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)
noble lord—who after he had spent a fortune merrily, as country gentlemen
did in the good old times, came to live on a small annuity, and, in spite
of his enormous daily consumption of London porter at the leading inn of
the town, managed to reach a good old age. The hon. gentleman and I were
on friendly terms, and sometimes he would talk of Whately, who had often
been at his house. But, alas! he remembered nothing of a man who became
so celebrated in his day except that he would eat after dinner any number
of oranges, and was so fond of active exercise that he would take a
pitchfork and fill his tumbrels with manure, or work just like a labourer
on a farm. Of the Doctor’s aversion to church-bell ringing we have a
curious illustration in a letter which appeared in the _Suffolk
Chronicle_ in 1825: ‘A short time since a wedding took place in the
families of two of the oldest and most respectable inhabitants of the
town, when it was understood that the Rector had, for the first time
since his induction to his living, given permission for the bells to
greet the happy pair. After, however, sounding a merry peal a short hour
and a half, a message was received at the belfry that the Rector thought
they had rung long enough. The tardiness with which this mandate was
obeyed soon brought the rev. gentleman in person to enforce his order,
which was then reluctantly complied with to the great disappointment of
the inhabitants, and mortification of the ringers, several of whom had
come from a considerable distance to assist in the festivities of the
day.’ The Independent chapel was an old-fashioned meeting-house, full of
heavy pillars, which, as they intercepted the view of the preacher, were
favourable to that gentle sleep so peculiarly refreshing on a Sunday
afternoon—especially in hot weather—in the square and commodious family
pew. The minister was an old and venerable-looking divine of the name of
Dennant, who was always writing little poems—I remember the opening lines
of one,
‘A while ago when I was nought,
And neither body, soul, nor thought’—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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