Volume I Part 1 (1/2)
Traditions of Lancas.h.i.+re.
Volume 1.
by John Roby.
PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION.
Roby's ”TRADITIONS OF LANCAs.h.i.+RE” having long been out of print--stray copies commanding high prices--it has been determined to republish the whole in a more compact and less costly form. This, the fourth and the _only complete edition_, includes the _First_ Series of twenty tales, published in two volumes (1829, demy 8vo, 2, 2s.; royal 8vo, with proofs and etchings, 4, 4s.); the _Second_ Series, also of twenty tales, in two volumes (1831, 8vo, 2, 2s., &c.); and three additional stories from his _Legendary and Poetical Remains_, first published after his death (1854, post 8vo, 10s. 6d.)[1] In the two volumes now presented the reader will possess not only the whole of the contents of both series, in four volumes, at one-fourth of the price of the original publication, but also three additional stories from the posthumous volume, with a memoir, a portrait, &c.
From deference to a strongly-expressed feeling that the work should be printed without any abridgment, omission, or alteration, and the text preserved in its full integrity, it has been decided to reprint it entire; and consequently various inaccuracies in the original editions have been left untouched. Two or three of the most important may be corrected here.
In the tale of ”The Dead Man's Hand,” Mr Roby seems to have been led by false information into some errors reflecting on the character and memory of a devout and devoted Roman Catholic priest, known as Father Arrowsmith. Mr Roby states that he was executed at Lancaster ”in the reign of William III.;” that ”when about to suffer he desired his right hand might be cut off, a.s.suring the bystanders that it would have power to work miraculous cures on those who had faith to believe in its efficacy,” and, denying that Father Arrowsmith suffered on account of religion, Mr Roby adds that ”having been found guilty of a misdemeanour, in all probability this story of his martyrdom and miraculous attestation to the truth of the cause for which he suffered, was contrived for the purpose of preventing any scandal that might have come upon the Church through the delinquency of an unworthy member.”
What, then, are the facts, as far as they have been investigated? The Father Edmund Arrowsmith who suffered death at Lancaster was born at Haydock in Lancas.h.i.+re[2] in 1585, and he suffered death in August 1628 (4th Charles I.), sixty years before William III. ascended the English throne. The mode of execution was not that of capital punishment for the offence committed, but rather that imposed by the laws for treason and for exercising the functions of a Roman Catholic priest. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered, and his head and quarters were fixed upon poles on Lancaster Castle. It was in this dismemberment that the hand became separated, and it was secretly carried away by some sorrowing member of his communion, and its supposed curative power was afterwards discovered and made known.[3] Mr Roby cites no authority for this contradiction of the original tradition. The judge who presided at the trial was Sir Henry Yelverton of the Common Pleas, who died on the 24th January 1629.
In the Tradition of ”The Dule upo' Dun,” Mr Roby states that a public-house having that sign stood at the entrance of a small village on the right of the highway to Gisburn, and barely three miles from c.l.i.theroe. When Mr Roby wrote the public-house had been long pulled down; it had ceased to be an inn at a period beyond living memory; though the ancient house, converted into two mean, thatched cottages, stood until about forty years ago. But the site of the house is in c.l.i.theroe itself, little more than half a mile from the centre of the town, and on the road, not to Gisburn, but to Waddington.[4]
It only remains to add that the ill.u.s.trations to the present edition comprise not only all the beautiful plates (engraved by Edward Finden, from drawings by George Pickering) of the original edition, which have been much admired as picturesque works of art, but also all the wood-engravings (by Williams, after designs by Frank Howard) which have appeared in any former edition, and which const.i.tuted the sole embellishments of the three-volume editions. To these is now first added the fine portrait of Mr Roby from the posthumous volume.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The First Series includes all the Traditions beginning with ”Sir Tarquin” and ending with ”The Haunted Manor-House;” the Second Series comprises all the Tales from ”c.l.i.theroe Castle” to ”Rivington Pike,”
both included; and the three Tales now first incorporated are--”Mother Red-Cap, or the Rosicrucians;” ”The Death Painter, or the Skeleton's Bride;” and ”The Crystal Goblet.”
[2] His mother was a daughter of the old Lancas.h.i.+re family of Gerard of Bryn.
[3] These dates and facts will be found in the _Missionary Priests_ of Bishop Challoner, who wrote about 1740 (2 vols. 8vo., Manchester, 1741-2), naming as his authority a ma.n.u.script history of the trial, and a printed account of it published in 1629. His statements are confirmed by independent testimony. See Henry More's _Historia-Provinciae Anglicaae Societatis Jesu_, book x. (sm. fol. St Omer's, 1660). Also Tanner's _Societas Jesu_, &c., p. 99 (sm. fol. Prague, 1675). Neither Challoner nor the MS. account, nor either of the authors just quoted, says one word of Father Arrowsmith's alleged speech about the hand.
[4] See Mr Wm. Dobson's _Rambles by the Ribble_, 1st Series, p. 137.
MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.[5]
The late John Roby was born at Wigan on the 5th January 1793. From his father, Nehemiah Roby, who was for many years Master of the Grammar-School at Haigh, near Wigan, he inherited a good const.i.tution and unbended principles of honour and integrity. From the family of his mother, Mary Aspall, he derived the quick, impressible temperament of genius, and the love of humour which so conspicuously marks the Lancas.h.i.+re character. He was the youngest child. His thirst for knowledge was early and strongly manifested. Being once told in childhood not to be so inquisitive, his appeal ever after was, ”_Inquisitive_ wants to know.” As he grew up into boyhood, surrounded by objects to which tradition had a.s.signed her marvellous stories, they sank silently but indelibly into his mind. In his immediate vicinity were Haigh Hall and Mab's Cross, the scenes of Lady Mabel's sufferings and penance--the subject of one of his earliest tales. Almost within sight of the windows lay the fine range of hills of which Rivington Pike is a spur. In after-life he recalled with pleasure the many sports in that district which were the haunts of his early days, and the scenes of the legends he afterwards embodied. While yet a child he regularly took the organ in a chapel at Wigan during the Sunday service. He also early excelled in drawing, and after he had commenced the avocations of a banker the use of the pencil was a favourite recreation. His first prose composition, at the age of fifteen years, took a prize in a periodical for the best essay on a prescribed subject, by young persons under a specified age. Thus encouraged, poetry, essay, tale, were all tried, and with success. In his eighteenth or nineteenth year he received a silver snuff-box, inscribed, ”The gift of the Philosophic Society, Wigan, to their esteemed lecturer and worthy member.”
Mr Roby first appeared before the public as a poet; publis.h.i.+ng in 1815, ”Sir Bertram, a poem in six cantos.” Another poem quickly followed, ent.i.tled ”Lorenzo, a tale of Redemption.” In 1816, he married Ann, the youngest daughter of James and Dorothy Bealey, of Derrikens, near Blackburn, by whom he had nine children, three of whom died in their infancy. His next publication was ”The Duke of Mantua,” a tragedy, which appeared in 1823, pa.s.sed through three or four editions in a short time, and after being long out of print, was included in the posthumous volume of _Legendary Remains_. In the summer of that year he made an excursion in Scotland, visiting ”the bonnie braes o' Yarrow” in company with James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. The literary leisure of the next six years was occupied in collecting materials for the _Traditions of Lancas.h.i.+re_, and in weaving these into tales of romantic interest. In this task he received the most courteous a.s.sistance from several representatives of n.o.ble houses connected with the traditions of the county; particularly from the late Earl and Countess of Crawford and Balcarres, and also from the late Earl of Derby.
The _first_ series of _The Traditions of Lancas.h.i.+re_ appeared in 1829, in two volumes (including twenty tales), ill.u.s.trated by plates. The reception of the work equalled Mr Roby's most sanguine expectations; and a second edition was called for within twelve months. The late Sir Francis Palgrave, in a letter to Mr Roby, dated 26th October 1829, thus estimates the work:--
”As compositions, the extreme beauty of your style, and the skill which you have shown in working up the rude materials, must ent.i.tle them to the highest rank in the cla.s.s of work to which they belong.... You have made such a valuable addition, not only to English literature, but to English topography, by your collection--for these popular traditions form, or ought to form, an important feature in topographical history--that it is to be hoped you will not stop with the present volumes.”
The _second_ series of the ”Traditions,” consisting also of two volumes (including twenty tales), uniform with the first, was published in 1831, and met with similar success. Both series were reviewed in the most cordial manner by the leading periodicals of the day; while they were more than once quoted by Sir Walter Scott, who characterised the whole as an elegant work. In the production of these tales, Mr Roby's practice was to make himself master of the historical groundwork of the story, and as far as possible of the manners and customs of the period, and then to commence composition, with Fosbroke's _Encyclopedia of Antiquities_ at hand, for accuracy of costume, &c. He always gave the credit of his style, which the _Westminster Review_ termed ”a very model of good Saxon,” to his native county, the force and energy of whose dialect arises mainly from the prevalence of the Teutonic element. ”The thought digs out the word,” was his favourite saying, when the exact expression he wanted did not at once occur. In these ”Traditions” his great creative power is conspicuous; about two hundred different characters are introduced, no one of which reminds the reader of another, while there is abundant diversity of both heroic and comic incident and adventure. A gentleman, after reading the ”Traditions,”
remarked that for invention he scarcely knew Mr Roby's equal. All these characters, it should be stated, are creations: not one is an idealised portrait. The short vivid descriptions of scenery scattered throughout are admirable. Each tale is, in fact, a cabinet picture, combining history and romance with landscape. Mr Roby excelled in depicting the supernatural; and one German reviewer declared his story of Rivington Pike to be ”the only authentic tale of demoniacal possession the English have.”