Ralph Thovesty, the Copographer; Gis Ton and Cimes. BY Do PA ALTKINSON, Eprror or “Oxp Leeps: 11s Brecones axp CEvEBRITIPS.” WITH PORTRAIT OF THORESBY, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY PARMENTIER, LEEDS: WALKER AND LAYCOCK. 1885.FROM A.D. 1679 TO 1589. ili On the 27th of May 1681, Thoresby attended a fifth funeral, that of Gamaliel Marsden, brother of the Jeremiah Marsden, otherwise Ralphson, against whom he had been warned by his father upon his first visiting London. Gamaliel was the Non- conformist minister at Topcliffe, near Wakefield, and Thoresby speaks highly of him :— “May 25. Rid to visit honest Mr. Marsden, a learned and judicious Nonconformist, but, beyond Morley, met the man with the sad tidings of his death; stayed there most of the afternoon with poor Mrs. Marsden, very weak and dangerously sick.” “27. Rid to Tingley, to the funeral of that holy man, Mr. Gamaliel Marsden, whose death was much bewailed, not by relations only, but many good people and godly ministers, as a public loss.” Two months afterward, Thoresby again rode “to Mrs. Mars- den’s, to view the library,” and he bought a few of the books. The heavy rains and floods which Thoresby repeatedly men- tions, were followed in this year, 1681, by a long drought. Evelyn, in the south, says that only one shower of rain fell during April; and on the 12th of June he wrote,—“It_ still continued so great a drought as had never been known in England, and it was said to be universal.” The generality of the drought is confirmed by Oliver Heywood, in his diary for April and May,— “T saw the dreadfullest sight of waste pastures in my travels that ever my eyes beheld; scarce any green things left in the fields. I saw, both in Howarth parish and up toward Marsden, the strangest fires upon the moors that have been known, burn- ing up the heath and dry mossy earth for many miles forward, and could not be quenched. The beasts of the field began to smart and feel the effects of God’s anger. Many strange in- credible stories were told of many places; of an ox speaking, saying, ‘What should I plough for? there’s more corn sown than will be reaped ;’ near Easingwold in Yorkshire. It is con-112 RALPH THORESBY THE TQPOGRAPHER. fidently reported that it rained wheat at Leicester in May; also near Pontefract and near Leeds; several quantities were in many hands, but little solid nourishment therein.” Thoresby does not speak of the drought, nor of the argu- mentative ox; but on the 11th of June he tells,— “Up at four, writing memoirs about the year 1544 till noon; 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 seven-night, when it likewise rained plentifully of the like upon Headingley- moor, as was confidently reported; but those I gathered with my own hands from the white hearth, which was stained with drops of blue where 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 corns. 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.” But twenty-one years later, on the 28th of July 1702, Thoresby wrote concerning a similar downfall in the same neigh- bourhood,— “With Mr. Fenton, from whom, and a person that gathered it, received a parcel of the reputed wheat that was rained on Lord’s Day last, betwixt Hunslet and Middleton, but ‘tis rather seeds of ivy-berries, or other plants;” and the botanical section of his Museum Catalogue has the following,— Some of the supposed Wheat that came down in a hasty Shower near Leedes 29 May 1681, and of that rained 26 July 1702, different from the former, and both from real Wheat, being Seeds of Ivy- «berries, or other Plants hoarded up by the Birds.” Thoresby here adopts an explanation given in No. 186 of Philosophical Transactions (the first for the year 1687), to which he refers. It is entitled “Part of a Letter from Mr, William Cole of Bristol to the Publisher, about the grains resembling wheat which lately fell in Wiltshire.” Mr. Cole writes,—FROM A.D. 1679 TO 1683. 113 “The City and Country round about is filled with reports of raining wheat about Warminster, and other places within six or eight miles of it, and many believe it; I have procured several parcels of it, and carefully examined them, and find it to be the seeds of ivy-berries, which from towers and churches, chimneys, walls and high buildings were lately by very fierce tempest of wind and hail, driven away from the holes, chinks, and other parts where birds had brought them, especially sterlings and choughs. It were to little purpose to tell you the. prodigious stories which have been made of it; among many others it was confidently affirmed (and backt by many who affirmed they had seen it) that those grains were found in the hail as seeds in comfits. I do here acquaint you with it (upon notice I have had of some who have sent several parcels of it to your Society, with strange relations of it) to the end you may inform them of the truth, For I have by all the ways I can imagine examined and compared them with the seeds of ivy-berries, by the taste, smell, size and figure; with the assistance of magni- fying glasses viewing them in both the superficial and inward parts. This perhaps they may have discovered before this comes to their hands, if they desire farther satisfaction concerning it I shall be ready to serve them.” * Thoresby remained at home, excepting some day excursions, and a night in York, until the middle of June 1681, persevering with his early rising and literary designs. In these he had the sympathy and assistance of the Vicar, who, visiting him at his own house, “corrected some mistakes and errata in transcribing epitaphs ;” and, having risen at five and walked till six, Thoresby adds,—“ writing till noon, completing catalogue of my books for our learned and good Vicar, Mr. John Milner. On the 14th of June Thoresby “went with cousins and much company to the Spaws” at Harrogate, and the next three days :— * In the diary of Abraham De la Pryme, published by the Surtees Society, we have,—“In the year 1687 there were several memorable things happen'd which we cannot but take notice of. Of the 28th of April it rained wheat in great abundance at Lincoln and the towns adjacent, several granes of which were sent as miraculous and prodigious presents to several gentlemen about ua.”ilt RALPH THORESBY THE TOPOGRAPHER “Drank the sulphur water plentifully; walked much for health and recreation with the company, but alas! little regarded any good thing, generally omitted duty or but slightly performed it.” He stayed a month at Harrogate, drinking the waters, and engaging in “the usual recreations, walking, &.” He rode to St. Mungo’s (or Mongah’s) Well at Cotgrave,” now Copgrove, about four miles to the north of Knaresborough, and he de- clares the water there to be “the coldest of all waters I ever knew. One forenoon was spent by Thoresby in “viewing the heads cursorily” of a work by Fernando Gorge, entitled ‘America painted to the Life,” a quarto published in London in 1659. The portion of it which chiefly occupied him was that “relating to Mr. Hooker, Shephard, Elliot, Davenport, &e., worthy ministers who fled thither.” But Thoresby found Harrogate “better fur- nished than ordinary” with company, and the above is the only account of his reading while there given in his Diary. He met with Sir Ralph Jennyson * and his Lady from Newcastle, who had been friends of his late father and of his uncle; and he found a congenial companion in an “accomplished gentleman, Charles Scrimshaw, Esq., of Staffordshire,” afterward Sir Charles, From him Thoresby obtained information upon a favourite topic, “Protestant benefactors”; concerning Mr. Chetwynd, + who still lived, the founder of a church, and Mr. Scrimshaw’s father-in- * Ralph Jenniscn was Mayor, and Robert Jenison Sheriff of Newcastle in 1668-9. It was before Ralph Jennison, when Mayor, that a deposition was made under the Conventicle Act against George Thoresby, as mentioned in a previous note. Tf this were Thoresby’s uncle, and it is so stated in the publica- tion of the Surtees Society, the friendship between them has some significance as a commentary upon the working of the Act. In 1074, Thomas Jenison wes Mayor, and Henry Jennison, Sheriff. + Waller Chetwynd, Esq., of Ingestre, an antiquary, rebuilt Ingestre Parish Church at his own cost; a work commenced in 1673 and lasting three years,— See Shaw's Staffordshire,FROM A.D. 1679 TO 1683. 115 law, Mr. Taylor,* who built alms-houses at Chesterfield. On the Sunday before his return home, having spent the forenoon in “drinking water, and afterwards wine, too regardless of discourse, &c,” he rode to Ripley with Mr. Scrimshaw, to hear Mr. Kir- shaw. On the Monday or Tuesday they went to Knaresborough, where Thoresby “writ the heads of St. Robert’s life from an old manuscript,t gathered some remarkably petrified moss, viewed the castle, &c.;” and on the Wednesday Mr. Scrimshaw accom- panied him home. The next day, Thoresby rode with his friend to Wakefield and there transcribed for him the epitaph of Dr. Symson ; then “rode to Snidal to visit aunt, and returned well home.” : The “Dutch cousin,” who was Thoresby’s companion when he gathered the wheat that had fallen in a shower, turns out to be Benjamin Milner of Amsterdam. It is probable that he was on a visit to his father, William Milner, of Leeds, merchant; and that he, with some other of the family, were the cousins who accompanied Thoresby to Harrogate. For on the second day after his return, Thoresby “dined with some Spaw company at Mr. M.’s; stayed there till four. Spent the rest of the day and evening with cousin B, Milner of Holland.” In four days more he was travelling again, after “consulting Mr. Camden for the memorables in Derbyshire,” as now-a-days intending tourists con- sult Murray. ‘i Rising about five o’clock on the morning of Tuesday the 19th of July 1681, Thoresby mounted for Buxton; rode first to Wake- field, where he stayed an hour, from Wakefield to New Miller's * George Taylor, Esq., of Durant Hall, Derbyshire, who died in 1668, and was buried in Chesterfield Parish Church, left a sum of money for the building of an alms-house for six poor women, endowing it with a rent-charge of £16 a year. In 1678 the bequest was carried out by his successor, Charles Scrimshire, whom Thoresby here calls Scrimshaw (also spelled Scrymsheour), of Norbury in Staffordshire.—See Lyson’s Derbyshire, + Drake, in the Eboracum, gives a Life of St. Robert of Knaresborough from an old manuscript; and states the one kept in his cell to be imperfect.