The Legendary and Poetical Remains of John Roby Part 1

The Legendary and Poetical Remains of John Roby.

by John Roby.

PREFACE.

The poetry and tales const.i.tuting the main part of the present volume, need no apology or introduction. Most of them were finished for publication by the author.[A]

But in reference to the biographical sketch which precedes them, a few words will not be out of place.

A life so private afforded but few materials. Incidents of early days, tending to ill.u.s.trate the bent and development of his powers, are derived from memoranda in Mr. Roby's own handwriting, or from well-remembered conversations. The absence of that unconscious self-portraiture, which a man's own letters present, will be found supplied, to some extent, by short reminiscences, kindly furnished by friends. The memoir is not offered as a complete biography. It is simply an outline of a literary life, and of a character; the one as varied in its aspect, as the other was uniform in its tenor. That part of the life which fell under the writer's own observation, has of necessity been dwelt on most at length, and she fears lest too much prominence may at times have been given to what is personal to herself, and the double life be thus too strongly shown. Yet the shadow that brings out the princ.i.p.al object will scarcely be censured. No one can feel so deeply as herself the inadequacy of her talents to the subject. To one qualification alone she may lay claim, without fear of the charge of presumption, "that of the seeing heart," without which it has been truly said, "no _true_ seeing for the head is so much as possible."

The writer will esteem herself happy if, with all the imperfections of detail, she shall, in a measure, have succeeded in her aim. That aim has been to gather up, with a loving reverence, the scattered products of her husband's pen, by which the reader may estimate his powers, and to present a faithful mental portrait of one, with whom the pursuit of literature was no bar to the discharge of ordinary duties, and whose gifts were the Lares and Penates of his own fireside,--one who, as time advanced, learned the secret of self-renunciation and spiritual obedience, and having "left this life for a better," still, lives "in memory here," as a man of genius and a Christian.

December, 1853. E. R. R.

SKETCH

OF

THE LITERARY LIFE AND CHARACTER

OF

JOHN ROBY.

When an author's name is chiefly known by a work connected with any particular locality, our natural expectations are gratified in finding that personal or family a.s.sociations drew his attention to the subject.

This was the case with the author of "The Traditions of Lancashire."

Born in a neighbourhood where the faint legends of the olden time were yet floating, he himself belonged to the district whose memorials he perpetuated. He was attached to his native county, proud of her wild scenery, of her old historic a.s.sociations, and of the energetic, well-defined character of her sons. His family name was not unknown in her annals. One of his ancestors, Captain Roby, who was born in an old mansion, long since pulled down, in the township of Roby, near Liverpool, was distinguished by his courage and gallant conduct during the civil wars of the seventeenth century, at the time when the north was the scene of operations.

JOHN ROBY was born at Wigan, the 5th of January 1793. From his father, NEHEMIAH ROBY, who was for many years master of the grammar-school at Haigh, he inherited a fine const.i.tution and unbending principles of honour and integrity. From the family of his mother, MARY ASPULL, he derived the quick impressible temperament of genius and that love of humour which so conspicuously marks the Lancashire character.

Dest.i.tute of home companions of his own age, being by many years the youngest of the family, he often suffered from an oppressive sense of loneliness. One of his strongest characteristics was an intense yearning for sympathy, however concealed in after-life, from the general eye, by the exuberance of his natural spirits. This led him to seek companionship with inanimate things, which he invested with a sympathetic existence. A reflected light proceeding from the surface of water in a b.u.t.t at the back of the house, which frequently played on the upper wall of the staircase, was one of these friendly objects. Ignorant of the cause, he would watch for its coming, and sit for hours in communion with the strange and beautiful appearance. It was to him a fair and mysterious visitant, who came in pure benevolence to cheer his solitude. Indicative of the dramatic bent of his mind was another of his resources. He was accustomed to cut out little paper figures of men and women, which he would carry to bed and place under his pillow. As soon as the light was withdrawn he delighted himself in conversations with his paper friends, losing his sense of loneliness in their ideal companionship.

Another thing contributed to deepen his unsatisfied longing for sympathy. His father revered the sterner virtues, and sacrificed to them whatever he apprehended might tend to enervate his son's character. In conformity with this theory of training, even the maternal kiss was forbidden. Only once did he remember feeling the soft pressure of his mother's lips on his cheek, though frequently and fervently did he long to feel it again. In after-life, even down to its close, when rejoicing in the sunshine of confiding and playful affection, he would refer with tears in his eyes to the lonely and unfondled years of childhood. For the sake of both, deeply was it to be regretted, that a mother's love of her latest born, one of the strongest of human affections, should be denied its natural expression, repressed as a duty, till it was subdued and its very existence scarcely suspected.

His thirst for knowledge was early and strongly manifested. If his inquiries were neglected or evaded, he would insist on an intelligible reply. Having been once told, not to be so inquisitive, "'Inquisitive'

wants to know" was ever after his form of urgent appeal. Characteristic of this disposition was an incident which occurred when he was a child in petticoats. One fine afternoon 'Inquisitive' was seated in a low chair by his mother's side, conning his lesson. He loved not a task from which he gained no idea; the spelling of _t-h-e_, _the_, _f-o-r_, _for_, was wearisome, and, as an expedient to rid himself of it, he feigned sleep: his father entering the room remarked, "John is asleep: this warm afternoon has made him drowsy." The mother knew the pranks of childhood, and quietly replied, "He is only sleeping dog's sleep." There was a new idea: up started the little head in a moment with the inquiry, "What is dog's sleep, mother?" Even at that early age, when a question suggested itself, he could not rest till he had arrived at a satisfactory answer; often and long would he ponder over some little thing that puzzled him, and on which he could gain no information from others beyond the unsatisfactory reply "Why, _so it is_."

As he grew up into boyhood surrounded by objects to which tradition had a.s.signed her marvellous stories, they sank silently into his companionless and sensitive spirit. In his immediate vicinity were Haigh Hall, and Mab's Cross, the scenes of Lady Mabel's sufferings and penance--the subject of one of his earliest tales. Almost within sight of the windows through which, with the dreamy gaze of childhood, he first looked on earth and sky, lay the fine range of hills of which Rivington Pike is a spur. Never will be forgotten the pleasure with which, fifty years afterwards, during the last summer of his life, when travelling past that neighbourhood, he pointed out the roof and chimneys of his birthplace, the well-remembered hills as they lay with the beautiful light of the afternoon sun upon them, Hoghton Tower crowning its woody steep, and other spots at once the haunts of early days and the scenes of the legends he afterwards so beautifully re-imbodied.

His various talents were very early called forth. While yet a child he was accustomed, at first occasionally, and then regularly, to take the organ at the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel, Wigan, during the Sunday service. His ear was exquisitely true, and his voice also excellent; but, used too freely at the period of its change, it never afterwards fully regained its tone.

His first attempt at drawing was made when he was a very little fellow.

A lady with whom he was a special favourite--Miss Leigh, sister of the late Sir Robert Holt Leigh--had one day, to his great delight, been showing him some sketches, when, after he had looked at them, she placed the drawing of a cow before him, saying,

"Now cannot you draw that cow?"

"Oh, no! I never did such a thing," was his reply;

"Try," her wise rejoinder.

With some persuasion the volatile child was induced to attempt the task.

The pencil was poised--his attention concentrated on the subject--his hand began to follow the eye, and with oft-repeated delight he beheld the form grow rapidly under his touch; so that whether his teacher or himself was the more pleased, it would be difficult to say. This was a precious lesson to him, which he did not forget. It was so firmly rooted, that, in after-life, he never doubted success in anything he thought proper to attempt. Years after, in 1849, when writing to a friend whom he wished to encourage to mental effort, he referred to this time, when the little word "Try" was the "Open Sesame" of the "Arabian Nights" to him.

He cared little for ordinary companions, never so happy as when he could steal away from them, into the company of such of the other s.e.x as were much older than himself, and listen for hours to song and music. He always considered he was more indebted for the formation of his habits and the development of his character and talents, as in the instance above, to woman's discriminating encouragement, than to anything else; and, for weal or for woe, hers was an influence to which he was ever peculiarly sensitive.

The education he received appears to have been rather desultory. The dry and spiritless mode of conveying instruction in those days had neither attractions for his taste, nor power over his mind. As he advanced into youth, and "macadamised his own road," various branches of the natural sciences, history, antiquities, and the fine arts, nearly absorbed his attention. A course of mathematical study would probably have been the best discipline for him at this time, as a balance to the spontaneous development of his imagination. He afterwards pursued it with great enjoyment, though to no considerable extent; and, late in life, he proposed a resumption of the study to the companion of his pursuits--one of the many plans so suddenly and so mournfully cut short.

When he entered on life, and the duties of his profession, that of a banker, early left him master of many leisure hours, the use of the pencil was a favourite recreation. His artistic perceptions must have been very early developed. He was acquainted with a gentleman a professed virtuoso, and a collector of those fine old drawings and sketches which are the first rough thoughts of the painter, or the playful offspring of his lighter moments. In an unpublished MS. he thus describes in the third person his own first introduction to the beauties of the old masters:--

"A new faculty seemed dawning upon him. He felt their glorious power exalting, refining, the sense by the wondrous potency of art; rendering the forms and hues seen by the imagination visible to the bodily as to the mental eye; and expressing in a tangible shape what had before existed only in the hidden recesses of the soul. He saw for the first time a few of the random sketches, the first bright thoughts of these great men, struck out like sparks from the glowing embers of fancy. The fire and freedom of such rude scratches were pointed out; and he could see with a painter's eye the beauty of a line, the combination and the arrangement, the first shadowy thoughts of the artist emerging from chaos into form." That he possessed even then, to a considerable extent, the artist's power as well as his perception, may be inferred from an anecdote of those days which forms the conclusion of the pa.s.sage:--

"The professor of _vertu_ was expatiating one day, to a group of bystanders, on the merits of some little gem of a drawing he had just purchased. He pointed out the beauties with great gusto, fully impressing his auditory with a sense of the profound knowledge and superiority of his own discrimination. The novice leaned over, and, young as he was, enjoyed the dissertation vastly. In a while he ventured to make a remark: the man of art turned round, and with a look of contempt, intended to extinguish the youthful aspirant, said, 'We don't allow you to be a judge, sir.' Abashed, he shrank back; but the wound rankled, and he determined to have l.u.s.ty revenge. He sketched on paper, with great freedom and carelessness, the subject of an old etching, imitating as nearly as possible the style he had previously seen. By the judicious application of tobacco-juice, soot, bistre, ochre, and a little grease, so as to make the picture a perfect pattern of dirt,--a rent, a puncture, a piecing here and there, to show the care with which it had been preserved,--he succeeded in making, as he thought, a tolerable imitation, and with great glee gallanted off the prize to his preceptor. The connoisseur at once p.r.o.nounced the few bold strokes, every one of which 'told,' to be those of a master; and his pupil had much difficulty in evading his inquiries, as to where he had met with it, and whether there were any more to be had." His success was complete; but neither love of triumph, nor gratified vanity, tempted him to divulge the secret, and thereby mortify his acquaintance: he was satisfied with the result of the experiment, nor did he ever after repeat it.

His first attempt at composition was called forth by a friend, who put into his hand a copy of a periodical which, at that time, offered prizes for the best essays on prescribed subjects, to be sent in by young persons under a specified age. It was suggested to him, that he should take one of the subjects, and see what he could make of it. He at first hesitated; but, recalling the magic power of the little word "TRY," he sat down to the task, and composed an essay:--"To show what obligations parents and children are under to tutors and governesses, and how far it is their duty, from grat.i.tude and interest, to behave towards them with friendship and respect." It was considered worthy of the prize, as appears from a copy of Blair's Cla.s.s-book,--in the fly-leaves of which the essay is preserved,--bearing in the customary gilt letters the inscription,

"PRESENTED TO MASTER JOHN ROBY, AGED FIFTEEN.

A REWARD OF MERIT."

Now fairly aware of his powers, to the pleasures of the pencil were added those of the pen. As might be expected, Poetry, Essay, Tale, were all tried, read at first to juvenile companions, as extracts he had met with. Why should early authorship, like early love, be a thing we shrink from avowing, even to the nearest of our friends? It is because, when we write truthfully and earnestly, we lay bare our very soul; and the avowal in this, as in the other case, becomes an exposure of one's inner self.

Debating and Philosophical societies ere long attracted him, and he evidently exerted a leading influence on his companions. He took a prominent part in their projects and reunions. "Sucking in knowledge like a sponge," as he afterwards said, he was as ready to impart it. A silver snuff-box,--still prized as a relic of his eighteenth or nineteenth year,--bearing the following inscription,

"THE GIFT OF THE PHILOSOPHIC SOCIETY, WIGAN, TO THEIR ESTEEMED LECTURER AND WORTHY MEMBER, MR. J. ROBY,"

attests the nature of his early pursuits, and the estimation in which he was then held by his a.s.sociates.

The local press was another channel for the exercise of his talents; and it appears by a letter from the editor of the "Chester Courant,"

preserved with other relics of early days, that some of his contributions to the paper, during a short residence in that city, attracted the notice of the London papers, and were copied into their columns,--a fact on which the worthy editor rather prided himself, while he congratulated his unknown correspondent. From a memorandum book in handwriting of an early date, containing "Subjects for Consideration,"

we transcribe one page to indicate favourite directions of thought:--

"The oxydation of metals, by pa.s.sing the electric spark through them.

"The faculty which the eye possesses of accommodating its focal distance to objects placed at different distances.

"The sound which proceeds from the shock of the particles of the air, against those of water in motion. Vide Thomson's Ann. Phil. p. 187.

"Fresh-discovered property of the syphon."

He had now found, in part at least, that companionship and sympathy for which he had so earnestly longed, and his spirit gave itself up to delighted converse with its fellows, and to the pursuits of literature and art: