Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land

WALKS

IN THE

BLACK
COUNTRY

GREEN

BORDER

LAND

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

WA L KS

IN THE BLACK COUNTRY
AND ITS GREEN BORDER-LAND.

LICHriKLL) CATIItl'KAI..

WALKS

IN

THE BLACK COUNTRY

ITS GREEN BORDER-LAND.

BY

ELIHU BURRITT, M.A.

LONDON:

SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND MARSTON,

CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.

1868.

[RIGHT or TRANSLATION RISERVED.]

Printed by JosiAH Ai-LEN, jun., Birmingham.

PREFA CE.

A FEW words may be expected from
the author of this volume to explain
the reasons of its appearance. A very
few will suffice for this object. It is a part of
the duty of American Consuls and Consular
Agents abroad to prefix or append to their
reports of the trade of their respective districts
with the United States other facts bearing upon
the productive capacities, industrial character,
and natural resources of the communities em-
braced in their consulates. These annual reports
are published by the Department of State at
Washington, and constitute a volume of con-
siderable value and interest. In preparing such
a. report for the Birmingham Consulate, including
the Black Country, the author found that it
would be impossible to give any approximate
idea of the resources and industries of that
remarkable district in the space of a few pages

629901

iv Preface.

appended to the statistics of its exportations
to the United States. On closing his brief
abstract at the end of 1866, he therefore proposed
and promised to present to the Department at
Washington, in the course of the ensuing year,
a fuller account of the section included in his
consulate. This volume, entitled "Walks in the
Black Country and its Green Border -Land," is
the fulfilment of that promise and undertaking.
In order to make it more readable to those not
immediately interested in the elements and indus-
tries of Manufactures, Trade, and Commerce, he
has introduced somewhat lengthened and detailed
notices of natural sceneries, public buildings and
characters, and historical facts, incidents, and
associations belonging to the section. With such
abundant and varied material, several volumes
of equal size might have been filled ; but the
author hopes this will serve to give distant readers
a bird's-eye view of the district of which it treats,
and, perhaps, present a few points and aspects
of interest which some persons residing within
it may have overlooked.

Birmingham, April 15, 1868.

CONTENTS,

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY .........

CHAPTER II.
Birmingham : its Name, Position, Political History and Men

CHAPTER III.

The Birmingham Men of Science — Inventors — Pioneers in
the Mechanic Arts — Baskerville, Watt, Boulton, Cox, etc.

CHAPTER IV.

Birmingham Reformers and Artists — Rowland Hill and the
Penny Post — David Cox and his Paintings -

CHAPTER V.

Distinguished Men of Christian Faith and Philanthropy —
Joseph Sturge and Rev. John Angell James

CHAPTER VI.

Institutions and Public Buildings and Public Spirit of Bir-
mingham — King Edward's School — The Town Hall —
Hospitals, Churches, and Chapels -

CHAPTER VII.

Rise, Progress, and Characteristics of Mechanical and Manu-
facturing Industry in Birmingham — Brief Notice of
Leading Branches and Establishments

CHAPTER VIII.

The Black Country in detail ; its Chief Towns and Centres of
Industry — Dudley, Stourbridge, and Hagley - -

PXOE

I

35

46

67

99

137

vi Contents.

CHAPTER IX.

PAGE

Visits to Iron Manufactories — The Brades Works, and their

Productions — The Wrekin — Willenhall - - - 173

CHAPTER X.

Brick-making — Halesowen — Nail Trade — Shenstone and The

Leasowes - - - 218

CHAPTER XI.

Visit to Tong Castle and Church — Boscobel and Charles's

Oak — Chances' Glass-Works - - 242

CHAPTER XII.

Enville Gardens: their Relation and Value to the Black
Country — Wolverhampton : its Historical Monuments and
Associations and its Leading Manufactures - - - 292

CHAPTER XIII.

The Lickey Hills — Redditch, and its Needle and Fish-hook
Manufactures — Smethwick, Oldbury, Westbromwich,
Wednesbury, Tipton, and Walsall, and their Industries —
Table of Exports of the Black Country to the United
States - - - 330

CHAPTER XIV.

Visit to a Baronial Hall— Wild Cattle of Chartley— Lichfield;
its Cathedral and Historical Associations — Coventry; its
History and Industries — Kenilworth and its Romantic
Reputation — Warwick Town and Castle — Leamington - 362

CHAPTER XV.

Stratford-upon-Avon and Shakespeare; his Fame, Past and

Prospective - 439

WALKS IN THE BLACK COUNTRY

AND

ITS GREEN BORDER-LAND.

CHAPTER I.

THE BLACK COUNTRY, black by day:
and red by night, cannot be matched,
for vast and varied production, by any
other space of equal radius on the surface of the
globe. It is a section of Titanic industry, kept in
murky perspiration by a sturdy set of Tubal Cains
and Vulcans, week in week out, and often seven
days to the week. Indeed the Sunday evening
halo it wears when the church bells are ringing
to service on winter nights, glows " redder than
the moon," or like the moon dissolved at its full
on the clouds above the roaring furnaces. It is
a little dual world of itself, only to be gauged
perpendicularly. The better half, it may be, faces
B

2 Walks in the Black Country

the sun ; but the richer half, averted thence, looks
by gaslight towards the central fires. If that sub-
terranean half could be for an hour inverted to
the sun ; if its inky vaults and tortuous pathways,
and all its black-roofed chambers could be but
once laid open to the light of day, the spectacle
would be a world's wonder, especially if it were
uncovered when all the thousands of the subter-
ranean road-makers, or the begrimed armies of
pickmen, were bending to their work. What a
neighing of the pit-horses would come up out of
those deep coal-craters at the sight and sense
of the sunlight ! What black and dripping forests
of timber would be disclosed, brought from all
the wild, wooded lands of Norway, Sweden, and
Canada, to prop up the rough vaults and sustain
the excavated acres undermined by the pick !
Such an unroofing of the smoky, palpitating region
would show how soon the subterranean detach-
ments of miners and counter-miners must meet,
and make a clean sweep of the lower half of that
mineral world. For a century or more they have
been working to this end ; and although the end
has not come yet, one cannot but think that it
must be reached ere long. Never was the cellar
of a district of equal size stored with richer or
more varied treasures. Never a gold-field on the
face of the earth, of ten miles radius, produced
such vast values as these subterranean acres have

and its Green Border -Land. 3

done. To be sure, the nuggets they have yielded
to the pick have been black and rough, and
blackened and rough men have sent them to the
surface. And when they were landed by the
noisy and uncouth machinery of the well and
windlass, they made no sensation in the men who
emptied the tubs, any more than if they were
baskets of potatoes. But they yielded gold as
bright and rich as ever was mined in Australia or
California.

Nature did for the ironmasters of the Black
Country all she could ; indeed, everything except
literally building the furnaces themselves. She
brought together all that was needed to set and
keep them in blast. The iron ore, coal, and
lime — the very lining of the furnaces — were all
deposited close at hand for the operation. Had
either two of these elements been dissevered, as
they are in some countries, the district would have
lost much of its mineral wealth in its utilization.
It is not a figure of speech but a geological fact,
that in some, if not all, parts of this remarkable
region, the coal and lime are packed together
in alternate layers in almost the very proportion
for the furnace requisite to give the proper flux
to the melted iron. Thus Nature has not only
put the requisite raw materials side by side,
but she has actually mixed them in right pro-
portions for use, and even supplied mechanical

4 Walks in tfie Black Country

suggestions for going to work to coin these de-
posits into a currency better than gold alone to
the country.

There are no statistics attainable to show the
yearly produce of this section, or the wealth it
has created. One would be inclined to believe,
on seeing the black forest of chimneys smoking
over large towns and villages as well as the
flayed spaces between, that all the coal and iron
mined in the district must be used in it. The
furnaces, foundries, and manufactories seem almost
countless ; and the vastness and variety of their
production infinite. Still, like an ever-flowing
river, running through a sandy region that drinks
in but part of its waters, there is a stream of
raw mineral wealth flowing without bar or break
through the absorbing district that produces it,
and watering distant counties of England. By
night and day, year in year out, century in and
century out, runs that stream with unabated flow.
Narrow canals filled with water as black as the
long sharp boats it floats, crossing each other here
and there in the thick of the furnaces, twist out
into the green lands in different directions, laden
with coal for distant cities and villages. The
railways, crossing the canals and their creeping
locomotion, dash off with vast loads to London
and other great centres of consumption. Tons
unnumbered of iron for distant manufactures go

and its Green Border- Land. 5

from the district in the same way. And all the
while, the furnaces roar and glow by night and
day, and the great steam hammers thunder, and
hammers from an ounce in weight to a ton, and
every kind of machinery invented by man, are
ringing, clicking, and whizzing as if tasked to
intercept all this raw material of the mines and
impress upon it all the labour and skill which
human hands could give to it.

Within this arrondissement of the industries and
ingenuities of nature and man, may be found in
remarkable juxta-position the best that either has
produced. Coal, iron, salt, lime, fire-brick, and
pottery clay are the raw materials that Nature
has put into the works as her share of the capital.
And man has brought his best working science,
skill, and labour to make the most and best of
this capital. If the district could be gauged, like
a hogshead of sugar, from east to west, or by
some implement that would bring out and disclose
to view a sample of each mile's production, the
variety would be a marvel of ingenuity and labour.
That is, if you gauged frame and all ; for The
Black Country is beautifully framed by a Green
Border-Land ; and that border is rich and redo-
lent with two beautiful wealths — the sweet life of
Nature's happiest springs and summers, and the
hive and romance of England's happiest industries.
Plant, in imagination, one foot of your compass

6 Walks in the Black Country

at the Town Hall in Birmingham, and with the
other sweep a circle of twenty miles radius, and
you will have "The Black Country," with all its
industries, in a green velvet binding inwrought
or tapestried with historical scenes and early
playgrounds of brilliant imagination and poetical
fiction. Just pass the gauging-rod of mechanical
enterprise through the volume from Coventry to
Kidderminster, and see what specimens of handi-
craft it will bring out and show, like a string of
beads of infinite variety of tinting and texture.
See what wares intervene between the two oppo-
site extremities — between the ribbons of Coventry
and the carpets of Kidderminster ; or between
the salt bars of Droitwich and the iron bars of
Wolverhampton. Then let the history-miner run
his rod through and see what gems he will bring
out between Lichfield Cathedral and Baxter's
Church at Kidderminster, or between Stratford-
on-Avon and Kenilworth or Warwick Castle. Let
him notice what manner of men have lived within
this circuit, and what manner of mark their lives
and thoughts made upon it and upon the wide
circumference of the world. Then let him travel
from rim to rim of the district, and study its
physical conformation and its natural sceneries,
and he will recognize their symmetry with the
histories and industries with which it teems.
Walking and looking in these different directions,

and its Green Border- Land. 7

with an eye upon these different facts and features,
I hope to see and note something which shall
enable readers who are not familiarly acquainted
with the district to get a better idea of its
character than they had before acquired.

CHAPTER II.

BIRMINGHAM : ITS NAME, POSITION, POLITICAL HISTORY, AND
MEN.

BIRMINGHAM is the capital, manufacturing
centre, and growth of the The Black
Country. Every acre of the district has
given it rootage and riches ; and in every way
it represents, measures, and honours the mineral
and mental production of this velvet-bound area
of fire and smoke. The antiquities of the town
are rather dubious and obscure. Of course its
physical site is as old as any part of the island.
So much may be conceded to the zealous anti-
quarian who is eager to make the most of its
history. Some have gone so far as to argue or
believe that the lineage of its iron and copper
workers runs back to Tubal Cain without a break,
and that they here made and sharpened pickaxes
and other tools for the Cornish tin-miners in the
days of the Phoenician traders ; that here also
the scythes were made and bolted to the chariots

Walks in the Black Country 9

of the ancient Britons for cutting swaths through
the Roman infantry. The data are rather thin and
feeble for this theory ; but there may be good
basis of probability for it to rest upon. What-
ever tools of labour or weapons of war were made
of iron or copper by the ancient Britons they
might as well have been made at Birmingham and
vicinity as anywhere in the kingdom.

Those who affect this antiquity naturally ascribe
its name to a Briton or Roman origin, but it is
evidently made up of good, homely Saxon
syllables, each with its rural and domestic meaning.
Some one, it is said, has traced out over one
hundred variations in the spelling of the name, but
Hutton's idea is the most genial, Broom-wych-ham,
or "Broom-village-home." To make Birmingham
or Brummagem out of this pleasant Saxon appel-
lation would be as natural and easy as half
the transformations that mark the nomenclature
of English towns. There is a beautiful volume of
history and human character in that good old
Teutonic word, fieim, or ham. It never lost its
charm or power by expansion of meaning and
application. It kept both when it signified the
residence of a large community as well as the
birth-place or living-place of a single family.
How many heims and hams the different families of
the Teutonic race have planted in England and
all over Germany and Scandinavia ! No word in

io Walks in the Black Country

all the classic languages of the old world ever had
such living power as this Teutonic noun — /mm,
ham, or home. In all the history of the world not
another such a word can be found that has moved
the heart of so many millions. What a Jieim
England has become to more millions than peopled
the earth in Homer's day ! Go to the furthest
sheepcote in Australia, or woodcutter's cabin in
Canada, and the youngest child of the family, that
has read an English picture book, or has under-
stood its father's stories about the land of his
youth, will call England, home. Home-bound is a
term first used when the whole English-speaking
race in both hemispheres had but one centre, and
but one home in sentiment. Home-bound meant
then nothing more nor less than England- bound.

Birmingham, of course, is built on the same
historical strata as all other large towns in England.
As to the old British layer there is the usual thick-
ness of variegated conjecture. Then succeeds the
Roman, of which a few indices and relics have
been discovered. With the Saxon period a little
written history commences, and it is recorded that
the township was given to a family named Ulwine,
and afterwards Allen, but which, on taking pos-
session of the property, affected the old Norman
custom, and assumed the name of De Bermingham.
It is quite probable that this Saxon family changed
their name in this way at the conquest, in order to

and its Green Border-Land. 1 1

keep their property by pretending a Norman
descent or connexion. What it was in population
or occupation up to the time of Henry VII the
scant history of the period does not indicate. The
first credible account of it is given by rare old
Leland, who visited it in 1538. He says, "There
be many smithes in the towne that used to make
knives and all mannour of cuttinge tooles, and
many lorimers that make bittes, and a great many
naylors, &c." Thus it is quite probable that the
leading manufactures of Birmingham have dis-
tinguished it for at least 300 years. In Leland's
day it ranked among the small towns of the
kingdom. It was then built chiefly on one street,
only a quarter of a mile long, with one parish
church and a market. And yet the old traveller
seems to have been much impressed with the
character and capacity of the town. Since his
day, the one street " a quarter of a mile long," has
threaded out into streets that count up an aggre-
gate mileage of about 100 miles in length, while
the number of dwelling houses increases at the rate
of 4,000 per annum; and it is probable every month
adds to the population a greater number of
inhabitants than the town contained in 1538. Still,
for a long time after Leland's visit, the very locale
of the town was connected with others in the
vicinity better known. The memories of two or
three generations when linked together, can reach

12 Walks in t/te Black Country

the time when letters were directed to Birmingham,
near King's Norton, or, " near Wednesbury." It
must have been "The Black Country" that built
Birmingham, and supplied it with the raw material
of its manufactures 300 years ago ; so that these
wares indicate how far back this mineral district
was worked for coal and iron.

Birmingham, in its mechanical industries and
productions, has followed the fashions and customs
of the world very closely, and supplied every art
and occupation with all* the working tools and
appliances it needed. It has "worked to order"
without asking questions for conscience sake in
regard to the uses made of its articles of iron and
brass. It has made all kinds of cheap and showy
jewels for the noses and ears of African beaux
and belles, and stouter bracelets of iron for the
hands and feet of slaves driven in coffles to the
sea-board. In the same shops and on the same
benches, gilt and silver buckles were made by the
million for the shoes of the nobility and gentry
when Charles II came back to the throne and
brought with him the court fashions and morali-
ties of the continent. That was what archaeologists
would call the bronze period, when articles of brass
slightly gilt or washed with silver were in high
fashion in the upper ranks of society. Buckles
and metal buttons then began to compete with
iron wares in the business of the town ; and from

and its Green Border-Land. 13

that to the present day, the workers in brass have
steadily increased, until they now number about
10,000 persons employed in that department. But
the manufacture of firearms may be considered
to have been the great distinctive industry of the
town for more than 200 years. Up to the middle
of the seventeenth century London monopolized
the fabrication of these weapons of war, when
it was transferred to Birmingham. Indeed, its
skill and labour all the way back to the morning
twilight of written history have wrought upon the
scythes, sickles, and reaping hooks of war " for
home and exportation." On the battle grounds
of Hastings, Lewes, Evesham, Tewkesbury, and
Flodden Field, hundreds of these tools bearing
the Birmingham brand lay scattered about with
hacked edges or broken points. Perhaps thou-
sands of the tomahawks lifted by North American
Indians against " the pale faces " of New England
and Canada wore the same mark. And since
firearms superseded these weapons of hand-to-
hand fight, it is doubtful if a single battle has
taken place in the civilized or uncivilized world in
which muskets and rifles manufactured here have
not played their part in the work of slaughter.
Ill-natured persons of a suspicious turn of mind,
might infer or expect that the people of Birming-
ham would delight in foul weather and ill winds to
other communities, and would cry with Ephesian

14 Walks in the Black Country

zeal at the prospect of war — "Great is Mars!"
Although it is true that they have " an anchor to
the windward " in these storms that visit and deso-
late nations ; although it is true that if these
offences must come, they make a fortune if not a
virtue out of necessity ; still they have a larger
pecuniary interest in Peace than many are disposed
to believe. It is said, as one of the best axioms of
wisdom and experience, that Peace has its victories
as well as War : it also has its implements, tools,
and tactics for the winning of its victories ; and
this, its implemental machinery, is almost infinite
in extent and variety ; and Birmingham must have
£10 invested in its production where it has £i
in the direct service of war. Nor can it be said
that, in their manufacture of these weapons of
war, they have been indifferent to the cause in
which they have been used at home or abroad ; or
that they have always supplied them to a friend
or foe simply in reference to the best pay. In the
struggle between Charles and the Parliament they
sided with the people and furnished them with
arms, which they refused to the King's forces either
for love or money. Nor was this all : when Prince
Rupert appeared before the town at the head of
2,000 men, the inhabitants encountered him boldly
with their train-bands at Camp Hill, and fought
against him with their own muskets, though they
were worsted and the town punished for both its acts

and its Green Border-Land. 15

of resistance, in refusing the arms to the royal cause,
and in raising them against it. Birmingham, also,
has had a little political revolution of its own, which
produced a severe scrimmage between its domestic
parliamentarians and royalists. At the time of the
great upturning in France, " politics ran high," as
they say, in England. It stirred the fountains of
public sentiment to the very bottom, lees and all.
Had not the drops of blood that dripped from the
severed neck of Marie Antoinette drowned more
than half the fire of Eng4ish popular enthusiasm in
behalf of the French revolutionists, Napoleon and
Wellington might never have fought at Waterloo.
Birmingham was just the town to be moved intensely
by the great ground swell of the French revolution ;
but in this movement it was sharply divided against
itself. Two years after the taking of the Bastile,
the liberals of the town assembled at a dinner party
to commemorate that event or what it signified.
A counter demonstration was incited by this ex-
pression of sympathy with the French cause, and it
seemed to have been intensified by a religious
element. In the first place a wide and deep impres-
sion had been produced upon the public mind that
no one could favour that cause without sympathizing
with the utter atheism and infidelity of which the
French revolutionists were accused. Then there
was a bitter theological odium attaching to Dr.
Priestley, who was not only the most distinguished

1 6 Walks in the Black Country

Unitarian minister at the time, but virtually the
father and founder of the sect in England. Thus,
strong and impulsive religious as well as political
prejudices called together and inflamed a great
mob, which first burst upon the house in which the
liberals were assembled. The Unitarian chapel
was next set on fire ; then the residence of Dr.
Priestley was burnt down, and all its contents
consumed, including his valuable books and manu-
scripts, and all his chemical instruments and philo-
sophical apparatus, by which he had attained the
highest position and reputation as a man of science.
The mob made an eager hunt after the doctor
himself, and had he not escaped their hands, he
would probably have fallen a victim to their fury.
The mob, numbering from 8,000 to 10,000 men,
really held possession of the town for two or
three days, and burned several places of worship
and many private residences ; nor were they put
down without bloodshed, by several regiments of
cavalry that were summoned to subdue the reign
of terror or of frenzy. The blinding fanaticism of
religious bigotry, fanned to a flame among the
ignorant but honest masses by the apostles of
intolerance, produced this bloody and terrible riot.
But Birmingham, notwithstanding this outburst
of popular violence, is distinguished above any
other town in Christendom for organizing a polit-
ical force, which had hitherto acted like the

and its Green Border-Land. 17

lightning, the tornado, or earthquake, in sudden,
wasting or wasteful explosions. Under the leader-
ship or inspiration of Thomas Attwood public
opinion won the greatest victory it had ever
achieved without blood. Under him it was raised
from an impulsive brute force to a moral power
which the mightiest wrong could not resist. It
was a perilous crisis for England. In almost
every town or village there was the sharp crack
of fiery sparks, showing how the very air the
people breathed was charged with the electricity
of their passionate sentiment The approaching
tempest gathered blackness, and its thunder-clouds
revealed the bolts that were heating and hissing
for their work of wrath and ruin. Very few
thoughtful men of the nation can now doubt
that the storm would have burst upon the country
with all the desolation of civil war, if Thomas
Attwood and the men of Birmingham had not
drawn the lightning out of the impending tempest
by the rod of moral force, which was grasped and
wielded by his steady hand. From the central
hill of the town he lifted up his revolutionary
standard, with this new device : " PEACE, LAW,
AND ORDER ! " This white flag, and not the
bloody banner of brute force and brute passion
which had been raised in other times, at home and
abroad, to right political wrongs, was the drapeau
of the Political Union, which he formed and headed

C

1 8 Walks in tlie Black Country

in the metropolis of the Black Country. To this
rallied men of all ranks and professions and occu-
pations— members of Parliament, peers of the
realm, clergy and ministers of all denominations,
and the rank and file of the foundries, factories,
and workshops of the district. The means were
not only worthy the end but of equal worth in
moral value. On that grand march to political
right and power, the masses stood shoulder to
shoulder with their leaders. It was a great copart-
nership and fraternization of the classes. They
showed to European Christendom a spectacle it
never saw or conceived before ; what had never
been seen or imagined in England before. That
was a mighty mass meeting of the people, which
could be counted by ten thousands, and nine in
ten belonging to the working classes — a waving
sea of faces, with 100,000 eager, listening eyes
turned towards the speaker ; gazing at principles
and resolutions which no human voice could utter
in the heaving of the vast multitude, but which
were raised in great letters on standard boards,
one to each half acre of men. That was about
the grandest sight ever witnessed. It is computed
that full 100,000 men — and three-fourths of them
stalwart men of the hammer and pick, spade and
file — were numbered in some of these outdoor
meetings, who were swayed with indignant emo-
tion, and listened with wrathful eyes and clenched

and its Green Border-Land. 19

fists to the story of their political wrongs, till
they looked like an army massed for battle. But
the small hand of one of their fellow-townsmen
waving above the surging host, with the other
"grasping the banner of strange device" — "Peace,
Law, and Order" — curbed and kept down the
brute force of the mighty sentiment, and held
the people back from violence. The white folds of
that unstained flag, as it waved over Constitution
Hill, seemed to shed outward on the breeze an
influence that reached and moved and moulded
the common mind of the nation. The motto and
motive principles of the Birmingham banner of
reform were not happy-worded theories which
were easy to utter and as costless to practise. At
that time the town numbered full 100,000
inhabitants, and no population of equal census in
the kingdom was more intelligent and vigorous-
minded. Their mechanical industries and
occupations, involving and exercising so much
science, thought, and skill, tended to quicken and
expand the political conceptions and sensibilities
of the artisans. No town in the realm could have
felt more keenly the aggravated disparities to
which it was subjected. Small villages, and even
hamlets, in the south and west of England, had
each its member of Parliament ; and some of
them two apiece. There were boroughs possessing
thirty seats in the House of Commons whose

2O Walks in the Black Country

whole population put together did not equal that
of Birmingham. And, what aggravated this
disparity, many of these were " pocket boroughs,"
and the pockets that held them belonged to peers
of the realm, who had and exercised the right to
do what they would with their own. Thus, the
House of Commons was at the risk if not in
the condition of being a mere apanage to the
House of Lords, and the creature and agent of its
will and interest.

These were some of the political wrongs which
Thomas Attwood and other orators of the
Birmingham Political Union put in fervid and
graphic exposition before the swaying, heaving
masses of the town and district ; thousands of
them being the sons of the rioters of 1791, who
burned out Priestley and mobbed the liberals for
their sympathy with the French revolutionists.
It is said that at some of these monster gatherings
of strong-willed and strong-handed men, with
fierce faces begrimed with the grease and coal-dust
of their factories, forges, and mines, Attwood's
face would pale at the thought of the deluge that
would follow the outburst of all that brute power,
should it break the holding of his hand and
trample upon his banner of new device — "Peace,
Law, and Order." But it held them fast to the end.
Even when the town elected two members and sent
them to Parliament without a license from the

and its Green Border- Land. 21

Government, and when both were thrown into
prison for their presumption, and into a prison
within a few hours march from Newhall Hill,
the masses who felt it with indignant emotion
moved not a foot beyond the shadow of their
peaceful banner. If they had burst forth into
violence under the pressure, and had been followed
by thousands in other towns, the powerful and
determined opponents of reform, who had all the
military resources of the nation at their command,
would have been able and willing to crush the
movement by sword, bomb, and bayonet. But
here was a force arrayed and engaged in close
action, which neither Wellington nor Napoleon ever
encountered on the field of battle. The Iron
Duke could not withstand it nor delay its triumph.
It carried the Reform Bill of 1832 against all
the resistance that could be organized against it.
Thus, Birmingham was not merely the acci-
dental scene of one of the greatest political events
in English history. It organized the force that
produced the event, that has governed the govern-
ments and guided the people of the king-
dom from that day to this. It erected public
opinion into a mighty power and enginery for the
public good ; a power ever ready to be worked
against any evil that legislation could remove,
or the enlightened mind and conscience of the
people could abolish by moral action. It was

22 Walks in tJie Black Country.

worked to a glorious victory against slavery in the
British West Indies, and to an illustrious triumph
at home against the Corn Laws. From the time,
to Use the old threadworn figure, that "victory
perched upon the standard" of the Birmingham
Political Union, " Peace, Law, and Order" no other
flag has been reared, and no other force than it
represented has been contemplated by any party
or part of the English people with a view to
political or social change. The ends for which
the Political Union, the Anti-Slavery Society,
and the Anti-Corn-Law League laboured, and the
triumphs they won, were of immeasurable value in
themselves ; but the educational means they em-
ployed in enlightening the mind of the masses,
in teaching them to think, reflect, compare, and
observe for themselves, produced results of equal
importance. Nor was this organization of the
moral forces of a nation's mind limited in its
benefits to England. Like the development and
application of some new mechanical or natural
force, it extended to other countries, where its
operation is even more needed than it was in
England. The Birmingham banner, "Peace, Law,
and Order" as Lamartine said of the tricolour,
will yet make the tour of the world, sweeping
away with its white folds all the red flags of
brute force, and rallying aggrieved populations
to the platform instead of the barricade.

CHAPTER III.

THE BIRMINGHAM MEN OF SCIENCE — INVENTORS — PIONEERS IN
THE MECHANIC ARTS — BASKERVILLE, WATT, BOULTON, COX,
ETC.

N" OT only the moral and material worlds
but their prime forces run parallel to
each other. What the power of public
opinion is in the one, the power of steam is in the
other. We have noticed how public opinion was
first " improved," applied and utilized in Birming-
ham. What it did to and through this force for
the moral world, it did to and through steam
for the world of matter and mechanics. James
Watt came here with the alphabet and a few short
syllables of the mighty science he founded. He
came with a nervous, sensitive, impulsive mind,
jaded with the long wrestle and grapple with
conceptions half hidden and half revealed in various
experiments of varying success. He had encoun-
tered much of that souring and fretting experience
through which all the pioneers of invention have
passed to their fame or failure. Like them he had

24 Walks in the Black Country

exhausted his means in the development of prin-
ciples which he saw — what he could make few
believe — would double the wealth of the world,
and up to its last ages work for the well-being of
mankind. He needed the copartnership of a man
like Boulton, whose mind should supplement the
qualities which his own lacked ; a man of clear,
collected, working sense, who could not only grasp
intellectually all the principles and philosophy of
Watt's dynamics, but could render the inventor
just the assistance he needed to utilize them and
bring them into the great work which they are now
performing for the world. His faith in their im-
mense faculties was steady, genuine, and strong ;
and it held up that of Watt, and cheered and
strengthened him in the hours of depression. Then
he had the means as well as the mind to work up
the new force to its great capacities. It is said
that he expended nearly £50,000 in experiments
on the steam engine before Watt had so perfected
it as to yield any return of profit. Had not Watt
found such a partner, the world might have lost the
use and value of steam power for half a century.
And who can estimate what it has done for the
world in the last fifty years, on land or sea ?
What would England have been to-day without
it ? What would the flat lands of tidemills and
windmills have been without it ? Several minds
of vivid speculation have essayed to give some

and its Green Border-Land. 25

approximate estimates or conceptions of the value
of this motive power to various countries ; some
have measured it against the small standards of
horse-power and man-power; but it is almost like
gauging infinity with a yard-stick, to attempt to
measure and value the new capacities which this
force has given to mankind. What Stratford-upon-
Avon was to Shakespeare, Birmingham should be
to Watt. He was not born here, nor was he
schooled here in the first rudiments of his science;
but here he launched his great invention ; here
he brought out in one grand result the value
and vitality of all his early conceptions and
experiments in Scotland. At Soho, but a little
way from Newhall Hill, where the parallel force
of public opinion was organized a motive power
in the moral world, steam force was first made
a perfected working-power for the material and
mechanical world.

But Birmingham has given to the world another
working-power, a fitting and natural complement
to the two great forces we have noticed ; as natural
and complemental-as light is to the heat of the
sun. Watt and Boulton, having developed steam
at Soho into a working-force for its thousand uses,
now educed a light to lighten the towns and villages
which that force should build and fill with mechan-
ical industries. At Soho they elaborated and gave
to the world gas-power ; for it really belongs to

26 Walks in tJie Black Country

one of the utilitarian forces that are now working
for human comfort and progress. There was a
happy coincidence in the advent of this new illu-
mination. Not only was it a mechanical or material
but a moral coincidence of pleasant augury. It
was natural that such men as Watt and Boulton
should find in a lump of coal the two great pro-
perties of the sun — heat for steam and light for
illumination ; but it was a coincidence full of moral
beauty, that they first set that light aglow in their
Soho Works to celebrate the conclusion of peace
between England and France in 1802. The asso-
ciation may have been entirely accidental, but it
is no less interesting for that circumstance : the
enlightenment of the public mind and the illumi-
nation of the dwellings and cities of the people
emanated, in natural succession, from Birmingham,
the one under Attwood, the other under Watt.

But there is still another coincidence worthy of
note and admiration in the productive history
of Birmingham. In speaking of the invaluable
agencies which Watt and Boulton brought into
operation, and especially of the new light they
elaborated for the great cities and private dwell-
ings of the people, a predecessor in a collateral
and co-working science of illumination should have
had a prior notice. This was John Baskerville,
who was .to the printing-press what Watt was to
the steam-engine. Indeed, from Caxton's day to

and its Green Border-Land. 27

this, England has not produced such another hero
of typography. Considering his brave and un-
wavering patience, and his life-long, self-sacrificing
efforts in raising the art to its highest perfection,
he well deserves an appellation too exclusively
monopolized by military careers. Not ten in ten
thousand of educated men, who read and admire
the most beautifully-printed books of the present
day have the slightest idea how much the art that
so delights them is indebted to the genius and
indomitable and ill-requited perseverance of John
Baskerville. But the public debt to him was
better known and appreciated by illustrious con-
temporaries in different countries ; and by none
more fully and admiringly than by an American
printer named Benjamin Franklin. He was born
at Wolverley, in Worcestershire, in 1706, the same
year in which Franklin was born in Boston, Mas-
sachusetts ; and up to a certain stage in their
experience it ran somewhat in the same vicissitous
pathway of life and labour. Young John was
apprenticed to a stonecutter, and young Benjamin
began his useful life by cutting candle-wicks
for his father, a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler.
Neither followed his original occupation long.
John seems to have acquired great taste and skill
for caligraphy while a stonecutter's apprentice.
Doubtless he was employed on monumental litera-
ture written with his chisel on grave-stones, which

28 Walks in t/ie Black Coimtry

afforded his genius a fine scope in forming letters
of every form and size on the great white sheets of
marble. At any rate, he is soon found in Birming-
ham teaching as a writing-master the art he had
acquired. It was probably just about the same
time that the boy Ben. Franklin left off cutting
candle-wicks for his father, and became an appren-
tice to his elder brother in Boston as a type-setter.
Baskerville was not contented to confine his time
and talent to the instruction of boys in writing.
By dint of practising in scroll works and in the
diversified emblems and imagery of monumental
carving, he had acquired a taste and genius for
more ambitious designs for ornamentation. The
canvas on which he exhibited them for public use
and admiration was papier-mache trays. If he did
not invent this material, he became to it what
Wedgwood was to the ware that bears his name.
He accumulated a large fortune by the manufac-
ture of these novel and beautiful articles ; built a
mansion, and settled down to the enjoyment of
literature and the fine arts with a relish which his
pursuits had stimulated and fostered. But his
ambition and genius for the formation of beautiful
letters, which his early lessons on momumental
marble had developed, now took wider scope and
higher flight. The celebrated letter-founder,
William Caslon, had won a world-wide reputation
for the beautiful type he produced at his foundry

and its Green Border-Land. 29

in Finsbury, and Baskerville, who admired his
genius as well as coveted his fame, determined to
enter the lists with him as a competitor. To this
end he went to work with extraordinary energy
and enthusiasm. He spared no money or labour
in bringing the art to its highest perfection. As
Boulton expended £50,000 on Watt's steam-engine
before it was fully developed, so Baskerville, it is
said, expended £600 before he produced a letter
to satisfy himself. His success brought him
fame but not fortune. He printed various works,
which, however, did not repay him the amount he
had expended on the art. Like other inventors
and public benefactors he incurred many losses and
disappointments, which the enviable reputation he
acquired probably made him feel all the more
keenly. He expresses this feeling in a letter to
Horace Walpole, in which he said he was heartily
tired of the business of printing, and wished to
retire from it. The masterpiece of his typography
was what was called " The Baskerville Bible," a few
copies of which are still extant. It is a noble
specimen of type and printing, showing to what
perfection he raised the art in his day. But he
seems to have been better pleased with the
estimation in which the type and paper of his
Bible were held than with the acceptance and
practice of the holy principles of the volume by
those who professed to preach and live them.

30 Walks in tlie Black Country

Indeed the moralities even of professedly religious
men were at a low ebb at the time, and his spirit
seems to have taken a bitter vein at their practices.
He converted an old windmill standing in his
grounds into a momument for himself, surmounting
it with an urn bearing this inscription : " Stranger !
beneath this stone, in unconsecrated ground, a
friend to the liberties of mankind directed his body
to be inurned. May the example contribute to
emancipate thy mind from the fears of superstition
and the wicked arts of priestcraft." Whether this
epitaph drew upon him the fury of the mob that
set upon Priestley, or whether the illumination
emanating from his printing press had been too
bright for the eyes of bigots jealous of popular
blindness, his monument was destroyed and not a
stone was left to indicate where his ashes lay.
About thirty years after this work of fury and
destruction, his body was discovered accidentally
by some workmen employed in constructing the
canal that runs through the grounds belonging to
his estate. It was found in excellent preservation,
and now lies in a catacomb under Christ Church.
After his death his widow endeavoured to dispose
of his splendid founts of type, but found no pur-
chaser in England ready to buy them, notwith-
standing they had become so famous for their
elegance. Finally they went into the hands of a
literary association in Paris for £3,700, who pur-

and its Green Border-Land. 31

chased them for the object of bringing out a
magnificent edition of Voltaire's works under the
editorship of Beaumarchais, the French clock-
maker's son who came to such celebrity as a
musician, humourist, and writer, especially as the
author of the " Barber of Seville." The versatility
of these three apprentices to mechanical trades —
Benjamin Franklin, John Baskerville, and Peter
Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais — and the simul-
taneous attraction of their genius to the art and
power of the Press, are interesting coincidences,
and all the more so in their being aware of it at
the time, though belonging to different countries.
Indeed, Franklin was one of the circle of friends
and correspondents whom Baskerville drew around
him. One can hardly refrain from a feeling of
regret, however, that no printer in his own country
had the mind and means to purchase the beautiful
types on which he had expended so many years
and such a fortune in elaborating. And this re-
gret may well be deepened by the circumstance
that the same type that produced "The Baskerville
Bible " should next be employed to give additional
attraction to the works of Voltaire.

Five years after the death of Baskerville, in
1775, a man of still greater celebrity as a luminary
of science and philosophy, took up his residence in
Birmingham, and soon made a great reputation
and a great movement in philosophical and

32 Walks in tJie Black Country

theological circles. Although he may be regarded
as holding out too many different lights at the
same time, few will be disposed to dispute his rank
as an illuminator of the public mind, and as such
to be classed with the men who have made their
mark upon the world from Birmingham as their
standpoint. This was Joseph Priestley, who was
born near Leeds in 1733, and who worked his
way up through various occupations and pro-
fessions to great eminence in several departments
of science, philosophy, and literature. In America
his name is principally, or popularly, associated
with Unitarianism, as its practical founder in
England. His writings or his reputation as an
advocate and expounder of that system of
religious faith have created this impression, while
what he was else is not so well known to the
reading public. But in the midst of his theological
controversies, he pursued his philosophical investi-
gations with great depth of research ; and the
theories he developed, even if erroneous or in-
capable of being worked to practical and utili-
tarian results, were useful to those more successful
in applying science to the every-day necessities
and purposes of common life. His works in
this department were varied and valuable, and
entitled and admitted him to the front rank of
the savans of the day. They were especially
esteemed in France, and they brought him into

and its Green Border-Land, 33

intimate correspondence with the most illustrious
scholars of that and other countries. It may
serve to denote the versatility of his genius, and
the varied fields of learning he explored, to give
the titles of some of his works : " Charts of His-
tory and Biography;" "History of Electricity;"
" Discoveries relating to Vision, Light, and
Colours ;" " Lectures on the Theory and History
of Language ; " " Principles of Oratory and Criti-
cism." Here were fields enough, one might have
thought, to engage and satisfy all the speculations
and capacities of the most derive mind. But they
were all too narrow for Priestley, or were occupied
by him merely as the side-grounds of mental
recreation wherein his intellectual powers were
recruited for the more arduous campaigns of
theological and political controversy. His religious
and political opinions brought down upon him the
fury of the mob's fanaticism in 1781, which all his
learning as a philosopher could not avert. His
house was burnt, and with it — what was worth
the value of a whole town of mere brick and
mortar — his library, his philosophical apparatus,
and manuscripts, including his correspondence
with the most illustrious men in the world of
science. He retired to London from Birmingham,
where he received addresses of sympathy and
admiration from different parts of his own country
and also from France. But these rather fanned

D

34 Walks in the Black Coimtry.

the flame of prejudice against him in the oppo-
nents of his religious and political opinions, and
its steady burning finally drove him to America,
where he settled down, and died in a retired town
in Pennsylvania at the age of eighty years. The
celebrated Cuvier pronounced an eulogy upon him
after his death before the National Institute of
France.

CHAPTER IV.

BIRMINGHAM REFORMERS AND ARTISTS — ROWLAND HILL AND
THE PENNY POST — DAVID COX AND HIS PAINTINGS.

WE now come to a Birmingham reformer
who may well be called the great
Political Economist of Human Nature.
Rowland Hill virtually commenced life in Birming-
ham, and here not only taught mathematics in his
father's school, but learnt to apply them to a
system which has brought more comfort and happi-
ness than arithmetic can measure, not only to all
the millions of the British empire, but to all the
divided families of the civilized world. It is not
in arithmetic, nor rhetoric, nor poetry, nor prose to
give a complete idea of the benefits The Penny
Post of England has conferred upon all classes of
the people. Owing to the circumscribed area of
"the three kingdoms," this postal system works
more nearly like one of the great and beautiful
agencies of Nature than anything else a human
government ever put its hand to. Indeed, it works

36 Walks in the Black Country

like the dew and with the dew. The distillery
of the still skies above, and the distillery of the
Penny Post beneath work hand in hand through
the quiet hours of the night ; one dropping out
of the starlit atmosphere gentle dews, the other
dropping for the sleeping families of the land the
welcome thoughts of wakeful memory — thoughts
that are to ten thousand breakfast circles in the
morning what the dews are to ten thousand fields
listening in thirsty silence for their fall. If London
were the local centre, every family in England
would be within a night's gallop of the iron horse
with the London mail-bag strapped to his back ;
so that at the usual breakfast hour the postman
might drop in a letter to season the morning meal
in the most distant home in the realm. No citizen
of a foreign country sojourning in England can
fail to admire the quiet and beautiful working of
this postal system. And thousands of foreigners
have admired it to a practical effect. They have
carried back to their own countries descriptions
and impressions of its dispensation which have
moved their governments to adopt the same sys-
tem at different degrees of approximation. Cheap
postage is the order of the day everywhere. Even
the countries lying beyond the boundary line of
Christian civilization are copying slowly the ex-
ample of England ; and the day may yet come,
after the nations have saved some of the millions

and its Green Border-Land. 37

of gold now lavished on war, when the Penny Post
shall reach out from London, Paris, and New York,
until it touches the circumference of the globe and
every point on the radii within its sweep. When
that happy day shall come — when the interchange
of thought and the commerce of affection, as well
as the correspondence of the materialistic interests
which the postal system of England has provided
for her population, shall be extended to all the
nations and peoples of the world, then will they
know and recognize with admiration and gratitude
what they owe to Rowland Hill. Indeed, every
penny postage stamp put upon a letter the world
around and the world through, if it does not bear
his image and superscription, will bear his memory
and its worth to mankind.

As no history is so liable to be lost sight of and
unappreciated as that of the lives of living men, a
few facts connected with the life and labours of
this benefactor of his country and his race may
be properly stated here. Whatever he put his
hands to, he did with all his mind and strength,
often forgetful of the capacities of both in his
assiduous application. He gave the same un-
wearied but wearying attention to his profession as
a teacher of mathematics, and as an organizer of
system in his father's academy, that he gave to
the development and prosecution of that '• great
reform -with which his name will ever be con-

38 Walks in tfie Black Country

nected. His delicate health gave way under the
strain of these duties, and he was obliged to retire
from them in 1833. But he only changed the
scene and subject of his occupation ; for he was
soon appointed Secretary to the South Australian
Commission. In 1837 ^e broke ground in the
great and crowning work of his life, and brought
out several pamphlets on his proposed reform in
the postal system of Great Britain. The chief and
most effective of these brochures was one entitled
" State and Prospects of Penny Postage." In this
he developed the great principle which has already
won such a triumph in different countries besides
England. That is, uniformity of charge ; or tax-
ing weight and untaxing distance, so that the Post
Office Department should no longer " levy black
mail " on remote provincial towns, to punish them
for their distance from London. At .that time
England had more distance rates, if possible, than
we had in America. The lines were drawn as
sharply and severely as with us. And every line
was a postal frontier over which a busy and inge-
nious smuggling business was carried on daily, but
by night more especially. When a man's house
was cut through in the middle by such a line, and
his parlour was on the shilling and his kitchen on
the sixpenny side, of course he would post his
letters from the kitchen door. Then the Post
Office lost as much through the franking privilege

and its Green Border-Land. 39

as through this smuggling. All the Members of
Parliament of both houses, besides other officials,
were possessed of this privilege, and they turned it
to business and personal uses of wonderful variety
and extent. In the first place, the Peers and
Commons count up about 1,300 members between
them, or more than four times the number of
the Representatives and Senators at Washington.
There are more stories told than printed of the
manner and extent of their use of the franking
privilege. Not that they perverted and abused it
more shamefully than did the American Members
of Congress, but that, outnumbering our legislators
by four to one, they loaded the mail-bags with
four times the number of "dead-heads," or free
letters that the American Post Office had to bear
and charge upon honest, paid correspondence. It
would be unparliamentary and uncharitable to sus-
pect or listen to the suspicion that any M.P. ever
sold any stock in his franking privilege or ever
yielded to the temptation of realizing an " honest
penny" out of it directly in the way of trade,
but it is said to be a fact that many great busi-
ness firms in the large cities found it would
pay to expend large sums in returning a senior
partner to Parliament, not so much in reference
to the general interests of the country as to the
cheapening of their commercial correspondence.
Frequently larger constituencies than a single

40 • Walks in tJie Black Country

mercantile firm would have an eye to the same
postal facilities ; so that the frank of their member
acted like a diffusive bribe over Whig and Tory of
the borough that elected him.

Thus Rowland Hill, in agitating for a uniform
Penny Postage, not only had all the organized red-
tapeism and vis inertia of an old and vicious
system to encounter, but also a thickset and a
stoutset array of vested interests to grapple with
and overcome. Still, such was the force of the
facts and arguments he brought forward, and such
was the general interest of the great masses in his
scheme, that the very year in which it was thus
developed a Parliamentary committee was ap-
pointed to examine it. This committee fully
appreciated its merits, and strongly recommended
its adoption, not only for the great stimulus and
facility it would give to mercantile correspondence,
but also for its educational effect upon the lower
classes in developing and exercising their intel-
lectual faculties and social affections and inter-
course. During the following session more than
ten thousand petitions were presented to Parlia-
ment praying for an uniform penny postage.
And the next year this great reform was real-
ized, and Penny Postage became a power in the
land and one of the great social forces of the
world. Although so many and strong prescrip-
tive interests, and so many hereditary and ancient

and its Green Border-Land. 41

customs and habits were arrayed against it, they
yielded to its own inherent truth, right, and reason.
In fact, no other reform so radical and sweeping
was ever carried through all the stages of its
progress to its full consummation in such a brief
space of time. But although his system was
adopted by Parliament, and himself appointed to
supervise and direct its operation, and although
virtually the whole nation favoured his plans, he
had to encounter in red-tape officials that heavy,
deadening, back-water resistance which clogs the
strongest wheels of motion. He retired wearied
but not defeated in 1843 ; but the great masses of
the people did not allow him to retire from their
grateful memory, and in 1846 he received a testi-
monial of their appreciation in the sum of ^1300,
collected from the millions virtually in his own
coin, The Powerful Penny. No example in history
can be found more conclusive and striking than
this to illustrate and prove the policy of cheapen-
ing an article in order to extend its use. In
1837 tne number of letters that passed through
the Post Office was 75,000,000; in 1842 it was
360,000,000, from which time it has steadily in-
creased by nearly the same ratio of progression.
Mr. Hill was reinstated as Secretary of the Post
Office in 1847, and for fifteen years laboured to
perfect and extend the system he had originated,
not only between England and all her colonies but

42 Walks in tlie Black Country

all foreign nations. He was always ahead of the
Government and a majority of the people in his
views on this free trade of human minds, and I
fully believe that he was personally in favour of
establishing that Universal Ocean Penny Postage
which was agitated so earnestly some twenty years
ago in England. Although the reduction of ocean
postage did not reach the uniform and universal
penny rate, it was greatly modified under his
regime, so that a single letter from London to
Paris is now charged only 4^., against is. 2d. ;
while the postage to Australia, India, Canada, and
all the British colonies has been reduced to 6d.
for the three services, the home inland, the sea
transport, and the colonial inland. This is just
half way to an Ocean Penny Postage, which would
make the whole charge between England and all
other countries $d. on a single letter. It was
hoped that Rowland Hill would retain his post in
the General Post Office until he should see the
system so intimately associated to his name carried
out to this extent and universality ; but he may
well rest and be thankful for having seen his plans
worked to such magnificent results.

M. D. Hill, Esq., late Recorder of Birmingham,
and elder brother of Sir Rowland Hill, applied his
great legal abilities and philanthropic mind to a
reform of vast importance — the improvement of
prison discipline and of the whole criminal juris-

and its Green Border-Land. 43

prudence of the country. The statistics he col-
lected, and arguments and views he pressed upon
the public mind as well as upon the Government,
are a most valuable contribution to a movement
now progressing in different countries for the
better treatment of their actual and prospective
criminals. Several other brothers have also dis-
tinguished themselves, some in the profession of
their father, as conductors of high class schools for
the education of gentlemen's sons, whilst others
have been able assistants in the General Post Office
in working out the postal system of Sir Rowland.

Although it redounds less to the credit of a
town merely to give birth to great men than to
make great men born elsewhere, still those born
and raised to eminence in Birmingham present a
goodly roll. We have noticed what one of these
has done for his country and the world in the boon
and blessing of free trade between heart and
heart, mind and mind, through the Penny Post.
We have called him the Political Economist of
Human Nature. We now come to one of the
great poets of that nature that surrounds, em-
bosoms, sustains, and delights the human, and is
to universal humanity what the physical being of
man is to his mind. Such a poet was born in
Birmingham, and his name was David Cox He
looked with the loving rapture of a poet's eye into
the face of Nature, and then he dipped his pencil

44 Walks in the Black Country

in the rainbow, and caught and fixed on canvas
her sunniest gleams ; and they would look so to
the life, that a harvest field, flushed with the
golden glory of the setting sun, seemed a living
smile of her joy at the beauty of her own fair
world. David Cox was born in Birmingham in
1793, and died here in 1859. He sleeps under
Nature's graceful monuments in Harborne church-
yard— the outspreading trees, that stretch forth
their long arms and wave them to and fro over his
quiet grave, and with the murmur of all their green
leaves, now moved to mournful music by the
soughs and sighs of the evening's breath, now
touched with the thrill of the bell's voices in the
old church tower, whisper their requiems over his
last resting-place. He was one of the fathers of
the water-colour school of art, and for many years
his genius enriched and beautified the gallery of
the Society in London with paintings that com-
manded universal admiration. Although the por-
traiture of Nature's face is different from the
portraiture of human faces in this respect, that it
changes little from year to year and century to
century, whereas the human countenance is soon
changed and soon disappears, never to be repro-
duced, still it is a delight to see the features that a
landscape, we know well, presented to the artist
half a century ago ; to see one of Nature's sweetest
smiles fifty years old still gleaming to the life on

and its Green Border-Land. 45

canvas, as fresh as if it were mirrored in this very
morning's dew ; it is pleasant to see the wheatfield
reaped in our childhood with half its golden grain
waving before the bent reapers, and happy children
among the sheaves behind, and happy birds on
wing above, and all the scenery of the harvest, all
but the voices of the men and birds, alive again as
they lived on the extremest verge of our quickened
memory. David Cox made truth poetical in the
portraits of these rural sceneries of th'e seasons and
of the rich and picturesque suburban farms, dells,
and lanes of Harborne and other Birmingham
vicinities. It was this truthfulness in poetry that
distinguishes his best pieces, which none appreci-
ated more highly than his nearest neighbours.
Indeed, he was their Turner, and in many of their
houses his local landscapes are valued as the
works of one of the most eminent artists of the
country. He was also the founder of a local school
of artists, and had pupils among his neighbours.
One of these a merchant, of assiduous business life
up to eighty years of age, found time to cultivate and
exercise a genius developed under the instruction
of the great painter, and he made it a dying re-
quest to be buried as near as possible to his master:
and their graves lie side by side, under the shade of
the same tree. Another pupil, resident at Harborne,
Mr. Charles Burt, has attained to an eminence as
an artist almost equal to that of Cox himself.

CHAPTER V.

DISTINGUISHED M£N OF CHRISTIAN FAITH AND PHILANTHROPY —
JOSEPH STURGE AND REV. JOHN ANGELL JAMES.

FOLLOWING the order of these concentric
circles of arts and influences, we now
come to that of Christian philanthropy.
And no town in England has produced a more per-
fect example of this great grace than Birmingham.
Joseph Sturge, take him all in all, did not have,
and did not leave his like in England, or in any
other country or age. That is my own personal
impression ; and I knew him intimately during
the golden autumn of his great and good life.
Many and illustrious have been the philanthropists
who have blest the centuries with their thoughts
and works of benevolence. Nothing gives more
striking proof of the breathing of a divine spirit
upon human hearts than the production of such
men and women. Now there are several different
forms and forces even of genuine, Christian phi-
lanthropy. For there is often a form without a

Walks in tJie Black Country. 47

working force ; and a form, too, that is not to be
condemned or turned out of the fellowship of
useful and pleasant charities. There is a general,
even, diffusive goodwill to men that spreads itself
out like a wide and sunny smile of good-nature.
It is light, but not heat; still light is good for
the eye, and the genial light of such inactive
benevolence, if it does not actually produce the
working charities, is grateful to society, and is far
more useful even than ornamental. Then there
is what may be called eccentric philanthropy, or
a benevolence with a comet's orbit, narrow in the
centre, but running to an extreme length and a
sharp point in some special direction. These
eccentric philanthropists have been most valu-
able and illustrious workers for human good.
Their deeds and dispositions have brightened the
pages of history with the beautiful sunshine of
benevolence. They are the men and women who
fix the eye and heart intently upon some particular
form of moral evil or physical suffering, and sight
and feeling grow more and more intense as they
look and think upon the subject of their concen-
trated efforts. For a time, it may be, each has
his own field all to himself, and it is large and
the work is arduous, and he cannot even look
over into another, much less lend a hand to the
labour that other field demands. Such a philan-
thropist was John Howard. He was a man of

48 Walks in the Black Country

great benevolence to his kind, but it ran virtually
all in one direction and was concentrated upon
one great evil — the terrible condition of prisons
in his own and other countries. This great field
of perilous labour was enough — and more than
enough — for every thought and every effort he
gave to the public good. No one could be so
ungrateful to his memory as to inquire whether
he ever said or wrote a word against war, slavery,
or intemperance. Elizabeth Fry had her especial
field, like Howard, and her large benevolence was
concentrated in like manner upon it.

But this was the distinguishing characteristic
of Good Joseph Sturge: his philanthropy was as
spherical as the sun itself, and the space it illu-
minated and warmed was as spherical as the sun's
light on the face of the earth. His heart was so
full of love to God and man that it shone out
of him equidistantly in every direction. Indeed
it seemed a star set alight in the firmament of
human society, with beams as warm as the sun's.
And well they might be, for they were the sun's,
and lost but little light or heat in the reflection,
he lived so near to it. What John Howard was
to the prisons of Europe Joseph Sturge was to the
house of African bondage. What John Howard
felt and did for white men and women in the
misery of their horrible cells, Joseph Sturge felt
and did for the myriads of negro slaves scourged

and its Green Border-Land. 49

to their unrequited toil under British or American
masters. No man in England ever gave more
thought and effort to their emancipation and en-
lightenment than he did. But all he felt and
worked for them did not affect the rotundity of
his philanthropy ; indeed it seemed to perfect as
well as expand its sphere ; and in that sphere he
laboured so steadily and evenly, that now he is
gone, one can hardly say for what enterprise of
benevolence he was most distinguished. If he
had not wrought in so many different fields, he
might have been called the John Howard of the
anti-slavery cause. But the cause of universal
peace and brotherhood of the peoples was equally
dear to his great heart, and no man living or
dead ever gave to that cause a warmer sympathy,
a greater hope, a larger or steadier faith, or a more
generous and munificent hand. No one knows
this by more personal and intimate evidence than
myself. His heart was shining at its full with
the same sunlight when journeying by night
through Russian snows to St. Petersburgh to say
an earnest word for peace to Nicholas, as when
he walked among the negro cabins in the torrid
zone to gather evidence of their condition for the
British Parliament. It was the same light that
beamed like the smile of GOD on his broad serene
face as he walked from cottage to cottage in the
desolated hamlets of Finland after the Crimean

E

50 Walks in tJie Black Country

war, pouring the oil and wine of his Christian
sympathy into wounds still bleeding from the
rough hands of his countrymen ; making the
hearts of houseless widows sing for joy at the
gifts he brought in his hands and the gracious
words he spoke to them out of his eyes for lack
of other speech they could understand.

And yet, after all that he felt and did for Free-
dom and Peace and the brotherhood of nations,
the cause of Temperance seemed equally dear to
him, and he gave to it an advocacy as earnest
and unwearied up to his last day on earth. In the
great Anti-Corn-Law movement he was a tower
of strength. Not that he made eloquent speeches
from the platform, or powerful arguments in the
press for the repeal of taxes on the people's bread.
His strength did not lie in these intellectual forces;
but in the irresistible and all-conquering power
of a great principle. Never was a man more
distrustful of expediency, of compromise with
wrong, of a sliding-scale of obedience to the true
and right. If he had seen in his youth what
Constantine saw written in letters of fire on a
cross planted on the clouds, "Ev TOVTO IJHCW," In this
conquer, he could not have taken hold of a whole
principle and carried it into the breach with more
unswerving faith and courage. "Total and imme-
diate " was the flag he raised against every great
wrong which he attacked. It was this he reared

and its Green Border- Land. 51

against that mongrel compromise with slavery, the
apprentice system in the West Indies; and he
would fight under no other against the Corn Laws.
He not only carried it into that great field as the
banner of his own action, but he rallied to it even
many of the leaders of the movement who were
on the point of being seduced into a compromise
with the upholders of the unjust system. At this
crisis of the movement, its most dangerous stage,
when the two great political parties were so nearly
balanced that each was bidding high for the
adhesion of the Anti-Corn-Law League, no man
saw the peril of the temptation so clearly as
Joseph Sturge. He was on the point of leaving
for America on an anti-slavery mission ; but he
wrote an earnest letter to the Council of the
League, offering to raise his subscription from
;£ioo to /"2OO for the year, on the distinct under-
standing that they were on no account to yield
up the principle of total and immediate abolition.
Mr. Cobden, who had the greatest reverence for
his strong, deep, and clear sense of truth, right,
and duty, wrote to him thus : " A letter from you
in the 'Anti-Corn-Law Circular,' published at the
present time, exhorting us to stand firm to prin-
ciples, and promising your co-operation so long
as we do so, would be a rallying point for all
the good and true men, and would shame the
wanderers and bring them back to our ranks."

52 Walks in the Black Country

No truer friend of the great masses of the
people ever lived in England. To all that made
for their well-being he gave an earnest sympathy
and unwearied effort, and he gave both without
the alloy or imputation of a selfish sentiment or
object. No man could have had a stronger dis-
taste for the tactics of partisan warfare or for
the excitement of parliamentary life, and nothing
but a deep and honest sense of the political rights
of the unenfranchised people could have con-
strained him to offer himself as a candidate for a
seat in the House of Commons. Although he
was defeated at the polls by small majorities, the
moral influence of the principles and sentiments
he put forth in his addresses and speeches was
worth more to the great cause of the people than
half-a-dozen seats in Parliament filled by the
lukewarm doctrinaires of political expediency.

No class of the wronged or needy so took hold
of his large and feeling heart as the little vagrant,
ignorant children — some of them worse than
fatherless — who seemed to be set on the steepest
and slipperiest declivities of temptation, to slide
into the depths of vicious life and misery. I was
with him when he visited the Rauhe Haus, near
Hamburgh, and witnessed the deep interest with
which he studied the character and working of
that admirable institution for the rescue and
education of juvenile vagrants. Immediately on

and its Green Border-Land. 53

his return to England he set to work to found a
similar establishment, and the Reformatory Home,
as it may justly be called, at Stoke Prior, near
Bromsgrove, where about sixty young outcasts are
clothed, fed, and educated, is one of the last works
of his benevolent life.

On the spring morning of the I4th of May,
1859, that purified and waiting spirit heard the
whisper among the flowers of its earthly home,
" Come up higher ! " and serene at the sudden call,
it went up higher to join the holy fellowships for
which it had been fitted, and which might well be
the happier for its presence and communion.

Although the people of Birmingham knew and
revered the manner of man they had in Joseph
Sturge, they knew not the depth of that sentiment
of reverence and esteem they had entertained for
him until the sudden news ran through the streets
and lanes and into the humblest cottages and
garrets of the poor, " Joseph Sturge is dead ! ! "
Never since the town had a being and a name
had a death so moved the population. It seemed
to touch all classes and political parties with the
same sympathy and sorrow. The press, the pulpits
of all denominations, and public men testified to
this sentiment. As the Rev. John Angell James
said in his sermon : " The lengthened cortege, the
closed shops, the crowded streets, the long proces-
sion of respectable men, the mixture of ministers

54 Walks in the Black Country

and members of all religious denominations, the
seriousness and sorrow that sat on every counten-
ance, which in mournful silence seemed to say,
'We have lost a benefactor' — the numerous ser-
mons which from the pulpits of various denomina-
tions paid a tribute to his memory, all proclaimed
the respect in which he was held, and which was in
fact a public honour put not only upon the bene-
factor, but upon philanthropy itself." Speaking of
the funeral, his biographer justly remarks : "It was
indeed an instructive spectacle which Birmingham
presented that day, when the whole town, the seat
of the largest manufacture of small fire-arms in the
world, bowed in reverence over the bier of Joseph
Sturge, the man of peace. It was a tribute paid,
not to rank, or station, or eloquence, for he had
none of these, but to virtue alone."

Although monuments of brass or marble are not
needed to perpetuate the memory of such a man
as Joseph Sturge, they are useful to show to sub-
sequent generations how he was regarded by
the men of his own day and community. Such
a statue has a value beyond all the grace that a
sculptor's genius can impart. These marble forms
of men and women standing in the market-places
and at the cross-roads of the people are the precious
stones of nations. Birmingham erected such a
memorial to Joseph Sturge, and placed it at the
confluence of five roads, or at " The Five Ways,"

and its Green Border-Land. 55

just at the entrance of the town on the south-west.
The coincidences of the locality are felicitous and
striking. Freedom, Peace, Temperance, Charity,
and Godliness were the five ways of his good and
beautiful life ; and it was truly a happy accident
to place his monument at such a point. Then the
statue itself shows a happy inspiration in the
sculptor. Standing among the emblems of his
love and good works, the serene and benevolent
face seems to beam with the living smile of a
beating heart, and the half-extended arm and the
open palm to be warm with the pulse of their old
sweet life, as if still inviting the African slave-child
or the homeless orphan to climb up against his
bosom.

The Rev. John Angell James was a contempo-
rary and co-resident with Joseph Sturge, and no
town in England or in any other country ever had
two more impressive lives than theirs breathing,
walking, and working in its midst at the same
time. I think it can be truly said, that for the last
century, the English Independents have had no
minister who has made a deeper or better mark
upon the public mind than John Angell James.
In every faculty of influence his was eminently
fitted to produce this impression. He was not a
profound scholar ; he pretended to no classical
culture. On his way from the humble walks and
avocations of common life to the pulpit, he passed

56 Walks in tJie Black Country

the side-paths of ancient erudition with neither
time nor need to enter them. The spirit that
called him to his ministry was ever present in him,
whispering "This is the way," when he glanced
wistfully into those rich affluents of ancient lore.
So he made but little if any acquaintance with
Demosthenes or Cicero, Homer or Virgil, on the
straight and narrow path of his education ; but
much with the Author and Finisher of his faith.
With a single eye and heart for His service, the
ardent young man not only forgot the things that
were behind, but the things that were on either
side of him, keeping the mark and prize of his high
calling only and ever in view. And he attained
both beyond his own expectation and the best
thought of his early friends. He came to the
pulpit without the loss of a single lock of his young
manhood's strength. That classical culture that so
often exhausts the vital heat of the soul in pro-
ducing mental brilliance, had not sobered or
softened the pulse of a single faculty within him.
He entered upon his work with all his young
enthusiasm at full glow, and with all his great-eyed
hope and faith, looking out grandly into the future.
Thus, at the outset of his ministry, he threw into it
all the native eloquence of his heart ; and his lips
could not help being eloquent with its utterances.
Sometimes when the two were moved with unusual
inspiration, he gave them larger poetical license,

and its Green Border- Land. 57

and they ran with a rush and a rhapsody into the
floweriest meads of rhetoric. Some of his pub-
lished addresses on special anniversaries or occa-
sions, are deeply marked with these characteristics ;
more frequently those delivered in the first years
of his ministry. But this should not be ascribed
to the youthful ecstasies of an exuberant imagina-
tion in the speaker. At the time when he delivered
his most florid addresses, grave members of the
.British Parliament and platform orators adopted a
style and diction equally ornate. The public taste
for glowing and redundant metaphor pervaded
every assembly, religious or political ; and what
would now offend, then delighted the ears of an
audience. Sheridan would hardly have ventured
to deliver one of his rhapsodies in the hearing of
the present orators of the House of Commons.
Thus public taste, as it were, creates both its own
standards and examples of excellence.

Mr. James was born in Blandford, in Dorsetshire,
in 1785 ; and after a short term of academical and
theological education at what might be called the
private school of Dr. Bogue at Gosport, was settled
as the pastor of Carr's Lane Chapel, Birmingham,
in September, 1805. He was then hardly twenty
years of age, but had been " put on the preaching
list " when he was but little more than seventeen ;
so that his pulpit teachings and his own tuition in
theology literally commenced at the same time.

58 Walks in the Black Country

With this small stock of educational preparation
he entered upon the work before him. The first
were the testing years of his life and character.
Like hundreds of young men who have ascended
to the pulpit and platform, he was exposed to the
imminent peril of that fluency of speech and rich-
ness of voice which have carried away nine in ten
of them upon a noisy current of shallow thought
into the dead sea of oblivion. For several years
he seems to have yielded to these seductive and
effeminating facilities of delivery. Few men could
have been more tempted to obey their impulse
and guidance. His voice was susceptible of all the
music of poetic and pathetic modulation. He
could play his florid metaphors and easily-worded
sentences upon it as upon an instrument of ten
strings. Then, breathing into the strain all the
fervour of deep and sincere feeling, what more
could he need to become an effective preacher, and
build up a great fellowship and congregation in
Carr's Lane Chapel ? In the course of a few years,
however, he found, to a hopeful and salutary grief,
that one thing was lacking to his ministry — deeply-
studied thought. He forthwith set himself bravely
to its elaboration. He seized hold of all the helps
in his reach. He read with earnest and persever-
ing reflection ; and the more he read and reflected
the more he distrusted those qualities on which he
had hitherto greatly relied. His sermons and ad-

and its Green Border-Land. 59

dresses began to grow in intellectual vigour ; and
he began to rise as a preacher. He was invited to
preach a sermon in London. It made an impres-
sion not only for its graces of elocution, but for its
intellectual force and logical structure. He was
soon after invited to speak at an annual meeting of
the London Missionary Society, at that time pre-
senting about the only forum to ministers of differ-
ent denominations for platform speeches. This
was a long stride, and he at first shrank from it.
But encouraged by an old friend and adviser to
make the effort, he did so with a large measure
of success. Referring to it, he says : " It so
happened that I was rather happy in my speech,
which elicited some very encouraging terms of
approbation, at which I was as much surprised as
gratified. From that time I commenced my career
as a speech-maker — a business of which, though I
have not been unsuccessful in it, I was never very
fond."

Not long after this, when he was about twenty-
six years of age, he made a more elaborate and
extended speech at the annual meeting of the
Birmingham Auxiliary to the British and Foreign
Bible Society. He threw all the force and fervour
of his imagination, heart, soul, mind, and strength
into this oration, which even in later years he
regarded as the best he ever delivered. It inaugu-
rated for him a new era and area of influence,

60 Walks in the Black Country

which at that time began to be felt beyond the
boundaries of his own country. This address was
printed by the London committee of the Society
as a full and effective exposition of its principles
and objects. It was circulated by thousands, and
read by persons of all denominations throughout
the kingdom. This was followed by other produc-
tions, generally sermons and addresses delivered
on special occasions, then prepared and sometimes
amplified into a considerable volume for the press.
"The Sunday School Teachers' Guide" was a
book thus expanded from a single address ; and
in a few years it passed through twenty editions.
His power as a public speaker and writer came
to be well known throughout the country, and
large audiences assembled to listen to him wher-
ever he appeared. The greatest oratorical effort
he ever made was perhaps his address in behalf
of the London Missionary Society, in Surrey
Chapel, in May, 1819. It lasted two hours, and
was delivered without reference to a single written
note, and without a moment's hesitation. He
was then at the meridian of his manhood and of
his reputation as a speaker. "At the close of
the first hour," says his biographer, "the preacher
requested permission to pause for a few minutes,
and the people sang a hymn. Such was the ex-
citement of the congregation, that during this
temporary interruption of the discourse, oranges

and its Green Border-Land. 61

were thrown into the pulpit to refresh the exhausted
orator. The hymn finished, he rose again, and,
recovering his strength, thundered on for another
hour."

It is doubtful if any address delivered from the
pulpit ever was listened to with more enthusiastic
admiration than this brilliant oration. It is said
that even the place and the subject did not re-
strain old men in the front gallery from giving
audible manifestations of their applause. As he
approached the autumn of life, his power in the
pulpit became more perceptible and impressive.
It was when the autumnal tints of those conclud-
ing years had touched his great bushy head and
beard and strongly-marked features, that I first
saw and heard him. The earnestness of his soul
in his work, his voice, mellowed like a sabbath
bell that had called a dozen generations to the
sanctuary, the deep solemnity of his manner, the
sheen of a godly life that seemed to surround him
like a halo, the very reflection of the thoughts he
had put forth upon the world through his books —
all gave to his discourse a power which I had
never seen equalled in any other minister on either
side of the Atlantic. I first met him the first
hour of my first visit to Birmingham in 1846.
Without any introduction or previous acquaint-
ance, I had ventured to write to him a year or
two prior to my coming to England, and had the

62 Walks in the Black Coimtry

great pleasure of receiving a most cordial letter
in reply. When, therefore, he gave me his hand
next after Joseph Sturge, at the house of that
good man, he seemed to impersonate, to their
fullest conception, all the ideas I had formed of
his character, as well as to deepen the reverence
with which it had inspired me. His personal
kindness, and the deep interest he manifested in
the peace and anti-slavery movements, and other
philanthropic enterprises of the day, have made
for me a memory which I shall ever cherish as a
rich treasure. This sentiment of esteem and rever-
ence grew deeper at every subsequent interview,
and I seldom visited Birmingham without seeing
him and listening to him in Carr's Lane Chapel.
But however large his congregation, and how-
ever often he may be able to address other
audiences, the most eloquent minister can reach
but a comparatively few persons with his voice.
He must put his thoughts to press in order to
reach and move the million. This John Angell
James did, to a degree and effect which no other
minister, of any denomination, has attained for
the last century. It is doubtful if Baxter or even
Bunyan has been so widely read. Mr. James gave
to the world, as the best legacy of his life, seven-
teen volumes, some of which have had a vast
circulation. His "Anxious Inquirer after Salvation
Directed and Encouraged " must rank only second

and its Green Border- Land. 63

to Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" in number of
copies printed and circulated in different languages
and countries. No man in writing a book could
be more deeply impressed with the conviction
that he was moved by the spirit of God than
was the author of this remarkable volume. That
conviction seemed to be deeper at the end than
at the beginning of the work. He charges its
readers to " take it up with something of the awe
that warns you how you touch a holy thing."
Thousands on both sides of the Atlantic have
taken it up in this way to all the benefit which its
author hoped of it.

In addition to all the graces and strength of his
faculties as a preacher and writer, Mr. James was
endowed with an executive and originating mind
of great tact and power. He was virtually the
founder and father of the Spring Hill College,
Birmingham, for the education of Independent
ministers. Although few ever reached the emi-
• nence he attained with so little academic and
classical culture, no one could have a greater sense
of its value and necessity. It was his earnest
and unwearied aim to raise the scholastic stand-
ard of the ministers of all the Nonconformist
denominations, and to elevate them to the level
and reputation of Oxford and Cambridge gradu-
ates. The institution at Spring Hill was, therefore,
the object of his large and generous solicitude,

64 Walks in the Black Country

and he laboured for its well-being and well-doing
in season and out of season. His earnest public
and private appeals brought to its aid liberal
contributions. He was a father to all the young
men it educated for the ministry, and watched
over, counselled, and encouraged them with the
kindliest suavity of Christian affection, and assisted
many of them in time of need from his own
purse.

But his executive and originating talent was
next brought into action on a larger field. He
now became virtually the founder and father of
" The Evangelical Alliance," of whose objects and
operations the whole civilized world has heard
much in the last twenty years. He had long
been exercised with grief at the alienations or
seeming estrangements existing between different
branches of the Christian church holding the same
fundamental doctrines of religious faith. He
writes, " One morning, at my private devotions,
I was much led out in prayer on this subject, '
and a suggestion came forcibly to my mind to
do something to effect a union of Christians in
some visible bond. I rose from my knees and
sketched out a rough scheme of union. The May
meeting of the Congregational Union soon fol-
lowed. At that meeting, I called the attention
of the brethren present to the subject before
them. Indeed, this was my chief object in going

and its Green Border-Land, 65

to the meeting." From that "rough scheme of
union " was shaped and laid the basis of an
organization that unites a vast number of churches
in both hemispheres in sentiment and action, for
the purity and spread of the Christian faith.

Mr. James himself was a living bond of union
between English and American churches. His
letters to eminent ministers in the United States
would make a large and interesting volume. No
man in England ever did more to draw together
the two countries by the liens of Christian fellow-
ship and sympathy ; and both have common and
equal cause to hold at equal value the legacy of
his life and labours. While giving his best efforts
to the organization of an Evangelical Alliance
which should embrace and unite the Protestant
churches in both hemispheres, he illustrated what
such a vast communion should be, feel, and do,
by becoming himself the soul and centre of an
inner and smaller Evangelical Alliance in Bir-
mingham. And the great one he founded would
do well to take his little home fellowship as a
pattern in spirit and action. Church and Dissent
never fraternized more beautifully than in the
Christian sympathy and companionship between
John Angell James and the Rev. Dr. Miller, the
eminent clergyman of the Established Church in
Birmingham, who will leave the record of a great
and good life for some one to write. No minister

F

66 Walks in tlie Black Country.

in England was a more out-and-out Nonconformist
than Mr. James, and perhaps no clergyman more
a "churchman" than Dr. Miller. But that in
which they agreed was far holier and lovelier than
that in which they differed ; and even the psalmist,
if he had seen their manner of walk and conver-
sation with each other, might have recognized the
original of his ideal : " Behold, how goodly and
pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together
in unity ! " When Mr. James was approaching his
end, and was prostrated by an alarming attack
of his disease, Dr. Miller offered prayer for his
recovery on Sunday morning in his church. This
drew from the venerable invalid a touching expres-
sion of gratitude, not only for such a token of
sympathy, but for others of the same spirit.

Mr. James died the ist of October, 1859, a few
months after good Joseph Sturge was called to his
rest and reward. Thus the two men, so united in
sympathy and loving fellowship in good works
during their lives, were separated in their deaths
by only a small space of time. Their graves lie
but a little way apart — one in the yard of the
Friends' Meeting House in Bull Street, the other
under the pulpit he filled for half a century in
Carr's Lane. The shadow of a great sorrow lay
dark and heavy on the town from one funeral to
the other. For no other town ever had two such
men living in it one year and buried in it the next.

CHAPTER VI.

INSTITUTIONS AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND PUBLIC SPIRIT OF
BIRMINGHAM — KING EDWARD'S SCHOOL — THE TOWN HALL —
HOSPITALS, CHURCHES, AND CHAPELS.

Al Birmingham is a young town, growing
• within the memory of present residents
from 50,000 to 300,000 inhabitants, it
cannot boast of any monuments of antiquity of
impressive date or character. The two or three
churches whose inner walls or towers could show
a goodly roll of centuries, have been so rebuilt
or renovated that they present no venerable
aspect. Indeed, excepting a few brick-and-timber
buildings of the Elizabethan period, or houses
that show their bones flush with their flesh, the
town looks almost as American as Chicago. It
has only one building that may be called a
speciality in the way of architecture — that is the
Town Hall. This is the most symmetrical and
classical building in England ; and looks like one
of the grand edifices of ancient Greece transported
in all its grace and glory to ' stand up in the

68 Walks in ttie Black Country

midst of a city-full of modernmost buildings,
as if to show by contrast how far they have de-
parted from the architectural taste and science
of the old masters of Pericles' day. The
Madeleine in Paris and the Girard College in
Philadelphia are the only buildings I ever saw
with which this hall may be compared ; indeed,
the three are copies of the same original — the
Temple of Jupiter Stator at Rome. Its interior
structure and aspect are noble and grand, well
fitted for the great voices of public opinion and
the voices tuned to gentler melodies. For it is
not only a public building, but a public institution
in itself. It is a great educational agency for
the enlightenment of the masses. It has played
a great part in forming the public spirit and
character of Birmingham. Here the population
have met, almost en masse, from year to year,
and been moved and moulded by eloquent
orators who seemed to draw new power from the
platform on which they stood. Indeed, if any
man has any eloquence in his soul, the scene
presented on some of these occasions must draw
it forth. I have witnessed many of these during
the last twenty years, and have always thought
that they must present the most inspiring spectacle
to the speaker. The scene from the platform
when John Bright is shaking the very walls with
his eloquence is grand almost to sublimity. The

and its Green Border- Land. 69

floor of the hall is cleared of every seat, and
seemingly half an acre of solid men, with eager
and upturned faces, are surging to and fro, as
if the breath of the orator were moving on the
face of the human sea, and it were heaving in
a ground-swell under the power of his thoughts.
Now a great wave, crested with a thousand
heads, sets in towards the platform with a tre-
mendous surge. All those eager faces and eyes
for a moment are buried in the trough of the
sea ; then comes the ebb and undertow, and
they flash up again upon the speaker, and the
retreating wave softens off into gentle ripples
against the walls. On some of these occasions
seven or eight thousand men are massed before
and around the speaker ; and when he puts
them under the mesmeric spell of his eloquence
in some powerful passage or peroration, the
sight is worth a long journey to witness ; and
he who witnesses it with attentive faculties must
see what a power in itself is such a hall for
shaping the mind of a town on the great
questions of the day.

When one has attended such a public meeting
in the Town Hall, he should witness the spectacle
presented within its walls at the great Musical
Festival, which takes place once in three years.
On this occasion philanthropy is set to music.
The grand organ is owned by the General Hospital,

70 Walks in tlie Black Country

and the notes it discounts for that institution are
as good as gold, and produce a great deal of it. It
was built in London and opened in 1834. It was
then, probably, the largest and most powerful
organ in England, and cost between £3,000 and
£4,000. The organ case or, better, organ house, is
forty feet wide, fifty-four high, and seventeen deep.
The largest wood pipe measures in the interior 224
cubic feet. The bellows contain 300 square feet of
surface, and require the pressure of three tons
weight for their necessary action. The wires or
" trackers," if laid in a straight line, would reach
above five miles. There are seventy-eight draw-
stops, four sets of keys, and above 4,000 pipes.
The weight of the instrument is above forty-five
tons. Once in three years this vast harp of 4,000
strings plays for the benefit of the General Hospital,
blending its grand melodies with the best human
voices that can be found in the United Kingdom.
This Musical Festival or banquet lasts four days,
and the great hall is filled with as highly a culti-
vated and elegant audience as the town and sur-
rounding country can produce. A large number
of the nobility and gentry are present from all the
midland counties ; and all being in full dress, an
assembly may be witnessed presenting a remark-
able contrast with one of the political meetings we
have noticed. The tickets are £1. is. and ior. 6d.
for the morning performances, and 1 5 s. and Ss. for

and its Green Border- Land. 71

the evening concerts. The whole net proceeds,
after the expenses are deducted, go to the support
of the Hospital. Thus a rare opportunity and
inducement are presented to make a virtue out of
pleasure, and to give both self and sympathy a
rich treat at the same time. The first festival was
held in 1778 at St. Philip's Church, the best build-
ing then in the town for such performances, which
consisted of selections of sacred music, and lasted
three days. The total receipts were .£800, and the
net profit £299. In 1834 the festival was held in
the new Town Hall and with the new organ ;
and the receipts were .£13,527, and the net profit
£4,03 5. In 1864 the receipts amounted to £13,777,
and the clear profit to £5,256. The grand total
received at all these Triennial Festivals, from 1768
to 1864 inclusive, is £216,499; and tne whole net
amount realized for the Hospital is £84,589. Thus
music has had a beautiful mission in connexion
with the Birmingham Town Hall and its organ.
It has brought songs of gladness and gratitude to
thousands in the long, dark night of suffering, and,
like the angel at the pool of Bethesda, helped
many a poor maimed or sick man and woman into
the healing fountain.

The Free Grammar School, on New Street, is a
large and well-proportioned Gothic building, with
less space sacrificed to acute angles than is gener-
ally the case with that order of architecture. It

72 Walks in the Black Country

is an edifice that will correspond with the most
elegant improvements that the enterprising and
ambitious town may make for half a century to
come, and looks well beside the largest and most
ornate structure lately erected — the Birmingham
Exchange. This is one of the foundation schools
of that interesting and amiable sovereign of educa-
tional memory, Edward VI. He was at heart the
best Edward England ever had ; and being so
good it was a pity he did not live and reign as
long as some of his ancestors of the same name.
He was a better and braver crusader than any of
them ; for, cross in hand, he marched to the rescue
of really a nation from the sepulchre of ignorance.
And, what showed the force of his feeling, wish,
and work in the matter, like another Peter the
Hermit, he enlisted a large number of good and
true men in the same enterprise. He not only had
Peabody's purse and heart for the education of the
people, but he made Peabodies and a kind of
philanthropic age by his example and influence.
If any one will take the census of educational and
benevolent institutions founded in that age, he will
see how it was marked with good will and good
works for the children of the poor. Then it was so
easy and cheap to plant an acorn that should grow
into a wide-spreading oak of strength and protec-
tion. It was a generous act in old James Harper
to give a pasture on Holborn Hill to the education

and its Green Border-Land. 73

of the children of Bedford, his native town. A ten-
acre field, though roughened with gorse, brachens,
and thistles, must have been worth ;£io an acre
in fee simple, when he made the donation. One
hundred pounds made a large sum in his day ; but
it was only the acorn. That furzy pasture has been
covered for a century or more with a little city-
full of houses, and it is now the oak under whose
branches thousands of Bedford children have
received an education as free as the light of
heaven.

An acorn was planted in Birmingham in the
same way. It is said that the inhabitants of the
town and the people of King's Norton petitioned
the crown for a school at the same time. In
both cases the petitioners were offered land or
money to the value of £20 per annum. The
ready cash was preferred by the Nortonians, whilst
the Birmingham men chose the land ; which, like
Harper's pasture on Holborn Hill, then lay mostly
out of the town. But it has grown into a grand
oak. It is now in the very heart of the town, and
covered with its best buildings ; one of which is
the magnificent Exchange. The present income
is about £12,000, and at the end of the century
it must amount to £50,000 per annum from the
leases that will drop in by that time. It has been
creditable to the people of Birmingham, and a
proof of their public spirit, that they have watched

74 Walks in the Black Country

with jealous vigilance over this institution, and have
stoutly resisted every insidious effort or tendency
to make it "a close borough," or a fat living for
a few luxurious and idle sclfs, as many great and
noble charities have been perverted. They had
a long and hard struggle to rescue it from this
condition or peril, and to utilize it for the benefit
of the town. They not only succeeded in having
the present edifice built upon the old site, against
the will of influential parties, but in opening up
four branch schools to be supported out of the
funds of the institution and to be carried on under
its direction. In these affiliated schools about 500
boys and the same number of girls are taught
reading, writing, and arithmetic by thirty-eight
masters, mistresses, and assistants. The education
provided at the Grammar School is of high order,
embracing classics, mathematics, and other branches
of college studies, together with that practical and
varied instruction necessary for commercial life.
No expense is spared in securing the services of
first-rate masters, two of whom have become
bishops. The number of pupils in all depart-
ments is about 600, taught by upwards of twenty
masters, who are generously paid for their services.
Indeed, the head master receives a salary equal
to that of the Secretary of State at Washington ;
and the aggregate received by all the masters
of the institution is about £6,000 per annum ;

and its Green Border- Land. 75

being equal to £10 per head of the pupils for
tuition.

There is a feature of this admirable institution
which an American must admire ; and it is com-
mon to a large number of similar foundations in
England. In the first place, there are ten scholar-
ships awarded every year to pupils that have
reached a certain standard of excelling, and who
receive each £50 per annum for four years, or for
the whole period of his college course should
he go to Oxford or Cambridge. This is capital.
This is a noble and generous stimulus and help
for a young man who has the mind but not
the means to acquire a university education and
the status and capacity it confers. Thus .£500
per annum are paid out of the income of the
institution for these ten scholarships. Then in
addition to all this encouragement and aid which
it extends to the pupils, there are several annual
prizes founded by friends of the school. The
governors, twenty in number, give two prizes of
£10 every Christmas to boys of the first class,
not under fifteen years of age, who pass the best
examination in all branches taught in the English
department. Bishop Lee, of Manchester, once
head master of the school, gave £100 to found
an annual prize for a critical essay on a passage
of the Greek Testament. William Chance, Esq.,
of the great glass manufactory, appropriately

76 Walks in the Black Country

gave an annual prize for encouraging the study
of the Holy Scriptures in English and Greek.
Others have founded smaller prizes to stimulate
and reward study in different departments of
useful learning.

The annual examinations are always conducted
by eminent scholars from the universities, and give
additional value to the awards. The public dis-
tribution of the prizes is an occasion of great
interest. I have been present at the two last
anniversaries, and have witnessed the proceedings
with lively satisfaction. The cheering of the boys
that fills the hall as the successful competitors
ascend to the platform and receive the prize books
from the hands of the head master, surrounded
by the whole corps of teachers and examiners,
and the audible or visible sympathy of the elder
portion of the audience, are enough to animate
a casual spectator with the spirit of the scene.
The sum paid for these prize books in 1859 was
put down at .£120. Declamations and recitations
in English, Latin, Greek, and German, form an
interesting part of the proceedings on these occa-
sions, and show very creditable attainments in
elocution as well as thought and memory on the
part of the young men. But, what is peculiarly
pleasing, the head master reads, with a satisfaction
which the whole school and audience share with
him, the roll of merit on the part of former pupils

and its Green Border-Land. 77

who are contending for the prizes of Oxford and
Cambridge, and every distinction won and an-
nounced is hailed by the boys with a ringing
cheer of pride and congratulation.

The Birmingham and Midland Institute is an
admirable institution, that does credit to the public
spirit of the town. As a building it mates well
with the Town Hall, over against which it stands.
It is to the instruction of the people in scientific
and artistic industries what the Town Hall is to
the culture and development of public sentiment
and opinion. Here artisans, miners, and men of
every mechanical business are taught the science
and economy of their occupations, not as a theory
merely, but as applied practically and technically
to their trades and professions. The classes em-
brace chemistry as applied to various manufactures
and agriculture, mechanics, metallurgy, mineralogy,
geology, ventilation of mines, and mining engineer-
ing. The first stone of the Institute was laid by
Prince Albert, in November, 1855, and the lecture
theatre was opened by Lord Brougham in October,
1857. So it has been in operation only ten years ;
but within that period it has educed and trained
up a working force of practical science of inesti-
mable value to the town. It has founded a home
School of Design and produced home artists who
are already competing with those brought from
France and Italy in drawing and modelling pat-

78 Walks in the Black Country

terns of exquisite taste for gold and silver ware,
papier-mache, furniture, and other elegant manu-
factures. Any young man may here fit himself
to fill the first position in his trade that science,
taste, and skill can make, and this, too, at cheap
and easy terms as to time and money. Then there
is a literary department, comprising reading room
and lectures and other sources of useful entertain-
ment and knowledge.

The Free Library, in the same building, is the
most popular institution in the town, in origin,
object, and use. It is the best exponent and
illustration of the public spirit of the people. It
was founded for and by them, and they owe it to
no one else. This is as it should be and will be in
times to come. Drinking Fountains are the order
of the day. They at first originated as the bene-
factions of some generous individual, who set an
impressive example to municipal authorities. Then
they speedily grew to be the standing and regular
institutions of the community. So it has been
with the Drinking Fountains of Knowledge. Some
munificent donor, like William B. Astor, of New
York, or William Brown, of Liverpool — to use a
homely simile — has "killed two birds with one
stone : " he has founded a great library and opened
its thousands of volumes to the people to read as
free and cheap as water; and the library thus
founded is to be a perpetual and effective monu-

and its Green Border-Land. 79

ment to his name and generosity to the public.
It is an invaluable institution for which its author
deserves to be held in everlasting and grateful
remembrance. But the thirsty masses cannot
drink at this fountain with the same sentiment as
at one of their own opening and ownership. After
all, in drinking at such a private benefaction, the
water of knowledge has to them a little of the look
and flavour of charity-soup. The Birmingham
men were the last in the kingdom to content them-
selves with such a source of mental refreshment,
even if one had been opened to them as large and
luxurious as the Astor Library in New York.
They did what no community in America has yet
done; and in the doing of it they have taken a
step in advance of anything we have accomplished
in this department of popular education. We
have taxed every man, whether he has children or
not, to open and support free schools ; but we
have never gone so far as to levy a rate upon the
population of a town to establish a Free Library.
In this the Birmingham people have beaten the
most enlightened and munificent community in
America. To their credit and to our reproach be
this said ; or if not to our reproach, then to our
stimulus in following this example.

This invaluable institution embraces two de-
partments : the Reference Library, and the Lend-
ing Library and News Room ; the former being

8o Walks in the Black Country

opened to the public in 1866, the latter in 1865.
The Reference Library is truly a vast treasure-
house of every department of human learning ;
and, to use an American simile of hospitality,
"you will always find the latch-string outside the
door." The lofty circular hall represents the
sphere of knowledge it embraces. The Philoso-
pher, the Historian, Theologian, Lawyer, Inventor,
and Scientific Mechanic may each find here an
almost boundless mine from which he may draw,
as cheaply as water, the most valuable deposits of
thought, observation, and fact. Here a poor but
earnest learner may explore a volume which cost
more than a small farm in Illinois, and transfer the
whole harvest of its wisdom into his own stock of
knowledge. Here an inventive mind may run
through the whole forest of Patents, Improvements,
and Mechanical Suggestions which a century of
the world's best genius has produced. As an
illustration of the richness of this special depart-
ment, so valuable to this great mechanical com-
munity, the fact may suffice, that it contains 2,030
Specifications of Patents. The whole number of
volumes in the Reference Library is 18,225. The
Arts and Sciences number 1,968 volumes on the
list ; History and Biography, 3,637 ; Poetry and
the Drama, 720. As an indication of how much
this great storehouse of knowledge is used and
appreciated, the daily average issue of books for

and its Green Border-Land. 81

the fifty-four days after the first opening amounted
to 212 volumes.

The Central Lending Library and News Room
is on the first floor of the same building, and was
opened in September, 1865. It contains 11,276
volumes, of which History, Biography, Voyages
and Travels have 2,304. This is really a Drinking
Fountain of Knowledge on a more liberal basis
than those opened in large towns to quench the
thirst of dry and dusty men with water. For in
the latter case the ladle or basin is always chained
to the fountain, and the drinker cannot carry any
of the water home to his family. But at this
Lending Library he may find a perpetual spring
of pure and wholesome literature for himself, wife,
and children and other inmates of his house, and
that as cheap as air, after it is once set running.
It is only the first step that costs him a little
thought and effort. He must get one burgess or
voter of the borough to sign the following voucher:

"I, the undersigned, being a burgess of the Borough of
Birmingham, declare that I believe
occupation age of No.

to be a person to whom books may be safely intrusted for perusal ;
and I hereby undertake to replace, or pay the value of any book
belonging to the Corporation of Birmingham, which shall be lost or
materially injured by said borrower."

This condition is not designed nor expected to
diminish or restrict the use of the Library. It

G

82 Walks in tJie Black Country

serves to impress upon every would-be reader
the conviction that the privilege is worth a little
personal thought and effort on his part. No
burgess would refuse to sign such a voucher for
any honest applicant. Up to the end of 1866,
7,148 persons had been qualified as borrowers.
During that year 164,120 books were lent out
to the people of the town, making an average
daily issue of 588. In the same department is
the News Room, in which is spread out to all
who would read nearly all the leading journals
and periodicals of the kingdom. As it was
intended, the working men of the town constitute
perhaps the largest number of callers. An inter-
esting fact will show how eagerly they use and
enjoy the privilege. They^are allowed an hour
for dinner, and a large number employed within
an accessible distance from the Library spend
in it half the time allotted to the meal ; thus
making twenty or thirty minutes' reading a
portion or condiment of their mid-day repast.

Liberal provision has also been made for remote
districts of the town, and several branch libraries
have been opened on the same basis. In addition
to these free sources of knowledge and mental
entertainment, there are many other libraries
established, where books may be had on easy
terms. One of these, The Old Library, in Union
Street, was founded under the direction of Dr.

and its Green Border-Land. 83

Priestley, and now numbers between thirty and
forty thousand volumes. There is also a unique
and interesting collection of books in a room
adjoining the great Reference Library, which will
afford much entertainment to the admirers of the
great Warwickshire bard, as men of local ambition
venture to call him. It is called The Shake-
speare Memorial Library, and is designed to
contain a complete collection of all the editions
of Shakespeare's works, and of the books which
have emanated from them. Very satisfactory
progress has been made in the collection, and
it promises to realize the best hopes of its
founders. In a word, it is doubtful if any town
of equal population in Great Britain or America
has opened a larger or'cheaper provision of books
for its population, and no English town can
show a larger muster-roll of readers per thousand
of its inhabitants. Thus a large and broad basis
has been laid on which to erect the structure
of public opinion in Birmingham, and to increase
its force and effect upon the country and its
government.

I have interpolated the Town Hall and Free
Libraries among the educational institutions of
Birmingham, because they really occupy a middle
place in the agencies of popular training and
knowledge. As it is probable that a considerable
number of American readers of these notes will

84 Walks in tlie Black Country

be passing through the town in course of the
year, I would suggest to them that they should
visit the Blue Coat Charity School, which partly
walls in St. Philip's Churchyard on the north-
east. They will see in the entrance hall how
a beautiful institution grows by that it feeds
upon; or how it reproduces, perpetuates, and
expands itself. This hall is hung with tall and
wide tablets, recording, in gilt letters, the names
and donations of benevolent patrons for more
than one hundred years. It will be interesting
to count up the bequests of .£1,000 and upwards,
as a proof of the munificent good-will which the
institution has won from the beginning. Some
of the records are full of pleasant reminiscence.
They are the donations of Blue Coat Boys who
have gone out and made a good position and
fortune in the world, and remembered gratefully
the Alma mater that trained them for useful
life. The average number of children in the
school is one hundred and forty boys and sixty
girls, who are lodged, fed, clothed, and educated
in the building. In the election of children for
admission, preference is given to orphans, or
those who have lost one parent.

Spring Hill College, both as an edifice and an
institution, is an educational establishment of high
rank and eminent usefulness. It is a theological
school for the training of ministers of the Inde-

and its Green Border-Land. 85

pendent body ; and it has sent out many able
preachers and teachers who have made their mark,
and a good and deep one. It was first opened
in 1838, in the private mansion of the family of
George Storer Mansfield, who founded it with
certain landed estates he devoted to the object.
It soon outgrew its limited and inconvenient ac-
commodation, and a new and noble edifice, larger
than any one connected with Harvard University
or Yale College in New England, was erected on
a beautiful and picturesque site near the village
of Moseley, called Spring Hill. The expense of
the building, land, and furnishing amounted to
about £18,000, raised by the voluntary contribu-
tions of friends. It has an able corps of professors,
not only of Theology and Ecclesiastical History
and Polity, but of Philosophy, Classical and
Oriental languages. It supplies studios and dor-
mitories for thirty-six students, and, adopting a
figure pertaining to water-works, it acts as a very
important feeder to the pulpits of the Independents
throughout the kingdom.

The Queen's College, almost facing the Town
Hall, is another foundation institution, for which
the town is indebted to the munificent generosity
and public spirit of Mr. Sands Cox. The build-
ing itself is worthy of the object of the College
when realized to the full wish and expectation
of the founder, a consummation not yet attained.

86 Walks in tJie Black Country

It furnishes accommodation to seventy students,
fitting themselves for Medicine and Surgery, Arts,
Laws, Civil Architecture and Engineering. In
connexion with the College are Museums of
Human and Comparative Anatomy, containing
more than 3,000 specimens. In a word it has
all the raw material of an important and first-
rate institution, which must inevitably be utilized
hereafter to larger results than it has yet produced.

The Proprietary School, situated on the Hagley
Road, near the intersecting point called the Five
Ways, is an energetic and well-conducted estab-
lishment, in which instruction of a high order is
given in classical and commercial education. It
is a first-rate middle-class school, with a large
force of teachers and a principal of eminence.
Dr. Badham, one of the best Greek scholars in
England, was for many years at the head of the
school, which attained a high reputation under
him.

The Diocesan Training College, at Saltley, is
another very creditable and useful institution,
founded by private contributions. It is a train-
ing school for the education of teachers for the
dioceses of Lichfield, Worcester, and Hereford,
and was opened in 1852. There is also the
Reformatory Institution in Saltley, for the rescue
of juvenile vagrants and criminals from a life of
vice and misery, and for training them for useful-

and its Green Border-Land. 87

ness and happiness in the world. Here they are
apprenticed to various occupations — farming, shoe-
making, tailoring, printing, &c.; and when they
have acquired these trades, places are sought for
them, not only in England but in Australia,
Canada, and other British colonies. Both these
institutions are greatly indebted for their origin
and support to the Hon. C. B. Adderley, who gave
the land which they occupy, and, what is equally
valuable, his earnest sympathy and generous good-
will. The institution has grown to meet the de-
mand for its benevolent offices, and now has
sufficient accommodation for 100 boys.

There are many other reformatory and educa-
tional institutions in Birmingham and its suburbs,
established on the voluntary principle for which
the town is distinguished. Indeed, one who looks
forward in the expectation or hope to see a uniform
or unsectarian system of education adopted, must
notice, with a little concern, the rapid rise and
extension of denominational schools. The number
of churches and chapels that have opened day
schools as an integral part of their establishments,
seems to be increasing to an extent which may
interpose an obstacle to a national system. In
many cases, the school house is a part or con-
tinuation of the church or chapel building, and
frequently numbers several hundred children. It
is a matter of common occurrence to hear of the

88 Walks in tJie Black Country

opening of a chapel and school room, as if they
were part and parcel of the same denominational
establishment. Although an earnest educationalist
may feel as St. Paul did with regard to the preach-
ing of the gospel, and say he cares not for any
amount of contention in the education of children
so they be instructed, still this contention or com-
petition may oppose a serious difficulty to what
we in America called a Common School System,
and which a vast number of enlightened men in
England wish to see established in the United
Kingdom.

Few towns of equal population equal Birming-
ham in ample and varied provision for the sick,
poor, and afflicted. The charitable institutions
represent every form of sympathy with suffering ;
and are too numerous to notice singly or in detail.
Two, however, deserve a fuller description than
these pages will allow. The General Hospital is
truly a noble institution, and ranks among the
first in the country for its capacity and liberality
of accommodation. But there is a unique feature
distinguishing it from other establishments of the
same character. Never yet en the face of the
earth, I am confident, was there a building that
listened to so much groaning within its walls and
yet produced so much music outside of them.
Never did suffering and song so act and re-act
upon each other. As it has already been noticed,

and its Green Border'- Land. 89

once in three years there is the most luxurious
banquet of music, lasting for four consecutive days,
in the Town Hall. Nothing in England or Europe
can equal it, both for place and performers. All
present at the great Festival in 1867 must have
carried away this impression. Well, the invalids
and sufferers in the General Hospital had some-
thing more and better than the crumbs that fell
from this table so loaded with precious delicacies.
The solos of Sweden's other nightingale, of Titiens,
Sherrington, Reeves, and Santley, and the grand
choruses that by turns lifted the entranced thou-
sands half-way to heaven and held them there in
sublime fascination, these did more than "raise a
mortal to the skies" — they "drew an angel down"
with cordials, medicines, good clothing, and tender
watch and care for all the suffering inmates of the
Hospital for a whole year long. Miriam's Song, in
the " Israel in Egypt," gives songs of gladness and
gratitude in a hundred nights to crippled scores
of men and women within the dim, still wards of
the asylum. The voices that swell and meander
through the glorious harmonies of " Elijah " set
a thousand ravens a-wing with sustenance and
solace for these poor and afflicted children of
suffering and sorrow.

The Queen's Hospital is another and supple-
mentary institution of the same character and
object. Among other means adopted for the sup-

9O Walks in the Black Country

port of these establishments, one developed by the
Rev. Dr. Miller, Rector of St. Martin's, is an instru-
mentality which produces more than money.
Through his influence the system was adopted of
having the claims of these hospitals presented
simultaneously on a given Sunday in all the
churches and chapels of the town, and a collection
taken in their behalf. Thus the whole church-
going population of all denominations, including
Jews and Roman Catholics, on that day, have
their thoughts concentrated upon these charitable
institutions, and are thus disciplined in general
philanthropy as well as local benevolence.

The improvements in Birmingham, within my
own personal remembrance and observation, indi-
cate the public spirit of its inhabitants. New
Street would be almost unrecognizable to one
returning to the town after twenty years absence ;
especially when the Midland Bank, now arising on
its foundations, shall have been completed. The
Great Central Railway Station, into which five
different lines converge in the heart of the town,
has not its equal in the kingdom for the roofed
space it encloses. The area within the walls is
i, i oo feet long and 212 feet wide, and the whole
of this great breadth is spanned by single arches
resting simply on pillars on each side. No other
arched roof of 212 feet span has been attempted in
.England, or perhaps in the world. The Exchange

and its Green Border-Land. 91

flanks this great station building on the north, and
is a centre-piece of which the town may be justly
proud, whatever improvements may follow here-
after. Bingley Hall is another building of great
capacity and utility, especially for annual exhibi-
tions of cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, and poultry,
which have attained a first-class rank for the
quality and number of agricultural implements
and productions, as well as of animals presented.
Curzon Hall, another building of large and good
dimensions, was erected and opened in 1866, and
may be called, in close resemblance to a celebrated
Venetian edifice, the Dogs' Palace. Although a
circus occasionally performs within its walls, it is
really devoted to the greatest provincial parlia-
ment of dogs in Great Britain. Hundreds of every
lineage, use, name, size, stripe, and language, are
here assembled about Christmas time, and discuss
questions of canine and social economy with
a gravity and earnestness which few human con-
ventions frequently imitate. Great lion-faced St.
Bernarders and little Scotch terriers, with their
spiteful eyes peering through moppy meshes of
hair, take part in these animated debates. It is
one of the most interesting reunions in the animal
world that an amateur of it can witness.

Birmingham, like many large and growing towns
both in England and America, had filled a great
.area with long and intersecting streets of houses,

92 Walks in the Black Country

shops, and factories, before it thought of leaving a
goodly breathing and recreating space for the
people. In this respect it followed the habit of
many New England towns, whose first settlers cut
down all the trees, both great and small, to make a
proper " clearing " for their houses, without think-
ing how much their children would prize the shade
and ornament of some of the majestic and primeval
oaks thus brought low by the axe. This mistake
they discovered by the time those children were
born, and tried to rectify it by planting little scions
by the decaying stumps of the monarchs of the
forest which they had levelled. Thus Birmingham
had a population of 250,000 before it had a public
park, or a single green acre which they could call
their own as a community. The first, comprising
a space of twelve acres, was the generous and
opportune gift of the Hon. C. B. Adderley, at
Saltley: it was opened in 1856, and made one of
the munificent benefactions to which the town is in-
debted to his philanthropy. A second was opened
the following year, containing thirty acres, pre-
sented by Lord Calthorpe, and bearing his name.
But, as in the case of the Free Library, the people
resolved to have a Drinking Fountain of Air of
their own, purchased by their own money, and not
the gift of one aristocratic and wealthy patron.
Aston Hall — a stately, baronial-like mansion, just
in the greenest outskirt of the town — came into

and its Green Border-Land. 93

the market, with all its stately appurtenances of
trees, lawns, walks, drives, histories, legends, rime,
and romance of antiquity. It had come down
through several centuries of varied occupation, with
but a dim record of the families that had inhabited
it. A company was formed to buy up this estate,
which failing to effect the purchase, the corpora-
tion, assisted by private subscriptions of ^7,000,
came to the aid of the enterprise, and secured the
valuable property for the use of the people. The
park contains forty-two acres, affording sufficient
space for recreation, while it is so situated as to
appear only the central point of view to a park of
a dozen miles in extent, picturesquely wooded and
dashed with gleams of water pleasantly interspersed
with the green and gold of the variegated land-
scape. Then, standing on a gently-rounded emi-
nence, commanding all this lovely scenery, is the
great hall with its turrets, terraces, stables, and
outbuildings. It has been turned into a museum ;
so that, when tired of walks or sports in the park,
young and old may season their recreations with a
little useful knowledge. In a word, no other town
in the kingdom has such a baronial estate for the
free use of its people.

Aston Church is a noble old structure, "to
the manor born," though probably several hun-
dred years before the present hall was erected,
to which it seems to have been an apanage. The

94 Walks in t/te Black Country

external is more impressive than its interior
aspect, as it looks to be larger at a little distance
than it really is. Perhaps this impression is
produced by the massive tower and its tall and
graceful spire. Both pedestal and statue are as
graceful as colossal. Its "God's Acre" holds the
dust of a dozen generations, and is filled to its
walls with monuments of every grade and shade.
While walking among them with Capern, the
postman poet, an incident occurred which I
hoped would stir his muse to some appropriate
reflections. The clock, high and deep in the old
church tower, tolled the funeral of four sunny
hours, as if it were never to greet the birth of

another in time. The sound came out into the still

•

air through those massive walls with the silvery
quavers of centuries. It seemed to take hold of
the deceased hours by their middle minutes, and
to breathe over them a plaintive requiem, half
sigh and half sob, melting away in a querulous
murmur over the cross streets of human graves
surrounding the church. While we listened
thoughtfully to the murmur as it fluttered out-
ward upon the still blue air, a sharp, piercing
screech split the silence of nature, startling the
sleeping leaves to a quiver of alarm. What a
transition ! There, on a high embanked railway
just across the brook, was the huge black serpent
of a coal train, with all its loose vertebrae

and its Green Border -Land. 95

grating and rocking at their joints, when, just
at this point, as if a sharp agony had seized it,
the engine put forth the horrid ejaculation of
anger or defiance. The contrast between its
smoky blast, and the pathetic, silvery benedic-
tion of the old clock in the church tower, brought
us back from thoughtful communion with the
departed spirits of past centuries to the sharp
and rugged realities of this utilitarian age.

The old church in Handsworth is an antique
building showing a smattering of various orders
of architecture, with old-fashioned square pews,
designed for families, facing inward upon each
other instead of looking at the minister. But it
is a kind of Westminster Abbey to Birmingham,
consecrated to the memory of its great dead,
whose names have won illustrious fame. First and
foremost is a chapel dedicated to James Watt,
with a life-size statue in a sitting posture, which
ranks among the master-pieces of Chantrey's
chisel. Then there are monuments erected to
Boulton, his partner and right-hand man, and
to others whose lives and labours deserve a
respectful memory.

One of the most beautiful little churches in
England is the Edgbaston Old Church. Its
beauty is not in architectural proportions or pre-
tensions, but in the charm which nature has given
it. In the first place, it is picturesquely situated

g6 Walks in the Black Country

under the eaves of a stately grove that veils
Edgbaston Hall and its park and pool from the
road. Then it is completely netted to the very
top of its tower with ivy. Hardly a square inch
of its bare walls can be seen at a few rods dis-
tance. No garden summer-house or bower could
be greener from bottom to top. Robed thus by
nature in the best vestment she could weave for
a sanctuary, it seems to have a more sacred
consecration to the worship of God than an arch-
bishop could give to it. One might well feel
that Nature joined in the prayers and psalms
and spiritual songs within ; and it may be hoped
that the congregation recognize her presence and
participation in their devotions. In the little
churchyard, which looks like a hopefully-sculp-
tured doorstone of eternity, sleeps the dust of
a sister of Washington Irving, who was the wife
of one of the fathers of the town — the venerable
Henry Van Wart.

A mile or two further in a westerly direction
is the parish church of Harborne, which only
lacks the ivy surplice to be even more attractive
than that of Edgbaston. It drew me to that
rural suburb, and has become as home-like and
dear to me as the church of my native village
in America. In situation it conforms religiously
with the Fourth Commandment. It retires medi-
tatively from the six days' labour, and all its

and its Green Border- Land. 97

noise, dust, bustle, and sight ; and far from the
public roads, invites the worshippers of the village
to its quiet sanctuary. They come at the cheering
voice of its sabbath, bells, which ripples outward
across the green valleys to homesteads half hidden
and half revealed. And the congregation conies
across the broad fields by footpaths that converge
from every direction into the solemn aisles of the
churchyard trees. The main avenue is nearly a
third of a mile in length, with a lofty roofage half
the way. The church has no gorgeous east window
of coloured glass pictured over with olden saints
in fantastic robes of mediaeval conception ; but
Nature, from some tall over-shadowing trees, has
hung a curtain of leaves just outside the plain,
untinted panes, and thus substituted her cheap and
pleasant artistry for the more costly and lifeless
pictures done by the painter in oil.

The skirt of Birmingham is very ample and
variegated. Though the half that it turns to the
fire of The Black Country is badly scorched,
crimped, and ragged, the other half is a flowing
robe embroidered with emerald and gold. Moseley,
Edgbaston, and Harborne are embraced in the
latter, and are as goodly suburbs as any town in
England can show. Hills, dales, gentle slopes,
valleys, and streams, make a picturesque scenery.
The residences of many of the prosperous busi-
ness men of the borough are interspersed in this

H

98 Walks in tlie Black Country.

landscape, and their ornamental grounds form a
pleasant feature. Edgbaston especially is full of
these elegant houses and gardens ; but nearly all
of them are built upon the pan of a lease-trap,
which, one of these years, will spring up and catch
every one of them, with all their lawns and external
embellishments. The evening scenery enjoyed by
these suburbs is very unique and even grand.
Although the sky is slightly dashed with smoke in
the best days, The Black Country reveals itself
only at night, and then in its own aurora borealis.
As the sun descends in the west it hangs the
horizon with curtains of its own crimsoning. Its
red twilight softens first into gold, then into pearl,
and melts out of the evening sky ; then comes
the after-glow of the region of fire and smoke.
Then upsprings the aurora borealis of The Black
Country — the swaling light of a hundred furnaces
and forges roaring all through the night. It runs
up and down the horizon like summer lightning,
crimsoning the edges of the clouds, and the patches
of sky between. This light is the halo around the
brow of swart and patient Labour — that knows no
rest while wealth is dreaming in its sleep.

CHAPTER VII.

RISE, PROGRESS, AND CHARACTERISTICS OF MECHANICAL AND
MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN BIRMINGHAM — BRIEF NOTICE
OF LEADING BRANCHES AND ESTABLISHMENTS.

SOME characteristics of the manufactures for
which Birmingham is distinguished have
been already generalized in a passing
notice. Still they enter into the life and being of
the town so vitally, that it would be irrelevant to
the object of this volume not to devote to them an
entire chapter. If in this space enough should be
stated to create a new interest in the reader in
them, he may satisfy it to the fullest extent by
reading " Birmingham and the Midland Hardware
District," by Samuel Timmins, Esq. — an exhaus-
tive volume, full of the most extensive and in-
structive information on the subject. Hutton, the
witty, apothegmatic historian of the town, writing
more than half a century ago, observes that
" Birmingham began with the productions of the
anvil and probably will end with them." The first
half of this statement is true of civilization itself.

ioo Walks in tJie Black Country

The hammer and anvil played the first notes in
the Grand March of Humanity in the civilized
arts ; and the genealogy of all the productions of
Birmingham, present and to come, may be traced
back to that origin. Fighting-ware — such as guns,
swords, bayonets, and pikes — at first predominated
among the productions of the hammers and anvils,
though hatchets, hoes, and other implements of
peaceful husbandry had their place in the early
industry of the town. The skill and taste acquired
in the manufacture of these articles prepared the
way for ornamental works or for articles of luxury
and fashion. The pioneer in the introduction of
this new art and occupation was John Taylor, who
died in 1775, at the age of sixty-four, having
acquired a fortune of £200,000 from the business
he established, which was the manufacture of metal
buttons. Rich-witted, quaint Hutton calls him
"the Shakespeare or Newton of his day." He
seems to have been a kind of Wedgwood in his
line, applying great genius of design to gilt buttons,
snuff-boxes, and articles of japanned ware. It is
stated that, as far back as the middle of the
eighteenth century, he manufactured buttons in his
shop of the value of £800 weekly, besides other
articles. He also introduced or monopolized the
production of painted snuff-boxes, of infinite variety
of device. It is said one of his workmen earned
three pounds ten shillings per week by painting

and its Green Border- Land. 101

them at a farthing each. If this were true, that
single hand must have turned out over 160,000
boxes in the year.

The artistic skill which John Taylor's wares had
developed and diffused among the mechanics of
Birmingham, as it were, lit the candle of a new
industry, which again, in its turn, fed and transmit-
ted the light to other departments of trade. This
inventive skill, originating in finely-trained percep-
tions of beauty, is not only the minister but the
founder of fashion. Buckles for hat, knee, and
shoe became the ruling and raging fashion in the
later years of the last century, from the taste and
genius bestowed on their manufacture. For a
long time they were worn in all civilized countries,
and in none more generally among well-to-do
people than in republican America. Birmingham
and a few towns adjacent monopolized the business
and supplied the whole demand for Europe and
America. But when the trade was apparently
at its height of prosperity, and promised golden
harvests for many years to come, it fell in a
moment. Fickle Fashion took a new and sudden
freak. Although it may well be said of her,
reversing the proverb, Fit, non nascitnr, " made,
not born," still the makers could not keep her to
their notions and interest. Without a moment's
notice, or a motive's impulse which could be
understood, she took to the "effeminate shoe-

IO2 Walks in tJie Black Country

string," as it was indignantly styled. The Prince
of Wales, the most unlikely man on earth to
interfere with the royal prerogative of Fashion,
was appealed to in an almost piteous petition
to interpose his influence and save the craft
from ruin. This petition is a remarkable docu-
ment. It contains the stoutest remonstrance ever
addressed to an intangible despotism stronger
than the power of throned kings. In the first
place, it shows how many had earned their bread
by the fallen trade. It beseeches the Prince to
assist in giving employment to " more than 20,000
persons who, in consequence of the prevalence of
shoe-strings and slippers," were in great distress.
"The first gentleman in Europe," as the Prince
aspired and claimed to be, yielded just enough
to show the petitioners how little he could arrest
the rule of Fashion. He ordered his gentlemen
and servants to discard shoe-strings, but it was
like opposing a rye-straw to a mountain torrent.
The petitioners put a plaintive sentiment in an
apothegm of great wisdom and truth. They say,
" Fashion is void of feeling and deaf to argument."
But if buckles were obliged to succumb to the
dictation of Fashion, a stout resistance was opposed
to her rule in the matter of gilt or metal buttons.
The protectionists of those times ruled their trades
with a rod of iron. The button-makers would not
tolerate either competition or rivalry. No shoe-

and its Green Border-Land. 103

string innovators should be allowed to poach on
their preserves, as they did in the buckle business.
They would push the iron aegis of the law against
all the inventors and improvers that sought to in-
sinuate themselves into the pale of their profits.
A statute enacted in the reign of the first George
existed, and this they determined to see enforced.
Whoever undertakes to write the history of Pro-
tection, should cite in full this Act. How strangely
it reads in the ears that listen to the new doctrines
of the present day ! It imposed a penalty of £5
" on any Taylor or other person convicted of mak-
ing, covering, selling, or using, or setting on to a
garment any Buttons covered with cloth or of any
stuff of which garments are made." But if " Love
laughs at locksmiths," fashion laughed at all the
bolts and bars which The Black Country iron and
coal could make to bar her out of the kingdom.
The button-makers, like other tradesmen and
manufacturers who seek to make their government
a kind of special providence for the protection
of their pretended interests, appealed to all the
influential powers of state to interpose in their
behalf. Even as late as 1850 deputations were
sent up to London, not to ask for Parliamentary
legislation, but to solicit the royal court to pa-
tronize metal buttons. But, like the shoe-buckle-
men, they found a power behind the throne that
wielded the sceptre over the realm of taste, and like

IO4 Walks in tlte Black Country

them they had to say and believe that " Fashion
is void of feeling and deaf to argument."

Still, there was a rough, rude world outside of
civilization, which Fashion, enthroned at Paris,
could not rule or reach for many years after the
issue of her edicts. Ornamental buttons and
beads of brass, glass, steel, and iron continued
to be as attractive to the North American Indians,
Hottentots, and Tartars as if they were worn
by all ranks in London and New York. Thus,
the fall in these trades was somewhat broken by
the demand for those productions which was still
kept up in the barbarous regions of the earth.
Matthew Boulton, who may be called the father
of half the trades of Birmingham, and who laid
down that broad and strong foundation on which
the business character of the town was built,
developed those almost infinite varieties of handi-
craft which won for it the name of " toyshop of
the world." For years before the American
Revolution he erected his blocks of workshops
at Soho, a suburb of Birmingham, then a wild
and barren heath. In 1774 it had become the
most extensive and remarkable establishment in
England. In none before or since was there ever
such a wonderful variety of articles wrought out
simultaneously. At that time it employed a
thousand workmen, who, from the unprecedented
variety of skilled occupations they represented

and its Green Border-Land. 105

and prosecuted, must have constituted a kind of
normal school for artisans in all the other crafts
subsequently introduced into the town. Indeed,
Matthew Boulton and his copartners made Soho
a kind of Mecca to Mechanism. From it has
radiated a power which no mechanical dynamics
can measure — a power which has taken rank
with the great moral forces of mankind. When
Boulton planted his establishment at Soho, water
and wind were the only motive forces that pro-
pelled wheel or keel the world around. For years
he propelled his machinery by water alone. Watt
came with his great idea. He came to the right
place and the right man ; and the two, representing
the best perceptive and executive faculties ever
united in a private firm, worked out and gave to
mankind that million-handed giant of the world,
the Steam Engine. What is Mecca or a hundred
Mahomets to that mechanical power for human
progress and happiness ! Currens e Soho, the
steam engine was soon succeeded by another
currency from the same establishment. The
copper coinage of England up to Boulton's day
had not only been coarse and common, but
ununiform and uncertain. Boulton set at work
to devise machinery for the manufacture of better
pennies. He succeeded in producing them greatly
improved in style and material ; striking off
twenty tons of copper, or 716,000 pennies a week

io6 Walks in tlie Black Country

for several months. It is somewhat remarkable
that, with all his nice perceptions of taste, he
paid, voluntarily or involuntarily, the old heredi-
tary English homage to SOLIDITY. He gave a
Spartan size and weight to his coppers that vied
well with the iron currency of Lycurgus. His
penny weighed just an ounce, and his twopenny
piece two ounces. Eight of the latter and sixteen
of the former made just a pound. A sovereign's
value in them made a comfortable load of fifteen
pounds for a pair of saddle-bags. But their
inconvenience as currency was compensated in
other uses to which they might be turned. They
were not only the most exact but the only uniform
weights in the kingdom, and could be used more
safely for the purchaser than any others in
weighing out tea, snuff, tobacco, and even small
family purchases of butter and cheese. Boulton
fancied he had produced a coinage by his nice
machinery which could not be imitated ; but it
was, in a few years, by lead pennies faced with
copper. But if hypocrisy be a compliment to
virtue, these counterfeits were almost a virtuous
suggestion to truth. One might be tempted to
believe that virtuous people acquiesced in the
suggestion, especially if they had ever carried
a shilling's worth of Boulton's pennies in their
pockets up two flights of stairs, or a mile of level
road. Whereas the genuine article was sixteen

and its Green Border- Land. 107

to the pound, the counterfeit required sometimes
more than eighty to make that weight.

Under Boulton, Watt, and Murdoch, Soho
became an attracting and eradiating centre of
scientific mechanism and artistic taste and skill,
which not only supplied the manufacturing indus-
tries of Birmingham with their remarkable and
diversified faculties, but diffused the overplusage
throughout the kingdom and the world. Soho
drew to itself and absorbed the best talent of
the country. It attracted and employed the
genius of Flaxman, Chantrey, and other eminent
artists in designs for the almost infinite variety
of articles which it produced. It trained up an
army of workers under the tuition of all this
science, genius, taste, and skill, and they, in their
turn, became teachers of thousands of artisans
in shops and factories scattered over the United
Kingdom and the United States. Soho, also, as
we have already noticed, elaborated a night sun
for lighting the factories, shops, towns, and villages
of the kingdom. It first gave to the world Gas
as an illuminating power. Thus, considering all
that has emanated from that famous establish-
ment, its memory should be held in grateful
estimation wherever the English language is
spoken, and even where it is not.

While the Soho establishment was working out
such marvels of taste, skill, and science in steel,

io8 Walks in tJu Black Country

iron, copper, silver, and gold, another pioneer in
the trades of Birmingham, Henry Clay, introduced
what might be called a paper metal, and created
an entirely new business, which may be regarded
as the distinguishing speciality of the town. This
was the papier-mache. He was an apprentice to
John Baskerville, and had the best possible tuition
for the enterprise he made so successful. He
had the good fortune to win the patronage of
the royal court by a sedan chair he presented
to Queen Caroline. This probably was the largest
and most splendid article he ever made of the
new material. The demand for his manufactures
became immense, and he accumulated a great
property, and was appointed High Sheriff of
Warwickshire. At one period, during the last
century, he employed 300 hands. He had the
monopoly of the market, and his profits must
have satisfied the average ambition of monopolists.
It is said they amounted to £3. Ss. 2d. on a
single tray sold for £5. Ss. yd. Improvements
have ' been introduced from year to year since
his day, until such heavy and solid articles have
been produced as were seen at the Great Exhi-
bition in Paris ; or may be seem at any time
at the warehouse of Messrs. M'Callum and
Hodson, who are extensive manufacturers in
Birmingham. Massive wardrobes, tables, sofas,
&c., of the highest perfection will there be found,

and its Green Border-Land. 109

showing to what uses and to what brilliant
solidities the waste paper, often floating on the
wind, may be turned.

The Glass Manufacture may also be called a
speciality among the manifold productions of
Birmingham. Two celebrated establishments, ex-
panded to vast capacities by Messrs. Osier and
the Messrs. Chance respectively, have carried the
manufacture to wonderful perfection. The several
international exhibitions that have taken place
within the last sixteen years have made the public
generally acquainted with the achievements of
artistic mechanism and skilled labour which have
distinguished different communities. At the Great
Exhibition of 1851, it was seen, as never before,
what Birmingham could do in the manufacture of
glass. If the vote were taken of the million
of different countries who saw what that first
Crystal Palace contained, as to the most impres-
sive, attractive, and best-remembered object, a
majority would say that it was Osier's Crystal
Fountain. It was a magnificent centre-piece for
all the splendid surroundings of art and industry
within those walls. It seemed a gorgeous stalactite
from that concave sea of glass which gave trans-
lucent roofage to the great spectacle of human
skill and toil. But that fairy fountain was only
the beginning of productions which have excited
equal admiration. One of the master-pieces of the

no Walks in ttie Black Country

art is the pair of crystal glass candelabras which
the Osiers manufactured for the tomb of the
Prophet and for Ibrahim Pasha's palace at Cairo.
This was perhaps their most exquisite specimen
of workmanship, and was so unique and beautiful
that Prince Albert commissioned them to manu-
facture a similar pair, on a smaller scale, as a birth-
day present to the Queen, which are placed in
Osborne House. Perhaps no house has brought
more science of its own elaboration to bear upon
the construction of instruments for the measure-
ment of wind and rain. These anemometers have
been developed to the most delicate issues — even
to register, as it were, every counter-puff of air by
day and night ; to tell when and how often the
wind changed from one point to another. Their
show-room on Broad Street is a veritable museum
in itself, and no one can visit it without being
struck with admiration at the infinite variety as
well as beauty of their productions.

The Chances have the largest establishment in
Great Britain for the manufacture of plate and
window glass, lighthouse lenses, and optical glasses.
Their works constitute a village in itself, a few
miles out of Birmingham, at Spon Lane. No
manufacture in England has shown more elasticity
than glass on being released from the heavy duty
once imposed upon it. It was almost like the case
of a man born blind, who, on having his eyes

and Us Green Border-Land. 1 1 1

opened, luxuriated more in the sense of sight than
in all the other senses put together. On removing
the tax, not only all the houses in the kingdom
seemed to open their old eyes wider than before,
but also to show new ones in their faces. Window
panes expanded from six inches by eight to six
feet by eight, and grew on from that size to the
dimensions of the front wall of a small cottage.
Glass was put to uses never dreamt of before ;
even to purposes which it had been thought nothing
but the toughness of iron could accomplish. First,
small glass houses for flowers ; then conserv-
atories like that of Chatsworth ; then the Crystal
Palace in Hyde Park. Pillars, beams, and even
globular boilers for boiling coffee have found their
place among the new uses to which the brittlest
of all materials has been turned. Any American,
or other foreign-born visiter in Birmingham, will
find the establishment of Messrs. Chance one of
the great lions of English manufacturing enterprise.
The highest arts, or those which command the
most enthusiastic and reverential admiration, are
painting, sculpture, and music. And the triad had,
beyond all other arts, the inspiration of religious
sentiment and enthusiasm. The adoration of the
Virgin and all the Roman Catholic saints, gave
infinite scope and impetus to the genius of the
great masters. Madonnas on canvas, glass, and in
marble employed the pencils and chisels of the

1 1 2 Walks in tJie Black Country

first if not all of the painters and sculptors of
Europe in the Middle Ages. Songs in honour of
these human divinities were breathed into music
by the great composers of that period. But when
' the Reformation laid its hand upon this sensuous
worship, glass-painting became obsolete, if it had
ever been introduced in England. Birmingham
took a leading part in its renaissance, at the time
when the genius of Baskerville, Boulton, and Soho
was diffusing itself through the artfstic industries
of the town, and producing a simultaneity of
progress in them all. In 1784 Francis Egerton
first began to paint glass at Soho, and brought the
art to such perfection that he was commissioned
even to supply windows for the famous St. George's
Chapel, Windsor ; also for Lichfield and Salisbury
cathedrals, for several of the colleges of Oxford,
and for many parish churches in different parts of
the country. That showy and luxurious Lord
Mayor of London, William Beckford, gave him
commissions to the value of £12,000 for windows
for his Fonthill mansion. A specimen of the
genius and workmanship of this pioneer in the art
may be seen in the east window of St. Paul's,
Birmingham. It may not stand scientific criticism,
but may serve as a point of departure from which
his successors progressed to higher attainments.
The most eminent of these was Mr. John Hardman,
who, in 1837, formed an intimate acquaintance with

and its Green Border-Land. 1 1 3

the celebrated architect and designer, Augustus
Welby Pugin, an enthusiastic devotee and student
of the decorative art. Indeed, he seemed to have
espoused the Roman Catholic faith in middle-life
more out of his admiration for saints in glass than
for any other religious convictions. One designed
and the other executed seemingly with the same
class and capacity of genius. Painted windows, of
every device, form, and size, for cathedrals, colleges,
churches, and private mansions under this firm
became one of the special manufactures of Birming-
ham. The establishment of the Hardmans is on
Newhall Hill, and is well worth a visit, not only
for its beautiful productions but for its prominent
place in the history of the art in England.

Messrs. Lloyd and Summerfield, at Birmingham
Heath, have also distinguished themselves for the
splendid specimens of glass-painting which they
have produced.

But of all the manufactures of Birmingham none
has such a wide reputation abroad, in America
especially, as Gillott's STEEL PENS. Happily there
are a hundred " young ideas taught to shoot " with
a pen where one is taught to shoot with a gun
Pens are the knitting needles of civilization, and
ply in all its webs of social life and literature.
They are the metallic points from which flash the
electric thoughts that thrill the world, and conduct
the first that children write into visible words.

I

H4 Walks in tlie Black Country

The schoolmasters of two hemispheres owe Gillott
a debt of gratitude which they do not realize for
what he has done for them. I once taught school
for a year, and from my own experience should
estimate the hours then employed by American
schoolmasters in slitting and pointing goose-quills
with their penknives in a single year would make
a century'. The very term "penknife" will pro-
bably be perpetuated for ever as a memento of a
process that did sorely try thousands of patient
and virtuous souls employed in teaching children
to write. Indeed, the invention of the steel pen
was an absolute necessity, as much as was the use
of pit coal in England when first discovered. As
well might you expect to feed all the house-fires,
furnaces, and forges of the kingdom with wood
fuel grown on the island as to find goose-quills
enough on the face of the globe to furnish the
writing world with pens. And the cutlers of
Sheffield had got on a little further into the light
of political economy than to follow the example
of some stiff protectionists we have noticed, or
to appeal to Parliament or the Prince of Wales
to put a stop to Gillott's steel pens which could
be made without Sheffield penknives. Even if
they at first regarded him as a poacher on their
preserves, the man who acted for him as guide
was a Sheffield artisan, who made the first steel
pen. It was a rude thing at first, being made on

and its Green Border-Land. 1 1 5

the fork principle. The two tines were flat and
thin, and the points when brought closely together
formed the "nib." The whole was made to re-
semble a quill pen in shape, and was gradually
developed into a beautiful but expensive article.
Some of the most highly finished were sold as
high as five shillings each. They were gener-
ally purchased as presents or articles of curious
mechanism, but were too few and costly for any
considerable use. There was at that time no
town in England that had developed such varied
machinery for such purposes as Birmingham, and
the making of pens became a speciality which
perhaps has characterized the town more distinc-
tively abroad than any other manufacture. At
first the use of them encountered an obstinate
prejudice, like the introduction of most useful
articles. In fact the school-house door had to be
carried at the point of the pen itself by a few
teachers brave enough to lead the storming party
against this prejudice. First and foremost and
bravest of them all was Mr. James Perry, founder
or patron of the Perryian system of education.
He was supplied with excellent pens by Mr. Josiah
Mason, who was a pioneer in their introduction
to the public. But at this time they were very
expensive, being sold at a shilling each by the
dozen. Their use and manufacture progressed
very slowly both from the prejudice against such

1 1 6 Walks' in the Black Country

an innovation and from the increased expense
involved. So late as 1839 they were almost un-
known to the general public, but in the following
ten years they arose to an important place among
the manufactures of the town. They were made
in eighteen different establishments, all under the
pressure of mutual competition to introduce im-
provements in form and facility of production.
The number of manufacturers is now twelve, but
the quantity made " for home and exportation " is
simply prodigious. It amounts to over 14,000,000
of pens a week. There are 360 men and about
2,000 women and girls employed, and about ten
tons of steel used weekly in producing these
"small arms" of literature, business, and social
intercourse.

It is doubtful if any article of such wide and
almost universal use ever was so identified with
one man's name as is the steel pen with Joseph
Gillott, of Birmingham. Even the pens manufac-
tured by others sent abroad there suggests his
name and fame. In ten thousand school-houses
scattered over the American continent between
the two oceans, a million children are as familiarly
acquainted with Joseph Gillott as with Noah
Webster. The primer of the one and the pen of
the other — twin pioneers of civilization — are making
the tour of the western hemisphere together, and
leaving behind them a wave and wake of light.

and its Green Border-Land. 1 1 7

Gillott's Manufactory is a kind of central
celebrity in Birmingham to visiters from America
and other countries. Independent of the asso-
ciations we have noticed, it is well worth a visit
for its quiet order, neatness, comfort, and even
elegance as a manufacturing establishment. The
show-room is really a museum of the art, rilled
and embellished by an infinite variety of speci-
mens of the utmost perfection. There are pens
so large that they seem to be made for giants,
or for common men to hold in both hands when
writing, as one holds a hoe handle. Then there are
others so minute, that it requires a magnifying
glass to see the slit and point. Between the two
extremes range gradations in size and varieties
in form which may be counted by the hundreds.
Shields, stars, flowers, and various pictures are
exquisitely formed out of these varieties, in which
nearly alt the tints of the rainbow have their
place and play. Then the process of manufac-
ture at every stage is represented. First is the
strip of plain sheet -steel as it comes from
Sheffield. Then you have the pen when it has
passed through the entire " freedom of the press."
The first operation cuts out the form, another
slits, another tubes it, and another passes it on
to a fifth process. Thus at a glance your eye
follows it through these processes, from the riddled
sheet of steel to the tempering furnace, thence

1 1 8 Walks in the Black Country

to the emery-wheel, and to the last touch that
is given to it.

To show what improved machinery has done
to cheapen and multiply their production, it
may suffice to say, that pens that were sold at
wholesale thirty years ago at five shillings a
gross are now sold as low as a halfpenny per
gross, or two dozen for a single farthing ! The
Birmingham pen-makers are beginning to encoun-
ter considerable competition in the foreign market
from manufactories recently established in the
United States, in France, and Germany. But
there is room for all, and there will be plenty
of business for them when the paternal authorities
of states, towns, and villages shall make the
necessary provision, and then insist that every
child shall learn to write before it goes to field
or factory. If any men have a large and direct
interest in compulsory education and world-wide
civilization they are the makers of metallic pens.

Although Gillott's Pen Factory is the great
lion of Birmingham manufacturers to Americans
visiting the town from their childhood associations
with his pens, there is another which excites
their special admiration when they visit it. This
is the famous Electro -Plate establishment of
Elkington and Co., which, with its affiliations
or branch depots, is the most extensive in Great
Britain. They may be considered the very fathers

and its Green Border-Land. 119

or founders of this splendid ware, which cheapens,
to the means and use of middle-class men, articles
of elegance and luxury which great wealth alone
could once command. In 1836 they first invented
or developed the process by which metals could
be coated with a solution of silver or gold. For
this very important and remarkable invention
they obtained a patent both in England and
France ; and in the latter country it was con-
sidered a great contribution to science as well
as to artistic and useful industry. The establish-
ment is, in itself, a school of art, in which genius
is trained to the finest conceptions of taste and
beauty. No one can estimate the force and ex-
tent of influence it puts forth for the culture of a
nation. One might as easily count the rays emitted
from a Bude light and measure their length, as
to measure the reach and result of that influence
upon society. Here are more than " apples of
gold in pictures of silver;" here are the trees
that bear both, and the leaves that guard and
garnish them, all done to Nature's best truth,
life, and beauty. Here are her most exquisite
ferns with their crinkly foliage in tracery as
delicate as she herself could work. Here are
the master-thoughts and master-touches of artistic
genius in designs of infinite variety. Here is
thirty years' growth of the productions of that
genius, in patterns of gold and silver work,

I2O Walks in tlie Black Country

shaped to all the varying tastes and fashions of
the world of luxury and wealth. Not that luxury
or wealth has in itself the mental power to
originate these tasteful designs, but the mind to
appreciate and means to enjoy them when pro-
duced by that high art which would have starved
in the sackcloth of mediocrity in all ages, had it
not been for the favoured few who could reward
the divinest conceptions and the finest touches
of the painter or sculptor. How it would have
astonished good Queen Bess and her court and
courtiers if they could have seen what wares
Wedgwood and the Elkingtons would bring within
the reach and daily use of the common people !
We could fancy she would have involuntarily put
one hand to her throne and the other to her
crown to steady them, if she could have seen
the mechanics of the kingdom drinking their beer
out of Wedgwood's pottery instead of their cow-
horn mugs. But when she came to see small
tradesmen drinking tea or coffee instead of beer
and pouring it into china cups from Elkington's
silver-faced tea-pots, she must have believed the
world coming to an end. This popularizing of
art and taste is perhaps the most distinctive
characteristic of the present age. In some
directions and respects it has outrun the diffu-
sion of other branches of popular education.
There are thousands of beer-drinkers who handle

and its Green Border-Land. 121

Wedgwood's ware, and tea-drinkers who can see
Elkington's best tea-pots, and are yet unable to
read the shortest syllables of the language they
speak. But multitudes even of these feel their
minds illuminated to new perceptions of refining
taste as they look admiringly upon these beautiful
productions of genius and art ; and if they cannot
decorate their shelves with them, they can and do
paint their cottage windows with the sweet sheen
of living flowers. Thus any one, who appreciates
at their true value these self-diffusing and cultiva-
ting influences, will see in such an establishment as
Elkington and Co.'s something more than the
finest specimens of gold and silverware. As
regards the productions of these articles it is
unrivalled in Great Britain, and only surpassed
in extent by one establishment in France.

It may indicate the amount of raw material
which is worked into an infinite variety of articles
by this establishment to state one or two facts
connected with the. process. There are four coat-
ing vats, each of which deposits twenty-four ounces
of silver per hour, and a fifth that deposits twelve
ounces. As they work ten hours a day, the daily
amount of silver thus fused and diffused is 1,080
ounces, or sixty-seven and a-half pounds avoirdu-
pois, or about 400 pounds a week. About one-
third of this amount is the weight of gold deposited
on various wares in the same way. Allowing five

122 Walks in the Black Country

working days to the week, then this establishment
must work up 17,555 pounds of silver, and an
amount of gold of equal value in a year. And,
what is a fact of great importance, every ounce of
this silver and gold is lost to the world. It is
doubtful if a pound's weight of all the tons which
the manufactory has solved and deposited has
been saved to be used over again for any purpose
whatever. The silver or gold coating is worn away
and disappears in the course of years. The same
is the case with all the gold-beaters of the world.
The acres of gold-leaf they hammer out for gilt
work are all lost, as much as the sunshine of a
past year.

About 1,000 persons are employed in the estab-
lishment, who probably represent as much highly-
trained genius and skill as was ever brought
together under the same roofage. First in the
high art department stands M. Morel Ladeuil, a
pupil of the celebrated Antoine Vechte. This
distinguished artist in repousse or raised work has
attained an eminence which has often been recog-
nized and honoured. He received a gold medal at
the Paris Exhibition for specimens of exquisite
conception and execution. It will serve to give
some approximate idea of the amount of labour
bestowed on some of the specimens of this raised
work to examine one exhibited at the Messrs.
Elkington and Co.'s. It is a silver vase, which will

and its Green Border- Land. 123

hold, perhaps, a quart. On its external surface
are represented all the leading inventions of the
century, in all the allegorical metaphors and
symbols that were wont to delight the classical
imaginations of ancient times. These figures are
all raised from the inside and finished with exqui-
site delicacy. The amount of labour bestowed
upon that single article cost £600, and it must
rank among the master-pieces of art. It would
be natural for nine persons in ten, who are ac-
quainted with electro-plate ware, to conclude that
it is merely washed or coated with silver, which
coat can no more be removed from it entire than
a coat of paint from a deal board. But on visiting
this establishment, one sees the most elaborate and
artistic article made throughout and entire by this
dipping or washing process. The solution of silver
or gold is poured into or against a mould, of which
every figure, line, and point, however delicate, is
reproduced with photographic fulness and fidelity.
The educational system by which this great
establishment is supplied with reproductive skill
and genius may be inferred from the fact, that
fifty or sixty of the young men attend the evening
classes in the Midland Institute, and take such
lessons in design and in the application of science
to the different branches of the manufacture as
shall fit them for its highest grades of art. Thus,
there are nearly 1,000 persons not only engaged in

124 Walks in the Black Country

the production of these various and splendid
articles, but comprising a kind of normal school
for the training of teachers in the arts embraced in
the manufacture.

In ascending to the show-room, one passes
between two files of bronze statues drawn up on
either side, which represent the perfection of bronze
work, which makes an important department of
the productions exhibited. Here stand crusading
knights in their armour, statesmen, and many of
the great masters of their day and generation.
The most liberal and generous rule is adopted in
making this show-room and the whole establish-
ment accessible to all who wish to visit it. Such
persons are conducted through the gorgeous hall
and shown all they wish to see with an affable
attention and courtesy which all will remember who
have shared them. This policy pays well in sales
as well as in the satisfaction it gives to all parties.
On counting the names entered in the visiters'
book, about one-fourth of the whole will be found to
be American. Many persons on that side of the
Atlantic, who may read these pages, will bear testi-
mony to these characteristics of the establishment.

Another speciality of Birmingham manufactures
is the Iron Bedstead. The invention of this article
is attributed to Dr. Church, and was one of several
he elaborated, like hundreds of other inventors, to
his own impoverishment and to the enriching of

and its Green Border- Land. 125

many fortunate men who availed themselves cheaply
of his genius. When he had spent his best years
upon the development of these discoveries, a rela-
tive or friend invited him to a home in America,
where he ended his days, little remembered for all
his contributions to the benefit of his kind. Those
of our readers who visited the Great Exhibition in
Paris may easily form some approximate idea of
the perfection to which iron bedsteads have been
brought by remembering what a splendid show of
them was produced by Messrs. Winfield and Co.,
the most extensive manufacturers in Birmingham.
There was one especially that excited much admi-
ration for its rich and elaborate design — a bedstead
which Solomon in all his glory or any modern
sovereign might have coveted. In the course of
fifteen years the production of these bedsteads in
Birmingham has increased tenfold ; or from about
400 weekly in 1850 to about 5,000 in 1865. The
high duty levied upon them, even before the Civil
War, has kept them virtually out of the United
States, but a large and increasing demand from
Australia, Canada, and other British colonies, as
well as several foreign states, stimulates and
extends the production of these convenient and
economical articles of furniture. The retail price
of them varies from £10 to ior. each, according
to the size and style. A good double-bedded
stead may be bought for a guinea.

126 Walks in the Black Country

The making of Pins was commenced in Bir-
mingham more than a century ago. Up to 1824,
they were all made by hand ; and so minutely was
the labour on them divided that fourteen persons
were employed in performing all the manipula-
tions requisite for perfecting one. In that year
an American inventor by the name of Wright
elaborated a machine, and patented it in England,
which would take in the wire from a reel at one
end and turned out a full-made pin at the other.
Or that was the aim and intent of the inventor,
though a great deal of time and vast sums of
money were expended on the machine to bring
it to this productive capacity. To this machine
succeeded an apparatus for sticking the pins when
made and for folding the wrappers. The leading
establishment in Birmingham for their manufacture
is that of Messrs. Edelsten and Williams, who also
produce vast quantities of hair-pins, hooks and
eyes, thimbles, eyelets, and a great variety of other
articles of brass and steel wire.

We have left to the last place in our notice of
the special industries the manufacture of Small
Arms for war upon men, beasts, and birds. After
all that the town has done in the production of
pens, pins, buttons, thimbles, hoes, shovels, and
other useful tools, it is widest if not best known
to the outside world for these varied and ingenious
weapons of death. For naturally the largest por-

and its Green Border-Land. 127

tion of the great human family are unable to use
pens, but are trained to the handling of these
shooting and stabbing irons used in great and
small wars, and in manly recreations in cruelty
to animals. The musket, sporting gun, and rifle
have come to their present character by an inverse
process and development. They have grown down
and from the monster-mouthed cannon, instead
of the cannon growing up from them into its huge
dimensions. The cannon is said to have been
made first in the middle of the fourteenth century
at Liege, a town that armed half of Europe for
several centuries with all sorts of weapons and
armour against weapons. It was a huge, rude
machine for shooting large stones at an enemy.
They were first used by the English against the
Scots in 1327, and by them against the French
at the battle of Cressy, in 1346. It is stated that
some of them were large enough to discharge a
mass of stones weighing 1,200 pounds. They
were great tubes of iron plates hooped together
by large iron rings " shrunk on " when hot. The
first we read of a hand-gun is in 1471, when
Edward IV landed with 300 Flemings, armed
with the miniature cannon, which the Germans
had elaborated to a considerable capacity of mis-
chief. It varied, however, but little from the
cannon except in size. It was a simple barrel,
mounted on a straight stock, with an uncovered

128 Walks in tlte Black Country

touch-hole at the top, just like its great ugly
prototype. It was fired from a rest by a match,
so that the whole process was like that of a
modern park of artillery in action. The furthest
reach of the next improvement was to bend the
stock at the breech. The inventive genius was
busy at the machine, and next produced the
match-lock, which probably enabled the gun to
be used on rainy days. But the carrying of lighted
matches about among so much loose powder led
to frequent and fatal accidents. They often
touched off the powder-horn or powder-cask in-
stead of the loaded gun. It was a long and
protracted struggle of the genius of the day to
obviate this difficulty, and to generate the requi-
site spark where and when it was wanted. Finally,
a flint or bit of firestone was fixed opposite the
touch-hole, and a file chained to the gun, and a
little rubbing with this produced the ignition.
During the next two centuries another improve-
ment was effected. Instead of the file, a spring
steel wheel was so attached as to be set whizzing
against the flint by touching a trigger. This was
the best contrivance developed up to the reign of
Charles II. The scarcity and expense of powder,
and the awkwardness of the guns, limited the use
of fire-arms, so that in Elizabeth's reign the bow
and arrow were the principal weapon of the
English army. Another cause may be ascribed

and its Green Border-Land. 129

for this slow introduction of them. To ward off
the balls, the soldiers so cased themselves in iron
armour that they were not only protected against
the shot themselves, but disabled from injuring the
enemy by the weight they carried. Still, as there
was more genius brought to bear on the sword
than the ploughshare, other improvements were
made in different parts of Europe, and called after
the towns in which they were invented. And
some of these followed the decrescendo rule, which
quite reversed the Irishman's idea, who said he
had known a certain gun ever since it was a
pocket-pistol. This miniature musket was first
brought out in an Italian town called Pistoja,
and was named the pistol after the place of its
birth. The bayonet was first made in 1640 at
Bayonne, and assumed the name of that town.
It was first used as a simple dagger or poignard
fixed in a wooden handle, which was fitted into
the muzzle of the gun, so that no shooting could
be carried on while it was used ; and the gun
became a simple pike for the time being. The
French got the start in the improvement of the
fixture; for when, in the reign of William III,
they encountered an English force, they halted
on the charge within a few paces of the regiment,
and, with bayonets fixed by a socket over the
muzzles of their guns, poured in a volley upon
the enemy, who were as greatly astonished as if

K

130 Walks in tJic Black Country

it had come with all its smoke from wooden
crossbows. About 1690 the flint lock was in-
vented, it is supposed, by the Dutch, and
continued in use, with slight alteration, until the
last quarter of a century. In 1807 the Rev. Mr.
Forsyth obtained a patent for the application of
fulminating powder to the discharging of loaded
guns. But his "application" was not so suc-
cessful to a charge of gunpowder as to the points
of a sermon; and it was not until 1816 that the
copper cap was invented. Still this improvement
was not introduced into the English military
service until 1839.

The rifle comes down with a long history of
improvements. The common gun-barrel was
grooved towards the last of the fifteenth century;
the first specimen being produced at Vienna.
In 1620, Koster, of Nuremburg, gave the grooves
a twist in order to produce a rotary motion to
the ball. During the next century, the grooved
musket or rifle came into a somewhat extensive
use by several continental powers, but not by
the English until the war of the American
Revolution. Up to within fifteen years the use
of the rifle was much limited by the time and
care required to ram the ball home when incased
in a patch of leather. For the space of forty
years, much ingenuity was exercised in different
countries to overcome this difficulty. M. Delvigne,

and its Green Border-Land. 131

a French officer, in 1826, proposed to use a
loosely-fitting ball such as is adapted to a smooth
bore, and to expand it over the powder by a
few smart blows of the ramrod. But this
expedient did not answer the purpose. In 1836,
Mr. Greener, of Birmingham, constructed a self-
expanding ball by leaving an opening in it for
the insertion of a plug of a harder metal, which
forced out the lead at the explosion. This
operation gave the ball a distorted or irregular
form on leaving the barrel. In 1849, Colonel
Thouvenin invented the Vincennes carbine, with
a steel pin or stem at the bottom of the barrel
which reached above the powder. The loose
ball being forced upon this by several blows of
the ramrod, was expanded to hug the grooves
closely, and, to a good degree, accomplished the
sought-for object. Captain Minie produced the
improvement which bears his name. He removed
the steel pin or stem and substituted a bullet
hollow at the back, to which the explosion gave
the necessary lateral expansion. Breech-loaders
have now been brought into almost general use
in England, both as sporting and military guns.
The name of Westley Richards is well known
in America, as well as in remoter countries, for
his rifles and other fire-arms. His list of patrons
embraces a great number of the English nobility
and gentry, and his brand stands at the very

132 Walks in t/ie Black Country

head of high reputation for excellence. The
Greeners also turn out sporting guns of great
perfection. The wood stock-forms are brought
mostly from countries where wood is more
abundant and cheaper than in England. The
walnut stocks are imported from Germany and
Italy. During the Crimean war, a Birmingham
contractor set up saw-mills at Turin, and has
converted a whole forest, or nearly 100,000 walnut
trees into stocks.

There are nearly 600 manufacturers in Birming-
ham engaged in different departments of the gun
trade, which departments are eight in number, and
some of these are again subdivided. There are
about 10,000 men, women, and children employed
in these different branches. Good workmen can
earn, on an average, thirty shillings a-week. Gun-
making by machinery, after the American process,
has been introduced quite lately. In 1853, Mr.
Whitworth and Mr. George Wallis, of Birmingham,
were members of a commission sent to the United
States to visit our private and national establish-
ments. As the result of their report, the English
Government resolved to erect a manufactory at
Enfield, on the same system as that pursued
at Springfield. A second commission was sent
over, consisting of military officers, to purchase
such machinery and models as were necessary for
the Enfield factory. The most wonderful and in-

and its Green Border- Land. 133

genious of all our labour-saving machines to the
English generally, were our lathes for turning
crooked things, like lasts, axe-handles, and ox-
bows ; and which produced gun stocks to such
perfection, and so cheaply and speedily. The
interchangeable principle was also appreciated at
its true value, by which any part of one lock or
gun would exactly fit any other. The report of
this commission expresses their wonder and admi-
ration at our process of effecting this in the follow-
ing words:

" They selected, with Colonel Ripley's permission, ten muskets,
each made in a different year, viz., from 1844 to 1853 inclusive,
from the principal arsenal at Springfield, which they caused to be
taken to pieces in their presence and the parts placed in a row of
boxes mixed up together. They then requested the workman
whose duty it is to 'assemble' the arms, to put them together,
which he did, the committee handing him the parts taken at hazard,
with the use of a turnscrew only, and as quickly as though they had
been English muskets, [whose parts had been carefully kept
separate."

On the return of this committee the Enfield
works were pushed into extensive operation, especi-
ally under the pressure of the Crimean war. The
establishment is arranged to turn out 2,000 guns
per week. The Birmingham gun-makers were
stirred up to somewhat indignant emotion at this
Government competition and interference in their
trade ; but as they could not put down the Enfield
factory, they formed a large and powerful joint-

134 Walks in tJie Black Country

stock company, which has not only been able to
compete successfully with the Government, but
also to perform work which Enfield could not
execute for want of productive capacity. The
factory of the Birmingham Small- Arms Company
is situated on the Great Western Railway, a few
miles out of the town, and will well repay a visit.
To an American it presents not only interesting
features but facts in mechanical history. He will
see there in operation the genius of his own
country, and recognize an instalment of his country's
debt paid back to Birmingham for all our skilled
mechanics and manufacturers have derived from
the establishments of Boulton and Watt, and other
generating centres of ingenious industry. The
American system has not only been introduced
here, but the factory was launched into operation
under American direction. The late Mr. Corey
M'Farland, so well known in Springfield, brought
to this establishment all the mechanical genius and
long experience for which he was so much valued
at home. His sad and untimely death was felt
nearly as deeply in Birmingham as in Springfield.
The total number of gun-barrels proved in
England from 1855 to 1864 was 6,116,305 ; making
an average annual production of 611,630. To
show the proportion that Birmingham contributes
to this production, the fact will suffice, that in the
same period of ten years, 3,277,815 barrels were

and its Green Border- Land, 135

proved in this town, giving an annual average of
327,781. An elaborate and exhaustive paper by
J. D. Goodman, Esq., the Chairman of the Birming-
ham Small-Arms Company, which may be found
in Mr. Timmins's great work already cited, will
supply any one wishing it the most minute and
extensive information on the rise and progress of
a manufacture which has given the town such a
world-wide reputation.

We have now noticed at some length what
may be called the manufacturing specialities of
Birmingham. It is not the object of this volume,
nor would half-a-dozen of the same size be suffi-
cient, to describe those numerous trades which it
carries on in common with other large towns in
the kingdom. I have sought to impress especially
upon the American reader the importance of the
place which Birmingham has occupied as a normal
school for the artistic, scientific, and skilled in-
dustries of the world; as a generating centre of
mechanical genius to which no foreign country is
so much indebted as the United States. Here is
the birth-place of the first Great Exhibition of
1851, and all the International Exhibitions that
followed it are the grandchildren and great-grand-
children of the Birmingham Industrial Exhibition
in 1849. It was here that Prince Albert not only
got the idea but practically the model of what
was produced in the Crystal Palace in Hyde

136 Walks in tJie Black Country.

Park. Such an aggregation of mechanical pro-
ductions was unknown until it was presented in
Birmingham, as a kind of outside illustration of
the arts and sciences discussed in the British
Association which met that year in the town. It
was a display on such a large scale of what the
Midland District and its metropolis could do, and
embraced such a number and variety of specimens,
that the most original feature of the Exhibition
of 1851 was the building and not its contents.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BLACK COUNTRY IN DETAIL ; ITS CHIEF TOWNS AND CENTRES
OF INDUSTRY — DUDLEY, STOURBRIDGE, AND HAGLEY.

HAVING thus given half this volume to
a notice of Birmingham, too small a
space remains for a description of The
Black Country proper, of which it is the metropolis.
Doubtless a majority of our English readers have
passed through this remarkable district once in
their lives, and remember its most striking features.
To such any portraiture of it which the most
graphic pen could give might be superfluous. But
there is one aspect of it which I doubt if half-a-
dozen of them ever witnessed ; and that I would
earnestly commend to their notice.

I had passed through the district on the railway
many times by night and day, in summer and
winter, during the past twenty years, and had seen
it in all the various aspects of the changing seasons.
But there was one point of view which I had never
enjoyed, and which is the best that can be found

138 Walks in tlie Black Country

in the whole region. This is the tower of Dudley
Castle by night. So, having induced Edward
Capern, R.P.P., or Rural Postman Poet, to ac-
company me, with the hope that the scene would
stir his muse, and that I might walk in the wake
of its inspiration, we took the train for Dudley
about sunset, in order to be at the Castle just as
" the darkness falls from the wings of night " upon
its grey and broken walls. Those lofty and red-
tipped wings were dropping it pretty fast as we
reached the closed gates, which did not admit
people at that late hour. Still, under the gentle
persuasion of our importunity, commended to the
janitor's heart by the silver accents of a shilling
or two, the iron wicket turned inward for us. We
ascended half-way up the thickly-wooded steep to
a little unique cottage made out of one of the
small out-buildings of the Castle, where an aged
couple, with their daughter, get up teas and bread
and butter for visiters, or furnish hot water for
parties a la pic nic. The daughter was away when
we knocked at the door, and the old people were
not a little surprised at a call so late in the evening.
Besides, the old lady was confined to her arm-
chair in the chimney-corner with " rheumaticks,"
and other ailments, which she described in a pathetic
voice, and seemed to wonder that she should
be affected by such ills at only seventy-eight.
To have tea in this little cottage under the haw-

and its Green Border-Land. 139

thorns, before going up to the night scenery from
the Castle tower, was put prominently in our pro-
gramme, and we encouraged the old man to believe
he could get it up for us without his daughter's
help, or at least with ours. So we set to work,
each doing his part. I manned the toasting-fork,
and did the several halves of a couple of muffins
in capital style. Capern took to the little black
tea-pot and charged it appropriately for two, the
old woman throwing in a timely suggestion as to
quantity. So we drew up to the little round table
before the fire, and had as genial a tea as ever two
men enjoyed. All the surroundings were just of
the right kind to season the meal with a happy
relish. The two small yellow candles and the fire-
light filled the low-ceiled room with that bland
mixture of illuminated darkness so well suited
to stories and snatches of legendary lore.

After our tea in the cottage, we ascended to
" where the Castle holds its state" in the gray
silence of a grand ruin. We first passed through
the deep, massive archway, with its double port-
cullis, into the green court-yard, to look first at
the brave old monument of past centuries and
feel or imagine the presence of their spirits
revisiting it. And it were well worth such a
visit if they were permitted to come back again
to the scenes of long ago. As we walked up
and down the irregular line of the structure, and

140 Walks in tlie Black Country

heard the echo of oilr footsteps running in and
out of the ruined halls and climbing the winding
stairways of the broken towers, we really felt the
shadow of an august presence above and around;
as if the mighty Past stood before us fresh in
its weeds from the funeral of five hundred years.
A cold skylight paned the glassless windows of
the banquet hall, and shadows of waving tree-
branches waltzed up and down within the roofless
walls of that salon where " brave men and fair
women" met in dance when Elizabeth was queen.
Passing on towards the great gateway, we stopped
before the chapel of the Castle to catch a striking
feature. The passing moon was looking into the
great window like a broad human face whose
smile was light. It was a serene and genial smile,
as of one who looks upon a cradle, not a grave;
or as of one visiting the trysting-place of happy
memories. At least ten thousand Pater Nosters
a century had been chaunted or said within those
walls, and other invocations and voices of devo-
tion, when that same moon looked in through
windows alive with painted images of all the
saints.

Having thus communed awhile with the Past,
where the castle walls shut away the living Present
from the view, we ascended the citadel, or lofty
donjon tower, planted upon the highest cliff of
the mountainous ridge. The old man of the

and its Green Border-Land. 141

cottage led the way, and we followed with wary
feet, guided by the sense of feeling rather than
sight. As we mounted the deep-worn, winding
steps, hugging closely the circular wall, at each
story a red cross of dull fire-light seemed to be
hung up before us as a guidepost to the dark
and narrow way. Ascending a step or two, we
found it was a slit in the tower for the arrow-
men of the olden time, which was now filled with
the illumination of the outside world. Winding
around several times in the spiral ascent, we
caught several sudden peeps of the scenery
through these cross -shaped arrow -ports. These
stairway glances north, east, south, and west
served to sharpen the appetite of our eyes for
the grand panorama that burst upon us as we
stepped out upon the parapet of the tower. My
first thought was of Longfellow as I looked off
into the splendid vista — that he might stand on
that tower

"At midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour."

If one furnace glowing "redder than the moon"
behind the old church tower of East Cambridge, as
he stood on Charles River Bridge, so impressed his
muse, to what inspiration would it have been
moved by this sight ? I hope he may see it before
he dies as we saw it on that night. Some poet,

142 Walks in tJte Black Country

and the best of a nation, should put his genius
under the influence of that magnificent spectacle
for the space of half an hour. The theme would
well befit the laureate of England at the best
moments of his inspiration. In figures beyond my
prosaic conception, he would describe a scene
which cannot be paralleled on the globe. For an
unpoetical man like myself, it is difficult to get
hold of similes which would enable the reader to
picture the scene in his mind. A writer of a
military turn of fancy might say that it was the
sublimest battle-scene ever enacted on earth ; that
ten thousand Titans were essaying to breach
heaven with a thousand mortars, each charged
with a small red-hot hill. It might look like that
not only to General Grant or Sherman, but even to
men who never wore a sword. There was an
embattled amphitheatre of twenty miles span
ridged to the purple clouds. Planted at artillery
intervals on this encircling ridge, and at musket-
shot spaces in the dark valley between, a thousand
batteries, mounted with huge ordnance, white at
the mouth with the fury of the bombardment, were
pouring their cross-fires of shot and shell into the
cloud-works of the lower heavens. Wolverhampton,
on the extreme left, stood by her black mortars
which shot their red volleys into the night. Coseley
and Bilston and Wednesbury replied bomb for
bomb, and set the clouds on fire above with their

and its Green Border- Land. 143

lighted matches. Dudley, Oldbury, Albion, and
Smethwick, on the right, plied their heavy breach-
ers at the iron-works on the other side ; while
West Bromwich and distant Walsall showed that
their men were standing as bravely to their guns,
and that their guns were charged to the muzzle
with the grape and canister of the mine. The
canals twisting and crossing through the field of
battle, showed by patches in the light like bleeding
veins. There were no clouds except of smoke over
the scene ; but there were large strips of darkness
floating with crimson fringes into the red sea, on
which the white moon rode like an ermined angel
of peace.

For all that glowing empire was peace. Peace
has her battle-fields as well as war, and this was
her Waterloo. Here she had mustered fifty
regiments of her swart veterans, armed with all
the weapons of her exhaustless arsenal — with
Minio picks and Schneider hammers, and file-
edged swords that cut at their sides. Those
great-mouthed mortars, belching forth globes of
fire, were her huge muzzle-loaders. And all this
was the thick of one of her great battles by
night — only one of the three hundred a year she
fights in that dark valley with the elements. What
are all the mines and counter-mines of war com-
pared with the hundreds her sappers have dug
fifty fathoms below the visible surface of this battle

144 Walks in the Black Country

scene! Where or when did war ever dig such
deep trenches or fill them with such battalions, or
bring its land and sea forces into action with
such united and concentrated power ! Here were
10,000 pickmen sending up from holds, 500 feet
deep, cartridges for loading the cupola cannon that
were reddening the night with their blaze. Here
were the deck or surface brigades standing to their
batteries, and making each look like the old picture
of "The Defence of Gibraltar." There were the
Brades Works at the right centre of the line, dis-
charging a thousand spades, hoes, trowels, and
pruning-hooks an hour. Further down toward
Birmingham there was a well-manned battery
that poured forth a shower of bolts and nuts ;
and Chance's great fortress was all ablaze, with
its hot fountains sending out acres of glass to be
parcelled into panes of every size. To the right
of us, to the left and front of us, the whole
amphitheatre was in close action, working out for
the world the thousand small arms of peace —
cotton hoes for Brazil and harpoons for Behring's
Straits, and, for all the countries between, every
tool used in honest labour.

The moon rode up with its bland face a little
flushed over the scene, and the whole heavens were
suffused with the red illumination, as if in honour
of human industry. Then at that moment all the
church bells of Dudley sent forth a shower of

and its Green Border-Land. 145

mirthful music, which pattered like silver rain
against the purple garments of the night ; and the
widest streets and the market-place of the town
were doubly lighted, while the home-stars of all
the houses up to the dark hill-tops, looked like so
many constellations, grouped like those we every-
where see by night. It was a scene worthy of a
great poet's inspiration, and I hope his pen will
some day do better justice to it than mine has
done.

Dudley Castle needs only a pen like Sir Walter
Scott's to make it famous. For full five hundred
years it was inhabited by lords and ladies whose
lives and characters might have supplied matter,
doubtless, for twenty novels, with facts enough for
the web of imagination to be fastened to. But it
has never figured in romantic literature ; so not
one in a hundred of the visiters at Kenilworth ever
walks about the walls of this grand old structure.
As a fighting castle, it hardly had an equal in
England for its commanding elevation and massive
walls and towers. Then it meant living as well as
fighting; and though it never showed such a palace
frontage as Kenilworth, its banquet and other halls,
and all its rough, gray storeys, must have com-
manded a view which few castles in the kingdom
could surpass. Standing on the great donjon
tower, especially at night, and looking off upon
the surrounding scenery, even a sober imagination

L

146 Walks in the Black Country

might fancy the castellated ridge was Mount

Olympus, and that the only god at home was

Vulcan. The ancients could not have conceived

of a more proper throne for the great deity of

the hammer. The little fore-shortened mountain

wooded from the level fields below to the tops of

the walls, is just high enough for the dais of the

throne. Then the whole height looks as if a

hundred Cyclops had been mining, counter-mining,

and undermining it with caverns, half of which

have fallen in, leaving gullies and gorges one

hundred feet deep, all overgrown with tall trees,

showing how long ago the roofage broke down.

The winding walks around these green precipices

and huge caverns all favour the fancy of Vulcan's

throne. Then there is another coincidence that

gives the aspect of real fact to the illusion. The

Earl of Dudley, who owns the Castle and nearly

all that can be seen from it with the naked eye, is

a veritable Vulcan in himself. He not only owns

many of the coal and iron mines of the district, but

is one of the most extensive iron-workers in South

Staffordshire. And it is a distinctive peculiarity of

his Vulcanic operations, that he works his own

minerals exclusively and only. The iron ore, coal,

and lime are all his own, taken from his own

estates. He entered upon this field of enterprise

only about ten years ago, when the iron trade of

the district had considerably deteriorated in conse-

and its Green Border-Land. 147

quence of a deflection in the quality of the iron
produced. With his unlimited capital, and all the
machinery and other means it could command, he
raised the standard and recovered the prestige,
producing an article which brought a higher price
than any other branded house in the district
realizes. It is a token of a very interesting indus-
trial copartnership or connexion to see a large
invoice of iron to an edge-tool-making company in
a Massachusetts village, bearing the name and
arms of "The Earl of Dudley" as manufacturer.
It conveys a good, healthy suggestion, that one of
the very wealthiest noblemen in England supplies
the hammers of a New England axe factory from
his own mines and furnaces worked by himself.
And no better test could be applied to the quality
of the iron he manufactures than its exclusive use
by the Douglas Edge Tool Manufacturing Company
in Massachusetts, which probably turns out the best
implements of the kind to be found in the world.
This personal connexion with the manufacture
of iron is not only laudable but legitimate in the
Earl of Dudley. For it runs in the family back
to the beginning of the seventeenth century. An
illegitimate or half-son of one of the fast and
prodigal representatives of the house distinguished
himself by the active and successful interest he
took in the great industry of the district. His
name was Dud Dudley. He had a good deal of the

148 Walks in the Black Country

speculative and inventive genius of the celebrated
Marquis of Worcester, who was a kind of seer
of science hi his day. He wrote a book on the
subject of coal and iron and other metals, with the
title of " Metallum Martis," a work full of quaint
and clever thoughts. Up to his day charcoal
alone had been used in smelting iron ore, and in
the working of iron in all the forges and smithies
in the kingdom. The wood of the country was
fast disappearing under this great drain, and he
assigns a patriotic motive as the strongest that
operated upon his mind in developing another
species of fuel to save the ship timber, so essential
to the nation's defence. He says that when he
set his hand to this new enterprise there were
nearly 20,000 smiths of all sorts, and many iron-
works decayed for want of wood within ten miles
of Dudley Castle. As the history of making iron
with pit-coal is of such deep interest to all coun-
tries, and as the narrative of Dud Dudley, who
was an energetic pioneer in the work, is so succinct
and graphic, we copy out the following from his
" Metallum Martis," a work reproduced with great
care and effort by John N. Bagnall, Esq., of West
Bromwich, in 1854:

" King James, His £acred Majesty's Grandfather, and Prince
Henry, for the preservation of Wood and Timber in this Island,
did in the gnth year of His Reign, Grant His Letters Patients of
Priviledge unto Simon Sturtevant, Esq., for 31 years for the making

and its Green Border-Land. 149

of Iron with Pit-cole and Sea-cole for the Preservation of Wood
and Timber of Great Brittain so greatly then consumed by Iron-
works ; This Invention was by King James' command to be at large
put in Print, which Book did contain near a quire of paper in
quarto, called Simon Sturtevant, His Metallica, Anno 1612, May
22. Printed by George Eld, Cum Privilegio.

" After Simon Sturtevant could not perform his making of Iron
with Pit-cole or Sea-cole, according unto his engagement, King
James and Prince Henry caused him to render up his Pattent, and
a new Pattent was granted unto yohn Rovenson, Esq., who was
also Enjoyned to write a Book of his Inventions, called Rovensorfs
Metallica. Printed for Thomas Thorp, Cum Privilegio; May 15,
An. 1613.

"After John Rovenson, Esq., had often failed with his Inventions

and great undertakings, Gombleton, Esq., a servant of Queen

Ann's, undertook to perform the Invention of making Iron with
Pit-cole and Sea-cole ; but he being as confident as others did Erect
his works at Lambeth, which the Authour viewed ; and Gombleton
failing, the Learned and Ingenious Doctor JORDEN of Baths, the
Authour's Acquaintance, and sundry others obtained Patients for
the making of Iron and smelting of Mines with Pit-cole and Sea-
cole, for the Preservation of Wood and Timber, all which Inventions
and endeavours to Effect and perfect the said Works have been by
many heretofore well known, to have worthily attempted the said
Invention though with fruitless success."

" Having seen many of their failings, I held it my duty to en-
deavour, if it were possible, to Effect and Perfect so laudable and
beneficial, and also so much desired Inventions as the making of
Iron into cast Works and Bars ; and also the Melting, Extracting,
Refining, and Reducing all sorts of Mines, Minerals, and Metals,
with Pit-cole, Sea-cole, Peat, and Turf, for the preservation of
wood and timber, so much exhausted by Iron Works of late."

" Having former knowledge and delight in Iron Works of my
Fathers, when I was but a youth ; afterwards at 20 years old, was I
fetched from Oxford, then of Bayliol Colledge, Anno 1619, to work
and manage 3 Iron Works of my Fathers, I Furnace and 2 Forges
in the Chase of Pensnet, in Worcestershire ; but Wood and Charcole
growing then scant, and Pit-coles in great quantities abounding near
the Furnace, did induce me to alter my Furnace, and to attempt by

1 50 Walks in tlie Black Country

my new Invention the making of Iron with Pit-cole, assuring myself
in my Invention the loss to me could not be greater than others, nor
so great, although my success should prove fruitless. But I found
such success at first tryal as animated me, for at my tryal or blast,
I made Iron to profit with Pit-cole, and found Facere est addere
Invention!.

"After I had made a second blast and tryal, the fesibility of
making Iron with Pit-cole and Sea-cole I found by my new inven-
tion, the quality to be good and profitable, but the quantity did not
exceed 3 Tuns per week. After I had brought my Invention into
some perfection, and profitable, I doubted not in the future to have
advanced my Invention to make quantity also. Immediately after
my second tryal, I wrote unto my Father what I had done, and
withall desired him to obtain a Pattent for it from King James of
Blessed Memory ; the Answer to which Letter I shall insert, only
to shew the forwardness of King James in this his much animating
the Inventor, as he did both Simon Sturtevant, John Rovenson,
Doctor Jordaine and others."

* * * " Richard Parkes, ;\ Parks-house, Esq., the Authour's
Brother-in-Law, about I year after the Pattent was granted, did
carry for the Author much good merchantable Iron into the Tower,
by King James's command to be tryed by all Artists, and they did
very well approve of the Iron, and the said Parkshouse\wA a fowling
Gun there made of Pit-cole Iron, with his name gilt upon the Gun,
which Gun was taken from him by Colonel Levison, Governour of
Dudley Castle, and never restored."

Dud Dudley had to run the gauntlet of bitter
jealousies and obstacles on the part of the charcoal
men, and shared much of the worst experience
of inventors. In addition to these difficulties of
contrary dispositions, he encountered a severe
disaster the very next year after he obtained his
patent, which he thus describes :

"There was so great a Flood that it not only ruinated the
Authour's Iron-works, and inventions, but also many other men's

and its Green Border-Land. 151

Iron-works ; and at a Market Town called Sturbridge in Commitate
Wigornise, although the Authour sent with speed to preserve the
people from drowning, one resolute man was carried from the
Bridge there in the day time, and the nether part of the Town was
so deep in water that the people had much ado to preserve their
lives in the uppermost rooms of their Houses."

Our author complains that the demolition of
his works caused great joy among his rivals, who
were very jealous of him because he sold good
iron cheaper than they could afford it. They even
went so far as to complain to King James that it
was not a merchantable article ; and when he had
rebuilt his works, they prevailed on his majesty to
command him with all speed to send all sorts of
bar iron up to the Tower of London fit for making
carbines, muskets, and great bolts fit for shipping,
"which iron being tryed by Artists and Smiths,
the iron-masters and iron-mongers were all silenced
untH the 2ist of King James." At that time all
monopolies were made null and void by an Act
of Parliament ; but the indomitable Dud and his
father Lord Dudley obtained an exemption for
the patent ; or rather a renewal of it for fourteen
years. Our author says he then "went on cheer-
fully and made annually great store of iron, good
and merchantable, and sold it unto diverse men
yet living at twelve pounds per tun ; also all sorts
of cast-iron wares, as Brewing -Cysterns, Pots,
Morters, and better and cheaper than any yet
were made in these Nations with charcoles."

152 Walks in the Black Country

But the more successfully he worked his new
system, the more unrelenting and fierce grew the
opposition he encountered from his rivals of the
old charcoal order. They seem to have ousted
him from his works in Worcestershire ; but nothing
daunted, he set up a furnace at Himley, where he
produced a quantity of pig iron ; but having no
forge for working it into bars, he was obliged to
sell it in that state to the charcoal ironmasters, who
conspired to disparage it in the market. The his-
tory of his trials, persecutions, tribulations, and
triumphs, as written by himself, is exceedingly
interesting, and we would commend it to those
who read with admiration the lives of the martyr-
heroes of science and scientific industry. As the
book is rare we give one more extract from it,
showing what such men have had to endure in all
ages from those most indebted to their genius
and labours. Being thus cramped and thwarted
at Himley, he says :

"The Authour erected a new Furnace on purpose 27 foot square,
all of stone, at a place called Hasco Bridge, in the Parish of Sedgley,
and county of Stafford : the Bellows of which Furnace were larger
than ordinary Bellows are, in which works he made 7 Tuns of Iron
per week, the greatest quantity of Pit-cole Iron that ever yet was
made in Great Brittain ; near which Furnace the Authour discovered
many new Cole-mines 10 yards thick, and Iron-mines under it,
according to other Cole-works, which Cole-works being brought
unto perfection, the Authour was by force thrown out of them, and
the Bellows of his new Furnace and Invention by riotous persons
cut to pieces, to his no small prejudice and loss of his Invention of

and its Green Border-Land, 153

making of Iron with Pit-cole, Sea-cole, &c. So that being with
Law-Suites and Riots wearied and disabled to prosecute his Art and
Invention at present, even until the first Patient was extinct."

Such is part of the story of Dud Dudley, told
in his own words. Such was the angry opposition
he met in his attempt to utilize the vast deposits
of coal, ten yards deep, hi the Black Country, in
working its iron mines. And this persecution from
ironmasters and their men he suffered, when the
wood of the district had nearly all been consumed,
and when there was not a mile of canal or railway
for the importation of charcoal from a distance.
Such a sturdy hero, who fought one of the great
decisive battles against the forces of pig-headed
ignorance, stupidity, and prejudice, deserves a
monument. But until he receives that richly-
deserved tribute from a grateful and appreciating
generation, enriched by his self-sacrifice, we would
commend all interested in his memory to the
tablet erected in its honour in St. Helen's Church,
Worcester. The record of his life and worth is
written in epigrammatic Latin, and although it
does not refer to his "Pit-cole and Inventions," it
gives incisively a few facts of his stormy expe-
rience, which we here cite from the original in-
scription, which might lose some of its covert
meanings by translation :

" Dodo Dudley chiliarchi nobilis Edwardi nuper domini cle Dud-
ley filius, patri charus et regime Majestatis fidissimus subditus et

154 Walks in tlie Black Country

servus in asserendo regem, in vindicando ecclesiam, in propugnando
legem et libertatem anglicanam, ssepe captus, anno 1648, semel con-
demnatus et tamen non decollatus, renatum denuo vidit diadaema
hie inconcussa semper virtute senex.

DifFert non aufert mortem longissima vita,
Sed differt multum eras hodieve mori.
Quod nequeas vitare, fugis :
Nee formidanda est."

Considering his energetic efforts and powerful
influence in developing the resources and shaping
the great industries of the Black Country, we trust
few of our readers will think we have given a
notice of disproportionate length to Dud Dudley.
His inventions and experiments were of inesti-
mable value to the entire country and to the world ;
and the present Earl does but deserved honour to
this early representative of his house in prosecuting,
on such an extensive scale, the enterprise which
that remarkable man first set on foot at Himley
more than two centuries ago.

Dudley is a goodly town of nine or ten thousand
inhabitants, about ten miles west of Birmingham ;
and is planted high and dry above the levels of the
intervening villages. Some portions of it are built
upon hills uplifted above the smoke of the valley,
but still enveloped thinly with smoke of their own
making; for furnaces or forges are planted like
redoubts on the ridgy eminences. As nearly every
one of the towns and villages in the district is
carrying on the iron and coal business in common

and its Green Border-Land. 155

with all the others, each is nevertheless distin-
guished by some special branch of manufacture.
Perhaps the distinctive speciality of Dudley is
Wright's Anvil and Vice factory. The anvil
business has been carried on by the Wright family
for 200 years. They probably have sent more
anvils to the United States within this period than
all the other English makers put together, and
there are few blacksmiths' shops in America in
which their name is not well known. During the
last year, they turned out nearly 11,000, and also
9,000 vices. The present head of the house, Mr.
Peter Wright, introduced, some years ago, a great
improvement, for which he obtained a patent. It
simply consists in making the anvil of one solid
piece of iron ; whereas, by the old system, the
different parts were made separately and then
welded together. This was a difficult and unsatis-
factory process, for frequently the weld would not
be perfect in some places, and the hammer and
sledge would ere long find out the defect, for the
anvil would ring like a cracked bell under their
strokes, and after awhile the horn or beck would go
sheer by the board. The improvement in making
them out of a solid block of iron is a very valuable
one indeed, remedying all these defects of the old
system. To accomplish this, the grains or threads
of the iron, as Dr. Johnson would say, are " reticu-
lated" with remarkable complications. To use a

156 Walks in tfie Black Country

simile which may help some to get an approxi-
mate idea of the process, a ball of iron wire as
large as a bushel basket is welded in a solid mass ;
then that is again drawn into thin strips, which are
again folded up and welded again, and hammered
until a block is formed of the utmost tenacity of
which the metal is capable. When the anvil is
worked out to its perfect shape, as the French
Marshal said of the old Imperial Guard, "Elle
meurt mais ne se rend pas ; " it may wear out but
never breaks. This is not however the exact pro-
cess ; I have used the ball of wire merely as a
simile. The raw material is old scrap iron, like old
horse-nails, hoops, and the like, that have been
passed under the friction of wear and thus been
purified and solidified for their new field of
usefulness.

Mr. Wright has also obtained a patent for a vice
improved in the same way. That is, the box is of
solid iron, in which the worm or thread is cut by
machinery. This, if anything, is a more valuable
improvement than that of the solid anvil ; for this
box and its thread, under the old system, being
only soldered or brazed together, often broke down
altogether after being used a while. Indeed, I well
remember, when an apprentice to our village black-
smith, a vice-box was brought to the shop nearly
every week to be repaired, by having a new worm
or thread soldered in ; and I know by personal

and its Green Border- Land. 157

experience what a difficult job it was. Mr.
Wright's improvement completely obviates this
defect, and his vice deserves all the approbation
and use it has gained in the United States.

Chain-making is another manufacture of Dudley,
of great perfection and extent. Samuel Lewis,
another name well-known by the hardware dealers
in America, is one of the oldesj: and largest manu-
facturers of the town in this department. He
turns out chains of every size and use, from the
halter of a ship-of-the-line to that of a Scotch
terrier. Hand-made nails constitute another large
business, but as it more especially distinguishes
other towns, the notice of it may be more properly
reserved until we come to speak of them.

It is rather unfortunate for Dudley in one sense
that it has so little history. It has a good and
even historical name, and the ruins of one of the
grandest castles in England. But it seems to be
the apanage of one noble family, whose name over-
shadows or drowns in its illumination all the lesser
stars. Doubtless it has given birth, or, what is
better, moral and intellectual stature, to men who
have made a mark in their day and generation, but
it is rather difficult for an outsider to find it ; or
even the name of any writer, statesman, philan-
thropist, or patriot who made a reputation that has
got into history, or far out into the hearing of the
world. Still the whole future is before it, and,

158 Walks in the Black Country

under the new spirit of the age, it may yet present
a goodly roll of names which the world may have
motive to remember pleasantly. The history of
the reigning family presents many unique and
some very interesting vicissitudes. One of them —
George Dudley — was mixed up in Cardinal Pole's
plot against Henry VIII, and was caught and kept
by Sir William Paget in France, who felt sure of
sending him to condign punishment in England.
But the sturdy knight was baffled in a manner
which he thus piteously describes in a letter to his
sovereign :

" This false, traitorous boy Dudley, I being at my supper, and
straungers with me, and he having one of his kepars with him,
and the dore of the place where he was standing negligently open,
made semblant to walk up and down, while his kepar looked upon
a booke, and whipping out of the dore, plucked the same after him,
and to go so as, before the beastely foole could open the door and
folowe him thother, was gone clene out of sight. I made after of
all handes, and sent bye-and-bye to all the gates of the town, and
kept that night fyve watches in searche ; but all would not helpe,
for in Paris (as they know that have been in it) a thousand false
sherews may hyde themselves and not be founde. I beseech your
Majestic moost humbly to think nothing els in me but folye, which
I assure you, Sir, hath grieved me more thenne would have done the
losse of all that ever I have, and take my children withall."

Young Dudley made his way into Italy, where
Bishop Bonner, then on a mission to the Pope, had
him arrested and confined in the castle at Milan.
But he succeeded in effecting his escape from this
duress still more ingeniously, and never was heard

and its Green Border-Land. 159

of again. Early in the seventeenth century the
Ward family was ingrafted upon the old Dudley
stock, which had become rather sterile of moral
vitality. Lord Edward, Dud's father, was a very
fast character, and nearly ruined his estates by
loose living. To recover them for his house, he
married his granddaughter and heir, Frances, to
Humble Ward, the only son of a rich jeweller to
the queen of Charles I. This marriage of title
to fortune recovered the sinking estate of the
Dudley family. The Christian name of this founder
of the house of Ward has a puritanic sound and
meaning, which would grace the nomenclature of
the Long Parliament ; still he adhered to Charles,
and became a member of " the mongrel parliament "
which that sovereign convoked at Oxford in 1644.
Having brought the king timely and liberal sup-
plies, and being the husband of the heiress of
Lord Dudley, his impoverished Majesty, having
neither silver or gold, paid him in the cheap and
easy coinage of a title, as Lord Ward. Whether
he really received the name of Humble at the
font, or at a later stage of his history when his
character was fully developed, perhaps may be
considered a matter of honest doubt. For, although
he adhered to Charles to the last, and was a mem-
ber of his Oxford parliament, he still managed to
live on intimate terms of good and friendly inter-
course with his republican neighbours who knew

160 Walks in the Black Country

him best. So, when the cause of his unfortunate
master broke down, these seemed to have sup-
ported his petition to Protector Cromwell, which,
dropping his new title, he preferred under the
simple, puritanic name of Humble Ward ; and, it
is just possible, he then assumed it for the first
time. To attach himself more closely or ap-
parently to the ascendant cause, he contracted a
double marriage between his family and that of
Sir William Brereton, the Parliamentary general.
So he succeeded in winning all the merit and the
profit of fidelity to both Charles and Cromwell,
bringing out of the revolution both his title and
estates safe and sound. It is an interesting cir-
cumstance that the successive generations of his
house have never sunk the name of Humble. A
brother of the present Earl is Humble Dudley
Ward ; and doubtless that prefix of humility will
be given to many a son on the descending line
of the house.

The present Earl of Dudley came into posses-
sion of the family estates in 1845. It is said that
for twelve years prior to this date, about .£80,000
of the income of the property had been invested
in real estate, including the princely establishment
of Witley Court, in Worcestershire, the Earl's
present country residence. It is estimated that
his yearly income is the second if not the first
in amount received by any nobleman or other

and its Green Border-Land. 161

gentleman in England. He has been a munificent
benefactor to the town of Dudley. No man in the
kingdom has done more for his immediate com-
munity in the same order of good will and good
works. In the first place, he has given the town
such a park as no one else had to give, if dis-
posed to do it. It is the Castle Hill already
noticed, with all its winding walks, weird caverns
and gorges, and avenues between, low-arched with
braided hawthorn branches, and whitened and per-
fumed with the sweet sheen and breath of their
spring flowerage. Here are glens made by the
pick centuries ago, now overshadowed by the
white-armed birch and forest elm, with the inter-
weaving of all the lower trees and shrubs known
to the county. Here are look-outs on the thickly
wooded edges of the eminence, with rustic seats
from which you may get varying aspects of all
The Black Country and its Green Border-Land.
Then there are the gray and massive walls and
towers and bastions of the old Castle, and the
green, quiet courtyard within, as pleasant a place
as could be for merry children to play and sing
to the echoes of their happy voices, stirring the
broken walls with the pulse of a new age's life.
Never was there a better natural site for a romance,
and I wonder some novelist has not made it the
scene of one. Doubtless the moral material might
be found in the history of the Dudley family.

M

1 62 Walks in tlie Black Country

The special and more immediate gift of the
present Earl to the town is the most costly and
superb fountain yet erected in England. As a
work of art it ranks among the best specimens of
the latest school of design and execution. Most
of our English readers have doubtless seen engra-
vings of this beautiful structure in the "Art
Journal" or "Illustrated London News," and I
believe it is generally regarded by connoisseurs as
the finest piece of sculpture of the kind that has
been presented to any city or town in England.
It was consecrated to its public use and ownership
with great ceremony on the i/th of October, 1867,
the young Countess of Dudley performing the
inaugural rite and act with the sweetest grace of
good-will. All who were present and saw her put
the first draught from the fountain to her lips, and
heard the words they uttered in bestowing the
gift to the people and their posterity, must have
congratulated the Earl in their hearts that he had
found in her such a living fountain of domestic
happiness, and must have wished him to drink of
it to a purer and better life.

The Earl has done other generous things for the
town which redound to his credit, and speak well
also for the confidence he reposes in the masses
of the people. In 1866 there was a local Exhibition
of Arts and Industry in Dudley for the benefit of
an object of great interest to the people. The

and its Green Border-Land. 163

most skilful artisans and eminent manufacturers
contributed their best specimens to this exposition.
The Earl was a distinguished exhibitor in both
of his capacities — as one of the largest iron
manufacturers in the district and also as one of
the wealthiest noblemen of the realm, in possession
of the choicest and rarest works of art. He sent
from his London and country mansions paintings
of the old masters almost beyond a valuation in
money. It was generous and confiding in him
to hang up these delicate and precious treasures
to the view of all the bank-men, pit-men, furnace-
men, and forge-men, and nail-makers of the
district, believing that not the roughest of them
all would lift a soiling finger against the face of a
Vandyke, Holbein, or Correggio. These acts and
dispositions have very favourably impressed the
people of the town and vicinity, while the whole
nation was pleasantly affected by his munificent
hospitality to the Viceroy of Egypt, when that
prince visited London at a time when there was
no royal palace vacant or in trim to give him
suitable lodging and entertainment.

I have thus given several pages to a notice of
the present Lord Dudley and his family, chiefly
because he may be considered the Iron Earl of
England, and because he manufactures the iron
of the best edge-tools in the United States. I
have thought that many who use and some who

164 Walks in the Black Country

make the axes of the Douglas Manufactory Com-
pany of Massachusetts might read these notes and
observations, and that they would feel some
interest in the name and character of the English
nobleman who works his own mines and metals
for New England forges.

Having surveyed The Black Country from
Dudley Castle, the tourist or visiter of the district
should go immediately to another view-tower but
a few miles distant, which commands a scenery
of remarkable contrast with the iron region of
fire and smoke. This is the Clent Hills, in or
rather over Hagley. It is doubtful if such a
contrast can be found elsewhere in any country.
It is a contrast which affects equally all the senses
and faculties of enjoyment, and therefore all the
more difficult to describe. From the Castle Hill
of Dudley Nature has the under-hand, and from
the crown of her head to the sole of her foot
she is scourged with cat-o'-nine-tails of red-hot
wire, and marred and scarred and fretted, and
smoked half to death day and night, year and
year, even on Sundays. Almost every square inch
of her form is reddened, blackened, and distorted
by the terrible tractoration of a hot blister. But
all this cutaneous eruption is nothing compared
with the internal violence and agonies she has
to endure. Never was animal being subjected
to such merciless and ceaseless vivisection. The

and its Green Border- Land. 165

very sky and clouds above are moved to sympathy
with her sufferings and shed black tears in token
of their emotion. When you have sated the eye
with this scene, even without being affected with
these sentimental fancies, just go over to Hagley
and ascend the citadel hill of the Clent range, and
you will see what Nature is where she has the
upper-hand, and breathes free from the asthma
and rheumatism of the other condition. You see
her in all the various dresses she has worn from
her birth. On this furzy- breathing hill you see
the simple and homely dress she wore when man
first found her here two thousand years ago or
more; and it is all redolent with the thymy odour
that perfumed it then. But from this hill-top see
what manner of robes she wears all along down
into the deep, quiet valley and up its gentle,
undulating slopes that meander to the distant
horizon. The fingers of the Creator made the
first garment for man, but He left to human
hands the clothing of naked Nature ; and these
are the beautiful garments they have worked for
her — dresses how varied of green and gold and
of every tint the rainbow's pallet can blend and
bring to the adornment ! Here she reigns in all
her peaceful and summer glory over a vast rural
domain — a great picture of living and breathing
beauty in an encircling frame of emerald, gilded
by undulating lines of golden sky.

1 66 Walks in tJte Black Country

This lofty watch-tower on the Green Border-
Land that divides the regions of coal and corn,
is a favourite resort and breathing-ground of
miners and forgers and the other sooty workers
of The Black Country. On these bald and
breezy heights they can quaff the luxury of the
happiest and healthiest air that breathes, and
disport themselves to their hearts' content in all
the wild freedom of the place. One might think
that a miner who had grubbed in coal-seams fifty
fathoms under-ground for six days in the week,
if he was a devout man, would feel himself at
" a half-way house on the road to heaven " when
standing the seventh on this Beulah hill of a new
world. This common pasture for man and beast,
which yields such fresh pure air for the one, and
sweet though short grazing for the other, contains
about 500 acres, all perfectly safe and secure as
a common inheritance of the inhabitants of the
villages below, and as a field of recreation for
the people of the country around.

Hagley Hall, the seat of the Lytteltons, is situ-
ated at the foot of this hill, with an extensive and
noble park running up to the brow of the eminence.
The park is more classical in aspect than the
mansion itself, which is a portly, rectangular,
modern-looking building externally, looking more
like the pretentious house of a retired manufacturer
than the country-seat of one of the most scholarly

and its Green Border- Land. 167

noblemen of England. The founder of this dis-
tinguished family, whose very name has a literary
sound, or rather the first who attained to a peerage,
was Lord George Lyttelton, who was appointed
Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1757, but who was
more thoroughly acquainted with figures of rhetoric
than those of arithmetic. He was a man of
cultivated and refined taste in literature, art, and
nature. He was the author of various works,
and produced poems of much merit both on paper
and on gardens and lawns of exquisite culture.
He was a generous and genial patron of these two
kinds of literature, and attracted the companion-
ship, and encouraged the labours, and stimulated
the genius of eminent writers and artists. There
are several monuments standing among the trees of
the park, erected to some of these poets and men
of mark. The present Lord Lyttelton, a greater, if
not more productive, scholar than the ancestor who
first won the title he has inherited, is a man of
large and active ability, which he devotes to every
good word and work for the well-being of the
people, especially the working classes. He is not
only a scholar by reputation and past attainments,
but as a continuous and active student, who, per-
haps, has played a little more with his learning
than is meet in this practical age ; or translated
more from English verse into Greek and Latin
than from Greek and Latin into English. Still, he

1 68 Walks in tfie Black Country

seeks to compensate the community for these
literary and unproductive recreations by real,
downright labour for the public good, in practical
efforts for the education and elevation of the
masses. He is Lord-Lieutenant of Worcestershire,
and that and every other public duty devolving
upon him he performs with assiduous devotion
and ability. It may be gratifying to all interested
in a name so intimately connected with classical
literature to learn the fact, that its present noble
incumbent has made ample provision for its per-
petuation. I believe he has no less than eight
sons and four daughters living, most of them grown
up to young manhood and womanhood.

On going from Dudley to Hagley, the main road
passes through Stourbridge, or Sturbridge, as it
is generally pronounced by the common people
of the town and vicinity. The early settlers of
Massachusetts, in reproducing the central counties
of England in that State in name, called a goodly
town in their Worcester county Sturbridge, after
this on the Stour. So that must have been the
usual pronunciation two centuries ago. Stourbridge
sustains a very important relation not only to all
the iron and other metal works of England, but
of the United States and other countries. Its
fire-clay is the best yet found in the world, and
its value to furnace and forge can hardly be
over-estimated. Its fire-bricks and crucibles are

and its Green Border-Land. 169

the hardiest salamanders of endurance ever sub-
mitted to the test of fire. They are as well-
known to the metal factories on both sides of
the Atlantic as the Bath brick is to the kitchens
of Christendom. It is one of the rich and com-
plete provisions of nature that distinguish this
remarkable district. If this material had to be
imported from France, it would have enhanced the
cost of the production and working of iron and
other metals. But the excellent qualities and
exhaustless abundance of the fire-clay attracted to
the town and introduced into the district a manu-
facture of vast importance in addition to the metal
trade. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was
an ill wind to the Protestants of France, and very
grievous, but it blew fortunes to England and other
countries. There was a general hegira of the best
French artists from before the face and force of
religious persecution, and thousands of every craft
found asylum and employment in Great Britain.
And they well and richly repaid the realm for
both. They planted in English towns nearly all
the artistic trades of the country. A family by the
name of Hennezel, with several relatives of the
name of Tyttery and Tyzak, settled down in
Stourbridge in 1557, and commenced there the
manufacture of glass, selecting the locality chiefly
because of its excellent fire-clay for melting-pots.
Others of the same family established the same

1 70 Walks in t/ie Black Country

business at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Thus a single
family of French refugees introduced into England
this important manufacture, while others planted
the ribbon trade at Coventry and silk-weaving in
Spitalfields. From the Hennezels' day to this,
Stourbridge has been distinguished for the perfec-
tion and extent of its glass manufacture, in which
there are about a dozen houses engaged. As a
proof of the excellence to which they have raised
the art, one of these firms, Messrs. Walker and
Son, received and executed an order from the
Sultan for a chandelier which cost nearly .£10,000.
The oriental potentate, who owns and fleeces an
immense flock of human sheep, penned in hovels
and pastured in cheaply-made wilds, was so pleased
with this great work of art and industry, as to
order a spiral stairway of glass from the same firm,
to ascend from the hall-floor of his palace to its
dome. But the Messrs. Walker declined to under-
take a job of such dimensions, difficulty, and
expense, especially as no inconsiderable part of the
work would have been in fitting the stairway to
the palace after the glass part had been all casf
and cut to the pattern. The cost would not have
been less than .£100,000, a sum which the holders
of Ottoman bonds would have preferred to have
seen put to more reproductive use. The French
connexion with this manufacture of glass is still
continued and even enlarged. The sand most

and its Green Border-Land. 171

iised comes from Fontainbleau and vicinity, and
costs on delivery about £l. 4?. 6d. per ton. Thus
the genius that first established the manufacture at
Stourbridge and the raw material that now supplies
it, the town and district owe to France. The
manufacture of iron is also carried on extensively
in Stourbridge. William Foster and Co. are one
of the largest houses in the kingdom, employing
nearly 5,000 hands in all their works.

The town, which contains about 8,000 inha-
bitants, has a venerable antiquity, and possesses
several institutions founded in the olden time, of
much value to the community. Chief among these
is the Old Swinford Hospital, founded by Lord
Foley, which houses, clothes, feeds, and educates
about 130 boys, taken in at seven and kept till
they are over fourteen years of age. They are
then apprenticed to different trades and the pre-
mium is paid for them. If they behave and do
well, at the end of their apprenticeship they are
furnished with certain sums of money to aid them
in setting up businesses for themselves. This is
an excellent institution : it is one of the thousand
acorns planted here and there over the kingdom
a century ago, which have grown into great out-
spreading oaks of strength, refuge, and protection
for thousands of poor men's children of this genera-
tion. The school is always full, as it is sure to
be ; and the property on which it is founded is

172 Walks in tJie Black Country.

constantly increasing ; for the oak is watered and
fostered by the busy industries of the district, and
the pick-men, forge-men, and furnace-men at their
toil strengthen and lengthen its branches. A rich
and everlasting blessing be on all such acorn-
planters. One could almost wish that they might
be allowed to revisit the earth and see the trees
of their planting at their full growth and worth.
Still thousands do see these trees at their growth,
and can go forth and plant acorns by sight which
the good men of the olden years planted by faith,
without knowing, as we know, what would come
of it.

CHAPTER IX.

I

VISITS TO IRON MANUFACTORIES — THE BRADES WORKS, AND
THEIR PRODUCTIONS — THE WREKIN — WILLENHALL.

IN visiting some of the leading manufacturing
establishments of the district, I selected
those which have a reputation abroad, espe-
cially in the United States. There are certain
English names inscribed on articles of common
use which may be truly called household words
in America. Barlow, Butcher, and Rodger s are
names familiar to every American boy sporting a
pocket knife of any size or price. But there is
still another name more exclusively connected with
an implement of wide use with us. That is the
Brades trowel. This brand rules the market, and
probably it is borne by ninety-nine in a hundred
of those wielded by the American masons. For
this reason I had a particular desire to see the
establishment in operation, and felt amply repaid
for my visit. The Brades Iron and Steel Works
are situated in Oldbury, between Birmingham and

1 74 Walks in the Black Country

Dudley, and are the growth of a century or more
of accretion, each decade of the century seemingly
adding its independent structure, so that the whole
looks like a small village of buildings annexed to
each other by narrower roads between them than
the public streets of a town. It is truly a repre-
sentative establishment, embracing in itself nearly
all the industries and productions of the district.
I doubt if such another can be found in England
or the world for this remarkable variety of enter-
prise. In the first place, the company have sunk
seven pairs of coal mines around their works.
Most of the good coal they sell, using themselves
the refuse for their furnaces and forges. They also
own and work their own iron ore. Then from
the furnace to the forge, from pig to bar, goes
this raw material of their manufactures. The iron,
now ready for its hundred uses, parts company
for several stages of manipulation, then unites
again in infinite shapes and relations. A portion
is selected with great care for the carbonating
kilns or ovens in which it is, as it were, seethed
and saturated with the fire and fumes of charcoal.
It now comes out blistered steel, fit for working
up into tools that do not require a cutting edge ;
and a considerable quantity is used at this stage
for such purposes. But most of it is now broken
up into short pieces for the terrible crucibles or
melting-pots of the air furnaces. If any one has

and its Green Border-Land. 175

a curiosity to know how air may be made to act
on combustion, or how the air-draught power has
been developed, let him study the simple economy
and arrangement of these furnaces. There is a
large range of about twenty of them, all under
draught if not blast at once. Nebuchadnezzar's
furnace, seven times heated, was a kitchen fire
compared with one of these for heat. Each is
charged with its covered pot full of blistered steel
with coal to match. Their lidded mouths dull the
roaring sound of the terrible combustion, but the
furnace-men show by their looks the intensity of
the heat. The pouring-off sight is really thrilling.
When the lid is removed from each furnace, and
the pot of molten metal lifted out by a pair of
long-handled tongs with rounded jaws, even a
spectator must have steady nerves to look at it.
To speak of white heat, or the heat of molten gold
or silver would be like comparing the flame of
a yellow tallow candle with the magnesian light.
As the stalwart men, naked to their waists, remove
the cover from the pot and pour the fluid into
flasks for ingots, the brightness is almost blinding
even to one standing at the distance of several
paces. As the whizzing stream runs into the
mould, it emits a sparkling spray dashed with
rainbow tints from various ignited gases. When
the metal is sufficiently cooled and hardened, it is
taken from the moulds in ingots or bars of

176 Walks in tJu Black Country

cast-steel about twenty inches in length, and an
inch and a-half square. It is then rolled, and
hammered into all sizes and shapes, each opera-
tion refining and fitting it for the finest uses to
which it is converted in the smith-shops of the
establishment.

Most of the iron made into cast-steel and shear-
steel comes from Sweden, and is the best for
that purpose yet found in the world. In fact,
no really good edge-tool can be made of any
other iron. The English makes good blistered
steel for wagon-springs and common tools ; but
does not combine toughness with hardness suf-
ficiently for axes, cutlery, and even hoes and
hammers. Still the quality of steel made of
English iron has been so much improved by the
new processes lately introduced, that the Swedish
has been considerably reduced in price. The
Brades Works use themselves most of the steel
they make in the manufacture of their agricultural
and other tools. They get better prices for the
steel they sell than any other house in England
except Huntsman, of Sheffield. They supplied
the pen trade of Birmingham up to about 1850,
at which time the rolled cast-steel was reduced
to 38^. per cwt, and Sheffield took the business.
They make their own files for economy's sake,
as they last so much longer when made of such
steel as they manufacture themselves.

and its Green Border-Land. 177

First on the list of the Brades manufactory, as a
special distinction, are their famous trowels, which
in their line of use and excellence are equal to
the celebrated Toledo blades in the implemental
machinery of war. They are fully as elastic as
any sword-blades, and can be bent double either
way without a permanent crook. Plantation hoes
rank next to trowels in their celebrity. Vast
quantities are sent both to the United States and
Brazil ; those for the latter country are full twice
the weight of the former. As they are for the
cultivation of cotton in both countries, this differ-
ence in size and weight is rather singular. The
union of machine labour in their production has
been brought to great perfection. The rolling-mill
and trip-hammer do the greatest part of the work.
In the first place, the moulds or patterns are
formed. The cast-steel is edged, or champered, in
the bar, then cut into lengths of three or four
inches to correspond with the width of the hoe-
pattern. The borax weld is often made complete
at one heat ; and never more than two are taken.
This operation is performed by the common hand-
sledge and hammer ; and nothing but a firm weld
of the steel to the iron is sought for. The pattern
or form thus steeled goes next to the great trip-
hammer, which brings it out to its required size
and thickness. Thence it is taken to the anvil
of the smith-shop, where the eye is formed with

N

i 78 Walks in the Black Country

remarkable tact and celerity, and the blade
trimmed into shape with the shears. It may
serve to show the facility and fertility of their
production, to say that four men will steel fifty
dozen, and one man will hammer out twenty dozen
a day of these great hoes. The iron is worth
from .£8. IO.T. to £10 per ton, and the steel from
4.2s. to 45^. per cwt. It takes about three pounds
of iron and six ounces of steel per hoe. The
small coal, mostly used, costs on delivery about
js. per ton.

I have dwelt more fully upon trowels and hoes,
as the manufacture which has won for the Brades
Works their especial reputation abroad. But they
turn out a prodigious number of all the imple-
ments known to agricultural labour — shovels,
spades, forks, garden-hoes, chaff-cutters, steel
mould-boards for ploughs, and other articles of
almost infinite variety and use. It may suffice
to show the variety in design, shape, and size of
one class of these articles to say, that the model
department of the establishment contains 4,000
different patterns for straw-cutting machines, and
nearly 2,000 patterns for cast-steel mould-boards
for ploughs ! Now, considering that, with the
exception of the iron imported from Sweden for
making their cast-steel, the Brades Works draw
all the material they manufacture into these infi-
nitely-varied implements from the bowels of the

and its Green Border-Land. 179

earth around and under them, one cannot con-
template their operations and productions without
admiration. Indeed they constitute one of the
chief lions of The Black Country. I said, under
them ; which is literally true, for the whole village
of buildings comprising the establishment has sunk
full eleven feet below their first level. Once their
foundations stood higher than the canal that runs
by their side. The top of the canal is now nearly
as high as their eaves, as it has been watched
by rangers who have kept up its first level, while
the furnace and forge-buildings with all their
chimneys have sunk from being undermined. In
returning to the railway station we saw a score
of houses sunk up to their knees, and we looked
down from the street upon floors once above its
level, but now four or five feet below it. This
is a characteristic feature of The Black Country.
Everywhere you have the signs and presentiment
of treacherous foundation. You see buildings that
have subsided from their first levels at different
angles of deflection, one end often sinking lower
than the other, and making a rent in the outer
walls. Some go down pretty evenly, like the
Brades Works. Right under those terrible fur-
naces the moles are at work night and day rooting
out walks through deep coal-seams. Under the
foundations of tall-steepled churches all a-light
with the evening lamps and resounding with the

180 Walks in t/ie Black Country

voices of devotion, the pickmen are at work
grubbing lanes under towns, hills, railways, and
canals. Everybody seems to feel that they live,
labour, eat, and sleep on a very uncertain and
unsteady footing. But the decline is very gentle.
A house seldom if ever sinks so deep that its
occupants have to escape through the roof. The
railways and canals, which require better levels,
have to be looked to with some care ; but no
serious disasters have ever occurred in the district
in consequence of this honey-combing of its under-
priming.

When I first thought of making walks in The
Black Country and its Green Border-Land, I
proposed to explore the former pretty thoroughly
before I entered upon the latter. But I soon
found that one loses the vivid freshness of tran-
sition by this process of inspection, so that you
do not look at the sceneries of nature or the
noisy and busy scenes of human industry with
such lively sensation, when seeing only one of
these spectacles the same week or day. It matters
not which you see first ; whether you dip into
this district of fire and smoke and artificial
thunder and lightning from the greenest and
quietest of rural landscapes, or into these from
the black forest of forge and furnace chimneys ;
each produces a sensation of mind from the
contrast, which it would not if seen by itself

and its Green Border-Land. 181

alone. Thus I would suggest to any one who
goes out from Birmingham or other large town
to visit The Black Country, to go on, after
he has seen its salient features, to the Green
Border-Land beyond, and he will find several
watch-towers of Nature planted at convenient
distances around the iron district, as if on purpose
to show the brightest, happiest, heavenliest of
her sceneries in contrast with the huge swart
industries of man. There are several of these
eminences which furnish such points of observa-
tion, especially the Clent and Lickey Hills, which
look off into vistas of rural life and beauty
embellished with all the golden and emerald
jewellery of the spring and summer's setting.

But there is a hill more famous still for its
height, position, history, and scenery ; a kind of
Pisgah, which, if it does not overlook a Jordan, yet
commands the view of a more picturesque river,
or the Severn, with the little meandering Canaan
through which it runs. This is " The Wrekin," the
centre and cynosure of Shropshire's social life—
the A uld Reekie of the county toasts. Never a hill
outside of Judea had such a social status and
attraction. To " All Friends round the Wrekin "
is a toast and a saying full of pleasant associations
and suggestions. It sounds like " All the folks at
home," and has a kind of common hearth-stone
ring to it. I had intended to make this famous

1 82 Walks in tJie Black Country

hill, which has become such a household and
home-meaning word, the starting-point of my
walks in the Green Border-Land of The Black
Country ; so, having challenged the poet Capern
to accompany me, we set off on one of the bright-
est and cheeriest days of an English autumn.
Even The Black Country through which we
passed looked its very best, though the smoke
was all the dunner for lack of cloud or murky
mist. Little patches of struggling verdure, dashed
with sooty stubble, caught some of the life and
glow of the sunlight between the shadows of the
towering chimneys. Wolverhampton is the border-
town of the district. On its western outskirt the
scene changes with surprising and sudden contrast.
In a few minutes you are in the Green Border-
Land. All is quiet, rural, and peaceful. Every-
thing looks and feels as if it had a safe and
permanent foundation. All the houses stand level
and strong. You see none tipped over end-ways
with one leg sunk to the knee. The cows and
sheep feed or ruminate as if they felt at home,
and would find all their pasture above-board on
the morrow. The trees in hedge-row, copse, and
grove seem to thank heaven out of the whispering
lips of all their leaves that they can breathe its
pure air and drink in the life of its blessed sun,
with no black, despotic chimneys to molest or
make them afraid. We were as much surprised as

and its Green Border-Land. 183

delighted at this transition. It was the change of a
minute's work by rail on leaving Wolverhampton.
We were right in the midst of a highly-cultivated,
picturesque country where Nature was in her
holiday dress. There was a peep which would
have photographed capitally and have made a
beautiful picture. It was a straight and even
piece of canal running between an avenue of tall
and graceful trees a third of a mile in length.
The sun in all its mild glory was looking up
through this beautiful avenue, and turned the
water between as we crossed it, to a long, silver-
faced mirror, in which all the trees were looking at
their faces, as if doing up their toilet for one
of Nature's joy days. It was but a moment's
glimpse, but long enough for the mind to photo-
graph it vividly on the memory. We passed
through a narrow belt or rather zone of this
pleasant land, when we suddenly dashed into
another Black Country — or that of Shropshire.
A few miles beyond the antique, picturesque little
town of Shiffnal we plunged into the sierra negra
of Oaken Gates. They might have been oaken
in the time of the Druids, but now they may well
be taken for the iron gates of some subterranean
or Plutonian region. Here are successive ranges
of blue-black hills, looking like huge barrows,
which have been windlassed up from unknown
depths, leaving corresponding spaces in that un-

184 Walks in the Black Country

seen world larger than any catacombs we read of.
Some of these barrows must be full sixty feet in
height and a quarter of a mile in length. Should
this volume go to another edition perhaps it will
present a photograph of a section of these little
black mountains sent up to the surface and planted
in thick-set rows over it by the coal and iron
miners of the district.

We left the train at Wellington, the station
nearest to the Wrekin. I never knew before
which of the Wellingtons the great English field-
marshal associated to his title. I had always
thought it must have been the Somersetshire
Wellington ; but, on seeing this Shropshire town
and Oaken Gates, I am persuaded his title should
have been taken here if it were not. No locality
could have more appropriately given him the name
of "Iron Dttke." Wellington is a considerable
town, built in the old English fashion, as if to
make the utmost of its space. This in early times
was a pressing necessity when a town was built
and walled for defence as well as for commercial
and social life. But this habit became a second
nature to the town -builders of old when the
villages were sparsely scattered over the country,
and there was all the space they could covet
for wide streets and deep door-yards. Even on
such sites they built as if closely compressed
within relentless walls. Wellington has much of

and its Green Border-Land. 185

the aspect of this mediaeval economy, and some
of its streets are crooked and narrow enough to
please any antiquarian tourist. We noticed one
in the centre of the town called Dun Cow Lane.
Then some of the inns have all the quaint nomen-
clature of the olden times, which always give such
zest and relish to their entertainment. At one
of these we lunched on bread and cheese in the
old tap-room fashion, then set forth on our small
Alpine expedition. We came very near mount-
ing the wrong hill, for there are several grouped
together near the town. The Wrekin, however,
cannot be mistaken when seen in comparison with
the others. Indeed some derive its name from
wre and ken, two British words which they say
mean the " chief hill." Being set aright by a
lad we met, we proceeded by a winding road be-
tween the two heights. The one on our left as
we ascended presented a remarkable form and
appearance. Several hundred feet of its flank
showed a geological formation worth studying,
and which I will not undertake to describe in the
usual stiff and technical phraseology. To the
common reader, who rather tires of such terms,
I would only say : Imagine a small, precipitous
mountain with all its bare, steep rocks on fire,
and all its alternate currents of red flame and
blue smoke blown and twisted about by the wind.
When you have this sjght fresh and distinct in

1 86 Walks in ttic Black Country

your imagination, just fancy the frigid zone let
in upon the huge conflagration, and all that twisted
flame and smoke congealed in an instant to solid
rock, and you have the best idea I can give
of the appearance of this remarkable geological
formation. As we continued our way upward,
this little mountain on the left, which we at first
mistook for the Wrekin, assumed an animal form,
something like Arthur's Seat at Edinburgh, but
not so lion-like as that celebrated height. It took
the shape of a huge elephant crouching on its
haunches. From the shoulders backward it was
covered with a tawny hide of frostbitten and russet
fern. At every rod of our ascent the shape showed
some new feature of resemblance, until the ele-
phant was fully developed in all his good-natured
strength and stature, as if looking off into the
great valley northward like a huge beast of bur-
den that had brought it a splendid load of good
weather.

For about a third of the ascent we had a very
good roadway, when at this point we left it by
a path at a right angle and mounted to the " Half-
way House," where we rested for a few minutes.
It is a large cottage planted at a good point of
view, and fitted up very comfortably for companies
of visiters, even of the usual pic nic size. The
waiting and refreshment room is a large apartment,
chaired for forty or fifty persons, with a bay win-

and its Green Border-Land. 187

dow for the northern aspect, embracing the whole
end of the building. Although only a third of
the way up the height, this out-look commands
a prospect worth the ascent to the cottage to see.
We were most agreeably surprised at the ease
and comfort of the rest of the journey. We had
fancied a rough, steep, and broken ascent over
crags and precipices without a beaten track. But
instead of this there was what might be called an
inclined lawn all the way from the cottage to the
summit, and thence down on the other side for
a long distance. It was a lawn carpeted with that
short, elastic moss which seems to quicken and
delight one's footsteps. On each side was a thick
growth of firs, birches, and other trees, with here
and there an opening to give you a peep into the
wide world beyond. We preferred, however, to
pass these side glances without much notice, that
the whole panorama might burst upon us at once
at the top. And this fully realized our imagina-
tions thus excited. We purposely restricted our
eyes until we reached the summit, crowned by
a small mound, with a short post or stake stuck
in the centre of it, like the spike in the helmet
of a Prussian soldier. This was " Heaven Gate ; "
and it opened upon a view of heaven and earth
at that moment beautiful and glorious, beyond the
genius of poet or painter to picture to a distant
eye. It was the best possible light that could

1 88 Walks in the Black Country

be thrown upon it, to bring out all its best features
to vivid, breathing life. The mellowest sun of an
English autumn was descending the western hori-
zon, and no other autumn sun the wide world
round equals it, even at noon. In the first place,
it seems to come down twice as near the earth as
in America, as if it had closer social relation
to it ; or, for a few weeks in the year, delighted
to spread its golden wings nearer to the glad
and beautiful sceneries which it had created
before they took the white veil of winter's frosts
and snow. Then, at this season, it fills the whole
heavens with a humid but not damp mist of light,
unlike the dry, crimson suffusion of our American
Indian summer's sky — a mist not golden of
decided nuance, but like the weak dilution of the
atmosphere of some vast orb of molten gold more
distant than the sun. In such a light we looked
off into the great valley, north, south, and west.
It was a vast basin filled with autumnal glory that
ran over the brim on all sides. From the height
on which we stood, a hundred smaller hills sank
almost to the levels of the common fields that
floored the great amphitheatre with their living
mosaic. The tall-timbered woods and groves in-
terspersed looked like trunkless shrubs that spread
their tinted foliage on the ground like rich carpets
of leaves stemmed living in the earth. Truly,
beyond other distance, height lends enchantment

and its Green Border- Land. 189

to the view. It exalts every valley, brings high
places low, makes rough places smooth, and forms
a little world and walls it in with an horizon to fit
and grace its own altitude. Far beyond the Severn
sloped up the successive ranges of Welsh hills and
mountains, as if they were the folds of the same
azure cloud, that dipped its upper edge in the sun's
nearer glory. Tops and ridges a dozen leagues
apart seemed in the distance like the eyebrows and
forehead-locks of the same face. The sun was
just at the line whence it could pour aslant its best
flood adown these crescent slopes into the great
valley below, which the meandering Severn jewelled
here and there with gold and silver brooches set in
emerald. It was a scenery to be drunk in by
reverent and thoughtful eyes ; to take into the
mind and treasure for the reflections of future
days ; to put with landscapes that live most vividly
in memory. The view embraced something more
than landscapes, however varied and beautiful.
The blue lines of the Snowdonian range were a
long way from the top of the nearest hill on the
other side of the Severn, but the one looked to
the eye like the foot and the other the crown of the
same mountain. But what were these intervening
distances compared with the historic intervals
spread out before us ! Here, but a little way
before us, hidden among the green growths of a
modern civilization, lies buried the old Roman

i go Walks in tfte Black Country

Uriconium, once a goodly city under several
Roman emperors. No promiscuous huddle of
wattled cottages and clay cabins was it in those
days of Roman power and dominion. For twice
the life's length of civilization in the Western
Hemisphere the all-conquering eagle outstretched
its silken wings over the walls of that busy city,
now so dead and deeply buried. Pieces of its
skeleton have been exhumed, such as carved
columns and capitals, ornaments, coins, and all the
ordinary articles of a civilized people, proving that
it was a permanent city of homes and families.
How mysterious the evaporation of that mighty
empire — of such unparalleled solidities of human
character! The Romans came to this island
to subdue its soil and climate as well as its
wild population. Doubtless they felt more pride
in making the conquest than in the overthrow of
Carthage and the extinction of the Punic nation ;
for this was the Ultima Thule ; this was the
extreme western wall of the known world which
Alexander never reached, and on this Rome
should plant her eagles as the conterminous
boundary of the earth and of her own empire.
All their lines of march, all the roads they made,
the walled cities they built, and the military posts
they planted, proved this intent and ambition. It
was not to extirpate or enslave, but to subdue a
savage people to the conditions of civilization that

and its Green Border-Land. 191

they invaded and occupied the country. This
little walled town thus buried for centuries was one
of their centres and sources of civilized population.
What has been already exhumed shows that it was
built for a permanent and enlightened community,
like all the other Roman cities in Britain — that
the Roman soldiers were only its garrison, to
defend a civilian population of all ages, of mostly
husbands and wives and children. For twice the
space of time that our American Boston has
lived as a civilized community, this Uriconium had
a consecutive population, increasing through a
dozen successive generations. No history is extant
to tell us how many women from Italy were
brought into the country ; but we know that the
highest officers of the Roman army married British
wives, and, doubtless, all the private soldiers
allowed to marry did the same. Thus Uriconium,
though in the first decade may have been only a
fortified camp of soldiers, in the next would have
become the residence of families, even if no Roman-
born woman had ever been introduced within its
walls. This Latinized community must have
increased without any accessions from Italy, pro-
bably by the same ratio of augmentation as any
other city population multiplying itself without
immigration from abroad. What kind of language
its succcessive generations spoke — whether a Latin
Patois, or a partially Latinized Celt — is a question

192 Walks in t/ie Black Country

that philological antiquaries might discuss with
interest. It is probable that all the other Roman
cities in England became just such self-increasing
populations of what may be called the Latin race
in blood and language, and that they had advanced
a long way in the arts, habits, tastes, and occupa-
tions of civilized life when the Roman soldiery was
withdrawn to defend the great metropolis of the
world. The Roman empire died suddenly of
heart-disease. A man may be a Titan in size,
with legs and arms of immense length and strength ;
but he may collapse and fall lifeless to the earth
from paralysis as easily as a pigmy. So Rome
fell, from no want of vigour in its limbs, but from a
disease of the heart that had been generating for
centuries. What became of all those Latinized
populations in Britain, when the Roman soldiers
left it ? They certainly must have numbered half
a million. They ought to have been double that
figure. There were not vessels enough floating on
the seas of the world to transport these numerous
and populous communities, even if Italy could
have given them house-room within its borders.
They must have remained here and blended with
the Saxons, through them with the Danes, and
through both with the Normans.

The hill-top of the Wrekin overlooking this
buried Roman city, and elevated 1,300 feet above
the sea, is not only a grand point of observation

and Us Green Border-Land. 193

but of reflection, commanding landscapes of won-
derful extent and variety and scenes of historical
interest dotting, like diversely-tinted fields, the
checkered expanse of eighteen centuries. As the
eye passes from one feature to another of the
great valley, so the mind passes from scene to
scene and fact to fact in the histories of the land
that have been enacted in that space. It does
not require an exuberant imagination for the
thought to pass from the Roman sentinel pacing
the wall of Uriconium in the moonlight, to Falstaff
swaggering from the battle-field at Shrewsbury
into the tent of Prince " Hal" with the dead
Hotspur on his back. You need not think of
common sense or its hum-drum dictates, if you
really listen with attentive and expectant faculties
for "Shrewsbury clock" striking FalstafTs "long
hour." There is that famous old city itself stand-
ing with its brave, tall steeples half-melted in
the mist, with the Severn folding it clear around
the waste with its arm, as if it were the very bride
of its love. All the space between, and up and
down the valley is dotted with centres of historical
and industrial interest interspersed with the varied
aspects of the landscape. It would be almost
irreverent to blend them promiscuously. But they
have done it themselves. Yonder is the little
village of Acton Burnell where Edward I held
his parliament in quarters which might reconcile

O

194 Walks in the Black Country

the present one to their cramped space. On
this occasion the Commons held their sessions
in a barn, and probably had bundles of straw
for their " ministerial benches." The speaker's
chair may have been a perch on the bay-beam.
The peers temporal and spiritual probably met
in the knights' hall, well garnished with boars'
heads and deers* horns. Here, in speeches of
Norman French, they discussed the public affairs
of the kingdom. There is Broseley, well known
in the tap-rooms of this and half-a-dozen other
kingdoms for its tobacco-pipes. Sir Walter
Raleigh was the making of that village and its
business when he introduced the Indian weed
from America. The Broseley clay was the best
fitted for this tubular pottery, and its potters
worked out a marvellous variety of patterns for
burning the narcotic incense to an evil habit. One
of the local archaeologists has collected one hun-
dred and thirty specimens, all of different design
and make. Between these two points of historical
and industrial interest is Wenlock and its old
abbey ruin with its ranks of pillars and arches
marked with all the genius of the religious
sculptors of the Middle Ages. It is a structure
ruined picturesquely by the old abbey-mauler of
Henry VIII, Oliver's predecessor and teacher in
the tactics of demolition. Then in the mosaic
of all these heterogenous associations, you have

and its Green Border- Land. 195

Coalbrookdale with its kitchen-souvenirs. Who
ever heard its name pronounced without thinking
of a sad-iron or an iron porridge-pot ? What
village or hamlet in the United States has not
some memento of Coalbrookdale in suites of its
hollow- ware ? From the Wrekin the eye runs
up and down the slopes of this great basined
expanse, and takes in all this checker-work of
nature, art, labour, and history in a glance.

We could not have selected a more favourable
time or have had a better day for our view from
the Wrekin. We not only had a splendid vista
of landscapes grouped picturesquely in the best
lights, but we saw a whole season in its most
beautiful aspects ; and the best season in the
English year. The plane scenery in England
in autumn cannot be equalled by that of any
other country, nor by the view in this at any
other time of the year. Our American skies,
mountains, and trees in the Indian summer are
more brilliant in their tinting than those of Eng-
land ; but the surface or landscape picture here
in the same month excels ours in finish and
beauty, and also surpasses the English scenery
in spring or summer. In spring there is a
monotony of tinting in the general landscape after
all that the flowers can do to vary the aspect.
The green shows all its resources of colouring ;
but green is the ground of every shade, and it

196 Walks in the Black Country

absorbs and governs all. But in an English
autumn you have all the colours on an equal
footing, and no one has an absorbing place or
power in the landscape, although its own is
retained to all its life. You see a green in the
middle of November which the grass or grain-
fields never show in spring. For nothing in May
or June can equal the green of a field of Swede
turnips, or the vivid hue of mangel-wurzel. These
crops come out rich in the autumn landscape here;
and when alternated with the bright stubble of
recently-harvested wheat and barley-fields, and
fields of lake-coloured soil harrowed and smoothed
to a garden's surface for the harvests of another
year, you have the ground-work of a picture
which the English May does not present, and
which our American autumn cannot equal, because
these root-crops do not make a feature of our
landscape. Then the English hedges that, like
gilded frames, enclose these various fields, give
to the whole vista an aspect which no other season
or country can equal. Indeed, in green itself the
October of England outdoes its June in distinct-
ness, diversity, and grouping of the shades of
that maidenhood colour of vegetable life. For,
besides these luxuriant crops then in full verdure,
there are pasture lands and twice-mown meadows
showing, between long files of hedge-row trees,
as vividly green as any our landscape presents

and its Green Border-Land. 197

on the summer edge of May. Then there are
other qualities that not only compensate the
season for all its early frosts have abstracted, but
give it more than the virgin month of summer
can offer to the senses. The bloom and breath
of flowers in May delight the eye and that sense
which needs not sight for its enjoyment. But
October's flowers, which she hangs in the sun
from a thousand orchards, are beautifully tinted,
too, and the breath of her ripe pears and apples
is more delicious still, nor will it pall so soon
as that of roses upon the delicate sense that drinks
in the odours of the three life-bearing seasons
of the year. Over and above this universal savour
of ripened fruits and harvested corn, there is a
sense of plenty which even a blind man may
enjoy in autumn, as if the earth were offering up
her thanksgiving incense to the soft bending skies
above, so full of the sun's best smile that they
look like humid eyes moistened and glistening
with tears of joy.

When standing on the Wrekin's crown, I felt
it were worth the journey and the ascent merely
to see from it the English autumn in its full
glory. But blending this vista with all the other
features of the view, it was a grand standpoint
for observation and reflection — for the eye and
mind to roam in thoughtful silence over that wide
scene of the industries and histories of England

198 Walks in tJie Black Country

and all its motley races back to the dawn of
Christianity. And there was stillness, as if the
height were hushed in the clearer view or quick-
ened sense of holy sublimities which the loud
and noisy levels of earth's daily bustle, toil, and
turmoil cannot feel. No wonder that, in the
days of old when religious men essayed to get
nearer to God and His fellowship by climbing
the silent mountains for prayer, some long-bearded
devotee of sequestered meditation should have
pitched his sanctum on this lofty and solemn hill.
Such a recluse was Nicholas de Denton, who in
the reign of Henry III fixed his abode here ;
and that sovereign was so impressed with the
spiritual influence which the hermit would imbibe
and diffuse at this great altitude, that, in order
to afford him "greater leisure for holy exercise,
and to support him during his life, so long as
he should be a hermit on the aforesaid mountain,"
the sheriff of Shropshire was ordered to supply
him with six quarters of corn from the Pendleston
Mill, near Bridgnorth. Doubtless it was the under-
standing that the hermit should pay toll on this
corn in daily supplication for his sovereign.

The Wrekin is not only a remarkable eminence
for the eye but also for the ear; especially just
as the sun is sinking to the rim of the horizon.
From all hills, both great and small, voices, that
would not be heard at noon, come up to you

and its Green Border-Land. 199

as if the lower skies exhaled them, as they do
the earth's invisible vapours. But we listened to
them from this serene height with wonder that
sounds of such small projectile force could ascend
so high. The rippling, rollicking voices of children
in far-off villages blended and floated up to us
in that cheery music of young human life that
is so delightful. Then we heard the silvery
murmur of church bells striking the hour, but
could not tell whence it came or whither it went.
It came like a pulse of sound that had touched
every golden ray of the sun's setting light in
heaven, and set it agoing like a harp-string. Then
listening to this and that, as to the happy music
of human spheres, a gander full five miles away
spoke up in a brassy, peevish ejaculation, as if
jealous for his order and determined to let the
upper world know that other bipeds than man
walked the earth and looked erect on heaven.
Indeed, I think some of the tongues we heard
must have uttered their voices in Shrewsbury, or
in villages ten miles distant.

The point which we found most favourable for
observation was not the very crown of the hill, but
a little lower down on the western side, or the
" Bladder Stone," a term which must have been
intended to convey the German idea of a sausage,
or of one made of turnip and liver. The rock
presents not only these colours, but the chopped-

2oo Walks in t/ie Black Country

up materials of a sausage. One can easily see,
when standing on this brassy-looking crown of the
Wrekin, or when looking at the contour of the
hill from a distance, that the name it bears is not
Celtic but Latin, Saxonized in that queer, quaint
way in which our common and remote ancestors
served even classical words of Italian origin. I
have already noticed the marked resemblance of
the sister hill to an elephant couchant. The
Roman soldiers, as they penetrated up into the
country on the Severn, then its only broken road,
must have been equally struck with the resem-
blance of this little mountain to the head of a
wild bull, or of the urus, surmounted by a helmet.
When they came to pitch their camp upon it, and
see what manner of brazen-looking helmet it wore
in the Bladder Stone, and to plant their flag-staff
upon it, the fancy was strikingly realized, and it
would have been the most natural thing in the
world for them to call the hill Uriconus. The
rank and file of the soldiery would have shortened
the word by a syllable in pronunciation, and called
it Uricon, and the half-Latinized population of the
district would have adopted the same appellation.
As the Romans probably had neither an English
w or i in their alphabet, they would have spelt
and pronounced the word Urecon, and that has
done better than a hundred other Latin words in
coming down to the present day through such a

and its Green Border-Land. 201

medley of various races and tongues, in escaping
with so little change as that from Uricon to
Wrekin. It would be natural for the Romans
to call the permanent city which they built after-
wards almost at the foot of this hill, Uriconium.

Having luxuriated for an hour or two on the
helmet of this famous hill in the scenery it com-
manded, we descended, with the descending sun,
the western side, and made our way back to
Wellington along the wooded skirt of the em-
inence. Following footpaths which were faintly
marked among the leaves and across brooks, we
reached the main road to the town. Midway we
over-took a regular Saxon — a fair-haired broad-
shouldered man of about thirty, wearing the
hereditary livery and untaxed powder of a miller.
We fell immediately into conversation with him,
with the wish to elicit from him some additional
facts or ideas to add to our impressions already
obtained. We found that he was a contented,
happy wight walking upon the green border-land
that divides between the early dreams and mild
realities of married life, and that both were blend-
ing pleasantly in his present experience. For, on
asking if he had been often on the Wrekin, and
knew the people who lived in the half-way cottage,
he said he knew both well and had often visited
them. Indeed, he added, with a deeper colour to
his honest face and half-timidly, he had married

2O2 Walks in the Black Country

his wife at the cottage about three years ago.
Here was a spice of romance to season our walk ;
so we drew him out gently on various points of his
history. His name was William, and his mountain
bride was Mary Ann, and he spoke of her as
fondly and as proudly as if she were his queen
as well as his wife ; and we honestly, not quiz-
zingly, admired this sentiment. We believed it
was sincere and deep within him, and the face
he put upon it was a true and honest reflection
of it. Indeed, my friend Capern felt his muse
stirred by it, and on the spot, without two minutes'
reflection, treated the blushing miller to this verse,
purporting to come from the young wife :

"Your passion is strong, but the Wrekin is steep,
And the journey is double, my dear;
So, as your affection I am willing to keep,
I will now save you trouble, my dear."

The rustic husband seemed so pleased at this
poetical idea of his Mary Ann's feelings towards
him ere she descended from her elevated height
to be his wife, that I regretted being unable to
add to his satisfaction by a verse of my own.
But as I could do nothing in the rhyming line,
I gave him a tit-bit from Dryden's "Ode" in the
two lines, slightly modified :

"She raised a mortal to the skies,
He drew an angel down."

and its Green Border-Land. 203

It proved a good hit, for he evidently gave me
the credit of composing the lines as well as of
understanding how the matter really stood be-
tween him and the girl he wooed and won on
the Wrekin. Indeed, as we walked along under
the brows of the two hills, we could see his lips
move now and then as if whispering over to him-
self the lines we had devoted to his domestic
felicity. He was evidently bent on carrying them
to his young wife. Capern was delighted at the
impression upon him in this direction, so, on the
spur of the impulse, he gave him a practical sug-
gestion in a homely verse to be remembered in
pursuing his daily occupation :

"The poor man carries his grist to the mill,
The miller a merciful wight is he,
The poor man has many mouths to fill,
So he lets the toll of the poor man be ;
The farmer sends a two-bushel bag
Of the very best wheat his barn doth hold,
And the miller, a jolly-faced, merry wag,
Says, a moderate dish when the corn is tolled.
The rich man sends a well-filled sack,
For the rich man hath plenty in store,
And the burden sore bendeth the miller's back,
So he lightens the weight for himself and the poor."

This was well meant on the poet's part, but not
seemingly so well taken on the part of the miller,
who was busy storing away in his mind the verse
about his wife and their first love and joint happi-
ness. He did not understand Capern's ethics in

204 Walks in the Black Country

regard to toll quite so clearly ; doubtless thinking
it would have been an unsatisfactory policy in
the estimation of his most profitable customers.
Our ways diverging at the edge of the town,
we exchanged a hearty "Good evening" with
him, and both of us voted unanimously that our
meeting such a good specimen of everyday
human nature was a pleasant incident, bringing
us down from rather visionary heights of obser-
vation and musing to the common levels of
working life.

We found the little inn where we had lunched
swept and garnished for our reception. The land-
lady, a smart, bright young woman, had somehow
or other conceived the notion at our first call, that
we were not exactly of the common run of her
tap-room guests ; so, on our return, she ushered us
into her little back parlour, which was full ten feet
square, and as comfortable and genial a little room
as could be. There were no rigid right angles
about it, but its walls were wavy and rounded and
softened at the corners ; and the ceiling was so
delightfully low that I could not stand upright
with my hat on under the large beam overhead.
The best furniture of the house was tastefully
arrayed in this cosy little room, and florid saints
and soldiers stood on the mantle-piece in rich
robes of porcelain velvet. And there was the
genuine English tea-kettle on the bright hob sing-

and its Green Border-Land. 205

ing a welcome to us. And the young landlady
had set another musical instrument a-going oppo-
site, or a large music box, which, as we entered,
struck up, " Over the water to Charlie," and played
it with caroling fervour ; and it seemed to animate
the bright-faced kettle, as the two, though singing
different tunes, made a cheery concert for us.
Then the mistress had tidied herself up neatly and
smartly, with the evident intent to do her best to
make us at home, and she did it thoroughly.
Beyond our expectations, she could supply us with
slippers, so that we could pull off our damp shoes
and sit by the bright fire with a delicious sense of
rest and comfort. The copper face of the singing
kettle was all aglow with its warm radiance ; and,
forgetting the Wrekin and its great surroundings
and suggestions, we fell into a discussion of the
domestic music of this harp of the hearth ; how its
little twittering melodies had cheered the homes of
the poor for long generations back ; what songs it
had sung to peeled and rough-handed labour at
the close of the day's toil ; what it had been to
sick-rooms, and tents of wounded men on the
fought battle-field ; what inspiration it had breathed
into social life and the companionship of the
morning and evening meals. Really, our thoughts
radiated outward from the burnished and palpi-
tating lid further than they did from the helmet of
the Wrekin ; and I pressed Capern to make them

206 Walks in the Black Country

the subject of a poem, under the title of "THE
SONG OF THE TEA-KETTLE." This he promised
to do ; and I have no doubt will bring out the
music and mission of that hot-water piano of
the poor man's home fully ; so I will say nothing
more about it here.

After an appetising tea-supper on the little
round table before the pleasant fire, we bade our
hostess "Good night," and returned by an early
evening train to Birmingham, with most enjoyable
recollections of the day's excursion and incidents.

As the largest manufactory of door-locks and
fittings in America is that of my old neighbours in
New Britain, Connecticut, Russell, Erwin, & Co.,
I had a particular desire to see what may be called
a rival establishment in Willenhall, about ten miles
north of Birmingham. This is one of the oldest
and most extensive lock factories in the kingdom,
and is called The Summerford Works ; Messrs.
Carpenter & Tildesley are the proprietors, and the
father of the former was the founder in 1795.
Mr. J. C. Tildesley is perhaps the best authority on
locks to be found anywhere, having written up
their history through four thousand years of record.
In the valuable paper he contributed to that
cooperative work of literature, " Birmingham and
the Midland Hardware District," he has quoted
Aratus, Ariston, Eustathius, Callimachus, Homer,
and other Greek poets and writers from their days

and its Green Border-Land. 207

down to this on the subject of keys and their
infinite variety of construction. In the Middle
Ages locks and keys exercised and disciplined the
finest mechanical skill and artistic taste of various
ingenious communities. They were not only elabo-
rated for security but for ornament, and nothing
made in these modern days can approach those
unique productions. Indeed, the artist in iron,
steel, and brass set to work upon the lock and key
for a city gate, cathedral, or palace door to connect
the memory of his name with the edifice for ever ;
or as a Raphael would sit down to a Madonna
which should attract the reverent admiration of
ages to come. The artist-mechanic was moved by
the same impulse and in the same direction. The
religious enthusiasm of the age inspired him with
the same devotion to his work ; and he threw his
whole heart, mind, body, and soul into it. If the
great Italian painter presented to the world, his
"Assumption of the Virgin," he fixed his eye and
heart upward in the wake of the same glory. He
with his steel pencils, chisels, and drills would do
something in the same line. And he did it. His
idea was rude and material, but his sentiment was
honest and clear ; and let no one of this later age
of light blame him for his conception. Such was
the thought of a mechanic of Gaul in the dawning
light of Christianity in that country, soon after the
name of France was born The sketch of his

208 Walks in tfie Black Country

Serrure de Tabernacle is still preserved. On the
escutcheon surrounding the key-hole are figures
of our Saviour on one side and two angels on the
other — angels of mercy doubtless meant, posted
at the portal of the blest to salute the incoming
saint receiving the welcome, " Well done, good and
faithful servant ; enter into the joy of thy Lord."
The work of a life apparently was devoted to
the elaborate and delicate engraving of images,
symbols, and scrolls, and inworking of beads
around the edges.

As we come down to the utilitarian centuries,
locks and keys began to be made more for prac-
tical use than fanciful ornament. The Chinese,
as in many other departments of mechanical skill,
seem to have led the way in the manufacture of
unpickable locks. They introduced the lever, or
tumbler principle. The Dutch get the credit of
the combination or letter-lock: It was so con-
structed that the letters of the alphabet, which
are engraved on four revolving rings, may be
required, by pre-arrangement, to spell a certain
word, or number of words, before it can be opened.
One of these locks was made to open only with
A. M. E. N. The poet Carew, in verses written
in 1620, thus describes this complex contrivance:

" As doth a lock

That goes with letters, for till every one he known,
The lock's as fast as if you had found none."

and its Green Border-Land. 209

English ingenuity in inventing new defences for
locks was largely developed in the reign of
Elizabeth, when one skilful smith is said to have
made a lock consisting of eleven pieces of iron,
steel, and brass, all of which, with a pipe-key,
weighed only two grains of gold. The Marquis of
Worcester describes a lock invented in 1640 so
constructed that " if a stranger attempt to open it,
it catches his hand as a trap catches a fox, though
so far from maiming him for life, yet so far
marketh him that if suspected he might easily be
detected." The first patent for a lock in England
was granted in 1 774 ; from that date to this
inventors and improvers have made a vigorous
race of competition. The list of successful runners
numbers about 120 patentees ; and as every one of
them must have introduced some new principle or
application, one can easily imagine what varieties
have been introduced. The Napoleon of locks,
who reigned with undisputed or undeposed sway
for half a century, was Joseph Bramah, of London.
He patented his famous lock in 1784, and not only
he, but the whole out-door and in-door world had
perfect faith in its impregnable defence and
security. He threw down his glove to all comers
in the following notice in his shop window : " The
artist who can make an instrument that will pick
or open this lock will receive two hundred guineas
the moment it is produced." For many years this

P

2io Walks in the Black Country

challenge was kept standing in his window. The
very confidence it expressed seemed to repress all
attempts to undermine it. In fact, the confidence
was mutual in the challenged and challenger.
But 1851 came with its great Exhibition in
London, and its assemblage of skill and art from
other countries. Our American Hobbs came with
others of his ingenious countrymen, and one day,
passing Bramah's window, noticed this challenge,
and took up the glove. He set to work to test
the inviolability of the lock, and, to the surprise of
everybody, opened it after a few days of persever-
ing labour. The sensation produced by this feat
was almost national. Indeed it seemed as if one
of the bulwarks of the nation's faith in its safety
was broken down. But, as Corporal Trim would
say, it was "worth a regiment of horse" to the
lock-makers in England. It gave a great stimulus
to the trade by bringing into it new science, skill,
and genius. Bramah had virtually stopped the
way against further improvement. He was sup-
posed to have reached the outer line of perfection,
and his lock was regarded as a finality. But
Hobbs cleared the track of this heavy and obstruc-
tive notion, and the lock trade of the kingdom was
greatly benefited by his skill and its feat.

Chubb is another great name connected with
the manufacture of locks. Two or three genera-
tions of the family have introduced various im-

and its Green Border-Land. 2 1 1

provements ; the most distinctive of which is their
celebrated detector, which acts when any false key
is introduced into the lock, and bars the burglar's
further progress. So extensive are the combina-
tions invented by them, that the present Mr.
Chubb affirms that it would be quite practicable to
make locks for all the doors of all the houses in
London, with a distinct, different key to each lock,
and yet there should be one master-key to pass the
whole. The Chubb's patent was granted in 1818.
Mr. J. Carpenter, of Willenhall, and Mr. John
Young, of Wolverhampton, jointly obtained a
patent in 1830 for a lock in which the action of the
catch bolt was perpendicular instead of horizontal.
This invention resulted in great success ; and
" Carpenter's Locks " became literally a household
word in every market at home and abroad. The
few noticed are some of the 1 20 varieties patented
in Great Britain, many of which came into extensive
use.

Willenhall is the chief town of the district in the
lock trade. There are about 275 employers and
3,000 hands engaged in the manufacture. The
earnings of the men and boys vary from iSs. to 30^.
per week. The production of the whole district,
including padlocks and every other thing that goes
by a key, is estimated at 31,500 dozens per week,
450 employers and about 5,000 hands being en-
gaged in the trade. Nearly all countries of the

212 Walks in tJie Black Country

world supply a market ; Australia and New
Zealand being the most important customers for
door-locks. The American demand has been
small comparatively of late years, and is rather
decreasing still in consequence of the perfection
and extent to which the manufacture has been
brought in the United States. Thirty years ago it
was estimated that half the locks made in the
district went to America. For the last few years
the demand from that side was confined mostly
to till and padlocks ; but these articles are now
being made extensively with us ; so few of any
description are now imported.

The factory of Messrs. Carpenter and Tildesley
is one of the oldest and most extensive establish-
ments in England, and turns out a remarkable
variety of locks in form, size, and price. They
make about 200 different kinds, and six sizes to
each kind, or 1,200 different locks in pattern or
size. They produce about 200 dozen a week ; the
price varying from yd. to £1 per lock. But if the
American market is virtually closed against these
articles, it is still open widely to another which yet
holds its own against any protected competition on
our side. That is, the currycomb. The cheapness
and facility with which this is produced here are
truly remarkable, and not easily to be matched by
American ingenuity. The factory makes about
j,ioo dozens a week, most of which go to America.

and its Green Border-Land. 213

They are purchased from one halfpenny, or one
cent, to one shilling apiece. Think of a currycomb
made for actual service, with teeth and handle
complete, for one cent ! There are also nearly a
hundred different styles or patterns of the article.

The locksmiths of America, France, and
Germany are energetic rivals of the English
manufacturers. The Americans have a great
advantage not only in their application of labour-
saving machinery to the process, but from the
superiority of their moulding sand over that used
in this country. Their brass and iron castings
consequently are much smoother, and need much
less work in finishing the different parts. An
artisan who had gone to the States recently wrote
to his friend here, that he could make 150 door-
locks in a day, whereas twelve were about the
average rate for a workman in England. Of
course, improved machinery and processes of
manipulation as well as superiority of moulding
sand and castings made up a part of this
difference.

The hands employed in this branch of manu-
facture embrace both sexes and all ages capable
of manual labour. And as many of the operations
are light, they furnish labour for a large number
of children. Perhaps no trade of equal production
ever adopted the apprentice system more exten-
sively. In 1841 the number of apprentices was

214 Walks in the Black Country

651, and most of these were brought from the
workhouses of the immediate neighbourhood.
This and other circumstances connected with the
character and habits of the hands generally
produced a rather low morale. But from that
time this kind of apprentice system has supplied
a smaller proportion of the operatives, and they
have much improved in their general character.

While at Willenhall I went to see one of the
numerous coal-mines in the neighbourhood, which
have erected many parallels of high, black
bulwarks, which no army could scale without
tall ladders. The men were just ascending from
the pit, so I only ventured to look over into
its dark mouth, and to wonder if the apostle of
the Apocalypse ever saw anything of the kind
before he had the sublime vision which he
described with such splendid diction and imagery.
How wonderful is the industrial economy of
human necessities ! What infinite and mysterious
provisions to meet and satisfy their demands !
The greatest mystery of all is this, that the
demands of these necessities should not only
produce occupations but tastes of endless variety.
I haye not the slightest doubt that every mother's
son of these subterranean toilers would prefer,
at the same price, to grub on his back or knees
by lamp-light down in the coal seams fifty fathoms
under ground, rather than to plough, reap, or

and its Green Border-Land. 215

mow in the sunniest fields in England, with its
sweetest singing-birds piping to him from the
hedge.

I was struck with the vast amount of coal
wasted in these immense barrows of the refuse
of the pits. Mr. Tildesley, who was with me,
admitted that one-sixth of the whole mass would
burn well in the grate ; and I thought much of
the severe frost and of the cold hearths of the
poor in Birmingham last winter, who were out
of work and out of bread. I am sure there was
coal enough in the long, narrow hill on which
I stood to warm the house of every such man
and woman in the town if it had been riddled
out. I wish the authorities would try the expe-
riment next winter, and set one hundred men,
begging for work, at this employment to furnish
coal for the destitute. I am confident that all
these coal-pit hills of refuse will be utilized
some day for agricultural or other purposes ; that
they will be pulverized and conveyed by canals
to distant parts of the country to supply an
element that certain soils require for fertile
production.

Willenhall has a good Saxon accent and
meaning to its name ; and its history is rich
with the legacy of centuries. Here the Saxons
and Danes had one of their sanguinary battles
for the mastery of England, and the latter were

216 Walks in tJte Black Country

defeated here with the loss, it is chronicled, of
two kings and many nobles. In later times it
was the scene of one of the most romantic pas-
sages in English history. Charles II, after his
defeat at Worcester, found one of his most secure
and trusted hiding-places at Bentley Hall, belong-
ing to a fine old English gentleman by the name
of Lane, and now occupied by the incumbent of
Willenhall. Here he remained for several days,
an honoured and welcome guest. But when he
saw the notice of a thousand pounds reward to
any man "who should discover and deliver up
the person of Charles Stewart" and the penalty
of high treason declared against those " who
presumed to harbour or conceal him," he felt it
was time to make his way to a country where
such offers and denunciations would not hold
against him. His host devised the mode of
escape, which has become such a subject for the
painter. He mounted his outlawed sovereign
upon a horse and put his daughter, Jane Lane,
behind him, and despatched them to a friend in
Bristol, a port whence he hoped to reach France.
He was to act the invalid son of a neighbour,
who desired to try the merits of the sea air, and
was willing to work his passage to it by holding
the reins for Jane Lane. Her brother, the famous
Col. Lane, managed to overtake them accidentally
at each stopping-place for the night, and between

and its Green Border- Land. 217

them they were able to secure comfortable quar-
ters for the son of their neighbour, who felt more
poorly than he looked. In this way they reached
Bristol, and " Over the Water to Charlie " was
the tune that the music-box played to us in the
little inn at the foot of the Wrekin.

CHAPTER X.

BRICK- MAKING — HALESOWEN — NAIL TRADE — SHENSTONE AND
THE LEASOWES.

SHENSTONE! what a classical sound that
word has wherever the English language
is spoken ! Even if it had not been the
name of a man who won such wide renown, it is
in itself full of pleasant accent and significance,
though one may not say why. A painter, poet, or
statesman inheriting such a name finds half the
battle fought and won for him at the outset of his
career. A long distance must have been mastered
on the high road of merit before Dobbin or Bobbin
can overtake him at his starting-point. A good
Teutonic word it is, doubtless coming from Schcen-
stein or Shining-stone. He was the poet lawnate
of England, if it be admissible to coin a word,
which the dictionary lacks, to give the distinguish-
ing characteristic of his genius and works. I was
not aware that he planted his little elysium on the
near edge of the Black Country until I had been

Walks in tJie Black Country. 219

for some time in Birmingham. Capern had made
his pilgrimage to it soon after he came to the town
to reside ; so we arranged to visit it together,
and on the seventh of November we set out on
our walk. Meeting an extensive brick-maker, we
stopped to see his establishment near the Old Hill
Station, but a little way from Halesowen. Here
he was carrying on a large business in the manu-
facture of blue-black bricks of every size and
pattern for coping of walls, stable floors, and other
uses. He had expended £7,000 in buildings and
machinery, and was turning out about 100,000
bricks a week. Here was another specimen of the
riches and resources which Nature has stored away
in the cellars of The Black Country. The space
from which he had taken the clay for 100,000
bricks a week for several years would not measure
over half an acre, embracing the whole compass of
the pit's mouth. The crater is already sixty feet
deep, and the clay, he thinks, will hold good for
twice that depth. It is what we call in America
" dyed in the wool," and not in the burning. The
establishment embraces the latest improvements
in brick-making, and all the mechanical forces are
utilized to their utmost capacity. The steam-
engine, for instance, draws up on an inclined
tramway from the bottom of the pit a huge
coal-scuttle full of the clay, enough to make 500
bricks, and tips it over at the top of the line into

22O Walks in tlie Black Country

a hopper, whence it goes down through successive
kneading-troughs, and is at last forced out of an
iron cylinder by a piston all ready to be made
into loaves for the oven. While the engine is
doing all this multifarious work with one hand
for the clay ovens, it is doing a similar work
with the other for those of the common house-
hold. Behind a thin partition it is grinding
grists of wheat and other grain for the farmers
around, and for the proprietor of the works, who
purchases enough to keep the mill running when
local wants cannot do it. The partition wall is
dust-tight, so that there is no possible transfusion
of the clay on one side into the flour on the
other; and "Mai y soit qui mal y pense" may
be truly said of him who suspects a gritty as-
sociation of these two elements incompatible with
well-leavened bread. The ovens or kilns are of
prodigious capacity, and the heat necessary to
produce bricks almost as hard as cast-iron, is
equal to that of the furnaces in which that metal
is fused from the ore. One of these is a smaller
oven, in which a little batch of two or three
thousand of any pattern may be baked at the
shortest notice to supply a special order. The
long kneading sheds and the operations within
them attracted our particular and almost painful
attention. The domestic simile I have carried
through this notice was justified by what we saw

and its Green Border- Land. 221

here. What woman is to dough in a private
household, she is to clay in these sheds. Whether
the wives and daughters of Israel under the
Pharaohs were also consigned to this unwomanly
work in the brick-yards of Egypt, is a question
which the Scriptures do not enable us to decide.
If they were not sentenced to the same toil as
their husbands and brothers, then the brick-makers
of The Black Country have improved upon the
industrial ethics and economy of the Egyptians,
and availed themselves of the cheapness and ne-
cessities of female labour, in producing the build-
ing material of the country. A writer, who visited
the different brick-making establishments of the
district, estimates that seventy-five per cent, of
the persons employed are females ; and perhaps
two-thirds of these are young girls from nine to
twelve years of age. We saw one set of these
hands at work at the moulding bench, and watched
with special interest the several parts they per-
formed. A middle-aged woman, as we took her
to be from some dress indications of her sex,
was standing at the bench, butter-stick in hand.
Apparently she had on only a single garment
reaching to her feet. But this appearance may
have come from her clothes being so bespattered
and weighted with wet clay that they adhered so
closely to her person that it was as fully developed
through them as the female form of some marble

222 Walks in tlu Black Country

statues through the thin drapery in which they
are clad by the sculptor. She wore a turban on
her head of the same colour ; for only one colour
or consistency was possible at her work. The only
thing feminine in her appearance was a pair of
ear-drops she wore as a token of her sex and of
its tastes under any circumstances. With two or
three moulds she formed the clay dough into
loaves with wonderful tact and celerity. With a
dash, splash, and a blow one was perfectly shaped.
One little girl then took it away and shed it out
upon the drying-floor with the greatest precision
to keep the rows in perfect line. Another girl,
a little older, brought the clay to the bench. This
was a heavier task, and we watched her appear-
ance and movements very closely. She was a
girl apparently about thirteen. Washed and well
clad, and with a little sportive life in her, she
would have been almost pretty in face and form.
But though there was some colour in her cheeks,
it was the flitting flush of exhaustion. She moved
in a kind of swaying, sliding way, as if muscle
and joint did not fit and act together naturally.
She first took up a mass of the cold clay, weigh-
ing about twenty-five pounds, upon her head, and
while balancing it there, she squatted to the heap
without bending her body, and took up a mass
of equal weight with both hands against her
stomach, and with the two burdens walked about

and its Green Border- Land. 223

a rod and deposited them on the moulding bench.
No wonder, we thought, that the colour in her
cheeks was an unhealthy flush. With a mass
of cold clay held against her stomach, and bend-
ing under another on her head, for ten or twelve
hours in a day, it seemed a marvel that there
could be any red blood in her veins at all. How
such a child could ever grow an inch in any
direction after being put to this occupation, was
another mystery. Certainly not an inch could
be added to her stature in all the working days
of her life. She could only grow at night and
on Sundays.

Each moulding woman has two, sometimes
three, of these girls to serve her, one to bring
the clay, the other to carry away the bricks
when formed. What may be just, but equally
unfortunate, they are generally her own children
if she has any of suitable size and strength ; but,
for lack of such, she employs the children of
equally unfortunate mothers. Whether in cruel
or good-natured satire, they are called pages, as
if waiting upon a queen. And she, perhaps, is
the most directly aimed at in this witticism.
Some irreverent wag, looking at her standing
by her four-legged throne, with her broad wooden
sceptre in her hand, and her yellow turban on
her head, might call her the Sultana of Edom,
or the queen of red clay, and not travel far from

224 Walks in tlie Black Country

the line of resemblance. Still, there is something
painful and cruel in this mock crowning of inno-
cent misfortune. It savours a little of the
taunting irony of those ignorant Roman soldiers
who platted a crown of thorns for the sublimest
brow that ever bore the stamp of humanity or
beamed on its weaknesses.

A woman with her two or three pages will
mould 3,000 bricks in a day by extra exertion ;
she is paid 2s. %d. per thousand. Out of this
she pays about 2s. per day to the girls that
serve her ; so she can really earn large wages
at this man's work, when well hardened to it,
with requisite skill. Indeed she has the easiest
task of the three at the moulding bench. fFor
there is really but little heavy lifting or tiresome
bending for her to do. She stands upright, and
has only to handle a small lump of clay at a
time ; while the girl that supplies her moulds
has to bring on her head and in her arms 30,000
Ibs. of clay daily, in loads averaging fifty pounds
each. For the brick when formed weighs eleven
pounds.

The proprietor of the establishment was exceed-
ingly courteous to us, and showed us every
department and operation, and answered any
question with the greatest good-will, and we
have no doubt he is as thoughtful towards his
hands as the other brick manufacturers in the

and its Green Border-Land. 225

district. So we felt a little embarrassed by his
very civilities in intimating a wish to know the
morale of his employees. Indeed, he seemed to
be taken a little aback when we asked what
proportion of them could read. He evidently
had never stopped to ask that question of himself
and could not answer it for us. When Capern
suggested that the new Factory Act would pro-
bably bring the subject of the education of the
children he employed before him, in a new light,
he replied with much apparent satisfaction that
the Act would not affect him, as it applied to
ornamental brick-making, and that he had dis-
continued that branch of the business. As we
were leaving the last moulding shed we visited,
a little boy came up to the bench who was but
a little taller than one of its legs. I asked him
his age, and was surprised when he said he was
seventeen. I almost mechanically put my um-
brella up against him, and found he exceeded
its length by full nine inches ; so that he must
have been quite three feet and a half on his
bare feet although he at first looked shorter. He
probable had found no other time to grow except
when a-bed at night or on the Sunday. This
enterprising manufacturer makes the hardest and
best bricks to be found in the market. The
canal passes close to his kilns on one side and
the railway on the other; so that he has ready

Q

226 Walks in the Black Country

and cheap means of transporting them in any
direction or to any distance in the country. His
establishment represents the most improved sys-
tem that has yet been adopted, and he works
it energetically and successfully. So, having seen
it thoroughly, I had reason to regard it the best
average example of the brick trade in The Black
Country.

I have already cited a statement from a good
authority as to the percentage of female labour
employed. The same writer says : " The average
hours of labour are from six a.m. to six p.m., and
the girls are seldom required to work overtime,
but the men who fire the kilns are engaged all
night. In all the brick-fields the girls are required
to turn on Sunday morning the bricks made on
the previous day. 'The wages paid to the young
girls vary from 8d. to lod. per day, according to
the amount of work they are able to perform,
for the piece-work system generally prevails in
the brick-yards. In the red and blue brick-works
the girls are harder worked and worse paid than
in the white brick-yards, which are not nearly
so numerous. In the latter, the clay instead of
being ground in a mill, has to be tempered by
the women with their hands and naked feet. It
is estimated that upwards of 1,200 females are
employed at the various brick-fields of the
district.

and its Green Border-Land. 227

Leaving this scene of motley labour, so novel
and strange to an American eye, we continued
our walk to Halesowen, an ancient town squatting
down among the hills on the little Stour. Here
hammers, from a thousand pounds to one in
weight, make the picturesque valley echo with the
heavy bass and sharp treble of their music night
and day. The click of the nail-makers rather
predominates in these iron voices of labour. The
sun was fast declining in the west, so there was
less time than I could have wished for visiting
these little domestic workshops. We called in
at one, however, and had a long talk with the
woman at her anvil. She was the head of the
establishment, and a cheery, pleasant-spoken mo-
ther of four children, two of which were twins.
One of these she had set upon a piece of canvas
on her forge, and it was looking very attentively
at

"The burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor."

Her husband was a collier, and she alone carried
on the nail-making in the little shop, which is
an apartment or addendum to every nailer's
house as much as his kitchen. She could only
be four days of the week at the forge, because,
as she said, she had to "fettle" about the house,
washing and mending for the family and doing
other wife's work. Indeed, she remarked that

228 Walks in tJu Black Country

she sometimes thought that what was gained in
the shop was lost in*the house. She could only
earn between three and four shillings a week at
the anvil ; but that was a great help to them,
and helped out her husband's wages. One of
her elder children, a girl of seven years, came in
and we asked her if she could read. The little
thing looked up brightly and said she was learn-
ing, and could already do some short words.
The mother observed that she was determined
that her children should have a little schooling,
for she had seen the want of it herself. She had
been set to work with the hammer when only
eight years old, and had never been able to learn
to read since.

I always love to walk about in the villages of
the nail-makers. The clinking of hundreds of their
little hammers supply the aria to the great con-
certs and oratorios of mechanical industry. They
are poorly-paid and have to work long and hard
to earn bread in competition with machinery.
Indeed, it shows the superabundance and exigen-
cies of labour that nails should be made at all by
hand at this late day of mechanical improvements.
But thousands of families in this district have
inherited the trade from several generations of
their ancestors, and they are born to it, apparently
with a physical conformation to the work. Then
thousands of cottages are equally conformed to

and its Green Border-Land. 229

it in their structure. For each has a little shop-
room attached to it generally under the same roof.
Thus the whole business becomes a domestic
industry or house employment for the family, and
frequently every member, male or female, young
or old, has his or her rod in the fire all the day
long and often far into the night. Although they
earn but little, they earn it at home, and the whole
social operation and aspect of their industry is
rather interesting. These little house-shops are
scattered far and wide over the district, sometimes
in little villages and hamlets, but often on high and
breezy hills and behind the hedges of green and
rural lanes. So they in the majority of cases
really make comfortable little homes for honest
and contented labourers, far better and more
morally healthy than most of the tenements of
better-paid mechanics in large towns. It is for
this and similar reasons, and even without any
intelligible reason, I always love to visit their busy
hamlets and hear the music of their little clicking
hammers, which do not disturb the birds, but seem
to set them singing around the lowly roofs and
cosy little gardens of the nailers with extra glee.
Then sometimes you see potted flowers not only
in the window of the living-room of the cottage
but also in that of the forge-room, and other signs
of comfort and social enjoyment Perhaps this
favourable impression of their condition I am now

230 Walks in the Black Country

expressing may be a little enhanced by the imme-
diate contrast with that of the female brick-makers
I have noticed. Still, compared with many forms
of congregate or factory labour, the nail-makers,
even with their small earnings, are quite on an
even footing as to physical comfort and moral
surroundings.

The nail-maker pays on an average 2s. 6d.
a week for his cottage and shop. He must find
his own tools, which are rather simple and few in
number. His anvil is generally a small piece of
hardened steel driven into a cast-iron block, and
not more than twice as large as the face of his
hammer. As he and his family generally make
only one size of nails all their lives, he needs
only one heading-tool to each hammer. He
utilizes every square foot of space at and around
his forge. If he and his wife or daughter are
the only members of his family to use it, he often
lets one or two stalls to his neighbours for $>d.
each per week. That is, for this rate of rentage
he lets a neighbour heat his rod in the same fire
and make nails on the other side of the forge.
I have seen four girls of about sixteen years of
age standing around the same forge at once, each
with her rod in the fire. The coal used must
be lighter and more smokeless than the common
sea-coal, which is apt to form a crust over the
fire, which does not admit small rods easily.

and its Green Border-Land. 231

They, therefore, use a kind of coke, or what they
call breezes, but which doubtless should be spelt
brisees, or broken bits of coal that has already
passed through the fire. They pay from 6d. to
yd. per sack for these brisees, each sack containing
three bushels. The nail-master or merchant fur-
nishes the iron in bundles to the nail-maker,
weighing sixty pounds each, and allows him from
six to twenty-eight pounds for waste per bundle,
according to the size of the nails ; the largest size,
of course, wasting less iron per pound produced. '
The nailer has to run his own risk as to the
quality of iron furnished him. Sometimes several
rods will be almost useless.

The hand-made nail trade has been sadly
depressed for nearly half a century, and from
various causes. First, the competition with ma-
chinery has greatly diminished the production of
the hammer, as well as depressed its price. In
1830 it was estimated that about 50,000 persons
were employed in the manufacture ; whereas, the
present number thus employed is put at 20,000.
The earnings of a family of man, wife, son or
daughter will possibly average about twenty shil-
lings per week, out of which they must pay for
their coal, and the extra rent charged for their
shop. Many skilled and industrious men will
earn this amount alone without other labour ;
but perhaps one pound a week would be a fair

232 Walks in tlie Black Country

average, taking year after year, for the earnings
of each family. The nailers have "struck" for
higher wages frequently, and endeavoured to win
them by virtue of self-imposed suffering ; but
apparently in this age of machinery and cheaper
foreign labour, there is but little improvement
possible. In the United States almost every kind
of what we call "wrought," or hand-made nail
has disappeared. Even our horse-nails, which
most need to be hammered, are coming to be
produced largely by machinery. Then cheap and
abundant as is hand labour in England, in every
other country in Europe it is cheaper. Especially
the competition of Belgian operatives presses
more and more heavily upon the English work-
man in the nail trade. In 1851, it was estimated
that they produced hand-made nails to the amount
of from eight to nine thousand tons per annum,
and it is said to have been increasing since that
time. The manufacture of tea-chest nails used
to be a large business in itself for this district ;
but machinery has greatly cheapened and mono-
polized their production. Before 1830 the East
India Dock Company contracted for about ninety
tons of hand-made tea-chest nails annually ; but
now they order but a small quantity.

The truck system was another screw that was
turned down with relentless cruelty upon the poor
nailer's earnings. This differs from what is called

and its Green Border- Land. 233

the order system in America. Here the manufac-
turer set up a grocery, provision, or beer-shop,
frequently on his own premises, and paid the nail-
makers in his own "spurious coin," or in articles
on which he charged a profit up to the uncertain
limitations of his own conscience. Parliament has
endeavoured to put a stop to this practice ; but
it is difficult to suppress it in another form. Small
dealers, " on their own hook," continue to intercept
the nailers' small earnings, by taking advantage
of their pressing necessities. A writer thoroughly
acquainted with their present condition and habits,
states that " Numerous workmen prefer to sell their
nails at the truck-shop every day, and in many
instances at every meal. It is a well-known fact
that, at present, more than one-half of the hand-
made nails are paid for in ' truck ; ' but such nails
are of very inferior quality, thereby injuring the
prestige of the English hand-made nails in foreign
markets."

As no one can know the operation of this truck
system better than a nailer himself, I subjoin an
extract from a letter written by one of the craft
on the subject. It will serve as a good average
specimen of their literary ability as well as a
statement of the grievance ; and as such it is
given literatim.

"The question will naturally be asked what is the cause of all
this Poverty and Distress in the Trade. I answer to a vast extent

234 Walks in tJie Black Country

the truck system which is a nefarious Robbery to the Workman and
a Disgrace to the trade. This Worm has Been gnawing at the Root
a great Number of years till he has assumed the Form of a giant.
When the Workman goes to the Warehouse of this monster, he has
to submit to an extra Balance on the Weight side, and sometimes he
Robs him of his tale, a Practice known only too well by the Work-
man. He comes to the Books and then he has to suffer very often
another injustice. Having done this business there, he as to Find
his Way to the tommy shop, and there he meets the giant, Who
compells him to Buy his tommy at ten sometimes fifteen per cent,
above market Price and of inferior quality. Some places this giant
keeps a Public house, and then the Workman is Highly Blessed
when seduced into the tap-room and is Riddled again. He tells
him he must come on Monday for his Iron (another trick). He goes
accordingly to order, but no Iron — you must go into my castle
and have some beer to-day. So Monday is done. He applys on
Tuesday — very often none that day. He is like the Fly and the
Spider which he cannot extricate himself from. He is Bound hand
and Foot by this modem Goliah.

" I don't say that all tommy Masters keep Public houses — they
do not, but a portion of them. Some are more humane than others.
Now this Class of men have found their way into the market and
are underselling our honourable, Ready money Paying Masters, and
Ruining the trade. The question is asked What is to be done to
save the trade from Destruction. If a Workman lays an information
he is looked upon as a Rogue and Vagabond, in the mean time he
is Protecting his Fellow Workmen as well as himself. I ask now is
there any Wonder that Poverty and distress exists in the Nail trade.
Our Government have made a law, but that law has failed to meet
the Requirements Demanded by the trade, there is so many intrica-
cies. We have officers of Excise and Inspectors of Nuisances and
yet not an Inspector of tommy Shops to see that the law as it now
stands is carried out to the very letter and crush and annilate this
abominable and nefarious traffic which is bringing Hundreds to a
Premature grave and is a Disgrace to the Nation."

It is almost painful to see how patient human
labour clings to a sinking industry, as drowning

and its Green Border-Land. 235

men to the last rope and plank of a wrecked ship.
These changes must come, but thousands must
suffer in the transition. It is probable that all the
nails now made by hand in this district will be
manufactured by machinery twenty-five years
hence. Temporary distress and poverty must at-
tend the change, but it will work well for another
generation.

The church of Halesowen is truly a venerable
old structure, with five or six centuries chronicled
in its outer walls. It is a kind of arch-deaconal
cathedral over which Archdeacon Hone presides.
The great burial-yard which surrounds it holds
an unwritten census of the dead outnumbering
the living population of the town. In its low
forest of monuments we found a plain slab bear-
ing this simple inscription :

"WIL. S' SHENSTONE,

OB. II FEBRUARY, 1763,

JET. 49."

Under this humble stone sleeps the dust of one
of England's most favourite and favoured poets.
In the church, close to the pulpit, a more elaborate
and ornate monument is erected to his memory,
bearing a poetical tribute to his worth, in which
the various qualities of his genius and character
are given in rather happy verse for monumental
literature. It is rather remarkable that wit in his

236 Walks in tJie Black Country

day, and in that before him, was numbered even
on the tombstone of a writer or statesman as one
of the first graces of human intellect.

But near this monument to the poet is another
which is really a fuller testimony to his worth and
its appreciation. It is the largest and most elabo-
rately sculptured tablet in the church, erected to
the memory of a Maj. Halliday, who once occu-
pied Shenstone's mansion, and made it the central
and culminating merit of his life, as inscribed in
his long epitaph, that he kept the poet's grounds
as a sacred trust and as he left them. He seemed
to have felt himself honoured by the charge, as
if it were a national trust confided to his keeping.

The sun was looking its last half hour upon the
scene as we reached the Leasowes, and ascended
the winding walks over stream and pool and under
overarching trees, which the artistic poet laid out
with so much genius and taste more than a
hundred years ago. Our imagination was stimu-
lated naturally to picturesque conception, and if
the grounds were not all we could have fancied,
we were confident they were that and more in
the poet's day. It was evident that men had
occupied them who could not honestly have writ-
ten on their monuments what Maj. Halliday's
epitaph stated to the reader in Halesowen Church.
Grounds which had been lawns of exquisite surface
and verdure had been found more profitable for

and its Green Border- Land. 237

pasturage of cows as well as sheep, and now
presented that warty, humpy surface of cropped
and uncropped herbage which such grazing always
produces without the requisite attention in early
spring. Still, we could trace the artistic contour
of the estate, the plan of the trees, fountains,
cascades, the east and west windows in the woods
and groves for views of distant landscapes. The
open grounds were not pastured all the way up
to the door-stone of the house, but between it
and the rough space allotted to sheep there was
a real lawn of considerable size, pretty well kept,
with a fountain in the centre, and walks in good
order. The house itself is of moderate dimensions,
with outside walls of what some call dash-and-
splash work, or a coarse brick surface rough-cast
with small pebbles and sand and then painted.
In a word, it was a comfortable looking mansion,
which a prosperous ironmaster would be satisfied
with for its intrinsic worth and convenience as a
residence ; though if building anew he would make
the two storeys higher between joints. Ascending
to the eastern boundary of the grounds, we sat on
a stile and looked down over the estate and to the
world beyond, and discussed the groundwork of
the poet's predilection for this site on which to
concentrate his taste, genius, and fortune. He was
born in Halesowen in 1714, and this was his pater-
nal estate. A natural attachment to the locality

238 Walks in the Black Country

was doubtless one strong motive in the preference.
Then The Black Country was not so black and
noisy in his time as now. The valley of the Stour,
lying between his mansion door and the grand
old spire of the parish church, did not send up
the thunder of such heavy hammers, nor such
thick dun clouds of coal smoke. The industries
of the district sounded more lik^ the chirruping
of crickets on cottage hearths behind the tall
hedges of the scattered village. Then the great
distinctive features of his scenery were the softly-
rounded Clent Hills just at the right distance
to get that veil of misty blue that painters love to
imitate on canvas. And at the western foot of one
of those hills lived Shenstone's intimate friend
and patron, the distinguished Lord Lyttelton, who
was then a kind of central celebrity in the literary
world, attracting into his companionship and circle
of influence men who were making their mark and
reputation as writers, painters, sculptors, actors,
or as any other members of the universal brother-
hood of the arts and sciences. It was perhaps the
making of Shenstone that he lived when and
where he did. He was brought out under the
most auspicious circumstances, and found powerful
helpers in each of the departments in which he
won his reputation. As a poet, living and writing
at the present day, his thoughts would have burned
dimly under the luminous shade of Tennyson,

and its Green Border-Land. 239

Browning, and Longfellow. His "Schoolmistress"
is probably his only production that will live ; as
it is to all his other poems what Gray's " Elegy "
is to the remembrance and reputation of that
writer. The distinction he attained as a landscape
and garden artist, indicates how common and taste-
less must have been the best ornamental grounds
in England when he first brought his genius to
bear upon them. The parks of Hagley and Enville
contain monuments erected to his memory by
Lords Lyttelton and Stamford, which may testify
to their appreciation of his work in laying out
their grounds, in grouping trees, shrubbery, and
flowers, and beautiful walks, pools, and fountains.
If the best productions of his genius in this branch
of art would fall far short of what hundreds of
modern gardeners have accomplished in England,
he was their teacher, and they never would have
reached their present status if he had not pre-
ceded them when and how he did. For half a
century after his death his reputation as what
may be called a landscape architect was world-
wide. One of the most striking and honourable
tributes of respect to his genius was paid him by
Fisher Ames, perhaps the most eloquent lawyer
that New England ever produced. In his cele-
brated speech about sixty years ago in defence
of Blennerhassett, who was mixed up in Aaron
Burrs's great conspiracy, he gave a most graphic

240 Walks in the Black Country

description of the peace, innocence, and beauty
of the Eden which that unfortunate Irishman had
made for his home on the banks of the Ohio.
This poetical description was one of the pieces
that composed a reading- book for our schools,
called "The American Orator;" and on special
reading days, the boys in the first class were sure
to compete with each other for this extract, on
which to practise elocution. One feature of this
little elysium into which "the serpent stole," was
" a shrubbery that Shenstone might have envied."
How we boys wondered who Shenstone was and
where he lived, and what kind of shrubbery he
really had around his garden ! Then it made our
voices quaver with emotion when the orator told
us how Blennerhassett's young and lovely wife
was driven out of their little Eden in the dead
of winter, while "her tears froze as they fell."

If the poet saw many such sunsets in the year
from his door as we witnessed from the rising
ground overlooking his house from the east, they
would account for his choice of locality. The
Clent Hills were tinged with the rich purple mist
in which the setting sun was sinking in the west.
Neither of us ever saw it stand out in such fully-
developed rotundity before. Instead of being
apparently set in the face of the sky like an eye,
it seemed to come out bodily, and to descend like
a large round balloon, and we imagined we could

and its Green Border- Land. 241

see the surface behind it, as plainly as behind a
stereoscopic object. Linking fancy to fancy in
their instantaneous flashes, Peter's vision was
suggested, but instead of four-footed creatures
coming down in a sheet looped up by the four
corners, the imagination darted off to the figure
of a vast hollow orb of sapphire filled with angels
and illuminated with the light of their faces as
they approached the earth on an evening visit.
We verily thought it would alight between us and
the Clent Hills, it seemed so near and balloon-
like, and we watched it from the stile until they
dropped their purple veil before it, and the ruddy
Evening bade it "good night." We then turned
our steps homeward and reached Harborne, where
we reside as neighbours, about dark, having seen
much that was enjoyable as well as suggestive
of serious reflection.

CHAPTER XI.

VISIT TO TONG CASTLE AND CHURCH — BOSCOBEL AND CHARLES'S
OAK — CHANCES' GLASS-WORKS.

HAVING made so recently a walk among
the muddy and sooty occupations of
the brick-makers and nailers, I thought
it would be an agreeable alternation for writer and
reader to make the next excursion among rural
and historical sceneries. So about the middle of
November, on a day brimful of the rich glory of
an autumn sun, Capern and myself mounted staff,
and commenced our walk at the antique, interest-
ing village of Shiffnal, which a traveller might
think indigenous to Scandinavia both in name
and aspect. But before he has walked half the
length of one of its narrow and winding streets,
he will find that the people speak English, and
that the children are as young at five or ten as
those of the most modern-looking town at the
same age. Then there is a harmony in the whole
aspect of the place which few villages of the same

Walks in the Black Country. 243

size present in these latter days. The great centre
structure is the massive old church, evidently the
growth of centuries, standing in a graveyard pro-
bably containing more inhabitants than the living
population can number. It is truly an impressive
old building, wearing its venerable antiquity with
hardly a court plaster of modern improvement to
cover a wrinkle. And all the buildings near and
around seem to have assimilated their faces to its
aged countenance. You do not see here, as else-
where frequently, a gray -headed patriarch of
eighty in boy's clothes decked with bright buttons
of brass or steel. But the old church stands up
among many companions of its younger years —
among which are several half-timber houses with
their black beams carved by the best carpenter's
genius two centuries ago.

After an hour's walk about the church and
village, we started for that celebrated hiding-place
of Charles II, Boscobel. Passed Aston Hall, a
comfortable-looking mansion, that showed a comely
and happy face in the setting sun -light. Two
splendid chesnut trees stand like sentinels in front
of the house, and their leaves had drunk in so
much sunshine that the green had turned half-
way to gold. In the park, near the road, stood
the most perfectly symmetrical oak I ever saw,
and nature alone had made its toilet. There
was no sign of the woodman's axe, or hedgebill,

244 Walks in the Black Country

or any kind of artificial training. The whole
contour of trunk and branches was all a connois-
seur could wish or imagine. It resembled a head
of red clover in full bloom. The base of the
entourage was perfectly level, declining at no sec-
tion of the circle. Indeed, no head of clover
was ever set upon its stem more centrally. The
spread was full forty feet in diameter, the leaves
were well tinted but few had fallen ; so that it
made a perfect picture for an artist. The park
wall for half a mile was of apparently hewn red
sandstone laid in mortar, which would now cost
a guinea a yard in America. Indeed, sixty rods
of it would buy a large farm in Illinois. The road
led through pleasant scenery, and was in itself a
striking feature of the landscape. On each side
was a wall of shrubbery, lined with firs in their
perennial dress, and other trees in their autumnal
foliage, mingling all the tints of the three seasons
in a happy blending. The wild rose and the
hawthorn, having no flowers to show, festooned
the hedges with a thousand necklaces of their
red bead-berries ; so that with the silver glimmer-
ings of white birch and other leaves that shone
brightly in the grouping, the whole decked out
November with a cheery adornment.

We soon came to a little white village, at some
distance back from the road, and when abreast of
it found that it was only a house with seven gables,

and its Green Border- Land. 245

and of more ells and ends for men, and stables
for horses of an indefinite number. It was a large
educational establishment for training horses for
the turf and chase. We were told that frequently
more than twenty boys or pupil-teachers might
be seen at once giving these high-bred animals
morning lessons to fit them for their course of
unproductive life. Near this training college was
a large farm, belonging to Mr. Eyke, which seemed
to have been very highly cultivated after the most
improved methods. We noticed an unusual extent
of land put to turnips. Field after field of them
were being gathered, and acres covered as with
great ant-heaps showed the luxuriant production
of this root crop. These heaps were made with
geometrical precision as to line and circumference,
at but a few paces apart. We watched the pro-
cess which was rather unusual. The turnips were
first covered with dried fern leaves brought to the
field in large wagon-loads ; being a substitute for
straw both as a matter of economy and of better
material for the purpose. The whole was then
covered with earth, dug up around the heap. A
field of twenty acres covered with these little coni-
cal mounds makes a pleasant sight to man and
beast, especially to the latter. We tarried so long
at Shiffnal, and sauntered so slowly along the road
afterwards, that it was nearly sun-down when we
reached the little village of Tong. Finding it was

246 Walks in the Black Country

still three miles to Boscobel, and that there was
slight prospect of getting lodgings there for the
night, we concluded that a bird in hand was worth
two in the bush, and were glad to turn into " The
Bell," the only inn the pair of Tongs have between
them ; for there are two villages of that name
adjoining each other. We found it a very com-
fortable house, and the host intelligent and ready
and able to give interesting information on many
subjects of inquiry. Then, although it was a prim
two-story brick building in front, it had been set
to an unique old cottage house, which perhaps did
the state some service in the day and extremity
of Charles II, when he was in this neighbourhood.
We had the parlour of this little cottage section
of the establishment all to ourselves. It had but
one window, but that was bowed around the whole
of the west end of the room. Then there was a
genuine brick pavement for the floor, and the
broad beam overhead was but nine inches above
the mantel-shelf at the chimney end. On it stood
a platoon of well-polished brass candlesticks on
each side of their colour-sergeant, which was an
old-fashioned crimping machine, or a candlestick
of the same height, with its conical extinguisher
brought to a right angle with the upright tube,
like the top joint of a Thames steamer passing
under a bridge. I never saw one before of the
kind, and thought it a very simple and admirable

and its Green Border-Land. 247

contrivance, and should like to see one of the old-
fashioned grandmothers crimping her cap at it.
In addition to flowers in the bow window, and the
brass candlesticks standing on the mantel-piece,
one whole side of the room was hung with bril-
liant parts of two or three harnesses, making a
considerable show of silver-plated ornaments. In
a word, it was as unique a room as an amateur
of such characteristics could wish to meet with
in any English wayside inn. So we enjoyed our
tea-supper with a relish which our walk alone
would not have given to it.

Having the whole evening on our hands, we
sauntered out to see the village of Tong and its
church by night. We soon overtook a roadful of
the living victims of the shambles clattering along,
in happy unconsciousness of their fate, to the
butcher. What a happy provision in their nature
that these honest-eyed, innocent creatures are
never visited with thoughts of their future ; that
no presentiment of Smithfield, or of any other
butcher's field of slaughter, ever troubles a mo-
ment of their short lives either in the pasture or
on the road to the axe or the knife ! It was an
average detachment, consisting of well-fed sheep
and young bullocks and heifers, the latter leading
the way and always inclined to take the wrong
one when a cross-road was reached. It was quite
dark, but Capern caught a glimpse of several real

248 Walks in tJte Black Country.

Devonshire heifers leading the van. He knew
they were Devonshires ; he could tell them by
their breath, and he dashed through the sheep
to pull one of them by the ear "for auld lang
syne." But the coy heifer, not gifted with the
intuition he claimed to himself as a Devonshire
man, declined his caressing pinch of the ear,
and darted aside, giving the Devonian poet an
admonitory switch with her tail. The drover, too,
an intelligent young man, was proud of his Devon-
shires, and said his master, Sir Thomas Bowher,
kept no other cattle on his estate.

As the tired herd moved too slowly for us, we
made our way gently through them and walked
on to the village. We found it fast asleep in the
dark, with scarcely a light to be seen at eight
o'clock. The gate of the churchyard was open,
however, and we felt our way up the walk with
a staff, and traced out the contour of the old
church up as far as the roof. Its windows had
no speculation in their cold and silent eyes ; and
one could hardly fancy that the departed spirits
of the slumbering families entombed within those
walls would wish to visit by night that still and
solemn darkness. Still our nature is human in
spite of philosophy, and we had to confess to each
other a little of the old boyhood feeling about
ghosts as we put our faces to the windows and
tried to recognize objects within. After making

and its Green Border -Land. 249

a walk through the village without meeting man,
woman, child, or dog, we returned to "The Bell."
On our way we witnessed a phenomenon which
we should have missed if we had remained in-
doors for the evening. We found ourselves,
apparently, midway between two vast burning
prairies. Their red and rising flames seemed to
be approaching us from the east and west. Both
horizons were lighted half-way up the heavens
with the lurid waves, which arose and fell and
twisted and crested themselves with the fleecy
clouds. The sight was really sublime when in-
vested with the fancy that we were between two
vast prairie fires gradually nearing each other
and consuming the intervening space. But it was
only the nightly performance of the Eastern and
Western Lights of the two black countries of
Staffordshire and Shropshire. The two great
armies of furnaces ' and forges were apparently
drawn up in lines vis a vis, but not in hostile
array. It was a mere field-night of their practice ;
and all the parks of their heavy ordnance fired
only blank cartridges into the heavens. Still, no
performance at Aldershott or Vincennes could
equal the spectacle which we witnessed from the
green border-land between these two regions of
fire and smoke that seem marching against each
other with all their unlimbered artillery and
lighted matches by night.

250 Walks in tlie Black Country

In good season next morning we set out on our
day's walk and exploration. The weather was
beautiful, and all the scenery was rich with the
golden glory of autumn. We went first to Tong
Castle, a large, turreted, Tudor-like mansion,
standing back from the road about a third of a
mile. It seemed at first sight from this distance
a misnomer to call it a castle in a fortified sense
or position, for it apparently stood in a great
and level meadow flanked with park trees. But
as we approached we found that it was girdled
by a water-wall more insurmountable in its day
than a steep and lofty precipice of rock. A little
artificial river had been brought from a long way
off in a channel that deepened and widened as
it neared the castle. Whether nature had helped
the work or not, it must have been a prodigious
undertaking and achievement in its day. Two
rivers seemed to have been united before the
west front of the building, forming a crescent
basin or bay deep enough, when full, to float a
frigate. The water had just been drawn off, and
loads of fish of almost every name and size known
to inland rivers had been taken. Pike or pickerel
as large as the stoutest floppers caught in Lake
Ontario had been left stranded and splashing in
the mud. Although the castle must have once
been nearly surrounded by one or two artificial
rivers, we found the channel on the south side for

and its Green Border -Land. 251

a long distance not only dry, but overgrown with
trees which must have been a century old. Some
of the grandest beeches I ever saw lined the
walks above this deep ravine. And several of
the largest trunks were fluted and twisted like
some of the pillars in Durham Cathedral. At the
head of the ravine and almost on a level with the
bottom of it was a little stone cabin set into the
side of the declivity, and called the " Hermitage."
The cell had two apartments, and a tall man
could scarcely stretch himself on the floor of either
except diagonally. Here a fanatic, by name
Smith, lived invisible for several years, and tested
all the romance of a hermit's life in this damp,
dark, miserable hole, when he emerged into the
broad light of the sun and into the sight and
companionship of his fellow-men. But he was
succeeded in the tenancy of this wretched place
by a poor weakly man with a wife and several
children, who when lying down must have covered
every square foot of the floor of both apartments.
Here the poor man died, and was lifted up from
among his pale and sickly children and carried
to the common hermitage of the grave, and had
as large space allotted to his last sleep as the
lord of Tong Castle occupies in the churchyard.

The gateway of the park is one of the most
elaborately carved works of the kind that I ever
saw. The pillars and fagade on each side must

252 Walks in the Black Country

have cost the sculptor several years of assiduous
labour. The cords and their tassels were done
to the life. And a bee-hive, with bees as lightly
winged as they can be in stone, are good specimens
of carving. But, what was as useful as interesting,
the old castle preceding the present structure was
literally lithographed with every tower and turret
by the chisel in the face of one wing of the wall
that flanks the gateway. George Durant bought
the castle and estate of the Pierrepont family in
1764, it is said out of the loot of Havannah,
embracing a vast amount of ladies' jewelry, plate,
and other private personalties which proved that
British wars in the West as well as in the East
Indies, were carried on pretty much on the same
footing. But, as no property in the world is so apt
to take to itself wings and fly away so suddenly
and so far as possessions thus won, this Durant
realized much of the natural experience of such
riches. One night a wing of the castle was blown
up by gunpowder, it was always supposed, by one
of his own sons. Still, he must have been a
man of cultivated taste, as the grounds, walks,
and trees of the park, and a great variety of
picturesque embellishments amply prove. The Earl
of Bradford is now the owner of the estate, and the
castle has become the summer residence of two
Wolverhampton gentlemen who occupy it by turns.
Tong Church ! Did one in five hundred of all

and its Green Border-Land. 253

the Americans who have visited Haddon Hall in
Derbyshire ever visit this village Westminster
Abbey of all the Vernons ? It is doubtful. It is
even possible that I am the first and only American
who ever saw it. Even a man well read in the
general history of the country will be astonished
on entering this miniature cathedral, for such it is
and looks in its interior and exterior aspects. In
the first place, it is doubtful if any other village or
provincial church in England contains within its
walls so many beautiful and costly monuments to
the memory of so many noble families as this little
Westminster. You see here how and when these
various families intersected with each other in
wedlock and interweaved the new branches they
put forth as the result of the union. Here you
may read their histories, their graces, and virtues if
you can decipher monumental Latin. The first
and probably oldest tomb is that of Sir Fowke de
Pembrugge (Pembroke?), who died in 1408, not
quite a century before America was discovered.
He was the last of his long line who owned Tong
Castle and reigned lord of the manor. The
Haddon Hall Vernon, Sir William, married his
daughter and heiress and her inheritance at Tong.
He died in 1460, as an inscription on his brass
tomb opposite the pulpit affirms. A little further
on toward the later centuries we see how and when
another family was grafted into the Pembrugge-

254 Walks in tlie Black Country

Vernon stock, or that of the On-Stanley-on
branch of English aristocracy. Sir Thomas Stanley
married a Vernon and died in 1576. Few monu-
ments even in Westminster Abbey equal the tomb
of this member of the Stanley family. He lies
side by side with his Lady Margaret, and both
effigies are as lifelike as the best sculptor could
make them in marble. His hair is black, and face,
form, and armour are vividly human in appearance.
The imagery, embracing symbols of every device
and significance that the artist thought might
illustrate the life and virtues of his subject, are
exquisitely carved. Indeed, if any mercenary
standards may be applied to such works, such a
monument would now cost at least .£10,000 to
produce it. On every hand stand these tombs
wrought in marble, brass, or alabaster, erected to
commemorate the different lords of Tong Castle
and Manor. What may be taken for the " Henry
Seventh's Chapel" of this little Westminster is
the " Golden Chapel " built by Sir Henry Vernon
for his tomb and memory. He and his lady lie in
effigies on their backs with devotional aspect, as if
their marble lips were petrified in the middle of a
prayer. He died in 1515; and yet hardly any
feature of this beautiful little chapel has been
defaced by time or man. Its delicate ornamental
work is bright and radiant with its original gilding.
There are seventeen of such monuments in the

and its Green Border-Land. 255

chancel, around the pulpit, and in this Golden
Chapel, several of which are of the highest rank of
sculpture. The inscriptions are also of an order
of merit far above the average standard of epitaphic
literature. The tomb of the youngest bears a
proud tribute to the blue blood of the Norman.
Elizabeth Pierrepont dies at the age of eleven,
" the pride of her parents, the joy of her family, the
only daughter of Gervaise Pierrepont, Esq., Lord
of the Manor of Tong, the grandson of Robert
Pierrepont, Earl of Kingston, a gallant soldier who
fell a victim to his loyalty in defending King
Charles I from his rebellious subjects. He was a
descendant of Robert Pierrepont, a companion in
arms of William the Conqueror, and whose family
is still extant in Normandy."

The foregoing is a sample of historical informa-
tion that these monuments impart to the reader.
See how much of it is condensed in this tribute to
a girl who died at the age of eleven. It would
give additional interest to the thoughtful reader of
these " testimonals to departed worth " if he could
really believe that it was recognized and respected
in the lifetime of the deceased. Here they are all
brave, pure, generous, and good. Here are two of
the eight lines dedicated to William Skeffington,
one of the old county names :

" An esquire he was right hardye in the fealde,
And faithful to his prince in quiet tyme of peace."

256 Walks in the Black Country

He died in 1550, and his monument stands on the
left of the altar. On the right is that of his
mother, Lady Davnsay, honoured with the same
number of lines, one of which is —

"An ere to Blind, a lyme to Lame she was."

Sir William Vernon, once Military High Chancellor
of England, and his Lady Margaret, and a family of
twelve children have their figures engraven in
brass plates set into a marble slab, all begging
mercy instead of bragging of their virtues and
riches and honours to living men. They appear to
have been a devotional family in their day and
way. Every visiter at Haddon Hall must re-
member the rude words cut deep into the stone
over the right postern : " God save the Vernons ! "
Here Sir William says :

"God be praised for his mercies."

Lady Vernon :

"Jesus, son of David, be merciful unto us."

First child :

" Lord, I have lifted up my soul to thee."
Second child :

"Son of God, remember me."

Third child :

"I have put my trust in the Lord, and he will deliver me."

Fourth child:

"Jesus, son of Mary, of thy pity be merciful unto us."

and its Green Border-Land. 257

The epitaph of Sir Thomas Stanley is supposed to
have been written by Shakespeare, who was not
ten years old when that nobleman died. The
evidence upon which this impression was founded
is not very clear ; perhaps it comes from some
affinity to the sentiment and diction of "The
cloud-capp'd towers" and so forth of the great
poet. The half of the epitaph inscribed on the
front of the monument reads thus :

" Not Monumental Stone preserves our fame,
Nor Skye-aspiring Pyramids our name,
The memory of him for whom this stands
Shall outlive Marble and Defacer's Hands ;
When all to Tyme's Consumption shall be given,
Stanley for whom this stands shall stand in Heaven."

The Great Bell hung on the rudest frame in the
tower is a rival in size and weight to the Big
Tom of Lincoln, or the mellow thunderer of
Westminster. It never could have been turned
on its eccentric axis without throwing down the
steeple. It was the gift of the Henry Vernon who
built the Golden Chapel ; and as the Latin inscrip-
tion around the upper rim reads, " Caused this bell
to be made 1518 to the praise of Almighty God, of
the Blessed Mary, and of Saint Bartholomew."

The master of the village school, who had made
the antiquities of the Church his study, accom-
panied us and described them with the lively
interest of an amateur. He had collected a little

s

258 Walks in the Black Country

history of them, and deciphered and translated
inscriptions which would cost even the best of
scholars much time and trouble to make out.
These, and extracts from Dugdale and other
early authors he had transcribed in a manuscript
book, which he generously loaned to me for the
notice I wished to make of the building and its
monuments. He took us to his school, which was
a great stone martin-box standing on four posts,
with a stairway at one end ascending to the door.
The room was full of children, rural, ruddy, and
happy as birds, and looked as much surprised on
seeing such strangers step suddenly on to their
perch. Our visit to this little village, which we
seemed to have stumbled upon by accident, was
very enjoyable and gave us the satisfaction of
an unexpected discovery.

From Tong we continued our walk to the chief
point of interest we had in view when we left
home ; or Boscobel. The weather continued fine,
and we made our way first by cross-roads and
by-paths, and then over meadow and pasture fields,
until we came in sight of a green mound wearing
a crest of tall lime trees. From this we had our
first sight of that house so celebrated in English
history and so vitally connected with the life-and-
death crisis in the experience of Charles II. As
we approached it, we saw " Charles's Oak " a
few rods distant in a meadow adjoining the

and its Green Border- Land. 259

garden. It is a thrifty middle-aged tree, perhaps
of two centuries' growth, and may have come
from an acorn of that monarch of the forest that
sheltered Charles. This, then, was Boscobel, the
scene of such romance, heroism, loyalty, and other
noble qualities as will always command admiration
even from those who condemn the cause in which
such virtues are exercised. This was the theatre
of a drama that makes a dating -event in the
life of a nation. About break of day on Thursday
morning, Sept. 4th, 1651, a small party on horse-
back rode up softly and silently to the White
Ladies, a monastic mansion of the Gififard family,
about half a mile from Boscobel. All the night
long they had spurred their jaded horses along
cross-roads and by-roads from the disastrous
battle at Worcester. Cromwell's troopers were
scouring the country, cutting down or capturing
the fugitives, Scotch and English. One of these
bands was close upon the heels of this flying
party. " My kingdom for a covert, for a cave ! "
might well have been the cry of that man of
the longest locks and of fretted and blood-stained
insignia of royalty. Not a moment was to be lost
in rinding a hiding-place for the tired and hunted
King. Colonel Roscarrock sent a servant boy of
the house to Boscobel for William Penderel, and
another was sent for Richard his brother, who lived
near at Hobbal Grange. They were two of five

260 Walks in tlie Black Country

sturdy "yeomen brothers, real hearts of English
oak, men which "such another island" would not
buy from their religion and their king, both of
which were equally obnoxious to the Puritans.
In a few minutes they were brought into the
parlour by the Earl of Derby, who was one of
the party, and introduced by him to their unfor-
tunate sovereign, or rather inversely. The Earl
pointed to Charles and said to William, " This
is the King ; thou must have a care of him, and
preserve him as thou didst me." For the Earl of
Derby had already tested the hospitality and
security of Boscobel as a hiding-place, and it was
he who recommended it to the King as they rode
from St. Martin's Gate, Worcester, on the eve of
that fatal battle. The Earl had raised a force
in Lancashire in support of the royal cause, but
he had been routed in an engagement with the
Roundheads at Wigan. With the remnant of his
troop he set out to join the royal army at
Worcester, chased and harassed by Cromwell's
bands which were scouring the country. When
in this vicinity he heard of Boscobel, and here
found a hiding and resting covert for a breathing
space of time. He had tested William Penderel's
fidelity and the security of a little apartment
which had been constructed on purpose for con-
cealing hunted persons, such as Popish priests
when outlawed. To this refuge he had com-

and its Green Border- Land. 261

mended the King, and to it they had journeyed
all night long from Worcester. Whilst waiting
for the arrival of the two Penderels, the King had
been advised to rub his hands on the back of
the chimney and then his face with them in order
to disguise himself. Some one also cut off his
long locks, and " His Majesty," says Thomas
Blount, one of his faithful followers, "having put
off his blue ribbon, buff coat, and other princely
ornaments, put on a noggen coarse shirt of Edward
Martin's, who lived in the house, and Richard
Penderel's green suit and leather doublet, but had
not time to be so exactly disguised as he was
afterwards ; for both William and Richard Penderel
did advertise the company to make haste away,
in regard there was a troop of rebels commanded
by Colonel Ashenhurst quartered at Cotsall, but
three miles distant ; some of which troop came
to the house within half an hour after the company
were gone."

"Richard Penderel conducted the King out at
a back door, unknown to most of the company,
except some of the lords and Colonel Roscarrock,
who waited on his Majesty into the back side,
and there with sad hearts took leave of him."
It must indeed have been an affecting moment
for both parties. They mounted their horses,
and rode off northward with the view of joining
General Leslie, who was retreating with the main

262 Walks in tlie Black Country

body of the Scotch horse. But they were soon
intercepted in front and rear, and the Earl of
Derby, Lord Talbot, and several others were
captured. The former was tried and executed
at Bolton in the following month. Richard
Penderel took the King into an adjacent wood
belonging to Boscobel, called Spring Coppice,
while his brothers William, Humphrey, and George
acted as scouts, watching all approaches and
signs of danger and reporting to the concealed
fugitive from time to time whether the coast were
clear or clouded. It was about sunrise when he
was conducted into the obscurest part of the
coppice, " when," says Blount, " the heavens wept
bitterly at these calamities ; insomuch that the
thickest tree in the wood was not able to keep his
Majesty dry, nor was there anything for him to
sit on ; wherefore Richard went to Francis Yates's
house (a trusty neighbour who married his wife's
sister), where he borrowed a blanket, which he
folded and laid on the ground for his Majesty to
sit on. At the same time Richard spoke to the
goodwife Yates to provide some victuals and
bring it into the wood at a place he appointed
her. She presently made ready a mess of milk
and some butter and eggs, and brought them to
his Majesty in the wood ; who being a little
surprised to see the woman (no good concealer
of a secret) said cheerfully to her, ' Good woman,

and its Green Border-Land. 263

can you be faithful to a distressed Cavalier ? '
She answered, ' Yes, sir, I will dye rather than
discover you ; ' with which answer his Majesty
was well satisfied."

All the day long he lay wet and cold in this
concealment, listening for the tread and tramp
of his eager and relentless pursuers, who were
scouring the country round for him. As the
night came on he resolved to make his way into
Wales, where he could better elude his hunters,
taking brave and faithful Richard Penderel with
him as guide. Before they set out on the long
foot journey, Richard took him into his house at
Hobbal Grange, where his old mother gladly as-
sisted in giving the King a proper outfit for his
flight. They turned him into a stout wood-
chopper, carrying a wood -bill in his hands, and
ostensibly looking for a job in that line of labour.
Wil. Jones was the name he assumed, probably
thinking it would serve him best in Wales. After
taking a little refreshment, the best the old mother
and young wife could set out upon their three-
legged table, the two started about nine o'clock,
resolved to go as far as Madeley that night, a
place within a mile of the Severn. Richard had
a trusty friend residing in this village by the
name of Woolf. Before reaching his house they
met with a serious and dangerous mishap. On
passing Evelin Mill, Richard accidentally let a

264 Walks in the Black Country

gate clap to loudly, whereupon the miller, who
was a loyalist and had served noble refugees
from the Worcester battle with him, rushed out
and shouted, " Who is there ? " Richard not know-
ing the miller's politics, dashed off with the King
over a little brook which they were obliged to
wade through. This made walking painful to
the King, as his shoes were filled with water and
gravel. The night was very dark, and, as he
oftentimes pleasantly remarked, he would have
lost his guide had it not been for the rustling
of Richard's calfskin breeches. They arrived at
Woolf's house in Madeley about midnight, and
Richard knocked them up from their beds. The
daughter came first to the door, and without a
moment's hesitation as to her loyalty, he told
her the King was there, who was immediately
welcomed to their fireside. After some refresh-,
ment, they resolved themselves into a committee
of ways and means, and discussed the best mode
of escape. The Parliamentary bands guarded
the Severn at various points, and some of these
troopers had quartered recently at Woolf's house.
It had no place of concealment that could be
trusted, and the King was in greater danger than
at Boscobel. So as it was very unsafe for him
to lie down to sleep in the house, they took
him into the barn, and made him a bed on the
hayloft. There he continued all next day, while

and its Green Border-Land. 265

Richard and Woolf kept guard and watch. The
latter sent a trusty servant to coast up and down
the Severn, to see if it might be crossed without
danger, but he found that not only all the bridges
were secured but all the boats seized, and the
strictest watch kept up along the river to intercept
the royal fugitive and his companions. Thus the
way to Wales was thoroughly barred against him.
The only alternative left was to retrace his steps
to Boscobel. So, when darkness settled down
again upon hunted and hunters, he was taken
again into Woolf's house and prepared for his
return journey. A part of this preparation was
to discolour his hands more fully with walnut
tree leaves, which Mrs. Woolf rubbed upon them
until they looked more like a real woodman's.
At about eleven o'clock, when all was still and
dark, the King and Richard stole out of the back
door and stepped off into the night with low-
whispered thanks to the host of the farm-house
at parting.

They reached the wood at Boscobel about three
o'clock on the morning of Saturday, and there
Richard left his charge whilst he went stealthily
to reconnoitre about the house to see if it was
free from soldiers and other dangers. He found
in it another fugitive guest, Colonel William Carlis,
who, Blount says, "had seen the last man killed
at Worcester, and who had made his way to

266 Walks in tJu Black Country

Boscobel for concealment, as he resided in the
neighbourhood and was an old acquaintance of
William Penderel." Richard told him who was
waiting in the wood for shelter and safety, and
he and the two brothers went out and found the
King sitting on the root of a tree, and conducted
him into the house, where, says Blount, in his
simple narrative, " He did eat bread and cheese
heartily, and William Penderel's wife made his
Majesty a posset of thin milk and small beer,
and got ready some warm water to wash his
feet, not only extreme dirty but much galled
with travel. The Colonel pulled off his Majesty's
shoes, which were full of gravel, and stockens
which were wet, and there being no other shoes
in the house that would fit his Majesty, the good
wife put some hot embers in those to dry them,
whilst his Majesty's feet were washing and his
stockens shifted."

And now comes the most touching scene in
this bitter experience, and I wonder no painter
has made it a subject for his canvas. After the
long night walk from Madeley with soaked shoes
full of gravel, the Boscobel house was deemed
unsafe even for an hour's sleep in a garret bed.
So, after his bread and cheese, the King was
conducted back into the wood, where William
and Richard helped the two wearied and hunted
fugitives up into "a thick-leafed oak," and raised

and its Green Border-Land. 267

up to them some more bread and cheese. They
also brought a cushion for the King to sit on.
" And the Colonel humbly desired his Majesty
(who had taken little or no rest the two preceding
nights) to seat himself as easily as he could in
the tree and rest his heacl on the Colonel's lap,
who was watchful that his Majesty should not
fall, and in this posture his Majesty slumbered
away some part of the day, and bore all these hard-
ships and afflictions with incomparable patience."

This unaffected description presents a picture
which an eminent artist might paint to the life.
The imagination does it involuntarily. Who can-
not see it? The rising sun throws it into vivid
perspective. In the encircling arms of the oak, on
its gnarled shoulders, are nestled the two men.
Remember the garb of Charles — the coarse noggen
shirt of Martin the servant, and Richard Penderel's
leather doublet, his face still begrimed with soot,
and his hands stained with walnut leaves by good-
wife Woolf at Madeley. Not two consecutive
hours of sleep had closed his eyes since the morn-
ing of that disastrous battle at Worcester. Two
nights long he had been walking in the cold and
rain, wet and wearied. There he now sits in the
tree with his head in his companion's lap, who is
keeping his eyes and ears open to every sight and
sound, though both are heavy and longing for rest.
"To be or not to be — perchance to dream." The

268 Walks in the Blatk Country

outlawed King is dreaming now ; a painter would
catch the dream playing upon that pallid cheek.
Why not catch it? The world would recognize
and interpret it. Not one of all the pictures that
have been painted of " Charles Stewart " would
produce such an impassion.

When the night came on with "the blanket of
the dark," the fugitives returned to the house, and
William Penderel put the King to rest in that
large square chest at the lid of which we now
stood. It is a kind of false apartment several feet
square, with an eye seemingly closed to the lower
lid, but admitting a little light and just a glimpse
of the outside world to the inmate. It is a kind of
hollow notch over a buttery or some culinary
apartment, with only an entrance on the top
through one of the floor- boards, which makes' such
close joint with the rest that no one would suspect
that it was not nailed as fast to the joist as they.
Here William Penderel had put the Earl of Derby
on his retreat to Worcester. Here doubtless he
had concealed many other fugitives before the
Earl ; for it was built for the express purpose of
hiding the hunted. The King found this place
of rest and concealment both easier and safer than
the oak, and he began to breathe freer from alarm.
Says the same historian, " His Majesty, esteeming
himself in some better security, permitted William
Penderel to shave him, and cut the hair of his

and its Green Border- Land. 269

head as short at the top as the scissors would do
it, but leaving some about the ears according to
the mode of the country. The King bade William
burn the hair which he cut off, but William was
only disobedient in that, for he kept a good part of
it, wherewith he has since pleasured some persons
of honor, and is kept as a civil relique."

But his sense of rest and safety was of short
duration. On the very day that he was thus
taken into the Boscobel house, Humphrey, one of
the sturdy brothers, went to Shiffnal, only four or
five miles distant, and there met " a Colonel of the
rebels" who had just come from Worcester in
pursuit of the King, and had heard that he had
been at the White Ladies. As Humphrey lived in
the immediate neighbourhood of that place, the
Colonel examined him very closely, threatening
the penalty denounced against any one who
should harbour or conceal the King, and offering
a reward of a thousand pounds for discovering
him. But the stout-hearted yeoman stood fast
to his loyalty, which braved threats and spurned
a thousand pounds in his poverty as easily as a
thousand farthings. So the Colonel could make
nothing of him. But he might make all he wished
of some one else with such threats and bribes.
When Humphrey told the King on his return of
his adventure at Shiffnal, he began to feel himself
in an unsafe position, even with such faithful men

270 Walks in the Black Country

around him. That night, however, he enjoyed the
luxury of sleeping on a pallet laid upon the floor
of the secret apartment ; and the old mother of
the family, whom he called My Dame Joan, had
served up some chickens for his supper, "a dainty
he had not lately been acquainted with." The
next day was Sunday, and he ventured out into
the little arbour now standing, as it did then, on a
mound in the garden. Here he sat and read,
while the Penderel brothers were holding watch
and ward at all the approaches to the house. In
the meantime John had been sent to Moseley,
about five miles from Boscobel, to apprise Lord
Wilmot of the King's whereabouts and condition.
But he had changed his quarters from Moseley to
Bentley near Walsall, where he was the guest of
Colonel Lane. It had already been arranged that
he should go as a servant or companion to Jane
Lane to Bristol, as she had obtained a pass from
"the rebels" to make a journey to that seaport.
Mr. Whitgreaves, the host at Moseley, went on
with John to Bentley, and there it was planned
that the King should be brought to that house of
refuge and take Lord Wilmot's place on the saddle
with Jane Lane.

On the same Sunday night, therefore, the King,
being too footsore to walk, was mounted upon
Humphrey's old mill-horse, taken from the pasture,
"with a pitiful old saddle and a worse bridle."

and its Green Border-Land. 271

The stout-hearted honest Penderels — William,
John, Richard, Humphrey, and George — and their
brother-in-law, Francis Yates, made his body-
guard, each with a wood -bill or pikestaff on his
shoulder, and some of them with pistols in their
pockets. Two marched before, one on each side
of the horse, and two at a little distance behind,
determined to do or die in the King's defence
should he be waylaid and attacked. It was near
midnight when they set out on this hazardous
march, and it was very dark and rainy. The old
mill-horse was a lank, hard-boned, rough-going
beast, and the King complained that " it was the
heaviest dull jade he ever rode on." Humphrey,
the owner, who was walking by his side, defended
his faithful beast, it is said, in the smart rejoinder :
" My liege ! can you blame the horse to go heavily
when he has the weight of three kingdoms on his
back ? " At Penford Mill, about two miles from
Moseley, on the advice of his guides, the King
dismounted, and they proceeded the rest of the
way by a private and safer path, and reached
the appointed meeting-place in a little grove near
the house. Here the Penderels left their royal
charge in the hands of Lord Wilmot and the
others waiting to receive him. William, the special
hero of the band of brothers, with Humphrey and
George, had fallen back and were returning to
Boscobel with the horse, unknown to the King and

272 Walks in the Black Country

without waiting to be thanked by him for a devo-
tion and loyalty seldom equalled by any other
example in English history. The other brothers,
on coming up to the company awaiting him in the
grove, and while he was kissing Lord Wilmot on
the cheek, were also retiring without apparently
expecting or wishing a word of thanks from the
sovereign they had served so faithfully. But before
they had got beyond hearing, he called them back
and said : " My troubles make me forget myself :
I thank you all." And he gave them his hand to
kiss.

Blount's quaint and simple description of Charles's
dress and appearance, when thus transferred to
Lord Wilmot and his host at Moseley, presents a
closing picture in these dissolving views of his
personality. " His Majesty's attire was then a
leather doublet, a pair of green breeches, and
a jump coat (as the country calls it) of the same
green, a pair of his own stockens with the tops cut
off, because embroidered, and a pair of stirrop
stockens which were lent him at Madeley, a pair of
old shoes, cut and slashed to give ease to his feet,
an old grey, greasy shirt of the coarsest linnen, his
face and hands made of a reechy complexion by
the help of the walnut tree leaves." He only
remained one night at the Moseley house, and
there ran into the most imminent peril of capture ;
for several soldiers bolted in, but found all the

and its Green Border-Land. 273

doors so open and free, that they were deceived by
this show of unconsciousness of fugitives, and left
again without searching the apartments. The
host, Mr. Whitgreaves, acted the innocent so
naturally, and threw open his doors with such an
easy and serene face, that he saved his sovereign
from the fate of Charles I. From Moseley the
King was conducted by night to Colonel Lane's
at Bentley, and from thence escaped to France
via Bristol, by that expedient which painters
have so often portrayed on canvas.

As we stood by the open lid of the oaken box
in which the hunted King was secreted in the
Boscobel house, I could not but think of analogous
experiences in the lives of some of his enemies
when it came their turn to fly before him. Whilst
looking down into that square hole, where he lay
wearied in fitful sleep with his head against one
wall and his feet against the other, it was easy
and natural for the thought to dart across the
ocean to the cave's mouth in the West Rock, at
New Haven. In the tortuous recesses of those
vaulted rocks, night after night and week after
week, three of the judges that condemned Charles I
to death hid themselves, while soldiers of the
Restoration were hunting after them, as Cromwell's
bands hunted Charles II up and down England.
If the book is still extant, no better place could
be found than Boscobel for reading " Style's

T

274 Walks in the Black Country

Judges." It would show proofs of devotion and
self-sacrifice for the outlawed, hunted, hungry
Whalley, Goffe, and Dickinson as brave, unswerv-
ing, and unselfish as the loyalty of the Penderels
to their fugitive sovereign. It would disclose the
same expedients for their security ; how one stout-
hearted woman had a false floor made, or two
floors for her garret so deep between the joists
that the three men might lie in it by night and
day if need were ; how she strewed the upper
floor with reeds, and wiled away the soldiers from
their frequent search ; how the fugitive judges,
when they transferred their hiding-place to the
cave, were startled on the first night by two
fiery eyes that glared at them more fiercely than
any human pursuers could do, but felt relieved
when they found that it was a panther instead
of one of the soldiers of Charles II. I am
sure that book would now have a wide reading in
England, if republished here ; for it is full of that
romance of adventure, heroism, and fidelity which
few modern novels present in their fictitious
experiences.

Capern essayed to descend through the trap
door into this apartment, but although many
ladies had squeezed through the narrow passage,
in all the amplitude of the late fashion, he, being
less compressible, though not " more fat than bard
beseems," stuck midway, and wriggled up again

and its Green Border- Land. 275

with some difficulty. I had to rally him a little
on a sesquipedality that would have lost Charles
his kingdom and life. The house seems to have
remained unchanged for two centuries, just as it
was when it served as such a hiding-place for him
in his desperate extremity. The large dining-
room is wainscoted with oak, older than the one
in which he slept with his head on Colonel Carlis'
lap. The different scenes of his experience here
are engraven in the black marble facing of the
fireplace, and make well -executed pictures. In
one he is represented in the tree with several
troopers dashing about in search of him. In
another he is on the old mill-horse on his way
to Moseley, guarded by the Penderels with their
axes and hedge-bills. A portrait of him, in all
his long locks and royal robes, hangs over the
mantel-piece, giving him a somewhat unhappy
expression, as affected either by a presentiment
or memory of his sharp troubles. In another
apartment is the portrait of Cromwell himself,
making him look as if he had just come out of
the battle of Worcester and was regarding it as
" a crowning mercy," which would have been
more grateful to him if he had caught Charles.
The old servant who showed us the various
apartments facetiously remarked that he always
locked the door between the two portraits at
night lest they should get together and have a

276 Walks in tJie Black Country

falling out with each other. The arbour .in which
Charles sat and read on that memorable Sunday,
stands on a mound several feet high in the gar-
den, and looks as if it might have been half a
century old when he occupied it. The tree called
" Charles's Oak " must not only have come from
a scion or acorn of the one in which he hid, but
must be many rods nearer the house than the
original, which was evidently in the middle of a
dense wood or grove, and probably half-way be-
tween the Boscobel house and the White Ladies.
The house is now owned by a family of maiden
ladies residing in Derbyshire, by the name of
Evans, who appreciate all its historical interest
and preserve it for the public.

Having spent an hour at this corner milestone
of English history, we continued our walk through
Brewood, stopping to see the large church in that
snug little town, which has a long and respectable
history of its own. It is really an edifice worth
not only stopping, but going some distance, to
see ; for it ranks for size, architecture, and lofty
spire with the first class of provincial churches.
It contains many ancient monuments of the
leading families of the district, such as the
Giffards, Fowkes, and Moretons. Brewood became
a market town in 1221, under a patent given to
Bishop Cornhill, of Lichfield, and ever since that
day it has had a continuous population of all

and its Green Border-Land. 277

ages, who- have said their prayers under different
religiousVegimes, and been recognized as a Chris-
tian community. It is enough to inspire a feeling
akin to awe to walk the main street of such a little
country town, and feel that you are treading in
the footsteps of twenty human generations.
Brewood has made its mark as an educational
centre. A free grammar school was founded here
by Dr. Knightley in the reign of Elizabeth, who
with a small sum of money planted here an acorn
which has produced a goodly tree of knowledge,
from which many distinguished men have fed
their minds to much growth and power. Among
these Bishop Hurd, of Worcester, Dr. Beddoes,
of Bristol, Sir E. Littleton, and others may be
numbered. Rev. William Budworth, Dr. Johnson's
friend, was one of the head-masters of this
school.

On our way to the Spread Eagle station, where
we were to take the train for Birmingham, we
came out upon the famous Watling Street, that
great road of the Romans. The construction of
this solid highway must have been a powerfully
civilizing work to the British tribes in England.
And it is the only one of that hardy and industrial
soldiery left on the island as a work of present
utility. It was doubtless made by them to
supplement the rivers for penetrating, subduing,
and civilizing the country. From London on

278 Walks in the Black Country

the Thames and Uriconium on the Severn, the
helmeted road-makers of the Roman legions evi-
dently began this great thoroughfare ; linking by
it camp to camp until they met somewhere
perhaps in Staffordshire or Warwickshire. The
solidity and permanent character of this road
illustrate Roman firmness and strength. It was
not a corduroy road, such as the people of our
Western States would make over their prairies
and swamps. It was made to last for ages, as
deep, compact, and solid as if it had been one of
the ways leading out of Rome itself. Our host
of The Bell, at Tong, said he had taken up a
section of it at Oaken Gates, and found it like
quarrying the solid rock itself. Many of the slabs
of stone laid down were from three to four feet
in length and two in depth. These were covered
with rubble or broken bits of stone from the same
quarry, and must have made a roadway as solid
and as perfect as the best city streets of the present
day. If the great governments and nations of
Christendom could utilize their standing armies
as Rome did, or set them to work upon roads,
harbours, drainage, ship channels, and the like,
the toiling myriads who have to support them
would feel the burden lightened. Certainly the
officers of the Roman legions, who superintended
these utilitarian works, had as much right to
magnify their order and assert its dignity as the

and its Green Border- Land. 279

same rank of officers in modern armies. The
day, let us hope, will come when the latter will
be as proud of having perforated Central Africa
or Asia with a Watling Street as with a pathway
of fire and blood.

We reached the Spread Eagle station just a
minute before the train for Birmingham arrived ;
an accidental coincidence, for we had no Bradshaw
with us, and knew not how long we should have
to wait at this point This was one of our most
enjoyable walks in the green border-land of the
Black Country, and we returned home much
richer in satisfaction than we had anticipated ;
for neither of us had heard anything of Tong
church and its monuments.

The Glass Works of the Messrs. Chance con-
stitute one of the most remarkable establishments
in the world, both for extent and character of
their operations and productions. They embrace
a small, compact town of edifices difficult to
represent in any familiar simile. If seen from a
certain distance by moonlight, when quiet and
smokeless, they might look to an imaginative
eye like a great nest of cathedrals and Turkish
mosques. You have all the features of both,
with a little exercise of the fancy. Clustering
in the moonlight, you will see lofty brick spires
tapering all the way but not to a point ; towers
and turrets of all dimensions ; conical domes

2#o Walks in tlie Black Country

elongated at the top into a chimney, and other
characteristics of the two classes of architecture.
These buildings cover a territory of about twenty-
four acres. The main street, that divides the
domed and steepled town in two nearly equal
parts, is the railway. This again is intersected
by a canal, with its landings in the middle of the
works ; which have about a score boats of their
own for transportation of the raw material and
its wonderful productions when ready "for home
and exportation." This may serve to convey some
idea of the establishment when cold and silent.
But when all aglow with its fiery industries, it
presents a scene which Virgil and Dante would
have described in terms and figures unsuited to
modern conceptions or facts. As every man who
pretends to have once been a boy was a bubble-
blower in his childhood, whether he has seen the
real process or not, he can understand how glass
is made into such infinite shapes and uses. And
boys, fresh from the sport of making and floating
in the air their tinted globes, ought to have
the clearest idea of the whole matter. It will be
easy for them to see in their minds twenty-four
boys standing in a circle, each with a long-
stemmed tobacco pipe in a bowl of soapsuds,
blowing up bubbles one after the other. Well,
they will see that picture to the life in one section
of these great works. But here the soapsuds are

and its Green Border-Land. 281

•

red-hot and more too. The bowls are made of
the Stourbridge fire-clay, and hold about two
tons of the liquid, which is called metal. The
pipes are iron, nearly as long as a fishing-rod.
The bubbles they blow are perfectly marvellous.
They weigh about thirty pounds each, and are
from five to six feet in length. The whole ope-
ration seems like magic. Nothing in the working
of other metals is like these strange manipulations.
That is not the word for them, either, for the
mouth seems to have more to do in the matter
than the hand. Here are a score of men dipping
their pipes into those terrible pots, taking up a
ball of the red metal, and then blowing and
twirling the bubble until it becomes a cylinder
as long as a two-bushel bag of wheat. What a
lung-power must be brought to bear upon the
thousands of cylinders inflated here in a week !
The human breath forced through all those iron
pipes, if put in one volume, ought to be enough
to propel a ship of the line across the Atlantic.
Few artisans could have trained the measurement
of the eye to such fine precision as these glass-
blowers. To take up to an ounce the exact
quantity of metal, then to blow and twirl it into
a cylinder that shall not vary a hair's breadth
from the requisite thickness and diameter, is a
remarkable, almost unparalleled feat of skill.
The operations in making the " crown " glass are

282 Walks in tfu Black Country

•

the most strange and stirring. Whatever else sug-
gested the name, it might well have come from the
process itself. To have recourse to very common
similes, divested of all technical terms, a mass of
the molten metal about the size and form of a
gourd is formed, with the rod in the stem. It
is then thrust into a blazing oven whose mouth is
terrible to front, and which would serve the men
who attempted it as Nebuchadnezzar's furnace
mouth did his servants, if they did not wear a
shield before their faces. The red gourd shell is
thrust into this roaring oven, and turned rapidly
by the long iron stem. This motion soon opens a
hole through the butt end of the shell, and it
expands to a new size and shape at every revolu-
tion in the flame. Now it is a Scotch cap ; the
next half-minute it is a sailor's tarpaulin hat, very
squat, mostly crown with but little brim. A few
more turns, and it is all crown, whizzing around
like a large circular saw without teeth. The stem
is then detached, and it is lifted into an annealing
oven and placed on its edge in an iron frame
which holds a great number of them upright,
seemingly as thick as herrings in a barrel, yet
without touching each other. This is just a glance
at the process of making "crown glass," and
whoever sees it must think of a hat crown when
he remembers the operation.

I wonder how many well-instructed men and

and its Green Border-Land. 283

women in a thousand, excluding children, have
the slightest idea that all the panes of glass in
their windows were once as round as the body of a
hat box. So it is, but few can make it a real,
tangible fact without seeing the process. These
cylinders average about four feet in length and
two feet and a half in circumference. They are
slit in the middle from end to end by what may
be called a long-handled knife with a diamond
blade or point. Then they go to the flattening
furnace or oven where the heat is carefully gradu-
ated to their delicacy, and gently opens and lays
them flat upon a large, solid even table of glass.
On this the wavy or wrinkled plate is ironed or
mangled out to a perfect surface by a wooden roll
or block called a " polissoir." The manager of
one of the departments of this great establishment,
who is its " Ministre pour les Affaires Etrangeres,"
took me next into what might be called the
cutting-up lofts. My time was too short to ask
many questions and see all the operations and
extent of the works. I have said they covered
the area of twenty-four acres. But this is only the
foundation surface, and only one third of real space
covered by the multifarious manipulations. Most
of the buildings are three and more stories in
height ; so if all the area occupied were brought
down to one dead level, it would doubtless make
sixty acres. And I should think full five acres of

284 Walks in tfie Black Country

this extent were occupied by these cutting lofts.
Here are racks seemingly interminable and num-
berless, filled with plates of glass of all shapes and
sizes, or what may be called glass slabs, many of
them with broken corners, and rough-looking in
dimensions. Along the whole length of each loft
on both sides run the cutting benches, all manned
by a battalion of workers, each with his rule and
diamond-pointed knife, cutting up the sheets into
panes of various sizes, making the most and best
out of each. And here I learned a fact which
illustrates the closer economy in utilizing odds and
ends than once prevailed. The ten thousand little
bits left over from this pane-cutting are made into
slides for stereoscopic views, and find a large
market for that use. Thus a scrap of glass from
which a piece three inches by one can be cut is
worked into a slide for the camera. In no other
establishment in the world can one get such a full
idea of the infinite uses which glass is made to
serve as in these immense works. The artistic
department, perhaps, will generally excite the
greatest curiosity and admiration. This may be
divided into two sections. One contains an acre
of sheets of every tinting which all the rainbows or
all the flowers that ever arched or graced the earth
could supply. Indeed, the sight of them serves as
a lesson in useful knowledge. After all one re-
members of flower shows, he feels himself truly

and its Green Border-Land. 285

surprised here, that so many tints and shades can
be taken or formed from "the bridge of colours
seven." This is the raw material that goes abroad,
in every direction and to every distance, to be
worked up in cathedral, church, chapel, and college,
and other ornamental windows. Really the stock
in store of this stained glass is so vast, that one
might wonder why it should be sold by the square
foot instead of the square rod. To estimate it by
the foot seems almost like computing the national
debt of Great Britain in milreis.

The other is the department in which the work-
ing artistry of the establishment is carried on.
This is its Royal Academy, where more paintings
are produced and exhibited in a year than in the
National Gallery in London. They are done on
glass instead of canvas, but are none the less
artistic for that. The Raphael or Michael Angelo
of this great studio has a salon by himself, in which
he develops into outline and shape his conceptions.
Here he passes before his eye all that Adam
saw and named, and more too — all things that
bloom and breathe with sweet odours in Nature's
realm : the flowers of every zone ; the birds of
every land and plumage ; every beast from the
elephant to the winged mouse ; every fish from
the whale to the minnow of the thinnest brook ;
human histories reaching back to the holiest hours
of Eden ; pictures and dreams of angels. These

286 Walks in the Black Country

fields the artist-in-chief hunts up and down with
his pencil for sketches which his well-trained corps
in the painters' gallery are to reproduce on their
glass-canvas. The pictures they produce in a year
would make a Fine Arts Exhibition which would
compete favourably with the portrait galleries of
large cities. The popular taste and demand for
these artistic windows are constantly increasing at
home and abroad ; perhaps more, proportionately,
in foreign and even half-civilized countries than in
Great Britain or America. Oriental princes and
nabobs delight in this kind of ornamentation,
especially in the hottest countries, where the glare
of the sun most needs tempering. The windows
for the salon cabin of the state barge of the
Pacha of Egypt, especially, were perhaps as fine
specimens of glass painting as the establishment
ever produced.

A full and minute description of all the opera-
tions and productions of these great works would
fill a volume ; I can only notice a few salient
facts and features. The Chances stand in a more
than industrial relation to the community at home
and abroad. They are great educators of taste
and pleasant and beautiful perceptions. . They
popularize high art, carrying the people on from
where Wedgwood left them to more refined ideals
of beauty. And one thing they are doing in this
department which the community should appre-

and its Green Border-Land. 287

ciate. They are taking, I will venture to say,
lifting, glass-painting from the old ecclesiastical
groove in which it has run for so many centuries.
Instead of those grotesque anachronisms which
have covered the cathedral and church windows
for so many ages — instead of apostles, saints,
martyrs, and mitred bishops standing on the tips
of perpendicular soles, apparently with the rim of
a copper basin around their heads, and in robes
which would have astonished Peter or Paul, the
Chances are giving us forms and scenes that
belong to actual human life and history ; making
men show their manhood to the fulness of truth,
being, and act. In thus secularizing the art, as
some may call it, they have elevated it to a higher
standard for sacred and religious portraiture ; and
I am confident that this effect will be discernable
in many of the future painted windows which
will supersede those now centuries old in English
cathedrals and churches.

The Light-house department of the works will
fill the visiter with wonder. For the manufacture
of these great sea-lanterns is one of the speciali-
ties of the establishment which, perhaps more than
any other, distinguishes it from works of the like
character in this and other countries. Here you
see all the working sciences and mechanical forces
co-operating in busy harmony in producing these
beacon and guide lights for benighted ships. Not

288 Walks in tlie Black Country

one in a hundred men well-read in other sciences
can conceive what subtle and delicate principles,
laws, and combinations are brought to bear in
perfecting the lenses and prisms and in adjusting
the focus of each so as to produce the aggregate
and required result of the whole. Here you see
these beautiful structures at every stage of their
building. Many of them are complete, ready for
being mounted upon their sea-beaten pedestals
on "a wild and rock-bound coast." An oriental
or ancient fancy might take them to be the
crystal crowns of huge giants stalking over the
earth with their heads in the clouds. In seeing
so many fully or nearly completed, it was pleasant
to think that they were not to supersede but to
supplement those now shedding out their lustre
upon the sea ; that these grand lanterns were not
only to be hung up on the rocky capes and cliffs
of foreign coasts never before lighted, but to be
added to the number now surrounding these home
islands, to be a tiara of stars shining like the light
of great hopes to the tempest-tost sailors in the
blackest night. Some of these lanterns are thirty
feet high and twelve in diameter, and will throw
the glow and glare of their light full thirty miles
out upon the sea. The cost of one of the first
order is about ^2,000; that shown in the Great
Exhibition of 1862 was marked £3,000.

The Chances are as celebrated for the produc-

and its Green Border-Land. 289

tion of optical glass as for light-house lenses. In
the exhibitions of 1851 and 1855 they exhibited
discs of twenty-nine inches in diameter, the largest
ever produced at that time. Both were purchased
by the French Government for £1,000 each. There
are from 1,500 to 2,000 hands employed in these
works, representing such a combination of science,
genius, skilled and varied industry as perhaps no
other establishment in the world can present. For,
although they are called Glass Works, when you
enter the light-house department, you have iron-
works on a great scale in minute ramification. In
the buildings in which a common-sized lumber-
yard of boards is made up into boxes for the
exportation of glass to America or other foreign
countries, you have wood-works of equal extent.
Thus artisans of most mechanical crafts are em-
ployed in the different departments — workers in
glass, brass, iron, and wood, and artists who would
paint landscapes and portraits on canvas as well
as glass of a high order of genius.

A working force of 1,700 men, women, and
children, employed in one establishment, repre-
sents the population of a considerable town. The
provision made for the religious and intellectual
education of this army of employes is thoughtful,
generous, and admirable, and worthy of all imita-
tion. One of the edifices of these twenty-four
acres of buildings is the school-house, in which

U

290 Walks in the Black Country

about 500 children are taught the solid, useful
branches of English education. I was struck
with a large printed bill put up in the very
gateway of the works, setting forth the views
and wishes of the proprietors in regard to this
important question, which is now exciting so
much interest in England. On reading it, I
begged a copy, which will make the most useful
page in this volume to large manufacturers who
may read it. There is also a library of 2,000
volumes for the people of the works and their
families, and an experienced surgeon is employed
to look after their physical well-being. The fol-
lowing is the announcement of the Messrs. Chance
to their employes :

"Glass Works, November, 1867.

" An examination of the boys, girls, and young persons employed
in the various departments of our glass works, shows that many
of them, of both sexes, do not possess that knowledge of the
rudiments of education which every person, at least, in this neigh-
bourhood, who is old enough to work, ought, by this time, to have
acquired.

"We have therefore resolved, in future, (i) to discountenance
the employment of boys and girls in our works who do not possess
at the time of seeking employment a fair acquaintance with the
elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic, with the addition of
freehand drawing for the ornamental department ; and (2) to open
an additional day school for glass-house boys, and an additional
evening school for girls and young women.

"In the case of glass-house boys who have at their disposal
a great deal of leisure time, we expect all of them, under eighteen
years of age, to attend the day school at least three times each
week for the present, and in the case of all other young persons,

and its Green Border-Land. 291

of both sexes, whose elementary education is defective, we expect
the boys to attend the evening school three times in each week,
for at least six months in the year ; and girls and women for such
longer period as may appear to us to be desirable.

"It is our purpose to impose a fine of sixpence per week upon
glass-house boys who absent themselves from school without
sufficient cause, and not longer to employ any whose conduct is
reported by the master to be bad, or whose attendance is not kept
up with regularity.

"We propose to hold an examination of all our young people
from time to time, and to institute a system of rewards for those
whose attendance, good conduct, and progress merit such distinction.

"We shall be glad to find our intentions in this matter fully
appreciated by those whose welfare is to be thereby affected, and
to know that those whose education is in a satisfactory condition
will still give a regular attendance on the schools and classes,
both for the sake of their own progress, and as an example to
those whose education is not in so satisfactory a state.

"CHANCE BROTHERS & Co."

CHAPTER XII.

ENVILLE GARDENS : THEIR RELATION AND VALUE TO THE BLACK
COUNTRY — WOLVERHAMPTON : ITS HISTORICAL MONUMENTS
AND ASSOCIATIONS AND ITS LEADING MANUFACTURES.

IN carrying out the programme of this volume
— first, a dip into the Black Country, then
one into its. Green Border -Land — I com-
mence this chapter with a few notes on a visit to
the Enville Gardens, the seat of Lord Stamford,
near Stourbridge. On a beautiful afternoon of the
last of November, Capern accepted the challenge,
and, having measured walking-sticks, we set out
to see a segment of the border-land between
Stourbridge and Wolverhampton in order to com-
plete the western semicircle of the Black Country.
It was one of the shortest days of the year, and at
two o'clock the sun had nearly finished the small
arc it was describing a little way above the
southern horizon ; but it was shining its best and
loveliest. We only stopped for a hasty lunch at
Stourbridge, and staffed on vigorously to Enville
Gardens, hoping to see them before the dark set in.

Walks in the Black Country. 293

While passing through the town a trifling incident
illustrated the value and power of photography as
a detective agency. Really the sun sets, if not the
mark of Cain, at least such a mark of individuality
and identification on one as a rogue could no more
escape than his shadow. It was the first time that
I was ever in the town, and I was in such travelling
gear as I had never faced a camera in. Still, I
was recognized and spoken to by a person on the
side-walk who had seen some photograph of my
face somewhere. Let no one fancy that it was a
fellow-feeling that made me think of rogues and
the difficulties of their pursuit of freedom from
arrest, with their faces chasing them up and down
the world in such a fashion. It might be an in-
teresting exercise to those given to such economics,
to compute how many "special constables" the
sun has added to the constabulary forces of
Christendom through photography.

The road was a good specimen of an English
turnpike, the like of which not ten consecutive
miles can yet be found in the United States. The
country was rolling and wooded picturesquely,
making a new and delightful scenery, varying in
surface and aspect at every turning. We passed
Stourton Castle, the residence of W. O. Foster,
Esq., a gentleman who ought to inherit the Iron
Crown and wear it on state occasions. He is one
of the largest ironmasters in the world, employing

294 Walks in the Black Country

about 5,000 men. His uncle, whose fortune he
inherits, made it by his own talent and industry,
beginning with £500, and ending his life with
about .£3,000,000. In one year the census-taker
found the number of men employed by this Black
Prince of the Mines to be 14,000, an army which
few German princes could bring into the field.
The present crown prince, inheriting such a vast
fortune, is increasing it by investing in estates
which already have made him a peer in property
with the wealthiest noblemen of the country. I
am inclined to think that he recently made the
largest purchase that has been effected in one
private transaction in England for the last fifty
years. He bought the Whitmore estate on the
Severn, paying .£750,000 for it, or about 3,750,000
dollars in American gold. He is now adding to
the buildings and expending, in fitting them up
for his occupation, a sum which will make, with
the purchase money, a total of £i, 000,000. And
this vast sum does not abstract anything from
the capital necessary to carry on his great iron
and coal works. It looks well to see men win
their way to a peerage by the hammer as well as
by the sword. Just before coming to Stourton
Castle, we passed one of those old farm-houses
of a better sort which you will find here and there
in England, and which once constituted the man-
sions of what might be called the middle-class

and its Green Border-Land. 295

gentry. It looked like a small quadrangular
village of buildings, of which the mansion part
constituted the two-story frontage. On coming
up abreast of this front, we found it was an inn,
and certainly it was capacious enough to accom-
modate a full company of cavalry, horses and
all. It mounted for the insignia of its hospitalities
" The Stewponey and Foley Arms ; " a sign which
might look very appetising to an amateur of the
new dietary proposed in Paris, but which, let us
hope, will never supersede "the roast beef of
Old England" either in supper or song.

We overtook, half-way up a long hill, one of
the great farm wagons of this country, loaded
heavily with clay and drawn b)' three splendid
gray horses, each with a hoof that would not go
into a peck measure. The whole turn-out looked
as if it belonged to a first-class farmer ; wagon,
horses, and harnesses were of the highest order of
perfection. But I was peculiarly struck with that
strange economy of forces which distinguishes
English farmers, by such marked contrasts, from
those of America. Of course it is natural, and
perhaps inevitable, that the farmers of all countries
should be the most conservative as to traditional
habits ; that they should cling with the most
tenacious adhesion to systems for which they can
give no better and no other reason than that their
fathers and ancestors did the same before them.

296 Walks in tJie Black Country

Although English farmers are so stoutly conser-
vative in this respect, they show the greatest
leaning toward the masses ; and they seemingly
endeavour to make the masses as solid and as
heavy as possible. They have the best roads
and the heaviest wagons in the world. You may
frequently see in New England a two-story frame
house drawn up and down hills on four wheels,
not a whit more heavy and solid than those of
the average one-horse carts of the English farmer.
As for one of the great four-wheeled wagons used
here, thilled instead of poled, an American farmer
would hardly think of dragging it up a hill empty
with a single horse. But it is not so much in
the solidity and weight of their carts and wagons
that this peculiar economy of tractor forces,
inherited and perpetuated here, may be seen
most strikingly illustrated. It is in their appli-
cation to the masses to be moved. Here before
us was an example of the system. I asked the
driver to let his three magnificent gray horses
straighten their trace chains. I then paced the
distance from the collar of the leader to the
forward axle of the wagon, and found it a little
over two rods! Nearly half the length of one
horse was lost in the connexion between them.
Indeed, as nearly as I could measure it with my
walking-stick, it was full six feet between a per-
pendicular line from the hip of one horse to the

and its Green Border-Land. 297

collar ring of the one behind him to which he
was attached. And still the owner of that noble
team must have been a farmer of the first class —
doubtless a man of general intelligence, but who
had not yet learned to give a reason to himself
or others for this strange use of horse -power.
You seldom ever see farm-horses used in England
in any other way. Whether on plough, cart, or
wagon they are nearly always strung together
in " Indian file," with spaces from four to six
feet between each couple. I do not now recollect
ever having seen a four-wheeled farm-wagon in
England with a pole to it. However long and
large, it is fitted with a pair of shafts, into which
the thill-horse is put. Then frequently, perhaps,
even if not generally, you will see the traces of
the forward horse hooked into the hame ring
of the one behind, instead of into his drawing
chain. This makes another waste, for a great
deal of drawing force is lost in the uneven sway
and movement of the hindermost horse, and a
considerable portion of his weight has to be added
to the loaded cart, to make it more solid and
heavy. It would be almost amusing to an
American teamster to watch the manure-wagons
climbing over the hills from Birmingham. He
would sometimes see a long procession of horses
mounting the crown of the eminence seemingly
detached from any load. On looking again he

298 Walks in the Black Country

would see a huge long wagon looming up so far
behind the leader that one would hardly fancy
there was any connexion between the two. Some-
times this economy is varied in a unique way.
The stoutest horse is put into the shafts, and two
spans are attached to him, with not only the long,
wasting space between him and them and between
each other longitudinally, but laterally ; so that
if the two horses thus spanned walk evenly abreast,
they frequently walk four feet apart, or nearly
enough asunder to admit a passing phaeton
between them. In travelling through different
parts of England I have noticed with much
attention as well as curiosity this remarkable
characteristic — this hereditary and voluntary ser-
vice and adhesion to solidity. And I think any
careful observer will come to the conclusion
which I have formed, that the farmers of England
waste full one-third of their horse-power ; or
one-sixth in the superfluous weight of their
wagons, carts, and ploughs, and one-sixth in its
application to them or to the load to be drawn.
Often while watching one of these long, strag-
gling string of horses drawing a wagon up a hill,
with the leader full three rods from the forward
axle, I have wished that the owner were obliged
to take a few rudimental lessons in dynamics,
that he might learn to be more merciful to his
beasts. I hope it was not wrong to wish him

and its Green Border-Land. 299

such an exercise for example as this: to under-
take to draw a fifty-six pound weight up a hill
at the end of a string forty feet long. Having
tried this little experiment in tractorial forces
two or three times, he would be quite likely to
hitch his horses nearer to the load thereafter.
Apparently no modern improvements have im-
paired this homage and tribute to solidity. I
doubt if the road-wagons of English farmers of
to-day weigh a single pound less than they did
before Macadam was born, or when the highways
of the country were made of its own clay or
sand.

But not only horseflesh is so burdened and
wasted by this "terrible tractoration," but human
bone, blood, and muscle are fearfully sacrificed to
this the most exacting of Penates Anglicani.
From the cradle to, the grave the English agri-
cultural labourer bears the heavy burden of this
homage. Should this book go to another edition,
I intend it shall present, among its illustrations,
not only English and American wagons, carts,
ploughs, scythes, rakes, and axes, but also the
farm-labourers' shoes of the two countries, in
comparison. Those worn by the majority of the
agricultural labourers here are veritable clogs
to locomotion, in weight half leather and half
iron. Indeed the latter must often preponderate.
When on my walk from London to Land's End,

300 Walks in t/te Black Country

I stepped into a blacksmith's shop to see the
smith shoe a donkey. Near the anvil was a pair of
leather shoes brought in to be shod. The number
and size of the nails driven into the soles and
heels were perfectly wonderful. I am sure they
would weigh as much as the four iron shoes the
smith was nailing to the donkey's hoofs. The
effect of wearing such heavy shoes from youth
up is as perceptible in the labourer's gait as the
wearing of heavy iron armour must have been
in the walk and carriage of the knights of old.
In the first place, there is no spring or elasticity
to a pair of shoes thus bottomed with iron. They
do not shed mud by the motion of the foot.
Then, being so thick and broad soled, they in-
evitably interfere with each other if lifted perpen-
dicularly. So the wearer at every step describes
the segment of a circle with his foot. This motion
brings his knees together, like the joints of a pair
of compasses. And the habit becomes a second
nature to him, and he wears it all his life long.
You will not see one English farm-labourer in
ten lift his foot and set it down perpendicularly,
or in a direct line with his knee. So you may
always recognize him, though walking many rods
before you, by this peculiar swinging gait. Adding
to such shoes the heavy agricultural implements
he wields, he has to run the race of labour with
our American farming- men so heavily -weighted

and its Green Border-Land. 301

that it is a wonder he can accomplish as much
as he does.

After a short talk with the driver of these
splendid grays, in which he looked surprised at
certain questions I put to him, we resumed our
walk to Enville. The road passed for a consider-
able distance under the shadow of a kind of
primeval forest of lofty Scotch firs, which spread
a thick roofage, supported by their trunk columns
full sixty feet in height. Like the eternal song
of the shell, the ceaseless murmur of their solemn
music fills these fir temples of Nature day and
night, summer and winter. The sun had poured
out its parting flood upon the wooded hills, and
the evening twilight had set in, before we reached
the Earl of Stamford's seat, so we were obliged
to postpone our visit to the gardens till the next
day. We found very comfortable quarters at the
only inn of the village, and, what made them all
the more enjoyable, a very intelligent and affable
landlord, who could not only answer all the ques-
tions we put to him but also volunteer interesting
information without asking. He had resided there
for more than thirty years, and could tell us of
changes in the habits of the people of the village
and neighbourhood which will be referred to
hereafter.

The next morning we found the beautiful weather
of the preceding day had changed, and it was now

302 Walks in the Black Country

raining and chill, with a strong wind. Our land-
lord, however, fitted us out with waterproofs and
umbrellas, and we sallied forth to see from under
them the beauty and glory of the Enville Gardens
rather veiled in mist The gardener-in-chief took
us over them with the greatest cordiality, and
passed by no part of them without notice, though
the wind reefed our umbrellas in spite of us several
times while facing the beating rain. The grounds
far exceeded our conception for extent and artistic
embellishment, though we had heard glowing ac-
counts of them. They must surprise even a visiter
who has seen many of the ornamental parks of
English noblemen. It is comparatively cheap and
easy to plant and group trees of various foliage
over a square mile of variegated surface, grazed by
sheep and cattle. But to make acres of exquisite
lawn, brooched with a thousand flower-beds and
belted with choicest shrubbery, is a work of greater
taste, genius, and expense. It is this peculiar
feature that distinguishes Lord Stamford's grounds
from any I have yet seen, and which makes them
surpass even Lady Rolle's at Bicton. His flower
gardens contain seventy-three acres, laid out in the
most picturesque manner, with little lakes, foun-
tains, and bouquets of trees, well supplied with
rustic seats. All the flowers of all the zones are
here in their glory, worked into the embroidery of
miles of walks, skirted by walls of rhododendrons

and its Green Border-Land. 303

all aglow in May with their gossamer blossoms.
Four hundred thousand pots of geraniums supply
only one of the contingents of beauty which the
floral world contributes, under subsidy, to this
little earthly elysium. All were now gone except
the evergreen borders, but acres of undulating
lawn were dotted or globed with flower-beds leaf-
less and bare, looking like mammalia of Nature,
which had nursed each its floral offspring to the
full beauty of its sweet-breathing bloom. The
grand trees, standing singly or in groups, seemed
to cling with loving attachment to the soft, green
surface beneath which mirrored their out-spreading
glory ; for while their heads towered up into the
sky with proud aspiration, all their arms drooped
towards the earth, as if essaying to lift it upward
to show it to the sun. This was a remarkable
characteristic of them all, and I never saw the like
before. They all clung to the green sward in this
way — not only the purple beeches, limes, and
elms, but the stout and gnarly oak, which seldom
yields to the influences that affect other trees of
more supple nerve and muscle. Here it also
droops its brawny arms, and its great strong hands
feel the face of the lawn for many yards round, as
a giant father would feel the face of his sleeping
infant. Had a discussion with Capern on this
matter in which we reversed positions. He argued
as a practical man and I as a poet, a novel change

304 Walks in the Black Country

of parts. He maintained that all these various
trees followed the proclivity of the mining rod, by
which people used to detect the existence of
minerals under the surface of the earth ; that as
the hazel wand tips downward in the open palm
of the holder to indicate where minerals lie con-
cealed, so the branches of all these great trees
point downwards to show that metals are stored
away for man far below the surface of the ground
they shade. I stuck to the doctrine of " passional
affinities," and urged that such high-bred trees
never would have tended their aristocratic hands
to common ploughed fields in that way, even if a
thousand acres of coal or iron ore lay beneath the
red furrows.

Although we missed the most brilliant and gor-
geous half of the glory and beauty of this little
garden world, or the flower show, the other half
was more admirable still for the season. We saw
what Nature can be assisted and taught to do in
the chills, frosts, and fogs of an English November.
After visiting the conservatory, which is a crystal
palace of most symmetrical proportions, in the
arabesque or mosque style, we passed through a
half a mile of hot or forcing houses, where all the
climates, seasons, soils, fruits, and vegetables of
the earth's various latitudes are produced. Here,
on the last day of November, were new potatoes
growing, already nearly as large as hens' eggs, to

and its Green Border- Land. 305

be dug for the table at Christmas. Another house
was filled or festooned with cucumbers, trained up
like grape-vines, and hanging their long green
pendants with a relishing savour which would have
delighted Sarah Gamp to ecstasy. Strawberries in
blossom had a house to themselves. French beans
were in pod, and peas in blow for New Year's Day.
About two hundred pine-apple plants were in fruit
at different stages, larger and better in flavour
than those which Nature produces by herself in
the West Indies. In the grape-walks we saw one
set of vines which averaged a growth of twenty
feet from the last of October, or within the space
of five weeks. The head gardener has a force of
about thirty-five men and boys in constant em-
ployment, whose aggregate wages amount to
about £100 a month. We learned that the
whole establishment, including house and con-
servatories, consume yearly ^"2,000 worth of
coal. The kitchen-garden contains about thirteen
acres. The park embracing or surrounding these
gardens is of vast extent and grandly wooded.
One old oak looks just like old England in its
trunk and branches and in all the stoutness of
its huge vitality. So until it falls or is sawn in
sunder, one cannot read the record of its centuries,
but it probably was a thrifty little tree before the
Norman Conquest.

This little sequestered world of beauty takes .a
X

306 Walks in the Black Country

new charm from one felicitous feature it presents
to the outside world. Through all the weeks and
months of its glory, it is thrown open to the public.
On Tuesdays and Fridays through the season all
the sooty-faced, hard-handed, and heavy-shod men
of the mine, forge, and furnace in all the Black
Country, may come and luxuriate in these flower
gardens without a farthing's charge for admission.
Here they may ramble through the flowery mazes,
and drink in their life and beauty, as free as air.
Nor is this all. The great fountains are played
for their entertainment on both these days ; thus
giving them the treat which the fountains of
Versailles reserve for crowned guests. When they
have sated their eyes with all this gorgeous show,
and walked up and down the winding aisles of the
great gallery of Nature's flower paintings, they are
allowed to go up into the higher grounds of the
park just beyond the green walls of the garden,
and there, overlooking all its beauty, have their
pic nic spread, and dance and frolic, without any
restriction upon their hilarious freedom. The
gardener told us something to their credit, corrobo-
rating a fact which has come to be widely noticed
of late, that the roughest working men may be
trusted with the closest view of costly treasures of
art and nature, and that they are as unlikely to
abuse that confidence as the classes that claim
to be more highly cultivated in dispositions and

and its Green Border-Land. 307

manners. He said their sense of honour was very
keen, and that he could always trust them among
the choicest flowers ; that they never overstepped
a border that was restricted, and needed no watch-
ing. If one of their number forgot the confidence
reposed in them and took a single step on for-
bidden ground, he was arrested and reproved in a
moment by his companions. His greatest trouble
was with the middle-class people, or those who
assumed a superiority over the humble visiters
and made less scruple in gratifying their curiosity.
Such persons had to be watched with much care to
keep them from trespassing on objects which men
of the mine and furnace would not think of
touching.

Thus these extensive and beautiful grounds,
with all the artistic and expensive culture bestowed
upon them, are really consecrated to the enjoy-
ment and elevation of the masses of the people, of
which none take more advantage than the working
men of the district. This is an act of generosity
on the part of the noble proprietor worthy of the
highest appreciation and respect ; and it is to be
hoped that he himself will esteem the honour he
wins by it above any laurels to be obtained in the
hazardous competitions of the turf, in which he has
risked so much for a precarious and sterile reputa-
tion. In opening such a great, green gallery of
exquisite artistry to the masses of the people

308 Walks in tfie Black Country

without money and without price, he has instituted
a noble race, in which he leads the runners for a
prize well worthy the highest nobility of England.

In addition to these general and gratuitous ad-
mission days, fetes have been produced in these
gardens on a scale equal to those of Versailles.
On one occasion 250,0x^0 variegated lamps illu-
minated the walks, shrubbery, flowers, and plants.
About 60,000 persons were present, who came from
parts as distant as London, Leeds, and Liverpool.
The conservatory showed every line, curve, and
cornice of its structure, and appeared a vast prism
which coloured the branches of the oaks and elms.
The fireworks were of infinite variety, but the
water view of the lakes was the masterpiece of
the scenery. A three-masted frigate and a gun-
boat had a kind of naval action and poured into
each other shot and shell of coloured fire. A
pigeon of living flame flew backward and forward
over the scene, and every device of pyrotechnic
genius was called into requisition to make a fasci-
nating spectacle.

The Enville Gardens are as full an illustration
of the artistic culture and grouping of flowers as
can be found in England. But side by side with
the development of all this culture and floral
susceptibilities has progressed, part passu, the cul-
tivation of the human community of the village
and neighbourhood. The results produced in this

and its Green Border-Land. 309

culture of their mind and manners have been more
radical than any obtained in the training of flowers
or plants. Indeed the improvements effected have
been more like transformations than developments.
Our landlord, who had been indefatigable in pro-
ducing these changes for the better, described to
us the means employed. He said that thirty
years ago a shocking state of things existed in
the village. Enville, from time immemorial, had
been celebrated for its cherries ; and a cherry fair
had been held in the village always on Sunday
during the season. Great multitudes came to it,
not only from towns adjoining but all through
the Black Country. To obtain a supply of cherries
was only a side and secondary motive ; the real
one being a boisterous, roistering, ring-fighting and
cock-fighting holiday, with the usual amount of
drunkenness and demoralization. He had known
thirty regular prize-ring fights on a single Sunday,
generally extemporized on the spot and spur of
the moment. This demoralizing fair had become
one of the fixed institutions of the district, a vested
interest of the mass in old British furious fun.
To break up this institution root and branch un-
conditionally, would have doubtless produced a
riot. No civil or religious authorities attempted
this ; but the better-minded people of the village
effected a partial transformation of the holiday and
its sports by a substitute which the fair-frequenters

310 Walks in the Black Country

accepted with good humour. They got up a new
set of sports, as funny as possible, but all capable
of being carried on in good-nature. These they
provided for Monday instead of Sunday. Our
landlord described some of the games or frolics
which he invented or introduced. Indeed he seems
to have been master of the ceremonies. One of
these was a kind of social tar-and-feathering. A
lot of fellows would stand up in a cart or wagon
and daub each other with treacle instead of tar,
then shake on a coat of feathers, until they looked
like great owls but not so sober and human.
Another sport was equally odd and unique, espe-
cially for full-grown men who had children at
home. It was the jumping in sacks. A number
of men would get each into a large wheat bag,
with his head sticking out of the mouth gathered
up around his neck ready for the race. When
the signal was given, the platoon of bags would
begin their frog-like jumps towards the goal, jost-
ling each other on the way ; some falling like
sacks of bran, tripping up others, and making the
crowd of spectators split their sides with laughter
at their grotesque antics. A third entertainment
was climbing a greased pole for a leg of mutton
or a flitch of bacon. It was a poor chance for
the first climbers after the prize, for they had to
contend with the fresh grease in their ascent ; but
after several had made the trial the pole became

and its Green Border-Land. 311

less slippery. To help the desiccating process,
some of the later climbers would contrive to carry
some dry sand in their vest pockets and to scatter
it in their upward trail. Nor were these sports
and games confined to the male section of the
multitude. Several of equal fun and ingenuity
were provided for the fair sex both old and young.
One of these was the oddest conceit I ever heard
of, and I think our landlord must have originated
it. This was a competition in which several old
ladies contended with each other for the prize of
a pound of tea by showing which of them could
first eat a basin of soup with an awl!

Thus for a brawling, fighting, and drinking
Sunday was substituted a Monday holiday with
its roistering but not malevolent or mischievous
fun. This change produced a very perceptible
improvement in the morals and habits of the
common people of the village and vicinity. At
the time of our visit another transformation was at
its first stage of operation upon them. Lady
Stamford a few years ago erected very elegant and
capacious school buildings, at the expense of over
£2,000, for the education of the children of the
village, and ever since has taken a lively interest
in the institution. That most popular and useful
entertainment, the Penny Readings, had been
recently introduced, and so well attended at these
school-rooms that on the last occasion the Earl

312 Walks in l/ie Black Country

and his Countess had been able to get in only
with considerable difficulty. So he had invited
the villagers to have their next Penny Reading
in an apartment of his mansion. Nor was this
all ; the manuscript programme was just that
moment brought into the inn, by which we saw
that the Earl was down on it for the first reading,
to be followed by Sir Thomas Moncrieffe, and
a harp solo from a lady of the chateau. The
clergyman, schoolmaster, and several other gentle-
men of the village were to contribute readings
and songs to the entertainment, and our landlord's
daughter was coming all the way from Manchester
to sing for them. I learnt afterwards that about
450 persons were present, and that they had a
delightful evening.

In addition to these intellectual entertainments,
soup and other food are distributed daily at the
hall to the sick and poor. Putting all these
things together and taking an aggregate aspect
of Lord Stamford's establishment and its manifold
and generous hospitalities, he may be congratu-
lated on a course of beneficence to the community
around him, not only in the highest degree
creditable to him, but worthy of imitation by all
the nobility and gentry of England. We noticed
these features of his disposition and character with
much interest, and felt highly pleased with our
visit to Enville Gardens, and with the proof we

and its Green Border-Land. 313

saw of their moral and social relation to the
masses of the people. The contrast between the
multitudes that now visit them in their season
and the boisterous, brutalized squads that used
to flock to the Sunday cherry fairs to drink, fight,
and carouse ; the difference between the Penny
Readings in Lord Stamford's temporary ball-room,
and the improved diversions which our landlord
invented as a substitute for coarser sports, were
very impressive, and we dwelt upon them with
great satisfaction. Truly few flowering plants in
those gardens had been more radically changed
by culture than have been the habits of the
common people who have walked those perfumed
aisles and breathed in their softening influence
since they were first opened so generously to the
public.

After dinner we took leave of our hospitable
and intelligent landlord, and resumed our way to
Wolverhampton. The weather was inauspicious
for seeing the country, which under the sun of
the preceding day must have shown well to the
traveller. We passed Himley Park, the family
seat of the Ward family, and where the dowager
Lady Ward now resides. The first Humble,
founder of the family, was buried here. It is a
great estate of remarkably variegated surface ;
indeed the park wall on the turnpike road seemed
long enough to make one of the sides of

314 Walks in. the Black Country

a common -sized township. Understanding that
access to the hall and park was barred by rather
rigid restrictions, we did not diverge to get a
better view of them than the road could command.
When we reached Wolverhampton, the town was
brimful of the music of the old church bells, which
were playing their gladdest chimes in honour of
the first anniversary of the Queen's visit at the
inauguration or unveiling of Prince Albert's eques-
trian statue. The grand, massive tower, that had
vibrated to Sunday chimes for six hundred years,
was now thrilled through all its thick walls with
the silvery retintabulation of as many bells as
would supply all the steeples of a large American
town with one apiece.

Wolverhampton was a goodly and important
town when Staffordshire was as green as any other
county in England. It has a good Saxon name
and history. Some of the antiquarians, with
Druidical predilection, have tried to discover a
British origin for its earliest name. One says
it was first called " Hautune," which he thinks
came from Huan, a deity of the ancient Britons.
But if this were ever its name, it was doubtless
a word of Danish or Saxon origin, like Hawton
or Hoiton, meaning, high-town. This would
designate its location. It stands on high ground,
commanding a good view of the surrounding
country. But a pious Saxon lady gave to the

and its Green Bowler- Land. 315

town the name it has borne for eight centuries.
Wulfruna, sister to King Ethelred, founded the
College and Church of St. Mary here. The town
was afterwards called Wulfrun's Hampton in
honour of her pious wish and deed ; but was
soon shortened into Wolverhampton. The church
is one of the most ancient and venerable to be
found in England, and bids fair to stand as long
as it has already stood, if the earth endure for
so many centuries to come. It is just emerging
from a recent renovation, in which all the
characteristics of the old structure have been
faithfully preserved and reproduced. It is the
great centre-piece of the town ; and though the
rain and wind were raking the streets, we hunted
up the key-holder, who let us into the building.
The dim, religious light and the silent presence
of nearly a thousand years blended well in the
impression with which we walked up and down
the solemn aisles. Most of the painted windows,
however, are recent productions and of modern
genius. Our recent visit to Boscobel, and the
fresh impression of Charles's adventures there and
at Moseley and Bentley, gave us special interest
in the Lane Chapel, and we went to that first
on entering the church. It contains monuments
of the family for several generations, at least two
before the celebrated John Lane. On an altar
tomb lie the full length forms in marble of Thomas

316 Walks incite Black Country

Lane and his lady, who died in 1582, or thirty-
seven years before Colonel John, the hero of
Charles II, was born. So he was probably their
grandson. His monument is a very elaborate
piece of sculpture ; indeed, I do not remember
one in which so many devices and symbols are
grouped and wrought with such minuteness. The
various parts of body armour, and all the tools
known to war, ancient and modern, are done to
life in the marble. Then Charles's Oak at
Boscobel, with a trooper's horse at full gallop
under the leafy branches, are well carved. Indeed,
a number of passages in his experience in this
vicinity are carved in the monument, so that
both by illustration and written narrative, a record
of that uncrowned and recrowned sovereign is
here graven in characters more lasting than the
memory of his dubious virtues ; even if he had
any worth remembering in the present day. The
tall, broad tablet, headed and bordered by all
these symbols of Mars and martial history, bears
a long inscription in Latin, which is an eloquent
tribute to his worth, and a very expressive pro-
duction withal. I do not know if a translation
of it into English has ever been published, so I
subjoin the following, which is rather literal, with
the exception of the word exuvia, which contains
a meaning that would be too inelegant, even for
so grave a subject, if given in full ; for it would

and its Green Boeder-Land. 317

suggest more especially that process of shuffling
off a mortal coil by which snakes shed their skins
and chickens their shells :

"THE MORTAL REMAINS OF THE

PRE-EXCELLENT JOHN LANE, ESQ.,

EXPECTING TO BE HAPPILY REANIMATED,

HERE ARE DEPOSITED.
A MAN ABOVE TITLES, OR TO WHOSE MERITS

TITLES ARE WANTING,

IN THE RECENT INTESTINE TROUBLES UNDER KING CHARLES I,
AND AFTERWARDS IN THE WAR IN HOLLAND UNDER KING

CHARLES II,
HE MOST WORTHILY DISCHARGED THE OFFICE OF MILITARY

COMMANDER.

HE WAS THE LIBERATOR OF KING AND COUNTRY,
FOR WHEN CHARLES II FROM THE BATTLE OF WORCESTER

WAS FLEEING FAINT AND PURSUED ON EVERY SIDE,
WITH GREATEST PIETY, GREATEST FAITH, GREATEST BRAVERY,

THEREFORE TO THE EXTREME PERIL OF HIS HEAD,
FROM THE WICKED WILES OF THE USURPING TYRANT AND HIS

FOLLOWERS

STOUTLY RESCUED HIM !
A DEED AMONG ILLUSTRIOUS

THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS,

AS THE MONARCH ALSO HIMSELF DID NOT TACITLY ACKNOWLEDGE.
WITH REGAL AUGMENTATION FROM THE ROYAL INSIGNIA

TO THE ANCIENT ARMS OF THE NOBLE LANE FAMILY,
THE SON, THOMAS LANE, ESQ., WORTHY HEIR OF A WORTHY

FATHER,
HE DECORATED AND REWARDED

IN PLACE OF THE DECEASED,
WHOSE BONES THE ABOVE GRATEFUL AND PIOUS KING

IN THE BASILICK MAUSOLEUMS OF WESTMINSTER

OUT OF HIS LOVE WISHED TO BE MAGNIFICENTLY ENTOMBED,

HAD NOT THE DYING HERO HIMSELF TO THESE HONOURS

MODESTLY OBJECTED.

HE WAS BORN THE VIII OF APRIL, l6ig,

AND DECEASED THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER, 1667,

A DEATH DEEPLY LAMENTED."

318 Walks in t/ie Black Country

This resume of the life and worth of Colonel John
Lane, taken from his monument, is as brief a
notice of him as one could well write. His un-
wavering fidelity to a king and a cause which
the great majority of the English people so dis-
liked does not dim the lustre of that loyalty of
heart which even the political enemies of a man
cannot help admiring. Charles, on his restoration
to the throne, remembered gratefully, as well he
might, the devotion of this faithful servant of his
crown ; and the House of Commons voted .£1,000
per annum, and another ,£500 in 1660. Although
called Mrs., she must have been Jane Lane, the
colonel's sister, who took up Charles II on her
saddle before her, on that famous ride to Bristol.
It is a pity that Richard Penderel, the hero of
the Boscobel drama, was not also buried in
Wolverhampton church or honoured with a monu-
ment near the Lanes. We found that he was
interred in St. Giles-in-the-Fields, London, where
his true-hearted faithfulness to his outlawed and
distressed sovereign is recorded in rhymes of
wretched brag and bathos, unworthy of the sub-
lime simplicity of his virtues. When next in
London I intend to visit the grave of that
valiant yeoman, whom Cromwell himself might
have admired for his unbribable and invincible
constancy. The other host and hider of Charles
in his thickest perils, or Thomas Whitgreave, of

and its Green Border-Land. 319

Moseley Hall, was buried in the parish church
of Bushbury. The inscription on his monument
is written in vigorous Latin, and the heated feel-
ing of that stirring time seems still warm in the
marble words. Here are most of them :

" STOP, TRAVELLER, TO REVERE THE FAITHFUL ASHES HEREIN.

HE WHO LIES HERE WAS A SERVANT WORTHY OF CAESAR.
IT IS NOT A GREAT THING TO SERVE THE GREAT WHEN THE SKY

IS SERENE ;

HE WAS A SERVANT WHEN THE TIMES WERE CLOUDY;
HIS GUEST WAS THE KING WHEN VANQUISHED, DEFENCELESS,

POOR,

COMPLETELY DISGUISED AND UNLIKE HIMSELF;
WHILE, THUNDERING IN ARMS, BREATHING FIRE AND FLAMES,

A BLOODY TROOP WAS SEEKING THE KING,
ANON POURING FORTH BRIGHT GOLD WITH THEIR CRIES,

ADDING LARGE BRIBES TO THEIR THREATS.

BUT XX DID NOT SEDUCE NOR PERIL APPAL HIM ;

FOR FAITHFUL LOVE WAXED STRONGER IN HIS NOBLE BREAST,

THE FAITHFUL LOVE OF KING AND THE BRITISH REALM.
SO IF THOU ART WISE LEARN FIDELITY FROM THIS MARBLE."

Charles's host at Moseley Hall, this Thomas
Whitgreave, seems to have outlived nearly all
the companions and helpers of his flight and
escape; for he died on the I4th of July, 1702,
at the age of 84. What is the precise meaning
of XX in his epitaph I have not undertaken to
give in the foregoing translation. Whether XX
gold sovereigns, or a Bank of England note to
that amount, made the bribe usually offered by
Cromwell's " bloody troop " for betraying the King,
or whether the two numbers represent some other

320 Walks in tlie Black Country

idea current at the time, I am unable to decide.
Of course the XX did not mean a familiar brand
of ale, of which a barrel was offered to warp the
loyalty of any of Charles's liege subjects. Indeed,
it is doubtful if that ale brand were known in his
day. There is another monument, the statue of
a full-sized knight standing on a pedestal, which
bears a full description of his virtues. , It is
that of Admiral Levison, who served against the
Spanish under Elizabeth, and achieved feats deeply
recorded in brass. If one could not read the
Latin inscription, he might take the statue for
that of Shakespeare. In form and face the re-
semblance is quite striking.

Few churches in England are more impressive
in their exterior and interior aspects than St.
Mary's of Wolverhampton. It does not compare
with Tong Church for monumental wealth and
grandeur ; but its massive walls and tower, and
its history, reaching back into the misty blue
and romance of Saxon times, make it an object
of peculiar interest. When one, especially an
American, or the citizen of a young nation, visits
such edifices, and walks up and down with chas-
tened step their dim-lighted aisles, a spray of
thoughts comes flashing to his mind, like the
tinted beams of light that come to his feet
through the stained windows. Something more
than half-a-dozen centuries is looking down upon

and its Green Border-Land. 321

him. The living Present that overshadows him
is a great and solemn vitality, whose breath and
pulse he feels all alive and stirring upon him.
And, what is more, and the special thought that
touches him, this breath and pulse have the glow
and throb of twenty successive human generations.
Through all these long ages they have breathed
and beat without a break. Here is this grand
old church, built and baptised by that fair-haired,
blue-eyed, good-hearted Saxon woman, Wulfruna.
Ever since she had her flaxen-haired baby chris-
tened in it, up to this day, the little bleating lambs
of Christ's flock have been brought to this font.
Ever since her day, fathers and mothers, young
men and young maidens, and children of all years,
have gathered within these walls for worship. The
Norman Conquest, the Wars of the Roses and
of the Revolution ; the changes of dynasties,
governments, and of religions even, have not
broken up or sundered the line of this pious
succession with the gap of one silent Sunday.
Who can stand in such a building and, as it were,
put his hand to this day's link of such an electric
chain of life, and not feel a thrill coming down
it all the way from the Saxon Heptarchy ? Look
at this town around it. Few in England wear
seemingly more antiquity in general aspect. Here
are houses built in Elizabeth's day. But what is
Elizabeth's day compared with the date of the

Y

J22 Walks in tJte Black Country

oldest walls of this house of religious life and
worship ? Why, here assembled men and women
said prayers and sang hymns together, and
brought their infants to the font four hundred
years before Elizabeth was born. From Wulfruna's
time to Victoria's the angels that come listening
to the mingled voices of human worshippers,
have looked down through these mullioned win-
dows upon a living mosaic of gray, golden, raven,
and flaxen heads, bending low in prayer under
these lofty and massive arches. Think of the
self-renovating vitality of this sacred edifice. All
its stony veins seem alive with the immortality
of truth and faith. This great tower, looking so
serene over the woods and vales, has seen "the
cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces," built
from the same quarry with itself, melt away, and
whole villages of brick and stone dissolve under
the breath of time. This very town it has seen
reduced to dust and rebuilt many a time ; and
embattled castles, with walls of boastful might,
broken and mingled into haggard ruin, while its
own life renews itself like an immortality. These
are thoughts that an attentive mind must
give scope and verge to in visiting one of these
old English churches of Saxon foundation and
history.

Wolverhampton has been distinguished for two
centuries and more for its manufactures. Locks

and its Green Border-Land. 323

led the way in this distinction, and perhaps hold it
still. The early smiths seem to have rivalled the
most ingenious artisans of the Continent in
the trade. A unique, old history of Staffordshire,
printed in 1730, gives many instances of this skill.
It says : " So curious are they in lock-work (indeed
beyond all preference) that they can contrive a
lock that shall shew, if the master or mistress send
a servant into their closet with the master-key or
their own, how many times that servant has gone
in at any distance of time, and how many times
the lock has been shot for a whole year; some
of them being made to discover it 500 or 1,000
times. Further, there was a very fine lock made
in this town, sold for £20, that had a set of
chimes in it, that would go at any hour the owner
should think fit. These locks they make in brass
or iron boxes, curiously polished, and their keys
finely wrought, not to be exceeded." Thus the
town stood first in the kingdom at that early date
in reputation for lock-making, and this it still
maintains. Chubb's locks are literally household
words in both hemispheres. They now produce
over 30,000 annually, varying in price from IQJ. to
£3 each. And, what is rather singular, these are
all made by hand, in the old process in vogue
twenty years ago. There are now upwards of 100
establishments for the manufacture of locks in
Wolverhampton, employing about 2,000 hands.

324 Walks in tJie Black Country

Japanned ware must stand second if not first in
the manufactures of the town. It is produced
on the largest scale, and in a surprising variety
and value of articles. Although the island itself
is supposed to have been called after the tin of
Cornwall, imported and used by the Phoenicians,
it would be difficult to ascertain how the metal
was worked into articles of use or ornament.
For a thousand years or more it was probably
used only as britannia, or melted and cast into
moulded utensils. The plating of sheet iron with
it is comparatively a recent invention. It was
first introduced into England in 1665 from the
Continent, and constituted a considerable trade in
South Wales, especially at Pontypool. About a
century later Wolverhampton became the principal
seat of the manufacture. It was introduced into
.New England about the time of the American
Revolution, and became the leading business of
several towns in Connecticut.

The most interesting, if not most extensive
establishment for the manufacture of this white
and black ware is that of Messrs. F. Walton & Co.,
at the Old Hall. While standing in the massive-
walled, low-jointed counting-room of this grand
old Elizabethan mansion, I was impressed very
vividly with the movement and mutation of the
industries of the town and district which it repre-
sented. Here was the central, manor mansion of

and its Green Border-Land. 325

the town, erected before Elizabeth was born, and
occupied by the Levison family. They were proba-
bly of Jewish descent, bearing for centuries the
Hebrew name of Ben Levi, when they Saxonized
it to Levison, which meant the same thing. At
the time when they flourished here, they made the
wool trade the great business of Wolverhampton.
This was their counting-room, where they con-
ducted their large operations. Then the district
around had not begun to be a black country.
Then white sheep, with fleeces unstained by smoke,
fed over a green and undulating surface, now
buried fathoms deep in the debris of mines, furnace,
and forge. They grazed and basked with their
white lambs, where now the tall gaunt wolves of
flame lap the earth by night and day with their
red tongues. So distinctive and extensive was the
wool trade carried on here, that the town up to
the present century was called W^/verhampton.
I was told that in process of time, the Levison
family, who owned this hall and estate, became
reduced to a single representative, and that was a
daughter. The accumulated property had become
a fortune equal to the wealth of one of the richest
peers of the realm. The trustees, therefore, thought
that it ought to constitute the dowry of a peeress,
and they easily found a peer's son willing to take
the heiress and her fortune on that condition. She
was therefore married to a Gower, but on the

326 Walks in tJu Black Country

stipulated condition that her name should always
be put first through all generations of their
posterity, and this condition is now observed in
the compound name, Leveson-Gower. This is the
maiden name of the Sutherland family, and in
the counting-room of the Old Hall in Wolver-
hampton, now a tin and japan-ware manufactory,
the foundation of that family's fortune was laid.
But there is another historical incident connected
with this Old Hall of nearer and wider interest to
the admirers of dramatic celebrities. Here, side
by side with working-men still living, at the same
bench, Edwin Booth, the great tragedian, laboured
as a skilled artisan. One of the old men of the
establishment remembers him well, and his first
acting in some amateur theatricals in the town.
His impetuous temper was as marked at the work-
men's bench as it was in later days on the stage, as
Richard or Macbeth. Tin and iron are not the
only metals worked at this establishment into
every conceivable article of household use and
ornament. Paper is here made into a metal
and wrought into shapes of wonderful variety and
beauty. The trays of this material rank among
works of high art. Indeed, these wares of tin-plate
and papier maclie not only employ but develop
artists of first-rate genius. Here Bird, the painter
of "The Village Politicians," took his first lessons
in the art, by which he won such reputation.

and its Green Border-Land. 327

Other artists are in training in the same school,
painting on japanned tin-plate or metallized paper
for their canvas. The Old Hall is the most inter-
esting manufacturing establishment in the Black
Country for its antecedents and associations, and
well worth visiting for the beautiful ware it
produces.

I next visited the manufactory of the Messrs.
Loveridge and Co., who carry on the same trade
on a still more extensive scale. They employ
between 400 and 500 persons, and one would
think, on looking at the prodigious stock of articles
ready for the market, that they could alone supply
a large and growing nation. I was told that this
stock was worth at least £60,000, embracing
articles used in the first stages of civilization.
The stamping-rooms show the progress of machine-
force in the manufacture of the larger wares. Not
long ago the hand-mallet or hammer worked up
these various forms with continuous din of the
gold-beater's strokes. But now you see in one of
these large shops two parallel rows of fall or stamp
presses working by steam, on the principle of the
pile-driver. Some of these falling stamps weigh a
ton, and they make powerful impressions on the
plate of sheet-iron, placed over the lower die, at
the first stroke. The iron must be of the first
quality to stand this process without breaking or
straining the grain of the surface. The best has

328 Walks in the Black Country

to be annealed after three or four blows. They
were trying an experiment with the Bessemer
steel, with the view of getting a smoother surface
for large dinner covers, some of which would give
honour, scope, and margin to the largest joint of
roast beef ever cut from a prize ox in England.
The steel is hard to work under the stamp and
requires annealing frequently, but will probably
yield a surface susceptible of higher polish when
tinned than the common sheet-iron. The art
department of the establishment is very interest-
ing ; and I had never conceived that so much
highly-trained genius was employed in the orna-
mentation of these household articles. I was
surprised to learn that the pictures in the lids of
parlour coal vases were really painted one by one
on canvas and in oils. Thus the lid of the vase is
the frame of an oil painting under a glass cover.
Here, too, as at Messrs. Walton's, could be seen in
remarkable illustration what can be made of paper.
Not only trays of every style and size, with a
metal ring to them, but panels for railway carriages,
which, in a collision, would make no splinters.
They gave me a piece of half-inch paper board ;
and doubtless the joists and ceiling of a house
might be made out of the same material. There
are about 2,000 persons employed in the manufac-
ture of tin and japan ware in the town and
immediate neighbourhood. Since 1849 these in-

and its Green Border- Land. 329

dustries have doubled in extent, and bid fair to
increase in the same ratio. There are fifteen iron
foundries, twenty brass foundries, ten iron-plate
works, fifteen steel toy manufactories, and many
other mechanical businesses in the town.

Wolverhampton, if not the central, is the leading
town of one of the most industrial counties in
England. It stands on a commanding site, and
on a good solid stratum of ancient history. Its
name has a good old Saxon sound ; and its main
street and market place have not yet been reduced
to the straight lines and cast-iron uniformity of
modern architecture. It has the best equestrian
statue of Prince Albert yet erected, which was
wrought after the express thought of the Queen,
and inaugurated by her with great eclat in 1866.
The following year the most remarkable Church
Congress ever held in England assembled in the
town, with bishops from all English-speaking
lands. So, taking all the aspects of its individu-
ality and progress into view, Wolverhampton is
making its mark as a vigorous and public-spirited
community.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LICKEY HILLS — REDDITCH, AND ITS NEEDLE AND FISH-HOOK
MANUFACTURES — SMETHWICK, OLDBURY, WESTBROMWICH,
WEDNESBURY, TIPTON, AND WALSALL, AND THEIR INDUSTRIES
— TABLE OF EXPORTS OF THE BLACK COUNTRY TO THE UNITED
STATES.

IN all the Green Border-Land of the Black
Country there are no hills more grateful
and delightful for airing one's body and soul
than the Lickey cluster, overlooking Bromsgrove.
And for this peculiar reason are they such happy
pic nic rendezvous, especially for men, women,
and children of the mine and forge district ; they
are perfectly Scotch in cut and clothing. They
are belted with genuine Scotch firs and larches ;
they are carpeted with genuine Scotch heather,
which feels so elastic under your feet and gives
such elasticity clear through you to every lock
of your hair. The thymy incense of its purple
flood of blossom you breathe in the air, and you
feel as if on one of the Ochil Hills. Indeed,
each of the cluster realizes to you what the Scotch
poet said of that range when glowing under the

Walks in tJie Black Country. 331

purer blaze of the setting sun ; " it gleams a
purple amethyst." These remarkable hills look
as if transplanted here from the Highlands, all
in their Highland dress ; and are as Scotch in it,
in the ranks of English hills to be seen drawn
up over the vast levels of Oxfordshire and Wor-
cestershire, as a regiment of Highland soldiers in
kilts and tartans are among the British brigades
of the line. Thus both fdr use and ornament
they are beautiful and valuable features of the
Green Border-Land of the Black Country, and
thousands of all ages and conditions from the
smoky district luxuriate on these heathered
heights in summer. Then they are famous for
purple fruits as well as flowers. They supply
Birmingham and other large towns far and near
with bilberries of the finest size and flavour. So,
any summer day in the year when the sun shines
upon them, these hills are set to the music of
merry voices of boys and girls, and older children
who feel young on the purple heather at fifty.
Then the scenery from these tops embraces a
vast sweep of fertile and beautiful country. If
our poet Whittier could call the central county
of Massachusetts " rich and rural Worcester," he
would the same and more of its English mother,
if he could see Old England's Worcestershire
from one of the Lickey Hills. You see on one
side of the great green valley of the Severn the

33 2 Walks in tlie Black Country

towering Malvern range, and on the other the
Bredon heights, standing blue and lofty, like
opposite pillars to the broad gateway of one of
the most magnificent vales in England. Just
between the feet of the two main Lickey Hills
is nestled a snug, quiet little hotel, called "The
Rose and Crown," associated in my mind to a
memory which can never attach with such lively
interest to any otheV way-side inn in England.
For it was the first that I ever entered for a
night's lodging. I had just arrived from America,
in the leafy month of June, 1846, and that very
day had commenced that foot tour which I re-
sumed and completed in 1863-4. Good Joseph
Sturge, that afternoon, had buckled on my knap-
sack and set me on the road at Edgbaston, and
I had made a sauntering walk to this little cosy
old inn, just as the setting sun was pouring its
slanting cloud of glory into the green gorge.
It was just the English way-side inn I had
read and dreamed of from youth ; just the one
I was to meet in the programme of the tour
sketched by fancy before leaving home. Every-
thing around and in it was thoroughly English,
to the watering-trough, the settle under the shade
trees, the skittle-grounds, beer-mugs and all. And
there was the landlady — I should have recognized
her in New York — a regular Saxon-faced and
Saxon-haired woman, buxom, bland, and radiant.

and its Green Border- Land. 333

There was the round, unvarnished deal table stand-
ing kindly on three legs, and the long tobacco
pipes, with reddened tips to their stems. Never
did I so luxuriate in a tavern entertainment before.
It was all my fancy had dreamed ; and I should
realize the dream to the full — I knew I should.
I was to walk all around the island in that fashion ;
to put up at such a way-side inn at night ; write
until twelve next day, then *buckle on my knap-
sack and walk about ten miles through the country
villages and hamlets to another hostelry at sunset.
This was my first day's experience of this pro-
gramme ; and it promised well. Next morning
arose early, and ate breakfast on the little round
table to the song of the lark that came in at the
open window like a benediction on the meal.
When the table was cleared, I sat down to the
literary part of my programme, determined to
bring it up to the cherished expectation. How
quiet was everything around and above ! I was
put upon the honour of an enthusiastic imagina-
tion, and could not disappoint it. So I wrote for
four hours with great gusto and application, and
got off an article under the head of " The Last
Hour of the League," for "Douglas Jerrold's News-
paper," which he had just started, and for which I
had promised to write a few papers on my pro-
posed walk up and down England. Thus I had
accomplished the first day's working of my plan

J34 Walks in t/w Black Country

satisfactorily. So, after dinner on the round table,
I buckled on my knapsack, gave the ruddy-faced
landlady a copy of my recipes for making bread,
cakes, and puddings out of Indian corn-meal, and
resumed my walk towards Worcester, perfectly
delighted with this opening experience.

It was, therefore, especially interesting to me
to visit this way-side inn after an interval of
twenty-one years. The whole scenery of these
hills had impressed itself on my mind, and two
or three incidents had been associated to it, fixing
the impression more vividly. A mile or two
further on towards Bromsgrove I was caught in
a shower, and turned into a nailer's shop by the
road-side for shelter. It was not much larger
than a good-sized potato-bin with a tile roof
to it. Here a father and his son were busily
at work. The lad was only nine years old,
standing with bare feet on a stone to raise him
breast-high to the anvil. His face was smutty
of course, as it ought to have been, and his
long black hair was coarse and unkempt. He
could not read, nor could his father afford to
send him to school, as he needed his earnings
for the support of younger children. He was a
hearty, healthy, merry-eyed boy ; still, as he was
the first I had seen of his age at the anvil, and
not dreaming that any younger or poorer was to
be found at the same work, I made a little martyr

and its Green Border- Land. 335

of him in my own mind, and wrote my impressions
of his condition in an article which had a wide
reading in the United States. It excited so much
sympathy with the youngster that, at my sugges-
tion, the American children raised a contribution
of about £30 to send him to school, and to pay
his father 2s. 6d. a week in lieu of his wages.
When he grew to be of age, he came to me in
New England and worked a year on my farm ;
and is still living in my native town, the father
of several happy children. This was the special
incident of my second day's walk, and furnished
the raw material of an article which was far more
widely read than my " Last Hour of the League,"
which I had finished an hour before this little
adventure.

As I am now on personal reminiscences con-
nected with the Lickey and neighbourhood, I must
notice Bromsgrove and its grand old church,
This edifice is surpassed by few if any ecclesiastical
structures in Worcestershire. It stands on ground
raised by nature just high enough to make the
earth-work conform to the symmetry of the build-
ing. The massive tower is a pedestal for the tall
spire, in perfect harmony with its height and taper.
The whole external aspect of the church, from
the top of the spire to the base of the eminence,
impresses one with a sense of symmetry, beauty,
and grandeur. But it was the interior that made

336 Walks in tJie Black Country

such a deep impression upon me in 1846. The
stained windows and other features were admirable ;
but here I saw other objects for the first time and
with wonder. They were whole families of lords
and ladies lying side by side on marble or stone
beds as large as life. There they lay with their
pale hands folded so meekly as in prayer, while
the flush of tinted light from the painted windows
suffused their faces, giving them a pleasant look,
as if their prayers were heard hopefully. I had
read of effigies but had never seen one before, and
never knew what manner of men and women they
were in marble. The town itself is built chiefly
on one long street, and is quite a bustling place
of business. It is one of the principal nail-making
centres of the district, and has a respectable
variety of other trades. The Free Grammar
School, founded by Edward VI, is its most salient
and distinguishing feature. This is one of the
institutions established in the reign of that excel-
lent prince, which may be called the Edward or
Educational Age of England, just as the time of
the best of the Caesars was called the Augustan
Age in Rome. He inspired the movement and
gave his name to establishments which afterwards
were munificently endowed by benevolent and
wealthy men who followed his example. Thus,
Sir Thomas Cookes supplemented the royal gift
to this school with a fund sufficient to pay for

and its Green Border- Land. 337

six scholarships and six fellowships in Worcester
College, Oxford, a truly munificent donation.

Close to Bromsgrove are the extensive salt-
works of Stoke Prior. The brine pits are the
deepest in England, or more than 600 feet. The
works cover the space of about seventeen acres,
and cost about £450,000. The brine yields a rich
proportion, or forty-two per cent., of salt. About
500 hands are employed, and about 3,000 tons
of salt produced weekly. Droitwich, the next
town, is a kind of Salina or Syracuse, whose very
name breathes "the brine of the ocean." These
Worcestershire springs or wells export about
50,000 tons, and those of Cheshire about 650,000
annually. Although so many corruptible things
are seasoned and preserved wholesome by salt,
it does but little in this way for the minds and
morals of the men, women, and children engaged
in its manufacture. The printed reports of their
conduct and condition, I am inclined to believe,
are exaggerated, or refer to times gone or going
past. Says one of these statements : " The work
is necessarily continuous day and night, and from
Monday morning to Saturday evening it often
happens that the labourer never quits the precincts
of the works, snatching his intervals of rest beside
the pans. Men and women, boys and girls, are
thus exposed to more than all the debasing and
demoralizing influences which haunt the worst

z

338 Walks in tJie Black Country

dwellings of our agricultural labourers, without a
single antagonistic agency to prevent their lapse
into the lowest depths of brutish immorality.
With scarcely an exception, wherever salt manu-
factories on a large scale have existed, the
population employed in them has been the
disgrace and pollution of the neighbourhood, a
community almost unapproachable by philan-
thropy and irreclaimable by religion." This is
truly a hard saying, and should be taken, I
hope, "with a grain of salt." It may be true
of many salt works, perhaps, in times past, of
all of them. But this great establishment at
Stoke Prior must be excepted from the rule ; for
the proprietor has entirely discontinued the em-
ployment of women at the works, and the change
has already taken effect on the habits and social
condition of the workpeople in such a manner,
it is said, as to produce a social revolution in
the neighbourhood.

A few miles to the eastward of Bromsgrove is
Redditch, an industrious, neat, rural little town,
planted in one of the greenest districts of Worces-
tershire. In one salient respect, it is distinguished
from every other manufacturing town in England.
It has virtually absorbed and monopolized the
whole needle-making trade of the kingdom and of
half the rest of the world and more. Other towns
have each taken the lead in some manufacture, but

and its Green Border-Land. 339

this has drawn one all into itself. The number of
its needles sent abroad is perfectly incredible, and I
wonder the manufacturers can believe the totals of
their own bills. The history of the needle runs as
parallel with the history of civilization as any
other implement used by man or woman. It has
had its wooden, bone, brass, iron, and steel age.
Thorns hardened in the fire served the earliest
generations doubtless, who were not very elaborate
in their tailoring, and had not cultivated a fancy
for fine embroidery. Fish-bones probably followed,
and had their day and use ; then brass and per-
haps gold needles became known and used in the
higher ranks of society. As most of the im-
plements and appurtenances of civilization were
brought into Europe by the Moors, they first
introduced the steel needle. The first man who
made it in England was doubtless a Moor, who set
up the trade in London in 1545, although he was
called an " Indian." The secret of the manufac-
ture died out with him, and a considerable interval
elapsed before it was revived. The Spaniards,
who were indebted to the Moors for nearly all
they knew, learned this art of them and taught it
to the French and Germans. A German, by the
name of Elias Krause, revived the manufacture in
England in Elizabeth's time. The trade gradu-
ally emigrated from London to its present seat,
Redditch, without any ostensible reason for this

340 Walks in the Black Country

determination. For the first half century the wire
was imported from Spain and Germany; after that
time the English makers began to draw their own
wire. At first it was cut to the length of the
intended needle, then flattened at one end, in
which was punched a square eye. This square-
eyed needle continued in vogue up to 1800, when
the stamp press with its dies was first introduced.
Successive improvements followed, bringing the
art to its present perfection. But the sleepless
eye of prejudice looked with hostile suspicion at
many of the improvements that were to work to
the benefit of the workmen themselves. For in-
stance, in 1840, one of the Redditch manufacturers
revived the practice of hardening needles in oil
instead of water, by which process they came out
straight instead of crooked. The crook straight-
eners took alarm, and something worse at this new
process, which was to supersede their old occupa-
tion, and the unhappy manufacturer was mobbed
and driven from the town. Another improvement,
entirely designed to render one operation less de-
trimental to the health of those engaged in it,
was opposed by them on grounds that will seem
incredible to the next generation of working-men.
The pointing of the needles on the grindstone was
one of the most dangerous of occupations, and
short were the lives of those who followed it. A
fine steel dust was generated, which permeated the

and its Green Border-Land. 341

lungs and brought on consumption frequently at
middle age. But if the occupation was so fatal,
the men earned extra wages by it, and measuring
years by pounds and shillings, they seemed to
estimate and jjrize the value of life by the amount
of its earnings. So, I was told, they opposed the
introduction of the Sheffield grinders' fan, which
carried off the steel dust and made needle-pointing
a more healthy employment, inasmuch as it did
not pay for the extra risk of life it once involved.
Labour could hardly be more minutely sub-
divided than in the production of the needle
here. With all the introduction of machinery
and improved methods, it still passes through
seventy pairs of hands before it is fully ready
for the market.

The lowest estimate of the production the
needle trade of Redditch and adjoining villages
given me by several manufacturers, will show what
a business it has become. According to this
estimate, 350 tons of cast steel and 450 tons of
iron wire are used annually, from which one hundred
millions of needles a week are produced for home
and exportation ! Every fortnight the Redditch
men turn out a needle, " warranted not to cut in
the eye," for every man, woman, and child on the
globe. Nor has the demand been reduced by
the very extensive use of the sewing machine.
The quantity shipped to America, especially the

342 Walks in t/te Black Country

year after the Civil War, was simply prodigious ;
showing that the bomb, ball, and bayonet had rent
and tattered the clothing of millions as well as the
face and faculties of their land. At least thirty
millions of needles a week must hqiye gone to the
United States through the whole of 1866.

Fish-hooks are the other manufacture of Redditch.
This has followed the needle in different stages of
its development, from the crooked fish-bone to the
crooked pin and from that to the present imple-
ment. In size and use they almost equal in variety
the needle itself. Here are hooks for all waters
and for all fish that swim in sea, lake, river, and
meadow brooks — for sharks, cod, salmon, herring,
trout, roach, and minnow. As there are more
fresh-water fisheries in America than on all the
other continents, a vast number of hooks go to
the States and the British provinces. Not only
the bare hooks go in such quantities, but a large
number all ready for use. Fishing tackle, em-
bracing all kinds of alluring baits, such as artificial
flies, frogs, minnows, &c., constitutes a manufacture
of considerable extent. About 600 persons are
engaged in the fish-hook trade of Redditch.

Thus Redditch has virtually monopolized the
manufacture of needles and fish-hooks, and, if
rightly conducted, may retain the business thus
created. But I was sorry to learn, that, though
deeply impressed with the value of the two trades

and its Green Border-Land. 343

to the town and to themselves individually, there
was no organization, nor even spontaneous unity
among the manufacturers to retain and expand
the business ; that a keen-eyed jealousy inspired
their eager competition with a suspicious, unkindly
spirit and aspect. I do not know if special
occupations give a shaping to men's minds, or
whether the exclusive manufacture of needles
and fish-hooks tends to give peculiar sharpness
to competitors in the trade. If such is the case,
then a Chamber of Commerce, or a Trade Guild,
would be all the more necessary and valuable
to Redditch, to induce the manufacturers to say
we and our in regard to the great businesses of
the town more heartily than they do at present.
No town could value too highly such a source
of income and industry ; and through unorganized
and hostile rivalries it may some time go to
another locality. Nature has done all it could
by its gracious and peaceful surroundings to make
the town and its interests a united and pleasant
community, and the trade could not well find a
happier seat, in this respect, for its industry. As
a proof of the producing capacity of the meadow
and pasture lands adjoining, the fact will suffice,
that one of the leading manufacturers told me
that he had kept four cows, of graded Alderney,
on nine acres ; and that they produced forty
pounds of butter a week through the season,

344 Walks in the Black Country

beside supplying his family with milk and cream.
Few dairies in England can exhibit such a high
average of production.

We have now radiated these walks from Bir-
mingham in a westerly direction through the
Black Country. With a winding walk through
it from south to north, we will bring our notes
on the district to a close.

The whole of the Black Country between
Birmingham and Wolverhampton is a nebula
of coal and iron towns, making one great cloud
of industrial communities, interspersed with many
centres of deeper density, each of which has a
town or parish name, and gives it to a space of
thinner shade that surrounds it. Smethwick is
one of these centres of population and industry,
and is the seat of several large establishments,
including The London Works of the Patent Bolt
and Nut Company, Patent File Company, and
several other extensive manufactories. Soho, a
centre of mechanical genius and enterprise which
once put forth such an influence over the world
under Boulton and Watt, has lost its pre-eminence
since their day. Still important works are carried
on in the parish, of which those established by
the late George Frederick Muntz, M.P., for the
manufacture of Metal Sheathing, are the most
noted and extensive. Oldbury has perhaps as

and its Green Border-Land. 345

great variety and extent of manufacturing estab-
lishments as any equal space in the district.
Here are the celebrated Brades Works, which
have already been noticed at some length. Not
far from them are the Bromford Works, of the
Messrs. Dawes, perhaps equally celebrated for
the production of the best kind of bar iron.
Indeed they may be regarded as a representative
establishment for the district ; and I visited them
one day with peculiar interest. When in full
operation, with their sixty puddling furnaces in
action, they present a scene which would have
stirred the muse of Homer or Virgil beyond any
of their vivid fancies. Puddles ! mud puddles !
what rustic, Saxon similes are applied to these
fierce operations ! To an outsider looking into
one of those sixty furnaces, and seeing, if his
eyes would bear it, the boiling, bubbling mass
of metal, ten times more than red hot, a puddle
would sound too wet and watery to describe it.
The puddlers who fish in the troubled fountain,
are generally stripped to the waist, and flooded
with perspiration. They fish out a mass at the
end of the rod, of a weight which shows what
athletes they are trained to be. I hardly know
what figure to use to convey an idea of the
appearance and consistency of this burning, frit-
tering fizzy mass of metal thus brought out of
the furnace. Should one dip a large sponge into

346 Walks in tlte Black Country

a mud-puddle, it would fill in a moment with the
impure matter, which, on compression, would all
flow out again, leaving the sponge as it was before
the dip. There is this difference in the simile :
the meshes of the sponge are in the metal puddle
itself, and they all come out together with the
mass. This mass, cooling a little on its way to
make it more coherent, goes under a hammer,
or into a squeezing machine, which, at the first
blow or turn, throws out the spray of the impure
puddle-matter, such as melted stone, cinder, &c.
Thus the sponge part is only the genuine iron
meshes or grains, which are thus squeezed and
hammered and rolled into solid bars. To see
these masses at white heat running down iron
slide-ways from every direction to the squeezers,
hammers, and rollers, is a stirring sight. Some
of these hammers are of a tremendous power,
especially the Nasmyth pounder. When it falls
with a ton weight upon a liquid boulder, you will
see a horizontal shower of meteors which would
penetrate a suit of the best broadcloth at a
considerable distance. There was a machine
called the squeezer which operated to admiration
in the first stages. It was a large fluted horizontal
wheel which turned in a fluted semicircular case,
the receiving being twice as large as the delivering
hopper. A mass of the half-liquid material was
thrust in on the left, and pressed into a constantly

and its Green Border-Land. 347

narrowing space, until it was delivered at the
right, a compact, elongated roll ready for the
trip-hammer or rolling machine.

The chemical works of the Messrs. Chance,
and other large establishments, are situated in
Oldbury, and, embracing all these, it is a very
important industrial centre in the district. West
Bromwich, an adjoining town, is a place of much
growth and vigour, with a goodly antiquity for
a historical basis. It was a country village in
the reign of Edward I, and was taxed to furnish
that sovereign with the sinews of war in the Holy
Land. As one of the social productions of society,
it gave ladder-footing for the ascent of an old
county family to the English peerage. This was
the Legge family, which, by successive stages,
culminated in the title of the Earl of Dartmouth.
Sandwell Hall, near the town, was their seat and
residence for several centuries. They have now
converted it into a very useful institution, or a
training college for farm and domestic servants,
and a goodly and comfortable place it makes
for the education of agricultural foremen or la-
bourers, who seldom have such baronial halls for
their outfitting. Colonel Legge, who fought with
and for Charles II, and was wounded in the
Worcester battle, was one of the family, and
escaped the gallows only through the devotion
and ingenuity of his wife, who exchanged dresses

348 Walks in tJie Black Country

with him in Coventry gaol ; a romantic feat not
yet, I believe, set to poetry.

West Bromwich has grown in the last half cen-
tury with the rapidity of an Illinois village. In
1811, its population numbered about 7,500; it
now probably exceeds 50,000, and is to have a
member of Parliament under the new Act. A
great variety of manufactures are carried on here,
of which box-irons, stoves, grates, coffee-mills, and
iron bedsteads are the most noted and extensive.

A few miles further in the same direction you
come to Wednesbury, which looks in print like
the middle of the week, but is commonly pro-
nounced " Wedgebury^" As its name indicates,
it has a Saxon basis and history, being called
after the old Saxon Jove, Woden. Here the
illustrious princess Ethelfleda, daughter of King
Alfred, built a strong castle in 916, on the site
of the present parish church, though the proof
of its erection is perhaps more legendary than
lapidary, as no traces of its existence remain.
The Doomsday Book describes the village in 1085
as containing three hides of land, one servant,
sixteen villains, and eleven borderers, the latter
perhaps being what are called in America " squat-
ters." Another item shows the average condition
of the country at the time : " There is a mill of
two shillings rent, and one acre of meadow ; also
a wood two miles in length and one in breadth."

and its Green Border-Land. 349

It may show the value of such estates in later
times to quote another figure. The annual value
of the whole manor in 1502 was under £14.
There was a church in King John's day, which
was rebuilt and highly decorated about twenty
years before America was discovered. A century
or two later the vicar was paid "in kind," the
levy in eggs being recorded thus :

"For an hen two and a cock three;
For a duck two and a drake three.

Pro Hosto and Fumo 2d., which the minister gives to the clarke
for his attendance of him."

Wednesbury has contributed its contingent to
the noble families of the kingdom in the Pagets,
who have figured largely in English history.
William, the founder, was born here, and arose
from an obscure lad to executor of Henry VIII,
and subsequently Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster. But he brought upon himself a sad
reverse and disgrace by siding with the Duke of
Somerset, and was deprived of his garter and fined
£6,000 for his adhesion to that nobleman's cause.
Wednesbury was one of the very first localities
in which coal was discovered and developed into
practical use. So far back as 1315 reference to
its existence is made in the records of the town.
Old Leland in 1538 speaks of "the secoles of
Weddesbyrie," and Camden, writing forty years

350 Walks in tlie Black Country

later, refers to the coal and iron mines existing
in the neighbourhood, but rather doubtingly, as
if he was uncertain whether they would be found
to the "commodity or hindrance of the inhabi-
tants." But the inhabitants soon solved this doubt
in their favour, and Wednesbury grew up to be
a prosperous and progressive community through
the wealth of these minerals. About the middle
of the last century, when the old British sports
raged in their fury throughout the country,
cock-fighting, bull, bear, and badger-baiting dis-
tinguished the town. It was in the midst of a
population educated under such influences that
John Wesley made his appearance as a Christian
missionary in 1743. The narrative of his experience,
taken from his private journal, is exceedingly rich.
The people rose en masse and haled him before
magistrates as a man who was trying to turn the
world upside down. To give a religious aspect
to their fanaticism, as the Ephesian craftsmen did
on a similar occasion, they raised this mob-cry
against him :

"Mr. Wesley's come to town
To try and pull the churches down."

If he did not effect this, he accomplished some-
thing they more really feared — he pulled down
many of their evil habits, and Wednesbury is now
one of the most active centres of the denomination

and its Green Border- Land. 351

he founded. The town has increased in popu-
lation from about 5,000 in 1811 to 20,000 at the
present time. The industries of the place are
large and varied. The manufacture of axles,
girders, wheels, iron and brass tubes for locomotive
and marine boilers constitutes a great business.
The works of Messrs. Lloyd, Foster, and Co.,
alone employ about 3,000 workpeople and pay
fortnightly about £5,000 in wages. Moral and
mental education has kept pace with this material
progress pretty evenly, a large force of schools
being kept in constant and increasing activity,
and other means employed for the general
enlightenment of the community.

Wednesfield is another locality bearing the
name of Woden. Its ancient history attaches
itself to one event principally — a bloody and
decisive battle between one of the Saxon Edwards
and the Danes, in which the latter were totally
defeated, with the loss of two of their small
kings and several of their nobles. A good
portion of the land of the parish or manor
was included in the gift of good Wulfruna to
Wolverhampton Monastery ; and the early in-
habitants had some trouble with squatters and
claimants ; one of whom, by name Goodrich,
"held possession of half an acre of alders valued
at 8d. per annum." The population has quad-
rupled in the last forty years, and progressed

352 Walks in the Black Country

favourably in all the faculties and enjoyments
of a Christian community. Their special manu-
factures are traps of every size and species, and
locks and keys.

Bilston, it is said, takes its name from its
quarries of stone, famous for sharpening bills,
and for the troughs, cisterns, &c., they produced.
The iron trade won one of its decisive victo-
ries here. A power stronger than Woden was
here brought first into action in the development
of the mineral wealth of the district. It was
at the Five Hole Furnaces at Bilston that Watt
first applied steam to blow the blast furnace. One
travelling through the district, and seeing no water
streams more rapid than the canals, must wonder
how iron ore was melted before the application
of this self-generating power, for such it really
is, as coal underlies all the furnaces and forges
of the district. The population of the town has
not kept pace with the increase of other manufac-
turing centres, as in 1832 one-twentieth part was
swept away by the cholera, and one -fourth
attacked by that fearful pestilence. The town
now numbers about 26,000 inhabitants. Japanned
ware, including trays, caddies, &c., is a prominent
manufacture.

Tipton, once called Tibbington, is another com-
pact nucleus in the nebulae of the Black Country
parishes. I fear that the fist of one brawny

and its Green Border-Land. 353

prize-fighter has given it a wider reputation than
all the honest hammers it swings from year to
year. "The Tipton Slasher" once had as popular
a fame as the Stilton Cheese, and doubtless nine
in ten of the people who pass the station on the
railway are reminded of that celebrated bruiser
of the prize-ring. Still the town is no worse,
perhaps, for producing him, or at least has out-
grown his influence and example. Cock-fighting
was for many generations the favourite sport of
all these communities, and the transition from
shorter to taller bipeds was easy and natural. In
1744 John Wesley attempted to effect an entrance
into the town with his Bible, "but finding the
mob were raging up and down," he returned to
Birmingham. The following year he succeeded
however, and preached on Tipton Green, and,
though greeted at first with a few clods, he at last
obtained a hearing for such a sermon as they
never listened to before, even if they had ever
heard one at all. The town now contains four
churches, a Baptist, and thirteen Methodist chapels,
embracing the three divisions of that denomination.
This fact proves pretty conclusively that Wesley's
preaching here, in face of clods, was not in vain.
The population has doubled itself since 1831,
numbering at the present time nearly 30,000. It
is enriched with seemingly exhaustless stores of
coal, and presents a scene, especially at night,

A A

354 Walks in Hie Black Country

which must greatly impress the traveller. Perhaps
no other space in the district sends up into the
red ocean above such undulating rivers of furnace-
light. As a sample of the wealth stored away in
its cellarage, a lump of coal was taken from it and
exhibited in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in
1851, weighing six tons. It was cut in a circular
shape, like a cheese, and measured six feet in
height and eighteen in circumference. The whole
township is planted with furnaces, forges, foun-
dries, rolling and slitting mills, producing vast quan-
tities of pig, bar, rod, and sheet iron. These again
are largely manufactured into steam engines, boilers,
chain cables, anchors, hinges, nails, screws, &c.
Thus Tipton has become one of the most important
centres of the district, with all the mechanical
and material capital for a hopeful future.

Sedgley is a place which no one can pass by
unnoticed, for it is truly set upon a hill, and claims
to be the highest table land in England. Sedgley
Beacon is supposed by some antiquarians to have
been the site of Druidical sacrifice and worship.
The parish is very large, embracing a space of
7,000 acres, and several distinct and considerable
villages. It has long been distinguished for its
mining and manufacturing industries ; and the two
occupations are frequently so blended in one family
as to embrace all its working members. While
the men and larger boys are employed in the

and its Green Border-Land. 355

mines, the women and younger children are making
nails at home. The population now is estimated
to number about 35,000.

Walsall, about ten miles north of Birmingham,
is one of the most important and populous towns
in Staffordshire. It is a Parliamentary borough
represented by one member in the House of
Commons, and is a place of historical interest as
well as of manufacturing enterprise and material
prosperity. It came into the ownership of the
great king-making Earl of Wanvick, and with his
other estates made him a prince of wealth in the
land. He was a good specimen of the old baronial
hospitality which is such a romantic element and
aspect of the feudal times. There is no wonder at
the size of the great porridge pot at Warwick
Castle, if what is chronicled of him is true. The
historians writing soon after his time affirm that he
served up six oxen daily on his table besides other
provisions. But in his boast offsetting up and
putting down kings, he was put down himself
and out of life at Barnet by King Edward IV, who
took also possession of his great estates, including
Walsall. His countess wandered about the realm
in great distress and frequent want. The town
arms are the Bear and Ragged Staff which have
figured so many centuries in the history of the
Warwicks. Indeed the town is a historical centre,
bearing the record of many interesting events.

356 Walks in the Black Country

Queen Elizabeth is said to have visited it in 1586,
and in 1643 Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I,
stayed here on her way to join the King at
Edgehill. The most impressive feature is the
parish church, which is mounted on a higher
eminence than any other in the county. It sits
upon the head of the town like a crown, and from
a certain distance the houses seem to pave the
steep slopes down from its base, as if they were
appurtenant to the structure and made for it,
instead of it for them. It has been mostly rebuilt
within the last fifty years ; so that it does not
show the venerable, furrowed face of antiquity it
once presented.

Walsall has an excellent Free Grammar School,
where boys may reach the high roads of a good
education more cheaply than at many institutions
designed and founded to impart it without charge,
but which, by certain perquisites and side items,
make it expeniive. The town is rather distin-
guished by its charities, such as alms-houses and
the like. In an old history there is a tradition in
reference to the Moseley Dole which is interesting
enough to be true. It ran to this effect : One
Thomas Moseley, a benevolent citizen, was walking
the streets on Epiphany evening, when he heard a
child cry for bread. The good man was so touched
to the heart at this low, pining voice of want on
such an anniversary that he vowed that no one in

and its Green Border-Land. 357

the town should ever want bread on that evening
for evermore. He was as good as his vow, and
immediately settled his manor and estate at Bescot
upon the corporation to maintain this dole, which
was " one penny and no more on Twelfth Eve to
all persons then residing in the town and borough
of Walsall and in all the villages and hamlets
belonging thereunto." This is the traditionary,
but not the authenticated origin of this charity.

The Town Hall, recently erected, is a building
that would do credit to any large city. It is a
large and elegant structure, of imposing exterior
aspect, and with interior arrangements and em-
bellishments and comforts which must make the
honour and duty of a Mayor, Alderman, or
Councillor more attractive and worthy of ambi-
tion. There are other buildings, especially the
National School, which may serve as models, and
are very creditable to the taste and liberality of
the townspeople.

The great distinctive industry of Walsall is
saddlery and harness ware. This manufacture
has doubtless been the speciality of the town for
several centuries, and it may have furnished the
bits and stirrups and spurs of many of the
knights in the Wars of the Roses. The history
of the county, already mentioned, states that at
the close of the seventeenth century, the iron-
works of the town were chiefly employed in

358 Walks in tlie Black Country

making a great variety of these articles, together
with shoe and garter buckles. It is estimated
that about 3,000 hands are now employed in
their manufacture, and about an equal number
in the making of locks. The population has
increased evenly with the prosperity of the town,
and now numbers nearly 50,000.

Having now noticed most of the considerable
towns in the Black Country proper, and dwelt
at more or less length upon their several industries
and other peculiarities, it may interest many of
the readers of this volume to see a tabulated
resume of one department of the business of the
district. It would be difficult to obtain full and
reliable statistics of its total production both for
home and foreign markets. I believe the U. S.
Consulate at Birmingham keeps the only accurate
or actual record of even a portion of the wares
sent abroad ; but this record may serve as a basis
for estimating the total amount manufactured in
the district. The following tables give the total
money value of exports from the district to the
United States in the years 1865 and 1866, which
were periods of average prosperity. Or rather,
they present a total of all the invoices of such
exportations certified at the U. S. Consulate at
Birmingham. A considerable amount may have
first gone to large sea-port towns as the stock of

and its Green Border- Land. 359

merchants, and have been exported from those
ports without a record at Birmingham. In the
subjoined tables, although the money totals are
correct, those of each of the articles enumerated
are only approximately so ; for many of the
invoices embrace a great variety of articles under
the general head of " Hardware " or " Fancy
Goods," &c; and the labour of analyzing such
invoices, and resolving every article into its proper
place and denomination would be almost infinite
if not impossible. I am unable to say, or even
to form an opinion of approximate correctness,
as to the proportion of the goods manufactured
in the Black Country that goes to the United
States. I am not aware of any other registration
in the kingdom except at our consulate that would
enable one to ascertain the amount of the ex-
portations from the district to other countries or
for home consumption. It is a pity that no other
registration exists. Perhaps the defect may be
supplied when the manufacturers and merchants
shall realize more fully the advantage of such a
record. Without such statistics the material pros-
perity and progress of a nation can only be con-
jectured on the sandy foundation of fancy figures.
The hay, wood, and stubble of these easy guesses
and estimates are a treacherous basis for the
statesman or political economist on which to rear
the structure of an argument or policy.

360 Walks in tlu Black Country

VALUE OF EXPORTS TO THE UNITED STATES
IN 1865, FROM BIRMINGHAM AND VICINITY.

£. *•

d.

Twine, Netting, Fish-hooks and Tackle -

3,592 ii

o

Hardware, Cutlery, Steel and Iron -

247,340 13

8

Pearl and other Buttons ....

34,220 18

0

Precious Stones

645 '5

o

Watches and Watch Materials -

6,499 4

5

Chemicals ......

I5,295 3

2

Cotton Goods, Tape, Fallings, &c. -

1,610 6

5

Ditto Boot Webs and Webbing

6,204 1 8

6

Carpeting and Rugs

14,489 13

8

Silk Goods

24,552 o

81

Glassware and Glass

I3,307 2

ii

Chamois Skins

170 6

2

Music Wire and Violin Strings

2,756 4

3

Metallic Pens and Holders ...

10,829 '7

0

Silverware and Plated Goods - - -

2,962 6

9

Jewellery and Fancy Goods

27,042 9

i

Jet Goods and Japanned Ware •

932 3

8

Papier Mache

441 9

9

Gun Materials and Guns - - - -

14,974 17

2

Saddlery ----...

2,667 5

7

Needles

30,605 17

5

Thimbles, Hooks, and Eyes

1,236 13

2

Spectacles and Optical Goods •

2,183 19

8

Pins and Hair Pins

1,321 7

6

Tin Plates

6,638 10

7

Chandeliers

241 19

0

Ackle and Nickle Goods ....

5,544 10

0

Bead Goods - •

871 2

3

R. R. Fly Signals

380 ii

3

Books, Clothing, &c. ....

ii,5i7 i

A

Red Lead

679 2

o

Sundries

50,369 8

o

Total ....

£542,125 8

II

and its Green Border-Land. 361

VALUE OF EXPORTS TO THE UNITED STATES
IN 1866, FROM BIRMINGHAM AND VICINITY.

£. s. d.

Twine, Netting, Fish-hooks, and Tackle

7,737 13 3*

Hardware, Cutlery, Steel, and Iron

471,559 8 7

Pearl and other Buttons ...

22,100 17 "j\

Precious Stones -

5,637 15 loj

Watches and Watch Materials

10,712 o nj

Chemicals - • - - •

25.936 4 2

Cotton Goods, Tape, Braid, and Frillings

3,493 18 7

Cotton Boot Webs, and Webbing -

4,897 13 8i

Carpeting and Rugs •

58,573 18 8

Silk Goods ......

18,128 10 3

Glassware and Glass ....

25,424 13 i

Chamois Skins - - - .«

91 ii 8

Music Wire and Violin Strings

1,168 6 i

Metallic Pens and Penholders

15,392 i 7t

Silverware and Plated Goods

7,078 15 10

Jewellery and Fancy Goods -

53,325 12 Oi

Jet Goods and Japanned Ware

918 9 9

Chains, Hoes, Scythes, and Hooks

64,600 9 Q\

Guns and Gun Materials •

59,664 2 II

Saddlery ......

330 o 5

Needles

54,722 10 o

Thimbles, Hooks and Eyes, Scissors

290 18 5

Spectacles and Optical Goods

2,759 16 2j

Pins and Hair Pins ....

423 4 o

Tin Plates

44,035 3 ui

Chandeliers

858 9 6

Ackle and Nickle Goods ...

19,928 2 8

Bead Goods and Gimps ...

1,514 2 10

R. R. Fly Signals ....

56 8 o

Books, Clothing, &c. ....

6,451 ii 10

Anvils, Vices, and Nails ...

13,666 10 10

61,835 I0 8J

Total

£1,061,515 17 24

CHAPTER XIV.

VISIT TO A BARONIAL HALL — WILD CATTLE OF CHARTLEY —
LICHFIELD; ITS CATHEDRAL AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS —
COVENTRY; ITS HISTORY AND INDUSTRIES — KENILWORTH AND
ITS ROMANTIC REPUTATION — WARWICK TOWN AND CASTLE —
LEAMINGTON.

HAVING occupied so much space with
walks in the semicircle embracing the
Black Country, and based upon a line
drawn through Birmingham from Bromsgrove to
Walsall, but little room remains for a notice
of those interesting towns and sceneries lying
eastward of equal radius. These would supply
abundant and varied material for an independent
volume, but I must condense within a few pages
what should occupy five hundred.

In the course of last summer I was, for the
first time, one of the invited guests of an English
nobleman, residing in North Staffordshire. And
it being the first time, I felt myself fortunate in
sharing the generous and easy hospitalities of a
host who was as good a specimen of "a fine old
English gentleman " as England could produce.

Walks in tJie Black Country. 363

The large company had dispersed in several ex-
cursions about the grounds and neighbourhood .
when I arrived, and he alone seemed waiting
within doors to receive new guests. He gave me
the kindliest welcome, with his bland face still
beaming with the sunlight of his benevolent heart,
which he had just shed upon a little cold-water
army of children who had come with their teachers
from the Potteries to have a healthy, happy frolic
in his great park. I regretted that I was not in
time to see as well as hear him making a fatherly
talk, in the Roger de Coverley style, to the
gambolling flock of these boys and girls right
from the smoke and smut of their district. I am
sure no man could have made a more genial and
pleasant speech to such children; or have spoken
to their hearts more kindly with his face and eyes
as well as with his voice. I was especially pleased
to see in this incident a feature more admirable
and beautiful than the romance of feudal hospi-
tality which has been made so much of in the
literature of novels. The hundreds of little folks
assembled in this park were not to the manor
born; they were not children of the baron's re-
tainers, or of his tenants. They were all the
children of working men entirely unknown to
him, and living perhaps twenty miles away. He
had not a village or town interest in them, or any
local motive or relationship to gratify or discharge

364 Walks in t/ie Black Country

in his treatment of them. They were merely
"somebody's children" — the children of humble
artisans of a distant town; but he opened his park
to them with as kind a welcome as if he had stood
godfather to every mother's son of them all, in
his own parish church. Now this is a fact and
feature of the times very pleasant to dwell upon.
Here are private parks and gardens kept in the
highest state of beauty and perfection, at immense
expense, by wealthy noblemen, opened as pic nic
and play-grounds for the multitudes that toil in
the mines and redden the heavens of the district
by night with their fiery industries. While the
spaces between these villages grow narrower and
blacker; and while the chimneys thicken, and their
swart dew falls faster on roof, road, and walk, here
are breathing-grounds held in reserve for their
recreation, and kept smokeless, free, and open for
their enjoyment. Surely the nobility and gentry
of these manufacturing districts, by imitating these
generous examples, have it in their power, as many
of them have it in their will, to attach the working
classes to them by stronger ties than ever bound
the peasantry of the feudal times to the lords of
the soil.

Immediately on my arrival the Earl took me
a walk of two or three miles all around the park,
which was of great extent and most pleasantly
variegated in surface and wooded very pictu-

and its Green Border-Land. 365

resquely, but still as if Nature herself had planted
all the trees at her own sweet will. There were
groves with openings, like tubes of her telescope,
directed towards the beautiful landscapes that
stretched far outward and softened into the mist
of blue and gold under the horizon on every side.
As far as the eye could see, the space was rilled
with baronial parks with no visible roads or boun-
dary lines between them. This truly was the
Green Country of Staffordshire ; still it is possible
that it would not have been so green and beautiful,
and peaceful and quiet, were it not for the fire,
smoke, sweat, and thunder of the Black Country
of the county.

The next day the company made themselves
up into different parties, for different rides and
walks about the park and neighbourhood. I had
the pleasure of making one of the company which
the Earl took in his carriage to visit some of the
parks and other interesting localities a few miles
distant, the most unique and interesting of which
was Chartley, the seat of the Ferrers family.
Here I saw the greatest contrast that I ever wit-
nessed in England — Nature in linsey-woolsey
petticoat and Nature in her court -dress. Our
drive was between parks and plantations and
grounds of high cultivation until we came to the
wildest, boggiest, roughest stretch of land you
could think possible to exist in the heart of a

366 Walks in the Black Country

civilized country. One might well fear to wander
deep into it, for it seemed endless and pathless,
and fitted only for the lair of wild beasts. And
then there were wild beasts in it, which had
perpetuated their race from pre-historic times.
They were the genuine wild cattle of the old
British breed, a kind of white buffaloes which,
doubtless, in their day and generation, had
supplied the Druids with raw beef-steaks. They
were in a word just such looking animals as
you would expect to find on such pasturage :
and I am not sure that it would not in the end
turn civilized cows into like barbarism in a few
generations. They are quite untameable, and
spurn the advances of human interest. Their
keepers must keep at a respectful distance from
their long horns ; for they still, with all their
wildness and independence, are glad of a little
human help and attention. But the touch of the
human hand is utter abomination to them. They
prefer death to such a familiarity. We were told
that they often drop their calves far out in the
cold, stormy wilderness. The little things would
frequently perish if not brought to shelter; but
their mothers would abandon them for ever if
the keeper touched them with his hand. So, to
avoid giving them this unpardonable offence, a
couple of men run two fork-handles under the
calf, and, one behind and the other before, carry

and its Green Border-Land. 367

it carefully to the shed. Two bullocks of this
wild breed were being kept up in a yard, to be
slaughtered for a barbecue when the young lord
of the estate came of age. At our request the
keeper, with a club in his hand, turned them out
into the adjoining paddock, so that we could have
a full view of them. They sauntered about
naturally and did not appear any fiercer than
tigers, whose eyes look as mild sometimes as those
of purring cats. But one of them seemed to
sidle up towards the keeper as if to catch him
off his guard, and we all felt inclined to shorten
the interview lest it should end in a disagreeable
incident. Almost on the opposite side of the road
we had visited a farmer's establishment, where we
saw a large family of the same genus of animals in
the highest state of moral and physical culture,
both as to form, dress, disposition, and deportment.
Here were thirty-two cows, graded shorthorns,
drawn up in two parallel lines facing each other
in a large milking shed. Here they stood, with
their large, honest eyes so full of peace and con-
tentment that it was good to look at them. The
white streams were pattering against the inner
sides of the pails all up and down the lines, and
the good, kind-spirited creatures seemed happy
in making such music for their master's ears.
The contrast was very striking. Here were wild
Indian squaws on one side, and gentle, graceful

368 Walks in the Black Country

queenly ladies on the other, all of the same general
race, but so widely sundered by cultivation.

Returning from this excursion, we stopped at a
little village church, which, with its surroundings,
was the very beau-ideal that you are looking for
in a country drive or walk. Here was a winding
street of one-story houses thatched with straw,
each with a long, narrow yard in front, full of the
simple flowers of the poor, cheaply grown, hardy
and ruddy-cheeked, like the poor man's children
in healthy air. Opposite the church was the village
inn, one-story, thatched, neat, comfortable and
quiet ; looking, for all the world, as if it sold more
milk than beer. The carriage with the guests was
standing with the liveried driver and footman on
the opposite side of the road by the church, while
the Earl went to the inn for a glass of milk for the
ladies. It was a pleasant sight to see his tall,
venerable form emerging from the low door which
he had to stoop on entering. The setting sun was
flooding the hamlet with its blandest illumination,
which, tinted by the sunflowers and hollyhocks of
the nearest cottage yards, blended with the benev-
olent radiance of his countenance, and made him a
living picture which Correggio would have de-
lighted to copy. In this little quiet church, which
one might almost take for the crickets' cathedral,
are the monuments of men who have won great
names in English history. Here lies entombed the

and its Green Border-Land. 369

father of that Earl of Essex whom Elizabeth
delighted to honour until she found a more
attractive favourite.

I spent a couple of days at this nobleman's seat,
and met several men of high distinction. One of
these was a young peer whose speeches in the
House of Lords I had read with great interest and
admiration for their eloquence and vigour, thinking
they were the topmore rounds of the ladder by
which he was ascending to one of the highest
places in the government of the nation. Among
the ladies was one whose name is known and
honoured to the furthest colony and corner of the
British empire as the queen of benevolence, whose
means are only exceeded by her disposition to do
good.

Lichfield is the clasp-jewel of the gold-and-green
embroidered zone of the Black Country. Its
cathedral is an edifice of which a whole nation
might be proud, if possessing no other monument
of beautiful architecture. The century-plant, that
puts forth its white blossom only at the end of a
hundred years, has its special reputation and place
in the floral kingdom. This Staffordshire cathedral
is a millenium plant, which has unfolded the ex-
quisite petals and leaves of its great and beautiful
blossom of architecture at the end of ten centuries
of steady growing. Tradition claims it to have
been planted by King Oswy, twelve hundred years

BB

370 Walks in the Black Country

ago, on soil watered by the blood of Christian
martyrs under Diocletian. The city takes its name
from this tradition, which signifies, Aceldama, or
Field of Corses. It would have been a good and
thoughtful act on the part of past generations
if they had preserved for us at least one com-
pletely Saxon cathedral of the earliest structure
in England; for instance, one like that built here
by King Oswy in the middle of the seventh
century. Doubtless it was as large as a modern
one-story chapel, with wattle walls and thatched
roof. That was the germ of this magnificent
fabric. It grew slowly in the ice-storms and wild
tempests of those Saxon centuries. The village
planted around it was very small and grew slowly
and feebly. Even as late as towards the close of
the eleventh century, the little church was so small
and mean in structure and accommodation that the
bishop transferred the see to Chester, and his
successor carried it to Coventry. But Bishop
Clinton, about fifty years later, brought it back to
Lichfield, and began, on the site of the old Saxon
building, the present edifice. He seems to have
been the first architectural Solomon that put hand
to the work with some of Solomon's eye to beauty
and grandeur. For ten times the length of time
occupied in erecting the famous Jewish Temple
has this of Christian worship been in building.
And, on studying all the features of its exterior

and its Green Border-Land. 371

and interior symmetries, one might well feel that
four hundred years were not too long a period for
producing the fabric to its present perfection. If
such a building could be erected in a century, to
the finest and last line of the sculptor's chisel, even
an amateur of architecture might walk up and
down under its lofty arches and roofage with
but a forced sentiment of veneration. But the
rime of age and history* which six hundred
years have breathed upon its gray forests of
columns, pillars, and carved work, produces upon
a thoughtful mind an impression which no artistic
architecture, however grand, can create without
such associations.

Lichfield looks like a little city of steeples on
approaching it in any direction. The tall spire of
one of the churches, nearly half a mile from the
cathedral, seems to arise from one of the towers
of the great edifice, making four of graceful
proportions that stand up in the heavens like the
spangled minarets of a county's crown. Indeed,
not until you are within the city itself do you
find this fourth spire detached and standing on
its own church tower. Near the cathedral on the
city side there is a long, wide pool of water, almost
a little lake, which serves as a mirror in which you
see the three spires and the upper part of the
grand edifice photographed as large and true as
life. But, unhappily for the picture and the fancy,

372 Walks in the Black Country

there is a row of plain brick houses between you
and the cathedral, and these too are looking at
their homely faces in the water; and as their red
walls reach up half-way to the eaves of the
magnificent structure, the latter looks like a queen
standing in full court robes at a mirror with a
dumpy country milkmaid in a red woollen petti-
coat just before, blending her peasant form and
dress in the same refection.

This cathedral perhaps suffered more than any
other in England during the Civil War; and
mostly for the reason that it was more strongly
fortified. One of its Bishops, Langton, had sur-
rounded it with a strong wall and a foss, giving it
the attitude of an embattled castle as well as a
Christian church — a strength which proved its
weakness and half destruction. Being found in
the armour of carnal warriors, they put it on for
the battle, and church and all suffered sadly as the
result. The cathedral was garrisoned like a castle
for King Charles I, and was taken and retaken,
battered and rebattered by the contending forces.
It shows one of the horrible features of a civil war
that both Royalists and Parliamentarians could
have the heart to point their cannon at such an
edifice. In the course of one bombardment, the
great central spire, the apex of the splendid
triangle, was shorn off close to the roof. The
Puritans come in for severe condemnation for their

and its Green Border- Land. 373

conduct toward all that was then held so sacred,
and all the defacing of sculpture, the mutilating
of marble noses, and the destruction of carved
images are generally laid to their charge. They
doubtless did have a religious repugnance to all
graven images, even of good men and women, and
regarded them as under the ban of the second
commandment of* the Decalogue. It is quite
possible that they have been made to bear many
of the sins of the Cavaliers and Royalists in this
respect. Between the two Lichfield Cathedral was
left a splendid ruin. It had verified in its experi-
ence the truth of the declaration, " They that take
the sword shall perish by the sword." Its wall and
foss, instead of protection, brought great desolation
upon it. But these were speedily repaired, after
the Restoration, under Bishop Racket ; who not
only gave munificently from his private means, but
induced the nobility, gentry, and clergy of the
diocese to follow his example.

During the Civil War the stained glass in the
windows of the cathedral was totally destroyed,
either out of wantonness or for the lead mouldings
in which it was encased. This was a sad calamity
to the eyes and hearts of all devout mediaevalists.
What was to be done ? to sew new bits of cassimere
into the rents of the venerable robe ? to put young,
bran new eyes into the eye-sockets five centuries
old, to stare in the face of such solemn and august

374 Walks in tlie Black Country

antiquities ? The idea was repugnant, almost pro-
fane, to all true lovers of the Gothic order of
religious worship. Happily they were not obliged
to submit to this repulsive alternative. It was an
ill wind of violence that had battered and broken
the windows of Lichfield Cathedral ; but a wind
equally violent and destructive had blown upon
convents and other religious houses on the Continent.
There was a great amount and variety of stained
glass to be found in the wreck of abbeys, of the
best antiquity and imagery. Sir Brooke Boothby,
travelling in Germany, visited the dissolved Abbey
of Herckenrode, founded in 1182, and ornamented
with the choicest specimens of the glass-staining
art which the great masters of the sixteenth century
could produce. He succeeded in buying up a good
portion of this glass, consisting of 340 pieces, each
about twenty-two inches square, besides a large
quantity of tracing and fragments, at the low
figure of £200, and transferred the purchase to the
Dean and Chapter of the cathedral. It was a good
bargain for them ; as the amount purchased, esti-
mated at the standard at which continental
convent glass was afterwards sold in England, was
worth .£ 1 0,000. The whole expense of this beautiful
glass bought by Sir Brooke Boothby, including
transportation, arranging and fitting into the
windows, was only ;£i,ooo. It was sufficient to
fill seven of the large windows in the Lady

and its Green Border-Land. 375

Choir, or Chancel, the other two being supplied
by modern productions. Thus the stained windows
of the old Herckenrode Abbey, that for centuries
looked down upon continental monks at their
worship and vibrated to their Latin chaunts, now
flood all the aisles, arches, and delicate traceries
of this English cathedral with the haloed smile of
their eyes.

Having visited all the cathedrals of Great Britain,
and studied them with all the interest of American
admiration for such structures, I am inclined to
believe that this exceeds all others in the quality of
beauty, both in its exterior and interior structure
and embellishment. After Hawthorne's exquisite
description of it in " Our Old Home," it would be
presumption in me to attempt another. But, as
this volume may be read by some who have not
seen his, I will dwell a little longer upon two or
three features of the edifice. It illustrates, more
fully than any other that I know, the power and
almost immeasurable capacity of the voluntary
principle in England. Let any intelligent person
see what that principle has produced here, and
then compare the result with the production of the
same principle in the Cologne Cathedral, and he
will be deeply impressed by the contrast. He will
see what a' community educated in benevolence
can accomplish by their voluntary contributions.
Here they have produced and beautified a magnifi-

376 Walks in tfie Black Country

cent fabric, and filled it with treasures of exquisite
art. The cathedral at Cologne belongs not only
to Prussia but the whole of Germany. The very
founder and first Emperor, Charlemagne, was en-
tombed in it No other building is the centre and
attraction of so many German associations. For
nearly a thousand years it has been rising under
the thin, trickling streams of German contributions.
But the builders, with these small means, have
hardly been able to outstrip the slow feet of time
and to fill its deforming footsteps. While working
at one end of the cathedral the other is falling to
ruin. Time seems to be chasing them from one
end to the other, defacing their work as they creep
on with the slow centuries. But look at Lichfield
Cathedral. Two hundred years ago it was almost
a ruin — its windows and roofage broken, its central
spire battered down, and its carved work defaced
and mangled. A sentiment stronger than even
patriotism, an association more enduring than ever
attached to a great emperor, has rebuilt the
desolated edifice, and beautified it with trophies and
treasures of art which Solomon's sculptors and
workers in iron, brass, and wood could not produce
for his Temple. The people of the district have
been made willing in the power of this sentiment.
The wealth of their contributions, if they could be
reduced to the low standard of a money value,
would show how they prize this great heirloom of

and its Green Border-Land. 377

past generations. In renovating and embellishing,
the blending of the ages has been accomplished
very happily. One has been softened into the
other delicately, making almost a seamless whole
of beauty. Even the latest additions of iron lace-
work harmonize with carvings in wood and stone
centuries old. Two of these are really master-
pieces of artistic design and mechanical skill. The
screen which divides the choir from the nave was
wrought by Mr. Skidmore, of Coventry. It re-
sembles a thin hedge of tressed blackberry tendrils,
leafed to the life, interspersed with seed-vessels of
the wild rose and currant, and strawberry blossoms,
so natural and graceful that one might fancy that
they could almost breathe forth the odour of green
life upon the music of the choir. The arched gate-
way of this hedge of metal shrubbery is an exqui-
site work of art.' Sixteen shining angels, back
to back, stand among the topmost boughs and
blossoms of this floral wall, eight facing the singers
in the choir and eight the congregation in the
nave. They form an angelic band of singers,
surpliced in gold, keeping time with harp and
voice apparently with the human choristers in
white robes below and the voices of all the
worshippers of the great assembly. This idea is
wrought out to all the perfection that art could
give it.

The pulpit has no equal in England of the same

378 Walks in tJie Black Country

species of work. It is a gem well set. It is
entirely of metal, but is so perfectly constructed
and placed that you notice no sharp contrast
between it and the carver's work in stone and
wood around and above. It looks like a great
blossom of all the shining metals, lifting up its
self-wreathed cup on four twisted stems of polished
brass. "This goblet wrought with curious art"
from base to brim, is as richly embossed and
ornamented as any drinking cup in the old
King of Hanover's collection. Interspersed with
rosettes of brilliant metal are set large coloured
stones and enamels. And the whole of this
artistic structure presents a softened aspect, so
that, at a little distance, no sense of iron, or hard
incongruity of substance, affects your impression
in taking the great whole of nave, transept, choir,
column, and carved work into one view.

But the master-piece of all these modern
embellishments is the reredos, or altar-back. I
am inclined to think this is Gilbert Scott's chef
d'ceuvre, which he will never surpass, even with
this work as a base of suggestion. In the first
place, the body of the reredos is of the purest
alabaster, taken from the Tutbury quarry in the
same county. Into this delicate ground are
wrought all kinds of precious stones, such as
the lapis lazuli, cornelian, and malachite. The
whole surface is most elaborately inlaid with

and its Green Border-Land. 379

variously coloured marbles ; one of which called
the "Duke's Red," contributed by the Duke of
Devonshire from his estate, is pre-eminently bril-
liant. The back side of the reredos presents
a more softened aspect, but one full of exquisite
features. It is a great diaper, or crinkled veil of
creamy or unpolished alabaster, carved and inlaid
with no less than 2,000 small pieces of marble.
The central portion of this beautiful structure,
exclusive of the wings, cost about .£1,000, which
was raised by subscription among ladies specially
interested in the cathedral. If the entire edifice
were a six-century plant, possessing within itself
the faculty of germination, it could not have put
forth a more natural and beautiful effloresence
than this alabaster flower so petaled and polished.

The carved woodwork of the throne, stalls, and
sub-stalls, harmonizes well with all the other
modern ornamentations, and presents specimens
of the art which excite admiration. The pave-
ments are equally artistic and full of symbolic
history of the cathedral, and scripture pieces
happily executed. The choir was paved originally
with a singular material, or with a mosaic of
cannel coal and alabaster.

The statuary and monuments here have long
been noted for their surpassing excellence. I
believe that Chantrey's " Sleeping Children " are
regarded as his master-piece of sculpture. Thou-

380 Walks in the Black Country

sands have visited the cathedral chiefly to see this
work of art, and many prose and poetical descrip-
tions have been given of it. It still holds its repu-
tation, though so many new masters have surpassed
the old in conception and execution. They repre-
sent two infant daughters of Rev. Wm. Robinson,
one of the prebendaries. Sleeping life could not
be made more natural. They lie in each other's
arms on a low mattress of marble, just like one
which a mother might lay by the fireplace for
a pair of twin toddlings tired with a Christmas
frolic. The very pallet in which their young
cheeks are half buried looks as if you might blow
up wrinkles in it with your breath. I should
not wonder if, now and then, a tender mother
approaching them, has softened her step uncon-
sciously as if loth to wake them up out of such
sweet repose, for they look tired, not dead. Who-
ever appreciates fully the genius of the sculptor
to breathe speaking life into cold marble, and give
it the visible pulse of thought and feeling, should
see and study this work of Chantrey, if he has
not done so already. Bishop Ryder stands like
a living man with lips just still, after a sermon on
" God is Love." The statue is Chantrey's very
last, and he had in the large-hearted and munifi-
cently-benevolent bishop an excellent subject for
his chisel. He was only 59 years old when he
died; yet he had filled the episcopal chair more

and its Green Border-Land. 381

than twenty years. Among the monuments to
persons who made for themselves more than a
local reputation, is Lady Mary Wortley Montague's,
bearing for an inscription a testimony to the value
of her introduction of the art of inoculating the
small-pox from Turkey. " Convinced of its efficacy
she first tried it with success on her own children
and then recommended the practice of it to her
fellow-citizens. Thus, by her example and advice,
we have softened the virulence and escaped the
danger of this malignant disease." Garrick has a
monument here, erected by his wife, including in
the inscription the sentiment of Johnson: "His
death eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impover-
ished the public stock of harmless pleasures." The
monumental statuary of nobility, gentry, clergy,
and notabilities is generally of a high order of
sculpture, and of great variety of design. Some
of the Latin inscriptions are worth translating
entire both for the history they contain and for
unique, piquant expression. Eliza Rhodes; eldest
daughter of John Hutchinson, one of the digni-
taries of the cathedral, after stating that her father
died at the age of 94 in 1704, asks, "Do you
wish to know more, what good he did ? Let this
church say, let this chapter-house and all the choir
say ; go thou and find the like." Bishop Racket,
who restored the cathedral after the Civil War,
lies in life-size effigy upon a lofty table monument,

382 Walks in the Black Country

bearing a long inscription in which his good works
are put forth very expressively. It then says :
" Let us stop, therefore ; it repays delay to know
who lies here by Langton's side. Hacket alone
is worthy to trouble Langton's ashes, by whose
pious liberality they were kept from freezing.
There lies the founder, here the restorer of Lichfield
Cathedral."

It is left us only to conjecture why the founders
of English cathedrals and abbeys built them on
such low grounds. One would naturally think that
they would have chosen commanding eminences
for the erection of these magnificent temples of
worship; that they would have accepted some
of the everlasting hills as foundations furnished
by nature for structures which should rival them
in strength and duration. These noble monu-
ments of all the Christian ages of England would
have made splendid crowns of glory on such a
setting. But all but two or three are built on the
level of meadow brooks. Lincoln and Durham stand
on grand pedestals of nature, worthy the super-
structure. But Salisbury, Peterborough, Winchester,
Lichfield and others arise from humble levels. The
nave of grand old Salisbury is sometimes flooded
at the rising of the little river near it. If the
monks and other ecclesiastics lived more on fish
than their successors of the present day, surely
they would not have erected their great religious

and its Green Border-Land. 383

edifices on the low banks of the streams merely to
save them ten minutes' walk with their hooks and
nets. Nor could it be said that there was any
necessity for hiding their abbeys and cathedrals
for fear of any violence from the populations of
the districts; for not only the whole civil power
of the realm was in their hands, but they were
regarded as half-divine beings by the peasantry
and higher ranks.

But structures of wider reputation than the
cathedral have been founded and erected in
Lichfield. It has given physical or intellectual
birth to men of a stature of mind that has over-
looked the tallest of the three cathedral spires,
and cast a luminous shadow over two hemispheres.
Can any other town so small in England boast,
like this flat-footed little city, of giving birth,
first shaping, or residence to four such men as
Johnson, Addison, Garrick, and Ashmole? Samuel
Johnson ! — a nation that could build fifty cathe-
drals in ten years would need a century for build-
ing such another man as he was to the world of
mind and thought. Here, as you stand by his
monument in the market-place, with several of
the most touching incidents of his life carved in
the stone, you feel yourself standing in the disk
of a living and immortal reputation — more than
a reputation ; more than the illuminated shadow
of a great memory. It is a sensible and com-

384 Walks in ttie Black Country

manding presence ; it is a great individuality that
absorbs and covers the whole city. What a life
was that, from the first baby battles of the little
cripple with the rough goblins of misfortune that
barred his pathway, to his glorious bringing up
into that haven of triumph to which, after the
tempests and storms of the wild sea of troubles
he had braved, Lord Chesterfield sent out his
cock-boat of insolent patronage to escort him ?
Who can estimate the worth to struggling genius
of the sturdy wrestles of this bookseller's son
with grim and glowering adversities ? He left
something more than " footprints on the sands of
time." He left footholdings and footposts for
the men wrestling with the surges of misfortune,
and many a half-drowned struggler has reached
the sunny shore of fame and fortune by taking
hold of the skirts of his great example. Some
one would do a good service to all coming
generations by simply giving to them the con-
secutive chain of his experiences, just as they
were linked to his life, and by doing it in a
series of pictures or illustrations graven in stone,
after the manner of his monument in the Lichfield
market-place. There was his childhood's wrestle
for learning, borne to school on the back of
some generous and stronger school-mate. That
is a picture in the stone touching to see. Then
his Oxford struggle would make another. When,

and its Green Border- Land. 385

like Bunyan's pilgrim, he had waded through
sloughs of difficulty and despond, and had got
almost within hand's reach of the wicket gate of
the great goal of his hopes, Poverty, like a Giant
Despair, clutched him and hurled him back from
the temple of learning into the bitter vicissitudes
of indigence. In his patient and baffled attempts
to climb again, we find him in busy, noisy
Birmingham, translating, in the din and dim of its
mechanical industries, Lobo's account of Abyssinia.
He lived for a time with a printer here, and gave
to the public probably the first literary produc-
tion that ever went to the press from the metro-
polis of the Black Country. How little know
the masses of the great town that it ever had
such a man wrestling his way in it to a fame
wider than a hemisphere! Still, it must have
been well known and appreciated in his day,
for I have recently seen a halfpenny token
bearing the image of the great writer and his
name, struck in 1783, the year before his death.
Here too lived a man who ought to have left a
more definite history ; for he was one whom
Johnson held to the last in boyhood's affection,
and often honoured with his company. His name
was Edmund Hector, and the house in which
he lived and received frequently the great man
as his guest, is standing still in the Old Square.
It is now a portion of the " Stork " hotel and

CC

386 Walks in tJu Black Country

bears the following inscription carved in a tablet
over the door:

"HERE IN THIS HOUSE
SAMUEL JOHNSON

WAS THE GUEST,

EDMUND HECTOR

WAS THE HOST.
OF THIS HOST THIS GUEST HAS WRITTEN:

'HECTOR is LIKEWISE AN OLD FRIEND, THE ONLY

COMPANION OF MY CHILDHOOD THAT PASSED
THROUGH THE SCHOOL WITH ME ; WE HAVE

ALWAYS LOVED ONE ANOTHER.'

THIS STONE, BY LEAVE OF THE OWNER OF THE HOUSE,

WILLIAM SCHOLEFIELD, ESQ., M.P., WAS PUT UP BY THE

MEMBERS OF 'OUR SHAKESPERE CLUB' OF

BIRMINGHAM. A.D. 1865."

He married Mrs. Porter in Birmingham, whose
fortune of £800 enabled him to set up a school
near Lichfield. That experience would make
another good subject for painter or sculptor.
The picture of himself and his three scholars,
including little Davy Garrick, would show well
with all the other painted passages of his life.
How many stately tomes would we not give in
exchange for the conversations between him and
his illustrious pupil which decided them to go up
together and try their fortunes in London ? In-
deed there is hardly a life ever lived in England
that would present more passages of varied interest
and instruction than that of Samuel Johnson.
And Lichfield, to its credit, holds the dignity of
his birth as the first of its crown jewels. Many

and its Green Border-Land. 387

relics of his residence are preserved and treasured
with a lively sense of their value ; and if you will
do it reverently, you may sit for a thoughtful
moment in his arm-chair and handle his cane.

Although Addison was not born in Lichfield, he
must have received a good deal of shaping culture
of his mind there. His father, a learned, accom-
plished, sharp-witted man, had already attained
to high distinction before he was appointed dean
of Lichfield Cathedral, which was in 1683, when
he was about fifty years of age. As his illustrious
son Joseph entered college at Oxford in 1687, he
must have resided with his father in Lichfield
several years before and many after his collegiate
course. . At least, the little city claims him as
one of her sons, perhaps mostly on the ground
that his father's grave is with them unto this day.
In the long Latin inscription of his father's monu-
ment in the cathedral, his own name and memory
are blended in the closing sentence with a filial
tribute to what he owed to his parent's qualities
and example. It reads thus :

"AN HONOUR OF HIS AGE,

FROM HIM HIS ELDEST SON JOSEPH

RECEIVED HIS EXTRAORDINARY NATURAL GIFTS,

HIS PURE HABITS, HIS GOODWILL TO MEN, PIETY TO GOD,

AND EVERY OTHER BRILLIANT PATRIMONY;

WHO, WHILE HE WOULD HAVE ERECTED THIS MONUMENT

TO HIMSELF IN COMPANIONSHIP OF HIS EXCELLENT PARENT,

WAS CALLED AWAY BY SUDDEN DEATH, A.D. 1719."

388 Walks in the Black Country

Thus Addison died comparatively young, or at
the age of forty-seven, when Johnson was only ten
years old. He was born to fortune and fame,
and the road to both was strewn with flowers.
Had he passed through some of Johnson's expe-
rience, his mind perhaps would have gained in
vigour if it lost somewhat in polish. Ashmole
preceded Addison, and if he did not acquire a
literary reputation that has endured to the present
time, he founded a Museum at Oxford that bears
his name, and contains the collection of curiosities
he made in his life-time. Many other names of
mark are associated with Lichfield, and the little
city has contributed a contingent to the great
English army of preachers, teachers, and. writers
of which it may well be proud.

Coventry is a town which no American can pass
by without special notice, whether he travel on the
turnpike road of English history, or on the clatter-
ing metal of the modern railway. On both routes
it stands a conspicuous object, claiming respect
and study. On the whole, there is no provincial
city or town in England that is so vividly individu-
alized by historical incidents and associations. Its
very name emanates from these. It was a city of
convents, probably of three at least, existing at
different times ; from which circumstance it may
have been first called Conventria. Then the most
popular, attractive legend attaching to any town in

and its Green Border-Land. 389

the kingdom decorates and diadems this like a
crown-jewel of the first water of romantic interest.
Lady Godiva is the patron saint of the city — a
Saxon saint, draped in pendent tresses of golden
hair. And the people of Coventry believe in her,
and have believed in her, with a beautiful, unreason-
ing, natural, romantic faith that has come down,
like the substance of a happy vision, through half a
dozen centuries. And if you take the census of
her believers and admirers in both hemispheres,
you will find that nine-tenths of the English-
speaking race cherish and enjoy the sentiment of
her actual existence. Poets have sung of her —
bards before Shakespeare was born — and the Poet
Laureate of the present day, and, of the two
heroines of his verse, Lady Godiva is a more
tangible being than Guinevere, and will always
have ten times the popular homage bestowed
upon that splendid fiction in the " Mort d' Arthur."
Through these many centuries gone her memory
has lived, moved, and had a being more distinctive
than all the English queens who have died from
this to the Conquest. She has had her triumphal
processions in queenly state through Coventry on
the anniversary of that celebrated ride, when she
"unclasped the wedded eagles of her belt," and
paced her palfrey from wall to wall, " and built
herself an everlasting name." Few living queens,
on either side of Elizabeth's time, have been

39O Walks in the Black Country

honoured with more stately pageants than the
memory of this Saxon lady, "the woman of a
thousand summers back." The most splendid of
them all was probably the last, which took place in
June, 1866. Indeed, no city ever impressed the
existence of one human being upon its own more
vividly than Coventry has done that of Lady
Godiva.

With such a koh-i-noor of legend to wear in
its crown, Coventry might well dispense with all
other historical regalia. But this is only the
beginning of her wealth of fame. Shakespeare has
wreathed for her another reputation of almost
equal lustre, in the character of Falstaff. What
reading man has ever walked her streets, or heard
of them, without thinking of that doughty coward's
horror at " marching through Coventry with such a
jail delivery " as his awkward squad presented ?
These fictions of romance or of genius give the
town a reputation and a place in the world's mind
for which all the incontestable and proven facts of
its history hardly serve as a setting. Still real,
written history is full of these facts, which would
stand out with considerable distinctiveness if they
were not eclipsed by these more brilliant legends
and fictions. Two Parliaments have been held
here ; the last by Henry VI, in 1458, called
" Parliamentum Diabolicum," in which Richard
Duke of York, and the Earls of Warwick, March,

and its Green Border-Land. 391

and Salisbury were attainted. Before this, an
earlier Henry, then Duke of Hereford, and the
Duke of Norfolk met here " in angry parlance," to
decide a quarrel by the old wager of battle. Mary
Queen of Scots passed some of her prison months
here in 1566. Coventry sided with Parliament in
the conflict with Charles I, and would have done it
even if the people of the town had already com-
menced making ribbons for the Court. They were
chastised, like Birmingham, for this preference and
participation by Charles II, who destroyed the
walls of the city, which had stood since the time
of Edward II. The pageants and mystery plays
exhibited here have from time to time attracted
sight-seers from a distance, and frequently royal
spectators. The Godiva procession was instituted
in 1677, and has always rivalled the London Lord
Mayor's Show as an elaborate and gorgeous
fantasy, and even exceeded that unique exhibition
in having a female divinity as aerial looking as
possible, instead of the solid corporeity of a
London alderman new-blown into the blushing
honours of civic dignity.

The manufactures which most distinguish
Coventry are ribbon weaving, and watch and clock
making. It is perhaps more especially known for
the first, than for any other business. Still, the
manufacture of ribbons is comparatively of recent
introduction, dating back only to 1730. This trade

39 2 Walks in the Black Country

was well protected with the wet blanket of duties
on foreign competition until 1861, when these were
removed, and the ribbon makers of Coventry
were brought face to face and foot to foot, on the
same level, with French and other continental
rivals, whose genius and ability for cheap and
artistic production had been developed to superior
capacity by the very pressure of necessity put
upon them by the protective policy of other
countries. When plants grown under glass are
deprived of their artificial air and roofage and
turned "out in the cold," they get at first a chill,
and, for awhile, are unable to compete with plants
of the same genus that have been acclimated to
the open sky, dew and rain of nature. It was
natural and inevitable that the ribbon trade of
Coventry, when thus unroofed and turned out
of the conservatory of protection, should experi-
ence a chill and check in its growth for awhile,
though in the end it may become more hardy and
prosperous than ever from this very exposure to
the out-door climate of the world's competition
and commerce. Some one has said that commerce
has no conscience; and that fashion has no patri-
otism is a truth still more evident and universal.
No trade could be subjected to more sudden and
sweeping vicissitudes of taste than that of ribbons.
A new pattern or style worn by one of the ton,
or some new whim of fancy, might throw out of

and its Green Border-Land. 393

sale a large stock already manufactured for the
market. As the French led the way in exquisite
designs and brought highly trained art and taste
to their elaboration, their patterns ruled as well as
created the fashions; and English ladies would
give them the preference at any price to which
heavy duties might raise them. The English manu-
facturers, who seemed to progress in improved
production just in proportion to the pressure of
this foreign competition, with the short-sightedness
which protection engenders, petitioned Parliament
in 1832 not only for customs' regulations which
smugglers could not elude, but insisted upon abso-
lute prohibition of French goods, or the kind of
goods they made themselves; not French brandy,
wines, and that sort of thing which, of course, they
would like to get as cheap as possible. They main-
tained before the committee of the House that
nothing short of this policy "could produce any
effect on the obstinate preference of English ladies
for French ribbons, or save the producers of English
goods from immediate ruin." It was a comple-
mental or constituent opinion to this determined
conclusion, "that steam could never be profitably
applied to the manufacture of ribbons." But the
hard-hearted Parliament would neither bar the
ports against French goods nor impose heavier
duties upon them. So, just for lack of the "pro-
tection" demanded, the manufacturers had to go

394 Walks in tJie Black Country

and apply steam to the production of ribbons,
introduce new improvements, and otherwise strain
their wits and activities in order to compete suc-
cessfully with the French. If Parliament had
only been patriotic enough to pass the act of
prohibition, they would have been saved from
all this bothering exercise of intellect, and have
gone on comfortably in the old way. Schools of
Design in the large manufacturing towns, though
so recently established, have already told with
decisive effect upon all articles of taste, luxury,
and ornamentation, bringing up the English pro-
duction to a higher standard of conception and
value. The free trade and free play of genius
and skill have kept pace with the other great
freedoms of commerce and civilization, and con-
stitute a common stock from which all communities
may draw at will.

The next in the rank of the industries of
Coventry is watch-making. The proportion be-
tween them may be put in figures. In ordinary
times ribbons give employment to about 10,000
hands, watches, to 2,000 ; but of this number
there are not included 100 females ; whilst in
the ribbon trade the women outnumber the men
by two to one. Coventry once unfortunately
had virtually but one string to its bow, and
suffered often and deeply in consequence. But
not only has the watch trade been added or

and its Green Border-Land. 395

expanded to a large business, but several other
manufactures have been recently introduced, such
as cotton frilling, bead-goods, and various kinds
of trimming. We have already noticed some
specimens of ornamental iron-work in Lichfield
Cathedral produced here. Thus Coventry is in a
fair way to provide itself with all those diversified
strings of industry which are so necessary to the
steady well-being and progress of a manufacturing
town.

But Coventry seen from the railway presents as
conspicuous individuality in its physical aspect,
as it does from the high road of history as
a municipal community. When I first caught a
glimpse of it, at a few miles distance, a sudden
simile came to my thoughts which did it great
injustice, and gave my mind some compunction for
admitting it for a moment. Lo, suggested the
fancy, a fallen town still trying to cling to heaven
with its three fingers ! Would it not be fairer to
say, responded a better thought, a Christian town
trying to climb to heaven by its three fingers ?
Indeed, no city in England that the eye can cover,
as sharpshooters say, at a glance, shows to the
traveller three such church spires as tower up over
Coventry. And these spires play off remarkable
evolutions before his eyes as he approaches or
leaves the town on the railway. At a certain
distance one advances to the front and forms the

396 Walks in the Black Country

apex sentinel of an equilateral triangle. When it
has reconnoitred your position for a few minutes,
it falls back into the centre of the line of spires, all
drawn up in the order of review. Then they
change fronts, wheel, advance, and retreat as you
change your point of view ; so that you have a
stately steeple-chase enacted before you, and you
feel constrained to stop and study the principles of
these tactics, and the parties that perform them.
And it will pay well any intelligent traveller to
stop and go up into the town, and study the
relationships and individual characters of these
three remarkable spires and the churches which
lift them up into the sky. Nowhere else in
England can you find two such churches, standing
locked in arms, as The Holy Trinity and St.
Michael's, of Coventry. They seem to be twins
in age, and to have grown up to their grand
stature by the side of their infancy's cradle. They
stand in the same churchyard, wrinkled and
furrowed with their long centuries. No one has
undertaken to prove or say which is the oldest.
A soft mist of antiquity surrounds them, and
legends of the first Henrys and Edwards and of
Norman nobles hover around them like tattling
rooks. Trinity stands a little higher on its founda-
tion, but St. Michael's, with its feet planted lower,
lifts up a higher spire, and the two are as graceful
fingers as ever twin churches raised toward heaven.

and its Green Border-Land. 397

St. Michael's looks the oldest, for the court-plaster
and rouge of modern renovation have not smoothed
the deep wrinkles and crow-feet tracks of age in its
face. The view and study of these two remark-
able structures will well repay a visit to Coventry
if there were no other specimens of ancient archi-
tecture and history to be seen there. But there
are other buildings and associations of peculiar
interest that enrich the town.

St. Mary's Hall is one of the most unique and
impressive buildings in England. Indeed, I do
not remember one which presents such an external
aspect of age. This shows you all its years at
a glance. Other buildings equally old in various
towns have been faced and refaced, so that the
outside walls are comparatively smooth and trim,
having had all their wrinkles ironed out of them
by the hand of renovation. All amateurs of anti-
quity owe Coventry for much enjoyment in its
thus preserving such venerable buildings unaltered,
with all their centuries eaten into their faces.
This St. Mary's Hall is a jewel of this order; as
much so as the finger-ring of a Roman knight dug
up in the battle field of Cannae. Inside and out it
is covered with the hoary rime of the history of
trade guilds, city councils, royal visitations, Lady
Godiva's pageantry, knightly romance, and other
heroics and fantasies of bygone times. On enter-
ing the massive archway through those time-proof

398 Walks in the Black Country

doors of solid English oak, you might well fancy
yourself on the threshold of some old guildhall in
Nuremburg or Venice. The cellarage and cooking
departments show what manner of proceedings
took the head and lead of all the questions dis-
cussed in the great hall above. Few abbey kitchens
even could have exceeded the capacity of roasting
beef or doing turtle soup, which this establishment
possessed. In the grand old hall you stand face
to face with over four hundred years of the town's
life and history. On the dais or platform kings
and queens and nobles of the realm have been
crowned with all the dignities which pompous
guilds could bestow. Here loyalty, clad in crimson,
has knelt, and uttered with a tremulous voice its
magniloquent platitudes to sovereigns who looked
as gracious as if they believed it all, and dubbed
the blushing kneeler a knight for his pains. The
hall is seventy feet long, thirty feet broad, and
thirty-four feet high ; making excellent proportions
for the best aspects and uses of such an apartment.
The great north window over the platform or
throne gallery, is the centre-piece and first object
of attraction that meets the eye on entering. It is
the only one that retains its original stained glass,
which impresses upon you a more vivid sense of
antiquity than even the time-eaten face of the
outside wall. The side windows, however, had
become so blind and battered by the storms of

and its Green Border-Land. 399

centuries, and by ruder violence, that new glass
eyes had to be put into their sockets. These were
made to look as nearly like the old as the connois-
seurs of Birmingham could produce them. All the
old figures and emblems were reproduced with
almost photographic exactness, and it was thought
and hoped that the modern colours would rival the
ancient in fixity as well as brilliancy of tinting.
But only forty years of exposure have disclosed
the difference between modern and ancient art in
this respect, and already some of the names and
figures inscribed begin to soften off into that
mellow and confused obscurity which distinguishes
some of Turner's pictures. The Black Prince was
one of the royal patrons of Coventry and its guilds,
and one of the shields bears his crest and motto,
ICH DlEN, above, and " Cressy," beneath, with the
date of the battle, " 1346." It is rather remarkable
that this prince of blue Norman blood should have
chosen two German words for his motto ; and if he
did, it is equally remarkable that Prince Albert
should have adopted the same, unless he could
trace back his descent to that redoubtable warrior.
The elephant and castle are the arms of Coventry,
and these have a conspicuous place in the heraldic
symbols that line the interior walls and embellish
the windows. It is rather interesting to conjecture
the source or suggestion of this cognizance of the
city. It was incorporated in 1346, several centuries

4OO Walks in tfo Black Country

before Englishmen began to travel in oriental
countries or to read of elephants and castles going
into battle. Perhaps some knight of the first
crusade brought back the idea. Old Leofric and
his Godiva, of course, have their place in the
galaxy of worthies. In a unique and curious
recess stands the old chair of state, with all its
carved clusters of emblems, effigies, and allegories.
Solid, shining like ebony, made of oak growing
before the Conquest, it offers a seat of honour to
you, on which kings and queens have sat on festal
occasions. But perhaps many visiters will be
most attracted to a breadth of curiously wrought
tapestry thirty feet long and ten feet deep, that
fills the whole space of the north end of the hall
under the great stained window. It is paged off
into six compartments, each with its group like
the painted panels of the Rotunda in the Capitol
at Washington. Its history also lies in the blue
mist of legendary fiction, which makes it all the
more interesting. A considerable volume of histo-
rical incident might be translated out of these
illuminated pages of needle-work. Indeed, both
for its architectural features, its antiquity, and
internal embellishment and symbolic heraldry, no
other hall in England that I have seen presents
so many aspects of interest to the visiter.

Coventry does not look like a city that has
sewed new patches to this old garment of antiquity.

and its Green Border-Land. 401

The very streets are like the crooked seams of
the ancient robe, and on them are worked fabrics
that harmonize as well with these century-worn
buildings as the pictures in the tapestry of St.
Mary's Hall do with that edifice. These seams or
winding streets, lanes, courts, and alleys twist in
and out in the most interesting way, bringing you
up against all sorts of unexpected angles and niches.
And there is the curious image of Peeping Tom
grinning out upon all the fingers of scorn that have
been pointed at him for so many generations. As
he looks down from an upper window of a corner
house upon the main street, he wears the very
face of a conscious poltroon, as an outlaw that
has sinned against the best sex in the world more
outrageously than any man in history. Of course
a town with two such churches and a guildhall
like St. Mary's would have a great variety of
charities, benevolent and educational institutions.
Ford's Hospital is as unique in its way as any of
the same date and object to be found in England.
It was founded in 1529 by William Ford, and
the building must have been erected very soon
afterwards, for it looks quite three hundred years
old, and as if it might endure for as many
centuries to come. It is a rare specimen of the
architecture of its time, and will probably be pre-
served as such as long as it is able to stand
upright. It is of the old skeleton order, or that
DD

4O2 Walks in tfie Black Country

in which the flesh of the outer wall does not
cover the bones but only fills the spaces between
them. It is forty feet in front length, with two
unique stories embellished with the quaint, elabo-
rate carvings of the olden days. The upper story
juts out over the lower, and projects still further
three large balcony windows, that look like three
great eyes, each with six pupils, staring out of
the sloping roof through a pair of highly orna-
mented goggles. The lower story, on each side
of the massive doorway, is a kind of post-and-rail
fence of glass and wood, or a long window divided
into nine compartments, with headings and sidings
wrought with the best genius of the wood carvers
in the great Henry's time. In a word, it would
make an excellent subject for a painter of ancient
architecture. Its founder must have been a man
of eccentric ideas. His programme of benevolence
was only to house in this building five men and
one woman, allowing them only five pence apiece
weekly. But as the property he left for the
support of the institution increased in value, and
other donations were added, it enlarged its bene-
factions, and there are now thirty-seven aged
women recipients of the charity, seventeen of
whom reside in the building. The whole receive
now four shillings a week each, with a ton of
coals yearly.

A workhouse sprouting up out of the extensive

and its Green Border- Land. 403

remains of the old White Friars' Monastery, and
absorbing them into its walls, is another interesting
building for this concrete work of early and late
centuries. The educational institutions rest on
equally religious foundations and seem to grow
favourably upon them. As the walls of one
monastery were wrought into a workhouse, so the
" dissolved " Hospital of St. John, with all its lands,
furnished the foundation of The Free School.
They yielded about £,67 net revenue at the Disso-
lution, and £1,100 in 1862. Few schools in the
country afford such help as this to young men
desirous of obtaining a college education. Wealthy
and benevolent men in the seventeenth century
gave lands and other property to found prizes,
scholarships, and fellowships at Oxford. The
school-room, eighty-four feet long and twenty-four
in width, is supposed to have been the church of
St. John's Hospital ; the very doubt proving the
antiquity of the building. Bablake's Boys' School
is another educational establishment founded in
Elizabeth's time, and built on the site of the
ancient Hospital of Bablake. It is an excellent
institution, which, in all its expansion, has carried
out the original design of the first founder. It
lodges, feeds, clothes, and instructs about seventy
boys, and puts them out as apprentices at fourteen
years of age, giving each £2 for clothes, and £2
to the master to whom he is bound. There are

404 Walks in the Black Country

several other schools founded about the same time,
and enlarged by the increased value of the
property funded for their support and by addi-
tional donations. Truly Coventry may well have
been called a city of convents, hospitals, monas-
teries, and other religious houses. On enlarging
the Blue Coat School building the foundations of
the ancient cathedral were brought to light.

In addition to all these benevolent foundations
for education, another for the material comfort
and well-being of the common people is a most
valuable perquisite to them. It consists of 1,300
acres, lying around the city, of common land on
which any poor man may pasture his cow without
charge. For several hundred years this free
pasturage has been held inviolate ; but it is
doubtful if the inheritance will be kept green for
them many years longer ; as the town cannot
expand much further without overlapping upon
this great common. If it is thus alienated from
them by this necessity, it is to be hoped that its
value will accrue to them in some other form
equally useful.

I visited Coventry twice during the Exhibition
of the Arts and Industries of the city in 1867,
and saw all their silk-weaving machinery in busy
occupation in a large hall, well ornamented with
other productions of ingenious handicraft. It was
a unique and interesting sight ; for these machines

and its Green Border-Land. 405

were not in miniature or small working models,
to show how ribbons were made, but they were
the very machines of the factory brought out
and put in operation day after day, turning out
fabrics for the general market "as well as for
curiosities. Here you saw at a glance, and in
striking illustration, the long line of progression
in the trade, or the improved methods introduced
under the pressure of that very competition which
the early manufacturers and their operatives so
much deprecated. It was exceedingly interesting
to see the silken threads of every shade and tint
painting portraits of distinguished men, and the
churches, towers, and spires of the city. This
Exhibition was eminently successful in every way,
attracting visiters by special trains from con-
siderable distances, and yielding a surplus of
several thousand pounds sterling over and above
the expenses involved.

Few cities in England, in a word, will present
to the visiter so many features of interest as
Coventry. It has played its part conspicuously
in the history, literature, and industry of the king-
dom, and it contains several of the most impressive
monuments of the architecture of the fifteenth
and fourteenth centuries. The romantic lore of
legends and poetical fictions has illuminated its
actual history, and made it stand out with
attractive features of interest.

406 Walks in the Black Country

Between Coventry and Warwick, in a green,
quiet, rural district, stands Kenilworth. And
Kenilworth is a castle, which absorbs into itself
all of space, population, and history that belongs
to the name. ' Not only novel readers but
practical history readers at a distance, never
think of anything but the castle when the name
is mentioned or suggested. Still, there is a goodly,
tidy, and comfortable village near the ruins worth
visiting without the lion which attracts so many
thousands a year to pay their homage and
their admiration — to the genius of Sir Walter
Scott. All the ordinary trades of a practical
business community are carried on in this village ;
and a tall, taper chimney of a tannery, as high
as any church steeple, smokes its pipe in the face
of all the romantic antiquities of the place. Still,
the people would probably confess that the prin-
cipal source of their income is derived from their
vested interest in Sir Walter Scott's " Kenilworth,"
not in the real castle walls. Take away that
famous novel, and, with all the authenticated
history that remains attached to them, not one
in five of the visiters they now attract would walk
around them with admiration. In fact they are
more a monument to the genius of the great
novelist than to the memory of Elizabeth and the
Earl of Leicester. If any community ever owed a
statue to the honour of a benefactor for money

and its Green Border-Land. 407

value received, the Kenilworthies owe one to the
celebrated Scotch writer. One might reasonably
estimate that his book has been worth £10,000
a year to them for the last quarter of a century
or more. There are observatories, barometer and
anemometer stations around the coasts of England,
where rain-falls and wind-blows, tide-risings and
star-showers are registered. There are other
observation -stations where the self- registering
offices of human fames and reputations are kept,
and where these are measured spontaneously. Go
to Stratford and look at the inner walls of
Shakespeare's house and the record kept there,
and count the names from the four quarters of
the globe written there in homage of the great
bard ; go to Abbotsford, and consult the day-book
of that great memory ; go to Olney, and see what
manner and multitude of names cover and recover
the little garden summer-house in which Cowper
wrote, and you will have this self-registration of
human genius and its appreciation. So at
Kenilworth, the visiters' day-book at the hotel
will show how many come from both hemispheres
and all their continents to see the scene of
Sir Walter Scott's romance.

I was favoured with a bright day on the sunny
edge of autumn for my visit, when the very sky
imparts a radiance to the ivied ruins of old castles
and abbeys. Kenilworth shows its successive

408 Walks in tfie Black Country

ages and uses in the various departments of its
structure. From the ground it occupied, one
would hardly conceive it to have been a fighting
castle. But when you come to look at the massive
Caesar's Tower, you will be impressed with its
impregnable strength in the bow-and-arrow period
of English warfare. Its lofty walls hold their
frontage and perpendicular lines as true and even
as if they were a last year's structure. It is
seemingly composed of several towers connected
by walls sixteen feet thick, perforated by window-
holes which look like so many archways. It is
built or faced with hewn red sandstone, and is a
perfect specimen of mason-work. The Insurgent
Barons stood a siege of six months against Henry
III behind these strong walls, and in the reign
of Edward I, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March,
presided over a grand tournament beneath them.
In a later century the castle passed into the hands
of John o' Gaunt, who added the noble structure
called the Lancaster Buildings, or banqueting
hall. This must have been one of the finest
specimens of architecture of his time in England,
and, in ruins, presents the graceful proportions
and embellishments of its structure. Under the
regime of that celebrated nobleman the castle
began to put a civilian dress over its coat of
mail, and to echo with the music and mirth
of dancing and feasting, instead of the clangour

and its Green Border- Land. 409

of arms. But Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
completed the transformation into a residential
palace. He not only added the wing called the
Leicester Buildings, but he renovated, extended,
and embellished all the old portions of the huge
pile. He erected an ante-castle, or a great gate
house, which is a noble structure in itself. Never
did a subject build, and rebuild, and embellish on
such a scale as he did to receive his sovereign.
Three times Elizabeth was his guest. Her last
visit was in July, 1575, and lasted seventeen days.
Of the festivities and princely entertainments he
prepared for her on this occasion Sir Walter Scott
has written with all that natural enthusiasm and
predilection with which, perhaps above all other
English novelists, he dilated upon such a subject.
His graphic descriptions of these scenes are so
familiar to the million, that I will not venture
to go behind his brilliant fictions in search of
actual, historical facts of duller interest. The day
of such favourites has gone by, like the beauty
and glory of this once gorgeous fabric. The sun
of Christian morality and civilization has risen
to a purer flood of light ; and such broad-faced
gallantries would now be looked out of countenance
in high places.

On walking around these broken walls, some
seven hundred years old, and others not three
centuries, one must be struck with the weak

4io Walks in the Black Country

vitality they possess compared with the religious
buildings of the country, which seemingly renovate
themselves into perpetual strength and beauty.
Here, for example, are the Leicester Buildings,
a splendid fabric, erected only so far back as
1571, and no older on its foundations than
hundreds of village churches scattered over the
kingdom. The best material and art and labour
of the time were employed upon the structure.
There are many one-story, thatched cottages in
the village of Kenilworth that now make sunny
homes for young children, quite as old as this
superb wing of the palace castle. But here stands
the latter with all its lofty pretensions in haggard
ruins. It could not have been demolished by a
bombardment ; for in Cromwell's time it could
not have had much fighting capacity. Oliver
Martel smote even sacred things hip and thigh
that came in his way, but it must have been like
shooting chickens in a farm-yard with a breech-
loader, for him to point his cannon at the ornate
and helpless windows of the Leicester Buildings
and John o' Gaunt's Banqueting Hall. But his
soldiers did seize and possess it, and, so it is
charged, laid unscrupulous hands upon its orna-
mental wealth, doubtless regarding it as a part
of the pomps and vanities which were inconsistent
with a sober and a religious people. Still, the
Parliamentary Puritans were apt to save some

and its Green Border-Land. 411

Babylonish garments and a wedge or two of
gold in dealing destruction to these superfluous
things ; and they are accused of having despoiled
Kenilworth of all that could be made transportable
and marketable.

After the Restoration, Charles II gave the
castle to Lawrence Hyde, the second son of
the great Chancellor, and through his descendants
it has come into the possession of the present
Earl of Clarendon, who fully appreciates its value
as a historical monument of interesting and ro-
mantic associations. The facing of the massive
and lofty Caesar's Tower must be nearly three
centuries old, and it is wonderfully perfect. The
perpendicular lines from base to battlement are
as straight as if the walls were run in a mould.
The eye cannot detect a deflection of a hair's-
breadth ; nor has time been able to eat into the
smooth and even surface. I noticed, however,
that " the brave old ivy green " which braids such
bandages for the wounds made by time and
human violence in abbeys and castles, had wound
around the front of this huge tower such a thick
spread that it had deadened the skin of the wall
and was eating into the solid body of it like a
caustic blister. There were men at work on tall
ladders removing this thick green bandage, and
letting the sun in upon the stone, which had not
seen its light for years.

412 Walks in the Black Country

The Gate House is in excellent preservation, and
is occupied by a tenant of the Earl of Clarendon.
The towers are supported by old pear trees that
clasp their long arms around the stone-work and
hug it so tightly that you may see their impress
in the wall. It is a pleasant sight, which a poet
might make something of, to see them hanging
their clusters of luscious fruit up and down, as if,
like the idea expressed in Solomon's Song, they
were staying the venerable building with apples
and cheering delicacies. Indeed, for its historical
associations as well as for the architectural charac-
ter disclosed in its picturesque ruins, Kenilworth,
perhaps, stands at the very head of all old
English castles as an object of popular interest.
If a self-registering apparatus could be put in
operation at the gate opening to it, which would
number and record the human feet, just as some
instruments register the rain-drops that fall, doubt-
less no other castle in England would show such
a census of visiters as this.

Warwick Castle ! England and all who speak
its language owe the successive inheritors of this
great living pile of buildings more than they have
ever acknowledged. For it is really the only
baronial castle that has survived the destruction
or decay of all the other monuments of the
feudal ages of the same order. We should not
know what they were in their day and generation

and its Green Border-Land. 413

were it not for this. It helps our fancy to fill
up the vast breaks in the walls of Kenilworth,
Dudley, and Chepstow ; to reconstruct their
banqueting halls, their drawing-rooms, galleries,
crypts, and kitchens ; and to reproduce them
entire in their first and fullest grandeur. By the
light of Warwick we can not only rebuild and
roof the broken walls of these old castles, but
bring into the vista of the imagination their inte-
rior embellishments, their carved cornices and
wainscoting, their luxurious furniture, tapestry,
paintings, and other works of art. Thus Warwick
represents to us in its living being and form of
to-day the hundreds of castles that were planted
over the island in the first century after the Con-
quest. Schamyl in his native costume and dignity
could not represent better at St. Petersburgh
the leaders of the Circassian race and country,
than does this grand home and fortress of the
Warwicks the embattled citadels of the old
English knights.

Warwick Castle, the fortress of one of the
stoutest and grimmest of the old English fighting
knights, did not put on the armour of nature to
help out its own. It did not take advantage of
perpendicular rocks or river-sides like Stirling,
Edinburgh, or Chepstow. At first thought one
might fancy the founders of it selected the loca-
tion more for fishing than fighting. And now, in

414 Walks in the Black Country

these quiet, sunny days of peace, with its venerable
mane of cedar trees, it looks like a grand old lion
lying down with its paw tenderly over a tired
lamb. Or, it basks its broad side on the bank of
the Avon, which photographs its walls and towers
and turrets every bright day in the centuries.
The castle is all intact and entire, with no part
clean gone or going to ruin. Inside and out, from
end to end, it is the harmonious growth of many
ages, and registers them in distinctive illustrations.
It shows what can be done by a dozen generations
of wealthy men, inheriting an estate that doubles
in income every half century. Here each branch
of the wide-spreading family tree has hung in
festooned clusters the foliage of its life, genius,
and taste. Each has contributed its contingent
to the magnificent whole to be handed down to a
posterity which should cherish and adorn the heir-
loom of illustrious ancestors, and send it down the
line of the future with added wealth and beauty.
With such an anchorage to moor a family name
and estate to, there is no wonder that both should
attach their being, life, and treasures to it with a
proud ambition of perpetuity. The name holds
on as everlastingly as the estate. For the poorest
man on earth must have some distant relation,
and the richest man's son would take the name
of the twentieth cousin to inherit the title and
castle of Warwick. However thin and attenuated

and its Green Border-Land. 415

may be the line of blood relationship between
these families, the favoured heir to this baronial
rank and wealth gathers within his coronet all
the memories and distinctions and even relation-
ships of his predecessors all the way back to the
Conquest. He is the heir of all of them. Saxon,
Dane, and Norman converge into his status and
blend in his being. Just glance at the succession
which the present Earl of Warwick represents.
Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great, built a
fort here in 914. Under the Danish regime this
and the town came into the ownership and rule
of a nobleman by the name of Thurkil, or, as it
was originally spelt, Thorkill, a name that figured
in the old Icelandic sagas. He was ousted by
William the Conqueror to make room for one of
his followers, Henry de Newburgh, originally from
Flanders judging from his name. He rebuilt or
perhaps enlarged the castle which Thorkill had
erected on the foundation laid for him by the
Saxoji lady, Ethelfleda. This Henry de Newburgh
became the first Earl of Warwick. The title and
estate thence descended through the families, Le
Plessetis, Maudit, De Beauchamp, Nevill, Plan-
tagenet, Dudley, Rich, and Greville, the family
name of the present earl. All these noblemen
added each to what he found, both to building
and its adornment. And here we see most of
their external and interior contributions. The

416 Walks in the Black Country

great body of the castle itself, viewed detached
from its grand surrounding walls and towers, pre-
sents no very salient features. It is a long range
of buildings, with a straight front on the river.
It never had the imposing and varied frontage of
Dudley Castle in its day, or the palace halls that
flanked the great tower of Kenilworth. But in its
large, straight suite of lofty apartments you have a
museum of objects illustrating the tastes, habits,
fashions, luxuries, and arts of all the ages and
generations which those massive walls have seen.
Passing from end to end you may gauge English
history for seven centuries with an observing
glance through these objects. Here the white-
winged dove of Peace has made her nest in the
rusty and battered helmet of grim-visaged War.

On entering the Great Hall one is deeply im-
pressed with its capacious faculty of hospitable
entertainment. Truly, if tables were ever spread
from end to end, a regiment of guests must have
sat down to the banquet. It is sixty-two feet in
length, forty in breadth, and the roofage of it is
lofty and done in elaborate Gothic, rich in carving
and other ornament. Here are the coronets and
shields of all the earls back to Henry de
Newburgh, who seem to look down upon the
company below through their cognizances, as if
represented in and countenancing all the generous
hospitalities their living heir is disposed to give.

and its Green Border-Land. 417

The walls are wainscoted with the brave old
English oak, far advanced in its seeming trans-
formation into ebony. All you ever read in romance
or veritable history about halls hung with armour
of crusaders and other knightly raiders, inter-
spersed with spoils of the -chase, is here realized
in full ; and you see that even Sir Walter Scott
has not exaggerated the fact in this respect.
Conspicuous on the genealogical tree of these
weapons and outfittings for war, is the helmet
usually worn, says the loyal guide-book, "by the
usurper Cromwell." Here, too, is the doublet in
which Lord Brooke was killed at Lichfield, in
1643. Three great Gothic windows are set out
in deep recesses, as if to embrace and welcome
the first and last light of the day, and to soften
and diffuse it, a tinted smile, over the spacious
apartment and its embellishments. But if the
outside world smiles inward through these great
windows so graciously, their outward vision opens
upon a scene of exquisite beauty, which few can
be found to equal. Here a vista 'deploys before
the view full of all the attractions that nature
and art can give to a landscape. What a pier-
glass is to the richest drawing-room, the gentle
and classic Avon is to this variegated scenery,
as a portion of it, and as a reflecting medium of
all its other features. It meanders through the
landscape as a limpid hem to lawn, field, grove,

EE

418 Walks in the Black Country

garden, and forest ; now flashing a silver radiance,
now one of gold upon the robe it adorns, just
as the sun's rays vary in their fall and flood.
Right before the face and eyes of the castle, the
river forms a great brooch of emerald, or a little
green island, which may be taken for its coat of
arms, or cogtiizance, much older and nobler than
any hung up in the Great Hall. Then the soft
and level river, looking half asleep, or checking
its flow in the presence of these human antiquities,
just below them arises and stands on its feet,
showing a stature 100 feet high in a cascade
that sings a kind of lullaby to the by-gone ages
whose spirits haunt the castle. It was in these
grounds that, in 1846, I saw for the first time a
real cedar of Lebanon, and I never shall forget
the impression it made upon me. Here they
stood, grand and venerable, with their long low
arms extended as if pronouncing "a benediction
after prayer" upon the green lawn that mirrored
their august entourage. Here they stood singing
the same old song they sang to David on Mount
Lebanon. It was a mere fancy ; but I listened
to the soughing murmur with the thought that
they were reciting to each other some of his best
psalms of praise and thanksgiving.

From the Great Hall you have a vista of state
rooms on one side, and private or family rooms
on the other, extending in a straight line for

and Us Green Border-Land. 419

333 feet. All these apartments, large and small,
are adorned and enriched with specimens of high
art and high labour collected by all the families
that have owned and occupied the estate. In
some respects, each room, if not the museum, is
the mirror of its age. Armour and articles of
luxurious or antique furniture divide with pictures
of the same dates the admiration of the visiter.
Here is the celebrated painting of Charles I, by
Vandyck, for which Sir Joshua Reynolds offered
to pay 500 guineas in his time. How much it
would bring under the hammer to-day those who
know the existing furore for the old masters may
easily estimate. And all the old masters are
here, represented each in several of the pictures
that made their fame. In fact a national gallery
of paintings, of creditable number and variety,
might be filled from the treasures of the art
exhibited in these splendid apartments. Here
figure Rubens, Rembrandt, Vandyck, Salvator
Rosa, Guido, Murillo, David, and other great
artists of different ages, schools, and countries.
Then, as the frame-work of all these pictures, you
see the artistry of the chisel, or carved work in
wood and stone of contemporary schools in that
department. Then the garnered treasures col-
lected by these various branches of the family,
purchased in different centuries and countries, are
arranged in happy taste and harmony with the

420 Walks in the Black Country

pictorial adornments. Wardrobes, cabinets, tables,
and all the articles of luxurious furniture found
in palaces, English or Continental, modern or
ancient, are here in all their variety and curious
workmanship. The " Kenil worth Buffet," a work
which attracted so much admiration in the Great
Exhibition of 1851, is a master-piece of design
and execution. It is Kenilworth and its romantic
history, with the principal acts and actors of its
Elizabethan drama, carved in oak from a tree
that stood a green, tall sentinel of nature at
the time to witness the festive scenes. Even
Elizabeth's meeting with Amy Robsart, and her
interview with Leicester after the exposure of his
faithlessness, are done to the life by the carver's
chisel.

Two objects connected with Warwick Castle
every one, young or old, who visits it, will remem-
ber perhaps most distinctively. They are the
" Guy's porridge-pot" and the great marble Vase.
Both are of prodigious capacity, the very Gog and
Magog of all hollow-ware. The Irishman who
called the donkey the father of all rabbits would
call this large porridge-pot the father of all kettles.
Its history cannot be got out of it by the grave
and solemn thumpings that the old woman gives
its massive sides. So it is ascribed to the great
Guy's time and to his personal use. As orni-
thologists deduce the size and habits of some

and its Green Border- Land. 421

prehistoric bird by a single foot-track in petrified
clay, so the size, strength, and other capacities of
that legendary giant are deduced from the size
of this remarkable pot. The analogy might seem
reasonable to many simple-minded people. Surely
no man could be less than eight feet and a half
high who needed such a kettle for cooking for
himself and family, even if his children were nearly
as large as himself. And this is the size accorded
to that prehistoric hero. He was one of those
amphibious beings who, like King Arthur, have
lived in the misty border-land of history, half
substance and half shadow, but projecting a full
human outline upon the spectrum of by-gone
centuries. The history of the Great Vase is more
ancient and uncertain still. It is of white marble,
executed in the purest Grecian order of conception
and art. It is truly a mighty goblet, with two
handles of intertwisted vine-branches and wreathed
and crowned with the tendrils, leaves, and clusters of
the vineyard. It was fished up from the bottom
of a lake near Tivoli by the British ambassador
then at Naples, from whom it passed into the
hands of the father of the present earl, who con-
veyed it to England and placed it in its present
position.

The high and solid walls that enclose the castle,
and their great towers, impress you with the reali-
ties of the ages they represent. Erected before

422 Walks in the Black Country

gunpowder had been brought into the field of
battle, they still look as if the builders anticipated
its introduction and power ; and they would
stand a heavy battering now, old as they are,
by common cannon. In a word, Warwick Castle
is a structure which must grow more and more
interesting from decade to decade. It is the
only feudal palace left intact in England. It was
ranked among the very best of them when they
were all alive and strong over the land. It is
associated with a name that stands among the
first in the Norman aristocracy. Its location in
itself is deeply interesting. Shakespeare breathed
an inspiration upon the little Avon that laves
its foundations, and gave to its name an immor-
tality more vital and beautiful than the Tiber's.
All these aspects and associations are becoming
more and more widely appreciated ; and the foot-
fall of visiters from distant countries crossing the
threshold will grow more and more frequent as
the readers of English history and romance in-
crease in both hemispheres.

But Warwick is not all castle. Far from it. It
is a goodly, venerable town with a public character
and history distinct from the castle. One of its
streets, full a third of a mile in length, can hardly
be surpassed in the country for neatness, tidy
elegance, and picturesque variety and vista of
architecture. Then there is a unique and happy

and its Green Border-Land. 423

feature to these streets, or the two main ones
that intersect each other at right angles. They
run into the heart of the town through the porches
or between the feet of churches, as if all who
entered or issued should pass under the cloud
of sanctuary influence. St. Mary's is the great,
commanding edifice, and a kind of Westminster
Abbey to the noble families of the castle. Most
of the building is comparatively modern, and fails
to impress you with the sense of venerable
antiquity. The tower is a lofty, massive structure,
standing on four feet, between two of which the
main street passes ; so that doubtless loads of
hay are frequently seen going through the porch
on the way to market. The church itself is a
spacious building and creditable to modern archi-
tecture, but presenting nothing impressive inside
or out. But the choir, which is a part of the
ancient edifice, is a beautiful structure. The
groined ceiling overhead is a work of wonderful
art. The ornate roofage is supported by long
delicate branches that seem to grow out of the
graceful trunks of the stone trees planted against
the side walls on either side. They are called
flying ribs, but are more like long taper fingers
of white marble. In the centre of the choir lie
on an altar-shape monument the full length effigies
of Earl Thomas Beauchamp and his second
countess, both clad in the costume of their time

424 Walks in the Black Country

and rank. This is one of the very oldest of the
baronial monuments, and yet, though the figures
are done in plaster, they have all the enamel-
looking surface and lustre of marble. The earl
died at Calais in 1370, and if he really did erect
this choir in his day, or provide the money and
genius for its erection, he richly deserved the
monument that perpetuates his name.

The Beauchamp Chapel is, however, the dis-
tinguishing feature of the church. It is a kind
of Henry VII Chapel, in which the Warwick earls
have costly monuments wrought to most ornate
elaboration. It is a little church of itself, more
capacious than several built for small villages in
remote districts. It is fifty-eight feet long, twenty-
five wide, and thirty-two high, and would seat a
strong force of monks and other ecclesiastics
assembled to pray for the peace of the dead. It
may give some idea of the labour bestowed
upon this mausoleum chapel to state, that it
occupied twenty-one years in building, and cost
about £2,500, when wheat was fivepence a bushel.
The centre and subordinating monument is the
one consecrated to the founder of the chapel,
Richard Beauchamp, who died in Rouen in 1434.
It is a remarkable work, and would at the present
day be considered a rich specimen of workman-
ship. It is an altar-tomb of Purbeck marble, on
which, as a bed, lies the full length form of the

and its Green Border-Land. 425

doughty earl clad cap-a-pie in gilt armour. Every-
thing is brass of the first quality. It must have
been of the purest kind to preserve such a natural
polish. The slab of solid brass laid over the
marble tomb on which the figure rests, is several
inches thick, bearing inscribed on its edge all the
way round quite a history of the earl. Then over
the form is a brass structure, consisting of long
poles of the metal hooped with gilt bands, repre-
senting the hearse used at the time. It is some
satisfaction that the old Norman chieftain spoke
English, and that those to whom he willed his
memory in special charge were not ashamed of
the language of the country, rude as it was.
Unlike the pretentious pedants of later times,
they regarded it good enough for the epitaph of
one of the greatest men of the age. In this
epitaph, which makes a good sized printed page
when copied from the brass, it is stated that he
was "visited with longe sicknes in the castel of
Roan, therinne decessed ful cristenly the last day
of April, the yer of oure lord god A. MCCCCXXXIV,
he being at that tyme Lieutenant gen'al and
governer of the Roialme of FFraunce and of the
Duchie of Normandie"; and then it goes on to
remind the reader of some geographical incidents
connected with the transportation of his remains ;
" the whuch body with grete deliberacion and
ful worshipful conduit Bi see and by lond was

426 Walks in tJie Black Country

broght to Warrewik." In the sides of the marble
tomb supporting this brazen image and its funeral
surroundings, are carved fourteen figures of lords
and ladies, representing not only the Earl's chil-
dren and nearest of kin, but distant posterity,
who are to constitute a body guard of "weepers"
for the dead. One of these is a rather remote
descendant, or the famous " King-maker," who is
here represented clad in a half- monkish habit,
with a long face of artificial sorrow, looking as
if he had just been taking a double pinch of snuff
to force a little moisture from his eyes.

And here in this gorgeous chapel, even a man
well read in English history will be at a loss
how to conjugate the moods and tenses of this
Warwick family. Indeed, ten chances to one,
he will find himself at sea as to their distinctive
individualities when standing by their separate
or blended monuments. To begin with, there
is the legendary Guy and the historic Guy, the
Saxon of King Arthur's century, and the Norman
who fought at Falkirk, and cut off the head of
Piers Gaveston, the favourite of King Edward I,
who had " called him names," such as " The Black
Hound of Arden." Then we have two illustrious
" Richards," easily to be confounded in one nebula
of reputation. Here is the Richard that founded
this chapel, and lies in solid brass on this tomb
over a long posterity weeping in marble beneath.

and its Green Border-Land. 427

Then there is the Richard the King-maker, who
figures on such a large scale in English history
and romance. Then there is that most remarkable
young man, Henry de Beauchamp, son of the
earl in brass, who was married at about twelve and
began to reign in his father's stead at fourteen,
created premier Earl of England at nineteen, made
Duke of Warwick, crowned King of the Isle of
Wight, Governor of all the Channel Islands, and
succumbed and died under the Pelion-upon-Ossa
of these ponderous dignities at twenty-two years
of age. Then there is the stalwart earl that
founded the choir, and lies there with his countess
in graceful images of well -enamelled plaster.
Seemingly he was the bravest of them all. He
was one of the chief commanders under the Black
Prince at Cressy ; fought terribly at Poictiers, and
afterwards in the Crusades, and was regarded a
cceur de lion by friends and foes. Now I should
like to know how many well-read men in a hun-
dred could stand among these monuments, and
say off-hand which of these celebrated chieftains
was the " Great Earl of Warwick," of whom the
world has heard so much.

But here against the north wall of the chapel
is the monument of one of the family about whom
there is no mist or mistake as to his individuality.
Here is one whose memory has a more enduring
monument than any other man that ever wore

428 Walks in tlie Black Country

his name or the Bear and Ragged Staff. Robert
Dudley, Earl of Leicester, lies here in effigy side
by side with his Countess Laetitia. It is a superb
monument, full of elaborate allegory, device, em-
blem, and inscription, and all the beautifully carved
symbols of posthumous piety, faith, and hope.
At the close of the long inscription in Latin,
detailing the dignities and titles worn by him in
his lifetime, it is stated that " He gave up his soul
to God his Saviour on the 4th day of September,
in the year of salvation, 1588." This monument
was put up by " His most sorrowful wife, Laetitia,
through a sense of conjugal love and fidelity to
the best and dearest of husbands."

Close by stands the tomb of the Earl of
Leicester's brother, Ambrose, a far better man.
It was also erected to his memory by " His last
and wel-beloved wiefe ye Lady Anne Coventes of
Warr: in further testimony of her faythfvll love
towardes him." Doubtless he was more faithful
to her than his brother was to one or more of
his wives. In or against the south wall of the
chapel is the monument of the infant and only
son of the Earl of Leicester, with his small and
innocent effigy dressed in the peculiar long clothes
of his time. Poor little fellow ! few small human
beings were ever born to such titles as are re-
corded in the inscription assigned to his memory.
It calls him "the noble Impe Robert of Dudley,

and its Green Border-Land. 429

bar* of Denbigh, son of Robert Earl of Leycester,"
and after recounting the dignities he would have
worn, states that he died at Wanstead, Essex, in
1584, "beinge the xxvith yere of the happy reigne
of the most virtvoves and Godly Princis Queen
Elizabethe, and in this place layed up emonge
his noble avncestors, in the assured hope of
generall resvrrection."

Leaving these tombs of the Warwicks, we next
visited what may be called the crypt of the choir,
but which perhaps in Saxon times was the place
of worship. It showed its old Saxon lineage of
architecture in its columns and arches, and doubt-
less constituted the foundation for the Norman
superstructure. In side apartments or capacious
vaults are deposited the remains of several of the
Warwick baronial families. One of these has been
walled up, after having been filled with a hundred
coffins. And that belonging to the present family
has already received eighteen contributions to the
silent companionship of the tomb. There is one
object of unique interest preserved in this crypt,
which will repay a visit to the church, if you
notice nothing else. It is that compulsory bath-
chair used in olden times, called the Ducking
Stool. No machine at Brighton or Scarborough
equals this in its doucJte capacity. It is a cross
between the old chariot of the early Britons and
a common wheelbarrow. It has three solid

430 Walks in t/ie Black Country

wooden wheels, one leader and two abreast at
the heavy axle. It is truly a massive affair, and
must have been drawn by a donkey or full-sized
horse. Above the two hind wheels a kind of
rocking-chair is geared into the axle beams; not
a rocking-chair in the sense of ease and comfort
but a kind of perpendicular trap-door of very
hard wood, to which evidently the subject of the
salutary discipline was bound very fast. There
is a tradition kept afloat with characteristic per-
tinacity that the subjects of this mode of correction
were always women, such as scolds and other
female termagants. The more is the shame and
wrong if this be true; for the discipline was
equally and even better fitted for confirmed wife-
beaters and drunkards. Well, when the subject,
male or female, was bound fast to the back of
the chair, the wooden chariot was drawn down
to the river or pond, and backed into the water
up to the proper depth. Then the bolt or other
fastening was withdrawn, and the prisoner was
" rocked in the cradle of the deep " for half a
minute or so, or long enough to cool down the
fiery tempers or appetites which had led to such
correction. It is a unique and interesting machine,
and we studied its structure and working with
great curiosity. It evidently had done the town
some service for several generations; for the stout
wooden wheels were much worn by use.

and its Green Border-Land. 431

The third building in the rank and age of
interest is the Leicester Hospital. It is a unique
edifice as well as institution. Hawthorne has
given such a graphic description of both in " Our
Old Home" that I will not undertake an ex-
tended notice of either. It is the best thing that
Elizabeth's favourite ever did; and having done
one of such large design and compass of benevo-
lence, it should accrue to the credit of his
memory. The buildings are as picturesque as
possible. They are of the half-timbered order
which all Englishmen, but few Americans, under-
stand. For the benefit of the latter I have called
it the skeleton order, or a house showing all its
thigh-bones and ribs fleshless to the world. The
front building is older than Leicester's day, and
was once occupied as the halls of various guilds
of the town. He added, by his bequests, a quad-
rangle of buildings with this old edifice for the
front. Here twelve brethren and the master find
a home of comfort, ease, and quiet meditation.
The brethren are to be selected from old, infirm,
or superannuated soldiers from the four towns and
villages, Warwick, Kenilworth, Stratford-on-Avon,
Wooton-under-Edge, and Erlingham. In default
of soldiers, other subjects of the bounty are ad-
mitted from these places. Each brother is allowed
^80 per annum, besides the privileges of the house.
Each has a separate apartment, well aired and

43 2 Walks in tfie Black Country

lighted and comfortable; and, over and above all
this, he can have his wife with him. Then there
is the common kitchen, a brave place as ever a
dozen old soldiers could desire to tell over to each
other the strange experiences of their lives. One
of the masters had bequeathed to this kitchen
fraternity a copper mug which must hold at least
two gallons of beer. What a curious volume of
talk a short-hand reporter might take down while
that huge mug was being emptied from brim to
bottom ! And there are men now among the
brethren who can tell stories that would read well
in print. We went into several of their rooms;
one of which was occupied by a sharp-eyed old
veteran who went out in the ship that conveyed
Napoleon to St. Helena. He gave us several inci-
dents of the passage, and gave us the posture
in which the dethroned emperor used to sit in
his chair on the deck. He said he showed a
friendly regard to all the sailors and marines,
and afterwards presented every one of them with
a pair of shoes. I was struck with the sight of a
familiar face in this old oak-ceiled room. There
was a Connecticut clock, of the Jerome brand,
looking very honestly at the old British soldier
while he was recounting these experiences of his
younger days. Indeed, nearly every room allotted
to the brethren seemed to be furnished with one
of these cheap wooden clocks, contrasting so

and its Green Border- Land. 433

singularly with the walls to which they were
hung and other articles of olden furniture. Every-
where the Bear and Ragged Staff meets the visiter
or inmate. Then there are the scripture and
other mottoes noticed so pleasantly by Hawthorne,
enjoining all sorts of Christian virtues and patriotic
and brotherly sentiments.

Among the relics preserved and exhibited, there
was a small one at which many must linger with
peculiar interest. It is a piece of embroidery on
silk wrought by the fingers of Amy Robsart A
few years ago an American, by the name of
Connor, of New York, on seeing this small piece
of her handy-work, left half a sovereign as his
contribution to a frame for it. The brethren
added each a small sum, and a deep, massive
frame of carved oak, from Kenilworth Castle, was
obtained, as black as ebony with age. In this
it is now exhibited among other relics. The
chapel of the hospital is a gem in its way, both
of the earliest and very latest styles of architec-
ture and embellishment. It is built over a deep
cut or vaulted passage, through which runs one of
the main streets. It has recently been renovated
in its interior arrangements, and makes a beautiful
little sanctuary, in which the brethren assemble
for prayers daily. The "living" of the Master
makes him a comfortable berth of £400 a year,
with a good house for his rectory, and other

FF

434 Walks in tJie Black Country

perquisites. The celebrated Puritan reformer,
Thomas Cartwright, was one if not the first master
of the hospital, and after his several imprisonments
for nonconformity, died here in 1663, and was
buried in St. Mary's Church.

There are several other institutions as well as
public buildings in Warwick which deserve even
extended notice, but as considerable space has
been given to more special and historical monu-
ments of the town, I must pass on to other points
of interest.

Leamington is a kind of Saratoga, and a resort
for invalids of mild indisposition, and for wealthy
and aristocratic sportsmen, and persons of leisure
inclining more to the sports of society than those
of the field. From time immemorial its waters
were known to possess curative qualities ; but their
reputation and use were local for a long period.
At last an intelligent shoemaker of the village,
of an observant and philosophical turn of mind,
became impressed with their value, and deter-
mined to make it known by the best evidence.
His name was Benjamin Satchwell, and well did
he turn the leaking seams of mineral waters to
account. He made a record of the cures effected
by them, which was better proof of their virtue
than any chemist's analysis. This was published,
and the notice of scientific men attracted to the
subject. From that time Leamington began to

and its Green Border-Land. 435

grow to its expansion and elegance as a town.
Baths, pump-rooms, concert and ball rooms, and
all the other institutions usually provided to make
such watering-places enjoyable to persons of feeble
health or fashionable proclivities, abound here in
their best attractions. And where these abound,
if it may be said reverently, grace or the means
of grace much more abound. The town is well
provided with churches of all denominations,
numbering several structures that do credit to
the taste and liberality of the people. It has
been for many years a somewhat favourite resort
for Americans, not only for its waters and society,
but for the picturesque and historical district of
which it is the centre. Warwickshire is one of the
most highly finished counties in England, both
for its scenery and associations. And there is
hardly an inland town in the kingdom which
embraces within the radius of a comfortable walk
so many points of interest. Hawthorne seems to
have cherished this impression, and the description
he gives of his walks through the quiet and daisied
fields to little ivy-netted churches in rural villages
around Leamington, are full of the life and beauty
of his best thoughts. The house he occupied in
the town will doubtless be held in better memory
by. the inhabitants when they come to realize
more clearly its worth to the world.

Stoneleigh Abbey is a place that well repays

436 Walks in the Black Country

a visit, as many American travellers and tourists
have often found to their great satisfaction. I
went with Capern, my usual companion in these
" Walks," to see it on a delightful April day, when
the spring sun shone upon it and its surroundings
with its blandest beams. Kenilworth is the nearest
railway station, and from that point we made our
way across the intervening fields by those endless
footpaths which permeate apparently the whole
island, as do its branching tendons the surface of
an oak leaf. After following these into green-
hedged lanes, thence into broad white roads, we
came out upon the park gate, and into a full-
faced view of the mansion. It is a stately, large,
and elegant building, of modern structure and
style, such as a block of the same length taken
from the Rue Rivoli in Paris, or from the terraces
of the west end of London would look if trans-
ported and planted in a rural landscape. Thus
it does not present those external aspects which
make the old Tudor style so prominent and unique,
as, for example, Aston Hall, near Birmingham,
with its quadrangle of irregular towers, gables,
and turrets. But doubtless what is lost in this
external picturesqueness of architecture is amply
compensated by that capacity of internal grandeur
and embellishment which the more modern style
of building possesses. The landscape of the park
is truly beautiful. The most interesting feature

and its Green Border- Land. 437

of it is the Avon, which intersects and embraces
it. For it meanders about, now opening its arms
and enfolding a little green island in front of the
mansion, now dashing down in a broad cascade,
a veritable minncJiaha, or laughing water, that
sends up into the wooded heights above its
rollicking chatter.

We were particularly struck with the might and
majesty of two or three grand old English oaks.
One was truly a monarch or father of the forest.
It wore a coat of mail, one of thickly woven knots
from foot to crown. What a binding for that vast
book of the centuries ! Who shall unclasp that
cover, and read the chronicles within that volume ?
He who does will doubtless turn over a thousand
leaves, each standing for a year of Nature's regis-
try. Having nothing else wherewith to span the
circumference, we embraced the trunk, clasping it
closely with our outstretched arms until the tips
of our fingers met. We measured our united
lengths twice and about three-fourths around the
tree, making its circumference full thirty-two feet
by this extemporized standard. There were other
oaks green to the tips of the widest and highest
branches with a foliage not their own. They pre-
sented a remarkable sight. Trees of ivy had
grown up at their roots and ascended to their
tops with their thick braids of netted tendrils. I
never saw before ivy of such circumference and

438 Walks in tlie Black Country.

solidity of trunk. One measured three feet round
at the bottom where it began to climb. Another
flattened itself against the iron-clad oak, until its
spread of solid wood was full three feet broad and
six inches thick. The little green leaves with
which it trims all the branches and twigs of the
giant oak, are so many small dogstars heralding
the approach of the great tree's own foliage. Parts
of the old abbey still remain — the old gateway
quite entire. The stables are o/ modern structure
and constitute a kind of half moon of buildings,
enclosing a space of a full half acre. With their
gate-house, and the long covered walk extending
to the mansion, they almost constitute a castle
of themselves. Indeed, if they were ruined to the
right aspect, they would attract visiters and admira-
tion for their architecture and elegance of finish.
As Lord Leigh was at home, we did not ask per-
mission to see the interior of the house; which,
from published accounts, must be fitted up with
great taste, with all the luxuries and adornments
which wealth can command.

CHAPTER XV.

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON AND SHAKESPEARE; HIS FAME, PAST
AND PROSPECTIVE.

A 3D this is Stratford-upon-Avon ? Is there
another town in Christendom to equal
it for the centripetal attraction of one
human memory? Let him who thinks he can
say there is tell us where the like may be found.
London is the birth- and -burial place of a large
number of distinguished poets, philosophers, states-
men, and heroes. Their lives make for it a nebulous
lustre. The orbits of their brilliant careers overlap
upon each other, so that their individual paths of
light, intersecting in their common illumination,
like netted sunbeams, do not make any vivid or
distinctive lines over the face or over the history
of the great city. But the memory of Shakespeare
covers with its disk the whole life and being and
history, ancient and modern, of Stratford-upon-
Avon. There is nothing seen or felt before or
behind it but William Shakespeare. In no quarter
of the globe, since he was laid to his last sleep

44O Walks in the Black Country

by the sunny side of the peaceful river, has the
name of the little town been mentioned without
suggesting and meaning him. Many a populous
city is proud of the smallest segment of a great
man's glory. " He was born here." That is a
great thing to say, and they say it with exultation,
showing this heirloom of honour to strangers as
the richest inheritance of the town. But being born
in a particular place is more a matter of accident
than of personal option. No one chooses his own
birthplace, and the sheer fact that he there made
his entrtie into the world, is, after all, a rather
negative distinction to those who boast of it. But
quiet little Stratford-upon-Avon can say far more
than this. Shakespeare was not only born here,
but he spent his last days and died here. Nor
did he come back to his native town a broken-
down old man to be nursed in the last "stages of
decrepitude and be buried with his fathers. He
returned hither at the zenith of his intellectual
manhood, to spend the Indian summer of his life
in the midst of the sceneries and companionships
of his boyhood. Thus no other human memory
ever covered so completely with its speculum the
name or history of a town, or filled it with such a
vivid, vital image as Shakespeare's has done to
Stratford-upon-Avon. Here,

" Like footprints hidden by a brook
But seen on either side,"

and its Green Border-Land. 441

he has left them marks on the sunny banks, and
across the soft level meadows basking in the
bosom of the little river. The break is not wide
between those he made in these favourite walks
in his youth and the footprints of his ripe age as
a permanent resident and citizen. Perhaps he
and his Ann Hathaway, after his London life,
delighted to make sunset strolls across the daisied
fields to the cottage of her childhood and of
their first love and troth.

Never before or since did a transcendent genius
make so much history for the world and so little
for himself as Shakespeare. Here is the quaint
little house in which he was born. It has been
painted, engraved, photographed, and described ad
infinituni. You will find a hundred pictures of it
scattered over Christendom where you will find
one of Solomon's Temple. Undoubtedly it ranked
as a capacious and comfortable dwelling in its day.
It is one of the skeleton type so common to the
Elizabethan age ; that is, the oaken bonework of
the frame is even with the brickwork of the outer
walls, thus showing the fleshless ribs of the house
to the outside world. The rooms are small, and
very low between joints ; still the one assigned by
tradition as the birthplace of the great poet is large
enough for the greatest of men to be born in. Its
ceiling overhead and side walls, however, afford too
scant tablet-space for the registry of the names of

44 2 Walks in the Black Country

all who have sought thus to leave their cards in
homage of the illustrious memory. Their whole
surface, and even the small windows, have been
written and re-written over by the pilgrims to this
shrine from different countries. Here are names
from the extremest ends of the Anglo-Saxon
world — from Newfoundland and New Zealand, and
all the English-speaking countries between. The
Americans have contributed a large contingent to
these records of the pencil. There is something
very interesting and touching, even, in the homage
they bring to his name. He was the last great
English poet who sung to the unbroken family of
the English race. They were then all gathered
around England's hearthstone, unconscious of the
mighty expansion which the near future was to
develop. The population of the whole island
hardly equalled that of the State of New York
to-day. Just below the point of diffluence, about
a quarter of a century before England put forth the
first rivulet from the river of her being and history
to fill the fountain of a new national existence in
the Western World, Shakespeare was at his culmi-
nation as a poet We Americans meet him first
when we trace back our history to its origin. He
of all the old masters stands in the very doorway
of " Our Old Home" to welcome us with the
radiant smile of his genius. We were Americans
and Milton was an Englishman when he began to

and its Green Border- Land. 443

write. We hold our right and title in him by
courtesy; but in "Glorious Will," by full and
direct inheritance as equal coheirs of all the wealth
of his memory. Whoever classifies the signatures
on the walls of his birth-chamber, and in the large
record book brought in to supplement the ex-
hausted writing-space outside, will have striking
proof of this American sentiment. The first locale
in all England to our countrymen is Stratford-
upon-Avon. Westminster, even, stands second in
their estimation to the birth-and-burial place of
this one man. At no other historical point in
Europe will you find so many American names
recorded as over the spot where he was cradled.
This is fitting. We have already become numeri-
cally the largest constituency of his fame. Already
he has more readers on our continent than on
all the other continents and islands of the world ;
and from decade to decade, and from century to
century, doubtless this preponderance will increase
by the ratio of more rapid progression.

What a race of kings, princes, knights, ladies,
and heroes was created by Shakespeare ! If the
truth could be sifted out and known, more than
half the homage the regal courts of to-day get
from the spontaneous sentiment of the public heart
arises from the dignity with which he haloed the
royal brows of his monarchs. They never knew
how to talk and walk and act with the majesty

444 Walks in tJie Black Country

that befitted a king until he taught them. Yet,
how little personal history he made for himself!
Not half as many footprints of his personality can
be found as his father's made at Stratford. This is
a mystery that can have but one reasonable ex-
planation. It is of no use to say that his social
nature was cold or cramped ; that he had not a
rather large circle of personal friends, whom he first
met and made in London, and who came from
different parts of the country. Doubtless he wrote
to these and others letters by the score. Where
are they ? Where is one of them ? We have
volumes of letters centuries older than the first he
wrote brought out quite recently ; but not a scrap
of his handwriting turns up to reward the searching
hunt of his relic-explorers. It is said that only
one letter written to him has been preserved, and
this is a begging one from a Richard Quiney, who
wants to borrow a sum of money of the poet to
keep his head above water irt London. I cannot
conceive to what else this dense obscurity en-
veloping his personal entity can be ascribed than
to the fact, that the morning twilight of his fame
did not dawn upon the world until he had lain in
his grave a full century. In this long interval all
the letters he wrote and received doubtless shared
the fate of Caesar's clay. The greengrocers and
haberdashers of that period probably bought and
used them for making up their parcels of butter

and its Green Border-Land. 445

and mustard and articles of less dignity. All this
may be well for the great reputation the world
accords to him. It may be well that he left no
handwriting in familiar lines, no unravelled threads
of his common human nature which captious critics
might follow up into the inner recesses of his daily
life, and fleck the disk of his fair fame with the
specks and motes they found in the search after
moral discrepancies. It is a wonder that a man of
such genius could have died less than two centuries
and a half ago, and have left a character so com-
pletely shut in and barred against "the peering
littlenesses" of speering, yellow-eyed curiosity. A
soft, still blue, of a hundred years deep, surrounds
his personal being. Through this mild cerulean
haze it shows itself fair and round. Well is it
for him, perhaps, that we of to-day cannot get
nearer to him than the gentle horizon of this inter-
vening century. It is a seamless mantle that
Providence has wrapped around the stature of his
life, in which no envious Casca can ever make
a rent to get at the frailties or small actions of a
great master. No man ever lived more hermetically
in his writings than Shakespeare. His personal
being is as completely shut up and embodied in
them as Homer's is in his grand epics. Will the
life that breathes in them prove immortal ? Three
centuries are not immortality. Will the sexcen-
tenary anniversary of his birth be celebrated after

446 Walks in the Black Country

the fashion of 1864? Through all the changes in
taste and moral and intellectual perception that
may arise in that or a shorter interval, will his
genius and his works be held at our estimate ?
Was he as a poet just what Rubens was as a
painter, and will the pen of the one and the pencil
of the other be put on the same footing and have
the same chance for the admiration of future gen-
erations ? No one can reason out the extreme ends
of these parallels, or predict the verdict of another
century with regard to these men. But the fact we
have already cited will serve as the basis of a
reasonable belief in this matter. It must have
been a full hundred years after Shakespeare was
laid down to his last sleep in the chancel of the
church in which he was baptized, before he began
to have a popular reputation, or a reading by
even the educated classes in England. At the end
of the second century that reputation had spread
itself over the whole civilized world. From 1623
to 1823 no writers had arisen to eclipse or super-
sede his genius. In this wide interval hundreds of
authors, widely read in their day, went down to
oblivion, some to obloquy. They could not live
on the sea of public opinion. Now we are in the
middle of the third century of his fame. How
does it rank at this moment in the estimation
of the world ? With all the new and brilliant
literature that has flooded Christendom within the

and its Green Border-Land. 447

last fifty years, has the brightness of his paled
in the contrast ? Has it already gone down into
the gorgeous tombs of the Capulets, or to live
only in monumental bookbindery with the by-
gone English classics ; to make a show of elegant
gilt-backed volumes in fashionable bookcases as
"standard works," or works for ever to stand on
their lower ends in serried and even ranks, to be
seen and not read ? Further from it than ever
before. No such lame and impotent conclusion
can be predicted from the present appreciation
of his writings. The opening years of this very
decade mark a new era in their estimation. Vir-
tually for the first time he is being introduced to
a new world of readers, to the labouring masses
of the people. Publishers are taking him into
the cottages of the million, and bespeaking a
hearty and pleasant welcome to his " Hamlet,"
" Othello," and all the other creations of his
genius. Popular editions of Shakespeare are the
order of the day. For the first time the common
people begin to know him. Such is the promise
of 1867. What is being done in England and
America to familiarize the masses with his writings
is repeated on a smaller scale on the Continent
of Europe. Cheap editions in German and French
have been put recently in circulation. Doubtless
within a half century he will be read in every
other language in Christendom. His works never

448 Walks in the Black Country.

had more vitality than at the present moment,
nor such a wide breathing space among men.

While looking at the dark and dense network of
names written upon the walls and windows of the
room in which Shakespeare was born, there was
one I would have walked a hundred miles to see.
It was not Lucien Bonaparte's, nor Sir Walter
Scott's, nor Burns's, nor Washington Irving's. It
was the name of the man who first pencilled one
upon the virgin plaster over the cradle-place of the
poet. It would be exceedingly interesting to know
who he was, when he did it, and what moved him
to this act of homage. What a procession of
names his headed ! The whole space is covered
with layers of them, several deep. If they could
all be brought to light, every square inch would
reveal fifty at least. The house and garden are
in good repair. The latter is beautifully laid out
and kept, and is marked by this interesting char-
acteristic : all the flowers that Shakespeare has
celebrated in his plays are here planted, watched,
and tended with the nicest care. As a reward for
the dew and light his genius shed over them two
centuries and a half ago, their sweet eyes keep
vigils over his birthplace and perfume it with their
morning breath.

Printed by JOSIAH ALLEN, jun., Birmingham.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

Los Angeles
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