CHAPTER II.-1824. Correspondence-Preaches a Visitation Sermon at Morpeth-Further Correspondence -Expedition into Scotland-A Smuggler-An Itinerant Poet-Correspondence. "TO THE REVD. J. RAINE.-Whelpington, 7 Jan. 1824.—As you cannot now possibly have any use for the papers I last sent you, pray return me them as early as possible. I would not have troubled you with them but from experience that a very distant hint is often of great use in inquiries like that in which you have been engaged respecting Meldon. But you must go on, and say, give me back my lands, and my tithes of Rivergreen, &c. "Whelpington Appropriation in particular I wish for, and still hope you will meet with it in the Treasury. Then anything more about that parish, or about Elsdon, Corsenside, Kirkharle, Hartburn, Netherwitton, Bolam, and Whalton parishes, I am now particularly engaged with, would be of great service. I ask for few, because much work before me is sickening, and I wish to make ready returns. Meldon I of course expect cut and dry. You might add Mitford, about which I copied several charters about tofts and crofts, but none about chapels or charities. "J. H." "MY DEAR RIChard, To R. W. HODGSON. Whelpington, 11 February, 1824. "Your mamma has a parcel to send to you, and requests me to say that we are all well. I returned from Heworth on Saturday last. The horse's eye is better, but he grew quite lame before I got to Kenton, on my way to Hebburn on the day I wrote to you, and is not quite sound yet. He had been slightly pricked in shoeing, and had got a piece of dry gravel in his hoof. "My dear boy, pray attend to your books, and especially to Latin; founding yourself well in its elements: work at it late and soon; but be not inattentive to the History of England and to geography-for, though in learning Latin the mind is chiefly occupied in contemplating the properties of words and sentences, and thus engaged in one of the most useful and beautiful of all the sciences with which we are acquainted, yet it is always to be dreaded that if the thoughts fasten too exclusively upon the study of grammar their range will become very limited, and, therefore, that the circle they move in should be continually enlarging by extending it into the history of the various families of mankind and over the countries which they have and do at present occupy. Above all things, however, don't neglect the frequent perusal of your Bible, and of forming the words of your duty to God and your duty to man in the church catechism into prayers. Mamma and your brothers and sisters send their kind love to you, and best respects to Mr. and Mrs. Rawes and family. Miss Sedgewick has sent you a book. From your most affectionate father, "JOHN HODGSON." "P.S. On looking at the book which Miss Sedgewick wished to send you, I find it so silly and childish that I cannot think you would be amused with it." FROM THE REV. A, HEDLEY. Bensham, 23 Feb. 1824. "MY DEAR SIR, "I went up to Whitfield,* as I wrote to you I should, on Friday, and was very much pleased with my visit. Mr. Scott received me in the kindest and most cordial manner possible, and evinced every desire to make everything connected with my appointment agreeable to me. The stipend is 2001. per annum, with the house, garden, and churchyard, and all taxes paid, and repairs of every kind kept up. It is indeed quite the bishopric of curacies. The house, notwithstanding all Mr. Scott has expended upon it, is not yet quite comfortable; but he has promised to make it so. It is more compact and will afford more accommodation than yours. As we intend to keep a governess little girls, we shall stand in need of all the room that can be made. A glebe of 40 acres, all in grass, and sloping down very prettily in front of the house towards the West Allen, is likewise offered to me, if I like to farm it, and I think I shall do so; for with so few professional cares I shall want occupation.-I like everything about the place but the newish church. I had much rather it had been 700 years old; but this, even you will say, is an idle fancy. * The governess of his daughters. A. H." for our + Mr. Scott, the rector of Whitfield, was leaving England as Archdeacon of Nova Scotia, and had appointed Mr. Hedley to act as his curate at Whitfield in his absence. "MY DEAR RICHARD, To R. W. HODGSON. Whelpington, 23 March, 1824. 66 George Carr allows me a moment before he sets out for Stamfordham, to say to you that we are all well, and that we shall be glad to send the gig for you on Maundy Thursday, and to take you back any day in the following week which Mr. Rawes may appoint, if he has no objection to your coming over. I have nothing new to tell you. You would see by the newspapers that Robert Lee is dead. We have had eight funerals here this year, and the united ages of seven of them is 433 years. You wrote for some fishing tackle, but unfortunately I am almost as ill provided with such things as yourself. When you come over at Easter (and that will be quite soon enough) I shall see what you want and get you supplied. John Thornhill is here writing for me: and I am going forward with printing. "While you were here at Christmas, I quite forgot to ask you if you had read the Book of Genesis in the manner I requested you would do. It is the foundation of all history and of all in religion that we ought to love and reverence, and I trust that you will make yourself very intimately acquainted with it. With our united love and affection to yourself and kind regard to Mr. and Mrs. Rawes and family, believe me to be your ever affectionate father, TO THE REV. J. RAINE. "JOHN HODGSON." "MY DEAR SIR, Kirk Whelpington, 30 Ap. 1824. "The compositors are treading on my heels, and there is a chasm before me which I cannot get over, unless you can find a few minutes to put me the article "Appropriatio Ecclesiæ de Horsley Prioratui de Brinkburne" into printing fettle; which done, I shall have a bridge that will enable me to pursue my journey without being tormented by the caterers for Walker's hungry presses. You must also contrive to send me de Meldon et Whelpington. Wooler will not be wanted for some time. Pray consult your Magnum Repertorium for Kirkharle and Woodhorn. I have not a syllable about either place. Randal says nothing about the appropriation of Woodhorn; though it was given to Tynemouth before 1119, as appears from Paris's Lives of the Abbots of St. Alban's. "I shall not forget my promise to get you half a dozen copies of Meldon printed off with distinct titles, paging, &c. "Last week I was at outlandish sort of place. I have been often at it, but never before saw it in its winter's garb. When you come to see me we must take a ride into Redesdale. You must have a sight of it. Wild and bare it seems to me as if made on purpose for such a race as figured in it during the border raiding. The Mote Hill at Elsdon is also very curious. It is something in this manner [a neat drawing with his pen]. Elsdon for a few days. It is a very curious "The spring is very cold still and my garden quite bare. The very sycamores are still leafless, and I have not seen a swallow or heard a cuckoo this year. "The Appropriation of Bolam describes Blanchland well: 'possessiones, super quibus monasterium fundatum fuit, pro magna parte in loco quasi solitudinis sterili et minus fructifero in respectu existunt; quæ propter carentiam incolarum-qui—loca fertiliora pro eorum habitatione et mora elegerunt, inculta remanent et quasi deserta," &c. &e. words very descriptive of the country which I see out of my study window; lands still remaining blanched by the hand of winter or black with ling. We have had five months of winter here. The place, however, is very quiet and well situated for my present pursuits. "This 12th of May sermon* is a terrible thing to me. I cannot get it begun. There is nothing I dislike so much as to make an exhibition. Many a time I have thought, if it ever fell to my lot to preach a Visitation Sermon I would say this and that-dash all the dust out of the cushion, and turn the rosy cheeks of the personæ ecclesiarum hujusce dioceseos into fearful paleness. But as the day approaches, and I go about considering who I am, and to whom I am to preach, all this vapour of courage and self-sufficiency begins to melt away. "11 Jas. I. Theophilus Lord Howard, who was afterwards second Earl of Suffolk, and who married Lady Elizabeth Hume, daughter of George Earl of Dunbar, had a grant of the manors of Redesdale and Coketdale; and the heirs of Charles Howard of Overacres, in the parish of Elsdon, sold that estate, with the seigniory of Redesdale and the advowson of Elsdon, to the late Duke of Northumberland. This Charles Howard was said to be a descendant of the Carlisle branch of the Howards, and the present Earl, I am told, procured a commission for Charles the last of the Overacres family. Can you by any-means put *To be preached at the Archdeacon's visitation to be held at Morpeth on that day. me right in this matter. The early part of the Howard pedigree stands thus "When you come to this place you may give me a few days' notice, and I will send my gig to Newcastle for you. Very faithfully yours, TO THE REV. J. RAINE. "JOHN HODGSON." "MY DEAR SIR, Whelpington, 7th May, 1824. "You have undertaken to befriend me in the article I am now printing respecting Northumberland churches, from the Hunter MSS. and I must not permit you to flag in your assistance. The press is standing at Horsley, and Meldon and Whelpington will be wanted in a few days after Horsley is in the compositors' hands. "The new type for my parochial history has arrived, and I am very anxious to get forward with it, which I cannot do till I have printed off the article in the 6th vol. with which I am at present engaged. "Have you written to Nicholson? because the Meldon seals you mentioned will take some time to cut; and the printers grow very impatient when they are stopped, either for want of copy or by the engraver. "We have had delightful weather, and I begin to enjoy Whelpington much. "You will think me impatient, but I am anxious to get my work done, and to do it well; and, therefore, begin to find I must not neglect to ask the willing and the able to assist me. When I am able to make proper returns and acknowledgements for the trouble I give, I hope I shall not be found ungrateful. But, to you, oil and incense are not offerings I can honestly make. Shall I see you at Morpeth? Wednesday unnerves me. Most truly yours, "JOHN HODGSON." The dreaded day of the visitation sermon arrived, and Hodgson preached before Archdeacon Bouyer and the clergy of the deanery of Morpeth, on the 17th of May, an excellent discourse on the grand ecclesiastical canon: "Let all things be done decently and in order"-1 Cor. xiv. 40. Natural Decency, Natural Order, Disorder of the Fall, Order restored by Christ; the Commissions of the Clergy, their Recreations and Studies; Church Presentments; the Rubrics; Liberality and Charity, were the |