NEW BOOKS.
THORESBY'S DIARY.*
THESE are valuable papers, but they will not prove amusing to the general and superficial reader : they fall, in fact, within that class of publications which might be safely patronized by the funds of socie- ties or the aids of Government patronage. Not being of an attractive nature, the public may not be alive to their value ; and yet, being greatly useful to the inquirer, were they to remain in manuscript, the loss would be considerable. By the patient student of character, much is to be learnt from the perusal of this singular and honest diary ; for the historical reader, it contains several valuable hints; but, above all, the antiquary will find in it his model and exemplar. RALPH THORESBY is the true type of a genuine antiquary of the old school: pious, humble, painstaking, learned, and inquisitive ; a singular combina- tion .of enthusiasm and dryness, of simplicity and shrewdness, of erudition and credulity. We love while we laugh ; we cannot help smihng at the minuteness of the object, while we honour the persever- ance and the talent displayed in the pursuit of it. There is no cha- racter so completely of a piece as is that of the Dryasdusts and Old- bucks of the last two centuries : their benevolence is so consistent with the disinterestedness of their studies, their simplicity with the rudeness and primitiveness of former times; they live with the past, P.."od there is something ancestral in their ways, their very gait and ap- pearance; they seem to gather rust with their old coins. Sir WALTER SCOTT has understood them, because he has narrowly es- caped being one of the venerable band,—something, truly, of a higher order than that ancient diarist ELIAS ASHMOLE, or his model TRADESCANT, and even far above our friend THORE My, great as he is in the catalogue of topographers, and proud as Leeds may justly be of her exemplary historian. s An antiquary is a very peculiar member of the literary corps ; and st is not surprising that persons have mistaken his character. One of the most promising of his order is Mr. HUNTER, the editor of this diary, and of THORESBY'S Remains ; and yet he falls into the mis- take of distinguishing antiquaries by the possession of more or less taste. Now taste is no distinctive quality of an antiquary : he is a sleuth-hound--an indagator rerum—to be distinguished by his saga- city, and by the acuteness of his scent, by the perseverance with which he follows up his game, and the enthusiasm with which he re- joices in success : a fact gained is his triumph : it is not in his nature to appreciate the value of the quarry, but to hunt it down : the attain- xnent of his object-L--the fixing of a date, the ascertaining of a half- erased word, the discovery of a name, or other small gear; which is a bona fide addition to human knowledge,—this is his business and end. Now, to fulfil this mission in its true style, a man must not be nice in his tastes ; he must not pick and choose when he is on a trail,—his object is to run it down, and leave the brush to those who take honour to wear it. The studies of the antiquary are aperpetual chase, and the pleasure arising from it to be appreciated by all lovers of hunting. What does THORESBY venerate the celebrated antiquary of York, Mr. TORRE, for,—" but that he had made, among other similar things, a complete list of the succession- of incumbents of the Yorkshire livings," with the date of their deaths? Now if taste were a becoming exer- cise of the antiquarian faculties, where would be the accomplishment of such works as this ?—and yet this very list may be a most useful and necessary guide in the prosecution of other discoveries. It is not for a pioneer to talk of the picturesque—the pickaxe is his imple- ment, and digging his trade. Knowledge is a far better aid than taste : it is in this department that antiquaries have usually failed ;—we mean a large knowledge of the things of a wider sphere than his own town or country. But we must not expect impossibilities. A feeling, rather than an acquirement, is that veneration of all that is old; and a sensibility easily excited to any evidence of antiquity, is a more useful and a more usual characteristic of the true antiquary. His sympathy is intense : a Roman brick, a lachrymatory, or a piece of money, will place him in the midst of Roman legions, make him one in a funeral train of two thousand years agone, or carry him back to the times when emperors have given coins in largesses, or epicures have exchanged them for British oysters or peacock-brains. We have read many diaries, and many pieces of biography which pretended to deal in confessions and revelations, but never one which did so truly and openly display the real character of the man as this minute journal, and that too without any pretension to confessing or unbosoming. It is satisfactory to add, that it would be difficult to find a specimen of a human being with fewer faults, more innocent, more amiable, more singlehearted, more modest, humble, and upright, than the diarist. True, he is fanatical, but his age was so : his father had been a soldier of FAIRFAX ; his most revered friends were ejected Ministers ; and, it must be remembered, it was this spirit of enthu- siastic religion, one feature of which was a resolution to stand up for liberty of conscience, that dethroned JAMES and brought in the Prince of Orange,—that is to say, preserved the Protestant faith in the country, and secured its civil liberties. We dislike fanaticism as much as any one, and can laugh at it when it is ridiculous ; but great allowances are to be made for the atmosphere in which a man lives (few can get in advance of their age) ; and next, it is to be for- given when unmingled with the slightest alloy of hypocrisy and con- joined with almost all the virtues. The fanaticism of THORESBY is, however, of that mild description, that we cannot anticipate that any body will be angry with it, though we expect it will be made the sub- ject of some amusement. His scruples are sometimes irresistible, • The Diary of Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., Author of the Topography of Leeds (1677,-- :7724)• Now first Published from the Original Afanuecript. By the Rev. Joseph Hun. ter, F.S.A. 2 vole. London, 1830. even to those who have a kind of reverence for the good man. Thus, for instance, in his voyage to Holland, he is discomposed on a Sunday, and not being able to fix his mind on holy thoughts, he doubts whether to attribute his fault to depravity or sea-sickness, and so lays it on both. I Die Dom. Upon our voyage all day; but through sea-sickness, and depra- vity of my heart, had.not such holy thoughts as ought to have been in one that has so many mercies daily bestowed upon him."—Vol. I. p. 16.
There are large classes of religious individuals who object to travelling on a Sunday, but we believe few would hesitate in such a dilemma as the one mentioned in the following entry in the Diary.
" Die Dom. Constrained, utterly against my mind, to travel from Royston to Stamford, though the Lord's Day; but either to do so, or be left upon the road, about a hundred miles from home, and not knowing a foot of the way."—P. 13. It does not appear that this sin was visited with immediate punish- ment ; and thus he escaped better than his maid, who was guilty of the same crime, and thereby got a fall. " Die Doan. Thence rid to Newark : the maidunfortunately got a grievous fall ; perhaps we may read the crime, travelling upon the Lord's Day, in the punishment, but was not much worse."—P. 47.
The same maid was equally unlucky the next day, Monday ; but the diarist does not say that it was in pursuance of her sentence, and in further prosecution of the offence.
" 14. Thence to Wansford; near which town, a cart, driving furiously down the hill, hit the maid's horse, and caught hold of her clothes, but got her not under the wheel, though at the very door of death."
The dangerous doctrine of a particular providence is indeed far too frequently exemplified by the diarist ; it is a main point of his faith ; and the instances are sometimes so familiar as to be ludicrous. In one case, as he was sitting upon a table in his oil-mill, the floor sank twelve inches : he speaks of the Deity having put his omnipotent arm " under the plaster-work to sustain it." Another of Mr. THORESBY.S foibles was credulity ; which is nearly allied to greediness of information. Like other antiquaries, he was sometimes mystified by travellers, and sometimes imposed upon by practical jokers, who found amusement in hoaxing the antiquary. He sems to have been made to believe in a shower of corn more wonder- ful than the raining down of manna in the wilderness! We don't know what the agriculturists will think of it, but if such things were to happen frequently, the infliction would be deemed by them more unendurable than even the persevering Catechist of the Corn Laws.
" 11. Up at four, writing memoirs about the year 1544, till .loon; then walked with Dutch cousin to Woodhouse-hill; where, in cousin Fenton's best chamber, I gathered some of the corn that was rained down the chimney upon the Lord's Day sevennight, when it likewise rained plentifully of the like upon Hedingley-moor, as was confidently reported : but those I ga- thered with my own hands from the white hearth, which was stained with drops of blue when it had fallen ; for it is of a pale red or a kind of sky colour, is pretty, and tastes like common wheat, of which I have one hundred grains. What it may signify, and whether it doth proceed from natural causes, (of which some may be prescribed) or preternatural, such an ignorant creature as I am cannot aver."—P. 85.
On another occasion, he speaks without scepticism of " a memo rable countess who had 365 children at a birth." A Mr. Smith told him he had" seen the two basins they were baptised in." This is irrefragable : Emily's maid, in the Mysteries of Udolpho, proves the fact of her having seen a ghost, similarly,—for " there," said she, "Ma'am, is the very cannon it stood by." It is not the character of a sincere and simple man like THORESBY to be witty, but we have seen such spirits mount up as high in the thermometer of pleasantry as facetiousness. In the whole of these copious volumes, however, the solitary remark of a humorous nature is the following observation on the prevalence of odd legs at Chelsea.
"Viewed the noble college for lame soldiers, (at Chelsea,) where two legs are almost criminal."—Vol. II. p. 97.
RALPH THORESBY was the son of a merchant at Leeds, who had served in the Commonwealth wars on the Parliament 'side. He was born 16th August 1658, and was bred a merchant. His attention to trade was, however, divided with religion and antiquities, to which he devoted the greater part of a long and industrious life. He died 16th October 1725, in the 68th year of his age. His reputation stood high among antiquaries in his lifetime, and his works have more than pre- served the estimation in which they were held when published. The Diary is to be followed by two volumes selected from his Correspond- ence, which will be curious and valuable. The Diary, of which only a part has come down to us, was commenced at the request of his father, and carried on through life, partly from habit, but chiefly out of veneration for his father's memory. It was in these quaint terms —which may also illustrate the notions of the picturesque entertained in those days—that the old soldier merchant recommended his son to keep a journal. "Sometimes (employ yourself) in writing, or drawinz prospects, (which will be a pleasant and innocent recreation), as that of the Monument or of Bed- lam, which might be taken very well in Moor fields; and I would have you in a little book, which you may either buy or make of two or three sheets of paper, take a little journal of any thing remarkable every day, principally as to yourself: as, suppose, Aug. 2,' I was at such a place, (or) I omitted such a duty ; (or) such a one preached from such a text, and my heart was touched, (or) I was a negligent hearer, (or) otherwise.' I have thought this a good method for one to keep a good tolerable decorum in actions, Scc., because he is to be accountable to himself as well as to God, which we are too apt to forget."—Vol. I. p. 15. The hints of his father, whom he devotedly loved, were commands ; as it was on this model that the Diary was written. Mr. HUNTER, the editor, has performed his task in a manner to leave nothing to be desired. He steps forward only where explana- tion is wanted; his information is accurate, and concisely expressed, and is never put in an obtrusive form. In short, he has hit the edi- tor's true medium.
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