Lancashire Sketches / Third Edition

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a day one." Now, seeing that the theatre of these obscure and honourable struggles of Tim's youth was the town of Oldham, and the villages thereabouts, it is not surprising that the scattered inhabitants of the lonely nook where he was born should have few traditional remembrances of him, who left them when he was yet but a child. Tim's father was only forty years old, when he was overtaken by total blindness; and, this, necessarily, changed the plan he had formed of bringing up his son, our hero, to the Church, for "he had conceived a favourable opinion of his abilities." Now, this calamity did not befall the elder Mr. Collier during the time that he was schoolmaster at Urmston in Flixton: and everything shows that he was not a native of that place, but came from some other part to teach there; remaining only for a short time-during which Tim and his brother Nathan were born-and then moving away again, with his young family of nine children, to another quarter. What Baines says, on the aut

ettling of which depended on such a mouldering record as this, is was just possible that decay might have forestalled the inquiry. After a careful examination of the register, I found the following entries relating to Tim's family, and, besides these, there is no mention of any other person of the name of Collier, for the space of half a century before, and a century after that date. First, under the head of "Births and Baptismes, in the year, 1706," appears "Nathan, ye son of John Collier, schoolmaster, borne May 17, baptised May 31."[15] Singularly, I found the same baptism entered a second time, three pages forward in the same year, with a slight variation, in the following manner:-"Baptised Nathan, the son of Master John Collier, schoolmaster, born May ye 18th." And then the last and only other mention of the Colliers, is the register of the baptism of John, the renowned "Tim Bobbin," which is entered thus, among the baptisms of the year 1710: "John, son of Mr. John Collier, of Urmstone, baptised January the 6th." In Baines's "Lancashire," the baptism is given as occurring in 1709, which is a slight mistake. The origin of that mistake was evident to me, with the register before my eyes. The book seems to have been very irregularly kept in those days; and the baptisms in the year 1709 are entered under a headline, "Baptisms in the year 1709:" but at the end of the baptisms of that year, the list runs on into those of the fo

look rather gaudy; and don't satisfy one's mind so well as a clean white shirt does. As I sat turning over the leaves of these ancient records, in came the incumbent's son, a little, slim, intelligent boy, with large, thoughtful eyes. He watched me attentively for two or three minutes, and then, coming a little nearer, so as to get a

the chequered pattern of our mortal estate! The exits and entrances of these ephemeral players in the drama of life continually interweave in the musty chronicle, as they do in the current of human action. There was a quaint tone running through the whole, which I could not well pass by. In the year 1688, the phrase, "buried in woollen only," first appears, and marks the date of an act for the encoura

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efore Justice Peter Egerton, Jan. 28th, 1705." The burials in the year 1706 are almost all in "sweet floweres only." This is the year when Nathan Collier was born, being the first mention of that family in the register. Three years after, his brother John (Tim Bobbin) was born; after which the Colliers disappear from the register altogether. Some of the burials occurring between 1720 and 1726, are remarkable for the manner of their entry, as, "Sarah, daughter of Schoolmaster Pony;" "James, Thomas Jaddock's father;" "John Swindell, taken out of ye river;" "Widow Peer's child, Aug. 5th;" and this is followed three days after by "Richd., son of Widow Peer's, Aug. 30th;" "Old Ralph Haslam, from Carrington;" "Old Henery Roile, from Stretford;" "Old Mrs. Starkey;" "Old John Groons;" "Moss's wife of Urmeston;" "Horox's child of Urmstone;" and "H