East Anglia: Personal Recollections and Historical AssociationsRitchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
History
East Anglia: Personal Recollections and Historical Associations
Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
East Anglia (England)
foreseen the immense field of study which was to be opened later to the
novelist. A distant ancestor of Fielding, as Lilly and Sidney appear to
us to be distant ancestors of Richardson, he understands that a picture
of active life, reproducing only in the Spanish fashion scenes of comedy,
is incomplete and departs from reality. The greatest jesters, the most
arrogant, the most venturesome, have their days of anguish. No hero has
ever yet remained imprisoned from the cradle to the grave, and no one has
been able to live an irresponsible spectator, and not feel his heart
sometimes beat the quicker, nor bow his head unmoved. Nash caught a
glimpse of this.’ As an illustration, Dr. Jusserand points to his ‘Jack
Wilton’—‘The best specimen of the picturesque tale in English literature
anterior to Defoe.’ In Lowestoft they ought to keep his memory green.
The writer well remembers the day when Mr., afterwards Sir, Morton Peto,
assembled the inhabitants of Lowestoft in the then dilapidated Town Hall,
and promised that if they would sell their ruined harbour works, and back
him in making a railway, their mackerel and herrings should be delivered
almost alive in Manchester, Liverpool, and London. The inhabitants
believed in the power of the enchanter, and Lowestoft is metamorphosed.
The old town remains upon its beautiful eminence, and memory clings to
the cliffs and to the denes, tenanted only, the one by wild rabbits, the
other by the merry children and the nets of the fishermen. But a new
town has grown up around the harbour—a grand hotel, excellent
lodging-houses, a new church; a great population have upset the romance,
and borne witness to the spirit of enterprise which characterizes this
generation. The new town has spread to Kirkley, has Londonized even
quiet Pakefield, and awakened a sleeping neighbourhood to what men call
life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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