animosity. As a further illustration of manners and habits of the East Anglian clergy, let me mention that when, in 1778, Windham made the speech which pointed him out to be a man of marked ability in connection with the call made on the country for carrying on the American War, one of the Canons of the cathedral, and a great supporter of the war, exclaimed: ‘D – n him! I could cut his tongue out!’