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PREFACE.
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IN this little volume,
relating, principally, to a district with which the writer is intimately
acquainted, he has gathered up a few points of local interest, and, in
connection with these, he has endeavoured to embody something of the
traits of present life in South Lancashire with descriptions of its
scenery, and with such gleanings from its local history as bore upon the
subject, and, under the circumstances, were available to him. How far he
has succeeded in combining a volume of local matter, which may be
instructive or interesting, he is willing to leave to the judgment of
those readers who know the country and the people it deals with. He is
conscious that, in comparison with the fertile field of strong
peculiarities which Lancashire presents to writers who are able to gather
it up, and to use it well, this volume is fragmentary and discursive; yet
he believes that, so far as it goes, it will not be wholly unacceptable to
native readers.
The historical information interspersed throughout the volume, has been
gathered from so many sources that it would be a matter of considerable
difficulty to give a complete and detailed acknowledgment of it. In every
important case, however, this acknowledgment has been given, with some
degree of care, as fully and clearly as possible, in the course of the
work. Some of this historical matter may prove to be ill-chosen, if not
ill-used—perhaps in some cases it might have been obtained in a better
form, and even more correctly given—but the writer has, at least, the
satisfaction of knowing that, with such light as he had, and with such
elements as were convenient to him, he has been guided, in his selection
of that kind of information, by a desire to obtain the most correct and
the most applicable matter which was available to him.
A book which is purely local in its character and bearing, as this is,
cannot be expected to have much interest for persons unconnected with the
district which it relates to. If there is any hope of its being read at
all, that hope is centred there. The subjects it treats upon being local,
and the language used in it being often the vernacular of a particular
part of the county, these circumstances combine to narrow its circle of
acquaintance. But, in order to make that part of it which is given in the
dialect as intelligible as possible to all readers not intimate with that
form of native language, some care has been taken to explain such words as
are unusually ambiguous in form, or in meaning. And, here it may be
noticed, that persons who know little or nothing of the dialect of
Lancashire, are apt to think of it as one in form and sound throughout the
county, and expect it to assume one unvaried feature whenever it is
represented in writing. This is a mistake, for there often exist
considerable shades of difference—even in places not more than eight or
ten miles apart—in the expression, and in the form of words which mean the
same thing; and, sometimes, the language of a very limited locality,
though bearing the same general characteristics as the dialect of the
county in general, is rendered still more perceptibly distinctive in
features, by idioms and proverbs peculiar to that particular spot. In this
volume, however, the writer has taken care to give the dialect, as well as
he could, in such a form as would convey to the mind of the general reader
a correct idea of the mode of pronunciation, and the signification of the
idioms, used in the immediate locality which he happens to be writing
about.
Lancashire has had some learnèd writers who have written upon themes
generally and locally interesting. But the successful delineation of the
quaint and racy features of its humble life has fallen to the lot of very
few. John Collier, our sound-hearted and clear-headed native humourist of
the last century, left behind him some exquisite glimpses of the manner of
life in his own nook of Lancashire, at that time. The little which he
wrote, although so eccentric and peculiar in character as to be almost
unintelligible to the general reader, contains such evidence of genius and
so many rare touches of nature, that to those who can discern the riches
hidden under its quaint vernacular garb, it wears a perennial charm, in
some degree akin to that which characterises the writings of such men as
Cervantes and De Foe. And, in our own day, Samuel Bamford—emphatically a
native man—has, with felicitous truth, transferred to his pages some
living pictures of Lancashire life, which will probably be read with more
interest even than now, long after the writer has been gathered to his
fathers. There are others who have illustrated some of the conditions of
social existence in Lancashire, in a graphic manner, with more polish and
more learning; but, for native force and truth, John Collier and Samuel
Bamford are, probably, the foremost of all genuine expositors of the
characteristics of the Lancashire people.
In conclusion, all that has hitherto been done in this way, is small in
amount, compared with that which is left undone. The past, and still more
the disappearing present, of this important district teem with significant
features, which, if caught up and truthfully represented, might, perhaps,
be useful to the next generation.
E.W.
Manchester. |
