Chapter VIII: Part 8

But dissension was about to appear in the little garrison of Newark. Prince Rupert had lost Bristol, and had, on this score, been abused. Contrary to the King’s wishes, he came to Newark to explain his side of the question. The position was further complicated by the King choosing this time to supplant Sir Richard Willis in the governorship of the town, and to put in his place Lord Belasyse. This, taken with other private jealousies, brought matters to a climax. The Princes, Rupert and Maurice, sided with Willis when at a feast given by Lord Belasyse the quarrel became open. “Thereupon they all drew in the King’s presence, and within an hour the Princes, Genl. Willis, and many others cald to Horse, and went away that night on the South side of the Town (to Wiverton Hall). Colonell Rossiter lyeing on that side must needs know of their action. Bellasis is made Governor of Newarke, the onely creature of note with his Majesty.

“Newark is full of discontent, and most of the gentry wavering, desire their liberty.”

The sequel of this quarrel was that the discontented Royalists applied to Parliament for passes to leave the country, promising not to take any further part in the war. Their request was granted, yet not all seem to have taken advantage of it, for some at any rate were reconciled to the King. Prince Rupert, however, passes altogether from the local stage.

At the end of October, Poyntz undertook the suppression of the Royalist garrisons at Shelford and Wiverton. Shelford, commanded by Lord Stanhope, son of the Earl of Chesterfield, refused to surrender. A bloody struggle was the result, and it was not until their general was slain that the plucky defenders capitulated. Within a week Wiverton and Welbeck, awed by the fate of Shelford, surrendered without waiting to be stormed. Thus was Newark becoming gradually surrounded by hostile garrisons, and now Belvoir Castle alone remained in Royalist hands. The King realised that if he wished to escape before the net was drawn quite tightly round Newark he must delay no longer, and on November 6, Colonel-General Poyntz had to report “that the King was come from Newarke and gotten by him.”

Siege was laid to Belvoir Castle, its outworks were captured, and its water-supply almost cut off, yet it appears to have held out for two months, until December 30, when the Governor, Sir Gervase Lucas, surrendered.

Meanwhile a formal siege had been laid to Newark, and the town was all but surrounded; for now that the Earl of Montrose was defeated in Scotland, and the Royalists in the west of England dispersed, all that remained to be done was to capture the King and his towns of Oxford and Newark.

Mr. Cornelius Brown, in his _History of Newark_, draws attention to the fact that while the King was at Newark he was in communication with the Scottish leaders--a fact to be noticed in view of the course events afterwards took.

This last siege of Newark was a much more serious affair than either of the others had been. A large army was collected for the purpose, and an attempt was made to surround the town and establish a blockade, with the object of preventing the introduction of provisions into it. The arrangement of the besieging forces can be well seen from the contemporary plan. Colonel Rossiter at Balderton, and General Poyntz at Farndon, were watched by the Newarkers established in the Queen’s Sconce, of which notable remains can still be seen. Colonel Theo. Gray at Coddington, and Colonel Henry Gray at Winthorpe, were, in their turn, watched by the garrison of the King’s Sconce, now unfortunately destroyed. It had been arranged that the Scots, when they arrived, should take up their position at Kelham, and by occupying the island from Kelham to Muskham Bridge they would complete the ring of besiegers. At the beginning of December the Scots arrived, and immediately a council of war was held by the English and Scottish generals. As a result Muskham Bridge was stormed and a sconce near it captured. It is difficult to point to the exact place where the Scots had their main camp, called Edinburgh. Undoubtedly it was a very large enclosure, and one would expect it to have been defended by some kind of earthworks; yet a careful search of this part of the island has failed to reveal more than a few isolated banks and ditches, insufficient to give us any idea of the shape or extent of this camp.

Notwithstanding the arrival of the Scots, the circuit would not seem to have been complete, for the Newarkers still continued to carry provisions into the town, and not infrequently they would sally forth and fiercely attack one or other of the enemy. The following graphic account from the _Cities Weekly Post_, January 6–13, 1646, must serve to describe one of these frequent sallies:--

“Major Generall Poyntz continues his Quarters at Stoake; the
Nottingham forces did keep their Guards in the Church, where
unfortunately happened so great a fire, which took hold of the
straw, that they could not quench it until it had devoured
all that was combustible by the fire, and nothing on the
next morning but the walls remaining, a sad spectacle to the
beholders; whether this gave any encouragement to the Enemy in
Newarke we cannot tell; but not long afterwards, the Nottingham
forces being many of them gone to Nottingham upon some business
(as wee heare) of publicke concernment, the Enemy sallyed forth
from Newarke, being about 800 Horse and betwixt 200 or 300 Foot,
and were making up to Major Gen. Poyntz his quarters at Stoak,
which they did with so much fury and eager speed, that his Horse
Guard began to flye, and were in that disorder, that two Horses
fell down as they were passing through the turn Pike, by which
means the more neare approaches of the Enemy and the Allarum
they did give us could not so perfectly bee apprehended until
they had entered into our Quarters, and Major Gen. Poyntz his
own Chamber, which they made hast to plunder. In the meantime
Major Gen. Poyntz using all dilligence to re-colect his men, did
deport himselfe with so much resolution, that many of the Enemy
were killed, nine prisoners taken, and about fifty wounded. In
this service, it is said, we had not above three slaine, and
seven hurt. The Enemy retyred in disorder to Newark, and the
rather because they heard that Collonel Rossiter with a new body
of 1000 Horse and foot was cumming down from Claypoole towards
them, but perceiving that the Enemy had notice of their cumming,
and were got into Newark, he onely gave an alarum to their
Garrison, and returned safe to his own quarters.”

Even the turning of the river out of its course was not able to break down the defences of the gallant town, and so matters went on, until in May the end came suddenly and dramatically.

Negotiations between Charles and the Scotch Commissioners appear to have been in progress for some time, the intermediary being Montreuil, a Frenchman in the King’s confidence. There is a certain amount of mystery attached to the whole affair, but at any rate Charles thought that he could not do better for his cause than join the Scotch army. How far the negotiations had gone, and how far the Scotch generals were privy to these negotiations, is not clear, but at any rate when the King suddenly appeared at Kelham on May 5, 1646, General Leslie professed complete astonishment and embarrassment. But it is instructive to inquire how Charles reached Kelham, for considerable uncertainty exists as to the course he took after entering Nottinghamshire at the south. We hear that the King reached Stamford in disguise, accompanied by Dr. Hudson and John Ashburnham, on May 3, and left again on the 4th, travelling all night. The only detail of his journey to Southwell, where he arrived early on the 5th, that we have been able to meet with, is that he crossed the Trent near Gotham. This statement is confusing rather than otherwise, for the Trent does not pass within two miles of this isolated village. The reason why it was necessary to cross the river to the west of Nottingham would be that the country between Nottingham and Newark was quite unsafe for Royalists, while there was quite a possibility of a safe circuit round Nottingham by the north, and so by forest roads to Southwell. But the exact spot where the Trent was crossed still remains to seek. Arrived at the King’s Arms (now the Saracen’s Head), Southwell, Montreuil’s headquarters, Charles rested for a short time, and after dinner marched on to Kelham. Though seemingly embarrassed by their royal prisoner, the Scots had no intention of letting him escape. He was closely guarded at Kelham Hall--so closely, indeed, that no one could correspond with him. No sooner was he at Kelham than Charles set about to arrange for the surrender of Newark. The Newarkers begged that they might hold out as long as they could, but Charles insisted on their surrender, and Belasyse had to make the best terms he could. The terms were favourable, for the garrison marched out with all the honours of war. The arrangements for the surrender of the town were made “neere Maj. Gen. Poyntz headquarters.” The _Perfect Occurrences of both Houses of Parliament, Week ending May 8th_, gives the following list of treators:--

“Treators for the Parliament are Col. Alex. Popham, Col. Fras.
Thornhaugh, Col. John Hutchinson, Col. Henry Gray, Col. Richard
Thornton, Maj. Phil. Twisleton, and Maj. John Archer--English;
Col. Walter Scott, Lieut.-Col. Gil. Carre, Maj. Archib.
Douglas--Scots.

“Sir Thos. Ingram, Sir Bry. Balmes, Sir. Ger. Nevile, Mr.
Robt. Sutton (not allowed to be a lord), Sir Simon Fanshaw,
Maj.-Gen. Eyre, Col. Gilsby, Col. Darcy, Col. Atkins, Alderman
Standish--for Newark.

“The clerks are Mr. Thos. Bristoe for us, and Mr. Coudy for
them.”

On May 8 the Governor of Newark marched out, and on the same day the Scotch army and the King went northwards, spending the first night at Markham. With the surrender of Newark an order came from Parliament for the pulling down of all strong places in Nottinghamshire, including Southwell Palace and the Minster. The Palace was already in a ruinous condition, but Mr. Cludd managed to save the Minster, while Nottingham Castle was spared till 1651, on account of its steady adhesion to Parliament. But Newark Castle was “slighted,” and by the end of July was such a ruin as we see to-day.

Little more remains to be said with regard to the struggle in Notts. In July 1648 a rising of Notts and Lincolnshire Royalists was led by Sir Gilbert Byron. A skirmish was fought near Willoughby on the Wolds, and the Royalists were totally routed by Colonel Rossiter. Early in 1649 the King was brought to trial before a court of sixty-seven members. Five names connected with our county are prominent: Whalley, Ireton, Hutchinson, Millington, and Goffe; while to Colonel Francis Hacker was given the task of seeing that the sentence was carried out.

With the death of the King it is fitting that this short sketch of the Civil War should cease. It has not been possible to go into any details, and in order to preserve the due proportion it has been necessary to omit much that might have proved interesting. England passed through a severe crisis in her history--a crisis which was almost sure to occur at one time or another--and though its course might have been less bloody had the ruler of England been a stronger man, yet it doubtless served a good purpose in providing a wide outlet for all the seething schisms engendered by Puritanism.

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE POETS

BY JOHN RUSSELL, M.A.

The appreciation of poetry would appear to be as various and uncertain as its definition. For while, on the one hand, the cynic, confusing cause with effect, has defined it as a “disease of the intestines,” on the other, a great critic, himself an excellent poet, has written: “Poetry is nothing less than the most perfect speech of man, that in which he comes nearest to being able to utter the truth. It is no small thing, therefore, to succeed eminently in poetry”; and again, “The noble and profound application of ideas to life is the most essential part of poetic greatness”: so that when a poet has established his claim to real glory, “that real glory is good and wholesome for mankind at large, good and wholesome for the nation which produced the poet crowned with it.”

The county of Nottingham cannot claim the credit of having produced many such glorious poets. Only three of her poetic children stand out very conspicuously--Byron, Kirke White, and Philip James Bailey. But she can claim a fair number of minor poets, with whom this paper will more especially deal. It might, indeed, have been expected that the county and the county town would be prolific in poetic achievement. For they have had a remarkable history and have been the scene of many stirring incidents in the great drama of the nation’s life. Some, indeed, may say that the inhabitants have been men of action rather than of words.

As for the scenery of the county, though it may seem tame to the dwellers in the Lake District or the Peak, or amid the combes and moors of the south-west, yet Sherwood Forest, Clifton Grove, and the long reaches of the Trent have a peculiar beauty of their own, and the homely charm of fields and hedgerows appeals strongly to Nottinghamshire men, so that amid grander scenes they can feel as Ulysses of old felt:--

“Non dubia est Ithaci sapientia, sed tamen optat
Fumum de patriis posse videre focis.”

This pleasure in their home has found plentiful and apt expression in the county poets. Kirke White sings:--

“In woods and glens I love to roam,
When the tired hedger hies him home;
Or by the woodland pool to rest,
When pale the star looks on its breast.”

He does but express in verse what any sensitive mind would feel in walking, while the early autumn twilight is fading into dark, say along the field path between Thoroton and Orston. The scope of this article forbids any detailed account of the lives of the several writers and their works, or lengthy criticism; it must be enough to relate a few facts about each, mention their chief writings, and occasionally, where it seems desirable, add a few lines of illustrative quotation.

HENRY CONSTABLE.--The first to claim our attention is Henry Constable [1562–1613]. Anthony Wood says of him “that he was born (or at least descended from a family of the name of Constable) in Yorkshire.” It seems, however, to be accepted now that he was born at Newark, and was the son of Sir Robert Constable, Lieutenant of the Ordnance to Queen Elizabeth. He was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, a fact with which it is somewhat difficult to reconcile Wood’s statement “that he spent some time among the Oxonian muses.” He became a Roman Catholic at an early age, and his zeal for the cause of his religion brought him many difficulties and made him an exile for many years of his life. He died at Liège. His poetical ability was fully recognised by his contemporaries. In a letter from abroad he is described as “One Constable, a fine poetical wit, who resides in Paris”; and in the same letter he is said “to have had in his head a plot to draw the Queen to be a Catholic.” Wood eulogizes him as “a great master of the English tongue,” and adds that “there was no gentleman of our nation had a more pure, quick, and higher delivery of conceit than he.” Sonnets of conceits, that is, quaint or humorous fancies elaborately wrought out till they were exhausted of suggestion, were a favourite form of composition at that time, and with Constable’s work may be compared Drayton’s _Idea_, Daniel’s _Delia_, and other similar collections. In 1584 appeared _Diana, or the Excellent Conceitful Sonnets of H. C. Augmented with divers quatorzains of honourable and learned personages. Divided into VIII. Decades._ And in 1592 was issued a small quarto volume entitled _Diana, the Praises of his Mistress in certain Sweete Sonnets by H. C._ In illustration of his style may be quoted:--

“My Lady’s presence makes the roses red,
Because to see her lips they blush for shame.
The Lily’s leaves, for envy, pale became;
And her white hands in them this envy bred.
The Marigold the leaves abroad doth spread;
Because the sun’s and her power is the same.
The Violet of purple colour came,
Dyed in the blood she made my heart to shed.
In brief, All flowers from her their virtue take;
From her sweet breath, their sweet smells do proceed;
The living heat which her eyebeams doth make
Warmeth the ground, and quickeneth the seed.
The rain, wherewith she watereth the flowers,
Falls from mine eyes, which she dissolves in showers.”

Michael Drayton’s _Idea_ appears in 1619. Though he was a Warwickshire man, he perhaps deserves a passing mention here because of his praises of “the Crystal Trent, for fords and fish renowned,” and the “silver Trent near to which Sirena dwelleth, she to whom Nature lent all that excelleth.”

“Tagus and Pactolus
Are to thee debtor,
Not for their gold to us
Are they the better;
Hence forth of all the rest,
Be thou the river,
Which as the daintiest
Puts them down ever.
For as my precious one
O’er thee doth travel,
She to pearl paragon
Turneth thy gravel.”

GERVASE MARKHAM [1568–1637], a member of a very distinguished Nottinghamshire family, was the son of Sir Robert Markham of Cotham. After serving as a soldier in the Low Countries and with the Earl of Essex in Ireland, he applied himself to writing, for which he was well qualified, being a scholar and knowing four or five languages. He had a practical knowledge of agriculture and horse-breeding, on which subjects he wrote several treatises. In association with William Sampson he published in 1622 a drama, _The True Tragedy of Herod and Antipater_, and in 1633 he produced another, _The Dumbe Knight_. His poem, _The Most Honourable Tragedie of Sir Richard Grenvile, Knight_, should be noticed because it probably gave suggestions to Tennyson in writing his ballad of _The Revenge_. In point of length there is a considerable difference between these works of the two poets. Markham also wrote some religious poems.

WILLIAM SAMPSON, about whom very little is known, was probably born at South Leverton near Retford, at the end of the sixteenth century. On the title page of the play which was written by him in conjunction with Gervase Markham, he is described as a “Gentleman.” It is said that he was a retainer in the family of Sir Henry Willoughby of Risley. In support of this it may be mentioned that he dedicated one of his plays, _The Vow Breaker, or the Faire Maide of Clifton_, to “The Worshipfull and most vertuous Gentlewoman Mistress Anne Willoughby Daughter of the Right Worshipfull and ever to be Honoured Henry Willoughby of Risley in the County of Derby, Baronet.”

In his volume of poems, many of which are of the nature of epitaphs or elegies, he gives some anagrams. Making of these was “then the fashionable amusement of the wittiest and most learned,” as Disraeli says. From “William Cavendish,” Sampson makes “All my will is Heaven”; from “John Curson” or “Cursone,” “So I ranne on,” and “Honour is sure,”

“Which Anagrammized thus, ’tis cleere and pure,
So hee ranne on. His honour now is sure.”

Among the subjects of his verse may be noted the Countess of Shrewsbury (“Bess of Hardwick”), “ould Sir John Byron of Newstead Abbey,” Sir George Perkins of Bunny, Henry Lord Stanhope, and “the right Honourable Henry Peirpoint,” father of the first Earl of Kingston.

THOMAS SHIPMAN [1632–1680] was the eldest son of William Shipman of Scarrington, by his second wife, Sara, daughter of Alderman Parker of Nottingham. Thoroton speaks of him as “a good Poet, and one of the Captains of the Trained Bands of this County.” His father was an enthusiastic Royalist. In spite of this partisanship, Thomas succeeded in “saving a small estate amid the calamities of the last rebellion,” which indicates shrewdness and capacity in business. His wife, daughter of John Trafford, brought him an estate at Bulcote. Their son William was high sheriff of Notts in 1730. Among his literary associates were Denham and Oldham.

He published a rhymed tragedy, _Henry the Third of France, stabbed by a Fryer, with the Fall of Guise_, and a volume of Loyal Poems called _Carolina_. He made grateful acknowledgments to his friend Abraham Cowley, and was a poetical friend of the third Lord Byron.

An address to the reader by Thomas Flatman, in 1682, describes him as “a man every way accomplished: To the advantages of his birth, his education had added whatsoever was necessary to fit him for conversation, and render him (as he was) desirable by the best wits of the age.” Some of his writings were not free from the moral blemishes which disfigure much of the writing of that period.

JOHN OLDHAM [1653–1683], though born in Gloucestershire, is often numbered among Nottinghamshire writers because of his connexion with the Earl of Kingston, who was his patron and gave him a home for a time at Holme Pierrepoint.

In the church of that village there is a tablet to the poet’s memory. That he was a man of distinction among his literary contemporaries is clear from the fact that both Waller and Dryden paid tribute to him at his death: and his work seems to have had considerable influence upon Pope and other eighteenth-century poets. He is called in the introduction to the _Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day_, “the late ingenious Mr. John Oldham,” and in a Dictionary published in 1694 in London he is described as “The darling of the Muses, a pithy, sententious, elegant, and smooth Writer.”

He wrote Satires and Pindaric Odes, and based his work largely on imitation of such classical authors as Horace and Juvenal.

His appreciation of the schoolmaster’s calling was not very high--

“A Dancing-Master shall be better paid,
Though he instructs the Heels, and you the Head.”

Oldham’s works do not allow much satisfactory quotation; but these lines may be given as a specimen of him:--

“’T has ever been the top of my Desires,
The utmost height of which my wish aspires,
That Heaven would bless me with a small estate,
Where I might find a close obscure retreat;
There, free from noise and all ambitious ends,
Enjoy a few choice books, and fewer friends;
Lord of myself, accountable to none,
But to my conscience and my God alone:
There live unthought of, and unheard of die,
And grudge mankind my very memory.
But since the blessing is, I find, too great
For me to wish for, or expect of Fate:
Yet maugre all the spite of destiny,
My thoughts and actions are, and shall be free.”

From the Pindaric Ode to the memory of Mr. Charles Morwent may be cited:--

“Thy soul within such silent pomp did keep,
As if humanity were lulled asleep,
So gentle was thy pilgrimage beneath
Time’s unheard feet scarce make less noise,
Or the soft journey which a planet goes.
Life seemed all calm as its last breath;
A still tranquillity so husht thy breast,
As if some Halcyon were its guest,
And there had built her nest:
It hardly now enjoys a greater rest.”

The life of ROBERT DODSLEY [1703–1764], publisher and poet, has in it a touch of romance in that, by ability, perseverance, and integrity, he raised himself from the comparatively servile position of a footman to be the friend and helper of many of the greatest men of his age, men distinguished by high birth and position or by genius, or by all three combined; and it will appear from what follows that he played no small or insignificant part in the literary life of the eighteenth century.

Dodsley was born on the 13th February 1703. The date of his birth is not recorded in the Mansfield register, but has just been discovered in an old memorandum book kept by the parish clerk, John Lodes. The omission of his birth entry from the registers suggests that his parents were perhaps Dissenters.

He is said to have been apprenticed at first to a stocking-weaver, but, disliking the trade or the conditions in which he had to work, he gave it up and became a footman. At this period of his life he published a volume of verse entitled _The Muse in Livery_. He received encouragement and support from his employer and her friends. Ultimately, with the help of £100 from Pope, who befriended him also in other ways, he set up a bookseller’s shop in Pall Mall, and from the profits of this business and his writings he was able to retire towards the close of his life with a comfortable competence. He died at Durham and was buried there.

That Dodsley held a respectable position in the world of letters is evident from the fact that Pope patronised his play of _The Toyshop_, which was put on the stage in 1735; while of his tragedy of _Cleon_ Johnson says, “if Otway had written this play, no other of his pieces would have been remembered,” praise which even Dodsley himself thought rather above the merit of his work.

As a bookseller and publisher he succeeded well. It was Dodsley who discerned the merit of Johnson’s _London_ for which he paid the author ten guineas. Later on he paid fifteen guineas for _The Vanity of Human Wishes_, and he was one of the publishers who bought _Rasselas_. Johnson alludes to him affectionately as “Doddy my patron,” and says “Dodsley first mentioned to me the scheme of an English Dictionary.” To Dodsley’s enterprise the _Annual Register_, which is continued to this day, owed its origin. This is not the place to give a full list of his works, but mention must not be omitted of his two plays, _The King and the Miller of Mansfield_, and _Sir John Cockle at Court_, which show shrewd observation of men and affairs. Dodsley’s character seems to have been very agreeable and estimable. He is described by Boswell as “worthy, modest, and ingenious,” and we have it on the testimony of Johnson and Walpole that he had the manly merit of not being ashamed to recall “the limits of his narrower fate.” He honoured the memory of his friend Shenstone the poet by publishing an edition in two volumes of his works, both prose and verse.

_Photo: Mr Emery Walker._

ROBERT DODSLEY.

_By kind permission of_ YATES THOMPSON, Esq.]

One or two quotations must serve to illustrate his manner of thought and diction. In the _Miller of Mansfield_ he says: “Why we are all of us lost in the dark every day of our lives, knaves keep us in the dark by their cunning, and fools by their ignorance. Divines lose us in dark mysteries, lawyers in dark cases, and statesmen in dark intrigues. Nay, the light of reason, which we so much boast of, what is it but a dark lanthorn, which just serves to prevent us from running our nose against a post perhaps, but is no more able to lead us out of the dark mists of error and ignorance, in which we are lost, than an ignis fatuus would be to conduct us out of this wood.”

In the same play the countryman describes London:--

“O! ’tis a fine place! I have seen large houses with small
hospitality, great men do little actions, and fine ladies do
nothing at all. I have seen the honest lawyers of Westminster,
and the virtuous inhabitants of Change Alley; the politic madmen
of coffee-houses, and the wise statesmen of Bedlam. I have seen
merry tragedies, and sad comedies; devotion at an opera, and
mirth at a sermon; I have seen fine clothes at St. James’s,
and long bills at Ludgate Hill. I have seen poor grandeur and
rich poverty; high honours and low flattery; great pride and no
merit. In short, I have seen a fool with a title, a knave with a
pension, and an honest man with a thread-bare coat.”

He wrote several songs, one of the best known of which is “The Parting Kiss.”

Dodsley sat for his portrait to Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1760. From the interesting life of Dodsley, recently written by Mr. Ralph Straus, it is abundantly clear that the bookseller was a remarkable and very worthy man, and that English literature is greatly indebted to him in many ways. It is indeed a cause for surprise that his life has not been more fully written before. He not only had a keen discernment of the literary merit of work submitted to his judgment, but he had an equally keen discernment of what the public taste required at the moment. He therefore very seldom failed in his publishing ventures. He had also a high conception of the dignity of literature, and of his responsibility as author and publisher. His conduct in respect of his partnership in the _London Chronicle_ is deserving of the highest praise, and his letter announcing his intention of relinquishing his share in that periodical is worthy, for its manly sincerity and straightforwardness, to be compared with the famous letter of Dr. Johnson to Lord Chesterfield. Says Dodsley: “However, as I am but a single person, I desire you will take the sense of the Partners on all I have said, only assuring you that if the Paper cannot be carried on without giving any of these cause of offence, I shall desire to dispose of my share, being determined not to sacrifice my character to other people’s indiscretions, nor to any lucrative consideration whatsoever.” From the few private letters given in Mr. Straus’s book, we get a pleasing glimpse of his good nature and humour in the relations of ordinary family life, and can quite easily understand that he was popular and much esteemed by his friends. Shenstone said of him, “Of his simplicity, benevolence, humanity, and true politeness, I have had repeated and particular experience.” Though Dodsley had not the advantage of a good early education, yet, in the words of Mr. Straus, “a long life spent in the society of literary and artistic people, and much reading, had educated him more surely than a five years’ course at one of the universities might have done. The education that comes to the man in love with life is of far more importance than the forced, if polite, education that is given to the boy.” With the exception of his early want of opportunity, his life was singularly full and complete.

ERASMUS DARWIN [1731–1802], the bearer of a name which his illustrious grandson has made for ever famous in the history of scientific speculation, was himself a man of distinction, “the worthy grandfather of a far more eminent contributor to human knowledge.” He was born at Elston, near Newark, educated at Chesterfield and St. John’s College, Cambridge, and finished his medical education at Edinburgh. He practised in Lichfield and at Derby. His book, _The Botanic Garden_, appeared in 1781, and consists of two parts, the “Economy of Vegetation,” and “Loves of the Plants.” His work is full of classical allusions, and he may be looked upon as one of the last exponents of the classical tradition in English verse. As Ovid, in his _Metamorphoses_, had set forth the change of human beings into plants and animals, Darwin, reversing the process, undertook to “restore some of them to their original animality, after having remained prisoners so long in their vegetable mansions.” In other words, he personified and allegorised the forms and natural properties of plants. The effects, for instance, of a decoction of laurel or Laura, are represented in a figure of Nightmare.

One quotation from his lengthy poems must suffice:--

“Press’d by the ponderous air the Piston falls
Resistless, sliding through its iron walls;
Quick moves the balanced beam, of giant birth,
Wields his large limbs, and nodding shakes the earth ...
Soon shall thy arm, Unconquered Steam! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying chariot through the fields of air.
Fair crews triumphant, leaning from above,
Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move,
Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd,
And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud.”

Mention should also be made of his _Song to May_.

The close of the eighteenth century brings us to the age of Byron and Kirke White, who were born within a year or two of each other.

GEORGE GORDON NOEL, LORD BYRON [1788–1824] is a man whose life and writings are so well known to educated Englishmen, and have been the theme of so much criticism and controversy, that it seems superfluous to set down many details in this short notice. He was born in London, educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, at Harrow, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He lived some time at the family home of Newstead, and after a life of much dissipation, disappointment, and varied travel, he died at Missolonghi, in Greece, while rendering chivalrous help to the Greeks in their struggle to recover what they had lost--the freedom which their forefathers had been able to preserve against seemingly overwhelming odds so many centuries before. It was fitting that his life should end in a country and amid a people for whose scenery and history he had so great an affection.

It cannot be said that he has been enthusiastically honoured in his own county. At Nottingham there is now a fine bronze bust of him at the entrance to the Castle Art Museum; but otherwise there is no conspicuous memorial, such as a statue or public building, to perpetuate openly his fame. Yet by the quality and boldness of his thought and the splendour of his diction he stands in the front rank of our national poets; and his genius is recognised and acclaimed far beyond the limits of his own island and Europe.

For this neglect he has perhaps mainly himself to blame. The irregularities of his life, and his disregard of conventional morality, so offended soberer minds and puritan instincts that the imperfections of his character have been allowed by many to overshadow the greatness of his poetic achievement. This is a pity. Where shall we find a finer poem than _Childe Harold_, impressive alike by the truth and beauty of its descriptions and the pathos of its reflexions?

Byron’s excesses and eccentricities were a not unnatural consequence from his ancestry and bringing up. His was a nature that needed from the very first wise guidance and discipline if it was to be nurtured to self-control and regulated usefulness. Such discipline he seems not to have had. Of his ancestry and inherited characteristics it is well said in _English Men of Letters_: “Burns had only the fire of his race: the same is true of Byron, whose genius, in some respects less genuine, was indefinitely and inevitably wider. His intensely susceptible nature took a dye from every scene, city, and society through which he passed; but to the last he bore with him the marks of a descendant of the sea-kings, and of the mad Gordons in whose domains he had first learned to listen to the sound of the two ‘mighty voices’ that haunted and inspired him through life.” He loved “the mountain’s shaggy side and sought the rocks where billows roll.” This love is connected with his passion for liberty. It will be remembered that he pleaded the cause in Parliament of the Luddite frame-breakers. It is dangerous to argue, in the case of a great poet or novelist, from their works to their personality. By their imagination they can realise adequately situations and characters of which they may have had no personal experience. Like the skilled anatomist they can construct the whole from a small part. Still it is possible that the gloom and self-abandonment and vivid pictures of remorse which we find in parts of Byron, may have been partly due to a remorseful feeling he was too proud to own except indirectly. Scott says:--

“High minds of native pride and force
Most deeply feel thy pangs, Remorse.
Fear for their scourge mean villains have:
Thou art the torturer of the brave.”

Byron also says:--

“Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern
Mask hearts where grief hath little left to learn;
And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost,
In smiles that least befit who wear them most.”

“None are all evil,” and whatever Byron’s faults may have been and their cause, the fact remains that he has enriched his country’s literature with noble poetry, and invested the ancestral home of Newstead with undying fame. He was not afraid that he would be forgotten:--

“But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:
My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,
And my frame perish even in conquering pain;
But there is that within me which shall tire
Torture and time, and breathe when I expire.”

Pollok’s estimate of his powers, given in _The Course of Time_, not inadequately sums up his wayward genius:--

“All passions of all men,
The wild and tame, the gentle and severe;
All thoughts, all maxims, sacred and profane;
All creeds, all seasons, Time, Eternity;
All that was hated, and all that was dear;
All that was hoped, all that was feared by man,
He tossed about, as tempest-withered leaves,
Then smiling, looked upon the wreck he made.
With terror now he froze the cowering blood,
And now dissolved the heart in tenderness:
Yet would not tremble, would not weep himself;
But back into his soul retired, alone,
Dark, sullen, proud, gazing contemptuously
On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet.”

In a paper written for a book on Nottinghamshire, it is not inappropriate to add that plates to illustrate Murray’s edition of _Childe Harold_ were taken from sketches supplied by Sir Charles Fellows, the Lycian traveller, and a member of a well-known Nottingham family.

After Byron we may take HENRY KIRKE (or KIRK) WHITE [1785–1806], the son of a butcher, afterwards articled to a firm of solicitors, and for the last year of his short life a student at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He fell a victim to consumption, aggravated, it is thought, if not actually brought on, by premature and excessive devotion to his studies. Hence Byron’s beautiful and pathetic lines on him:--

“Unhappy White! while life was in its spring,
And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing,
The spoiler came; and all thy promise fair
Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there.”

In one of his letters White says of himself: “My mind is of a very peculiar cast. I began to think too early; and the indulgence of certain trains of thought, and too free an exercise of the imagination, have superinduced a morbid kind of sensibility; which is to the mind what excessive irritability is to the body.” Gray’s lines are particularly applicable to White:--

“Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.”

Matthew Arnold remarks that “much good poetry is profoundly melancholy,” that condition of mind being natural to a sensitive and poetic temperament in contact with the difficulties and disappointments of life. “The eternal note of sadness” strikes too keenly on such a mind in view of the “turbid ebb and flow of human misery.”

But White’s melancholy is often due mainly to the depression of illness. This makes all the more admirable the spirit of resignation with which he faced his end:--

“God of the Just, Thou gavest the bitter cup;
I bow to Thy behest, and drink it up.”

Speculations upon the “might have been” of a writer dying long before his prime are a somewhat useless exercise of the imagination, and it is impossible to say what White would have produced had his mind been filled, expanded, and matured by more reading, by travel and experience.

Keats, with whom White was “equalled in fate,” if not in renown, has left us an example of what genius can accomplish in even a short span of years; but his life was prolonged some four years longer than White’s, a not inconsiderable period in the years of growth, and he was happier in his early opportunities. White was barely past the time of imitative work, and shows many traces of the influence of Milton and Gray. He has, however, left enough to show that he was not a mere writer of pretty verse, but was capable of conceiving and sustaining a higher flight. His _Clifton Grove_, and _Christiad_ fragment will illustrate this statement. And he will always have a charm for Nottingham readers, because his inspiration, when not religious, was mainly derived from the sights and sounds and association of his own country side; he was a home-bred poet.

A poem “To an early primrose,” written, he says, at the age of thirteen, seems a natural outcome of his feelings and circumstances. The flower--

“Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire!
Whose modest form, so delicately fine,
Was nurs’d in whirling storms,
And cradled in the winds,”

is taken as symbolical of virtue hardened by “chill adversity.”

When his age and circumstances are duly considered, the extent and maturity of his production fully entitle White to be called a genius. His letters are well worth reading for their sound sense, and for the light they throw on his thoughtful regard for the best interests of his family.

The first half of the nineteenth century was remarkable for its output of local writings. In Wylie’s _Old and New Nottingham_, to which this paper is much indebted for information and suggestions, it is said: “Fifteen years ago, _i.e._ in 1838, Nottingham was the residence of a more brilliant literary circle than was probably ever drawn together in a town of the like extent.” Perhaps Norwich may be fitly compared with it in this respect, and it is singular that the migration thence of several families established what was in literary matters perhaps partially causal, a connexion between the two cities.

This literary activity need cause no great surprise. Men were living “mid the stir of the forces whence issued” the modern world. The French Revolution, the rise and fall of Napoleon, the struggle for religious and political emancipation, scientific discoveries and inventions, the diffusion of cheap literature, were all having their effect upon the more thoughtful minds of the time. And there was less distraction of amusement and multitudinous publication. Men had to be content with fewer books; they made them, however, their own by study and quiet reflexion; life was less diffuse and “scrappy.” It is evident from the history of many of the writers that the literary life of Nottingham was much helped and stimulated by such papers as _Dearden’s Miscellany_, _Sutton’s Review_, and the _Nottingham Journal_, to the pages of which many fugitive pieces were contributed, as well as others which have survived in book form. Not much of the verse is of the type usually known as religious, though some of the writers handle religious topics. The ordinary religious poem is not difficult to write, dealing as it does with a stock-in-trade of emotions common to the race handed down through the ages, and to a large extent realized in each man’s personal experience, having besides a form of expression of the finest kind familiar to every Englishman from childhood. But to adapt by strenuous thought and long reflexion the old faith to new conditions, to state its eternal verities in terms of fresh science and advancing ideas is another and a more difficult matter; and such adaptation is what several of our local writers have attempted after the manner of Clough and Matthew Arnold.

A remarkable thing about many of the writers is the largeness of their conceptions, the ambitious scale on which they essayed to write. Another noteworthy fact is that many of them were of humble origin, and did their literary work in circumstances which might well have smothered their nascent aspirations. Millhouse, Ragg, and Miller are all examples of this pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. They “broke their birth’s invidious bar,” and of them may be truly said what Millhouse said of Richard Booker--

“In yonder humble grave there lies a Man.”

Chief of these nineteenth-century poets is Bailey, the son of Thomas Bailey [1785–1856], who was himself an industrious writer and journalist. Besides poems Thomas Bailey wrote the _Annals of Nottinghamshire_. Among his poems are _Ireton_, dedicated to Lord John Russell; the _Carnival of Death_; _What is Life?_ In business he was first in the stocking-trade, and afterwards a wine merchant.

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY [1816–1902], the author of _Festus_, was fortunate in having a father whose literary interests enabled and induced him to sympathize with the poetic aspirations of his son, and the poem is very appropriately dedicated by the son to the father:--

“My Father! unto thee to whom I owe
All that I am, all that I have and can;
Who madest me in thyself the sum of man
In all his generous aims and powers to know,
These first fruits bring I.”

Bailey studied for the bar, and was called, but did not practise. His education at the University of Glasgow was perhaps a better training for his future career than residence at the old English universities might have been; it was wider and less purely classical. He is remarkable for having deliberately resolved to be a poet, for having prepared himself most scrupulously to rise to “the height of his great argument,” and for having refused to court popularity by following a lower aim in his verse. Such a work as _Festus_ can not be popular; it is too long and difficult for that. It does not lend itself readily to quotation, but must be read and studied as a whole. The lines most commonly cited from it are these:--

“Life’s more than breath and the quick round of blood:
It is a great spirit and a busy heart,
The coward and small in soul scarce live.
One generous feeling; one great thought; one deed
Of good, ere night, would make life longer seem
Than if each year might number a thousand days,
Spent as is this by nations of mankind.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most; feels the noblest; acts the best.
And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest,
Lives in one hour more than in years do some
Whose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their veins.
Life is but a means unto an end; that end,
Beginning, mean and end to all things--God.”

_By kind permission of_ MISS CAREY.]

We may note also for its quiet humour--

“He sleeps! The fate of many a gracious moral
This to be stranded on a drowsy ear;”

and this, as indicating Bailey’s aim as a writer--

“Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear
Glean after what it can. The voice of great
Or graceful thoughts is sweeter far than all
Word-music; and great thoughts, like great deeds, need
No trumpet. Never be in haste in writing.
Let that thou utterest be of nature’s flow,
Not Art’s; a fountain’s, not a pump’s.”

Bailey’s work has hitherto been more appreciated in America than in England. On the death of Tennyson, in 1892, it was suggested that he should be made Poet Laureate; and he was one of the distinguished men on whom the University of Glasgow conferred an honorary degree at its Jubilee Celebration in 1901.

In 1901 Mr. James Ward, of Nottingham, published a pamphlet entitled _Recollections of Philip James Bailey_, in which was published for the first time a poem called “Liberty, a Poetical Protocol,” which begins:--

“Time was when Liberty came down
From the high seat
Where, by God’s feet,
With Law, she claims one same and sacred crown;
And to the dominant nations of the earth,
Massed in the West,
Where most her votaries dwell, who own her worth,
And love her best
These words addressed:--”

Of criticism _Festus_ has had plenty. Tennyson said, “I can scarcely trust myself to say how much I admire it, for fear of falling into extravagance.” Gilfillan says “Shelley’s _Prometheus_ is the argument of _Faust_ extended from man the individual to man the species; while _Festus_ is the argument of Job applied in the like manner to the whole human family; _Festus_ is to the one as Job to the other, a type of the fall and recovery of all men. The scene of Faust and Prometheus is on earth; that of Job and of Festus is (essentially) in eternity.”

LUKE BOOKER [1762–1835] and THOMAS RAGG [1808–1881] may be mentioned together with Spencer T. Hall as friends and helpers of the weaver poet, Robert Millhouse [1788–1839], whom they assisted by writing on his behalf and in other ways.

Booker was vicar of Dudley, and besides his poems (“Sacred, Moral, and Entertaining”), wrote a didactic poem called _The Hop Garden_, and a Descriptive and Historical Account of Dudley Castle; this was published in 1825, and is described as “a good piece of work.”

Ragg, after being in his father’s printing office and then apprentice to a hosier, became a bookseller’s assistant, and finally, having attracted by his Christian apologetics the attention of some Church dignitaries, took orders. He died vicar of Lawley, in Shropshire. Among those interested in him were James Montgomery, Isaac Taylor, and Robert Southey. His poem, _The Deity_, in twelve books, appeared in 1834, and was called in the _Times_ “a very remarkable production.” In 1855 he produced _Creation’s Testimony to its God, the Accordance of Science, Philosophy and Revelation_. Ragg has been termed “the adopted poet of the Evangelic Muse.”

SPENCER TIMOTHY HALL [1812–1885], “the Sherwood Forester,” had a remarkable history, and was--

“A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all the world’s epitome.”

He said of himself that he “could dig, plough, reap, stack, thresh, and winnow, make a stocking and a shoe, write a book and print and bind it, or give a lecture, or take stock of a man’s body and mind and furnish him with an inventory of the same!” He gave exhibitions of mesmerism, helped to edit a newspaper, was once a postmaster, was secretary to the Society for Abolishing Capital Punishment, and a poet to crown it all!

In his steady determined struggle upwards from obscurity and uncongenial occupations to literary recognition and success he resembled his great exemplar Benjamin Franklin, and his versatility recalls his fellow-townsman Samuel Parrott the painter, whose boast it was that he could do three things well--build a tall factory chimney, play the violin, and paint an Academy picture. Among Hall’s writings were, _The Forester’s Offering_, _The Upland Hamlet, and other Poems_, and _The Peak and the Plain_. He was born at Sutton-in-Ashfield, and died at Blackpool. His epitaph on Robert Millhouse will bear quoting again:--

“When Trent shall flow no more, and Blossoms fail
On Sherwood’s plains to scent the spring tide gale,
When the Lark’s lay shall lack its thrilling charm,
And song forget the Patriot’s soul to warm--
When Love o’er youthful hearts hath lost all sway;
His fame may pass, but not till then away:
For Nature taught, and Freedom fired his Rhyme,
And Virtue dedicated it to Time.”

WILLIAM HOWITT [1792–1879], MARY HOWITT [1799–1888], and RICHARD HOWITT [1799–1869] were a remarkable trio, who among them produced a considerable amount of work of various kinds.

It seems unnecessary to say much in detail of William and Mary Howitt. What child is not familiar with _The Spider and the Fly_ and _The Ant and the Cricket_? They published together in 1821 the _Forest Minstrel_, and in their literary activity they were as indefatigable as Southey. Among William’s works were _Homes and Haunts of British Poets_, the _Ruined Abbeys and Castles of Great Britain_, a _Popular History of England_, and a _History of Priestcraft_, the last of which dragged the writer into politics as an advocate of popular liberty, and caused him to be made an alderman of Nottingham. Mary Howitt dedicated her _Ballads and other Poems_, published in 1847, to “My best counsellor and teacher, my literary associate for a quarter of a century, my husband and my friend.” In the light of this dedication the bronze plaque at the Nottingham Castle Museum is invested with peculiar interest. On it husband and wife are represented as poring together over the pages of an open book, and there is a moving pathetic tenderness in the artist’s work. Mary Howitt’s reception at the close of her life into the Church of Rome suggests that she had been “voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.”