[1] i.e. since, in round numbers, about 1810.

[2] Father of Mr. Robert Crozier, president, since 1878, of the Manchester Academy of Fine Art.

[3] The two last–named now also deceased.

[4] In the Flora Mancuniensis, dictated by the Natural History Class of the Mechanics’ Institution, then in Cooper–street.

[5] The “City Library,” now in King–street.

[6] i.e. in 1843.

[7] Song the eleventh, p. 171, facing which is a map of Cheshire, showing the rivers, out of every one of which rises a sort of tutelary nymph, in design droll beyond imagination.—Vide the Chetham Library copy.

[8]

[9] This noted Cheshire river rises upon Buckley Heath, near Malpas, going thence past Nantwich and Winsford. At Northwich it joins the Dane; soon afterwards there is confluence with the Peover, the united waters eventually entering the Mersey, not far from Frodsham.

[10] In addition to the meres already mentioned, there are Pickmere, Rudworth Mere, Flaxmere, Doddington Mere, Combermere, and several others.

[11] See a description of these coins in the Ashton Reporter, of March 14th, 1857.

[12] The epitaph, Mr. Kelly kindly points out to me, is veritably Pope’s, but was originally written for the Hon. Robt. Digby and his sister Mary. It was altered and abridged to suit the monument which now bears it,—one to the memory of the Hon. Penelope Ducie Tatton, who died Jan. 31, 1747.

[13] It may be well to say that this grand old tree stood by the lodge gates of Polefield Hall, a few hundred yards through the village of Holyrood, or Rooden Lane, on the right towards Besses–o’–th’–Barn. Unlike the Didsbury sycamore, which was in the prime of its princely life, the Singleton horse–chestnut had become decrepid, and during the rigour of the winters beginning in 1878 received injuries from which it could not possibly recover.

[14] See above, page 36.

[15] Iliad, Book viii., at the end, thus gloriously rendered by the most spirited and poetical, if somewhat rugged, of his translators, Chapman, A.D. 1596:—

[16] At which last–named place there is now also (1882) a railway station.

[17] It may be permitted here to note that when on Jackson Edge we are close to the home of the accomplished authoress of the well–known and always welcome letters “From the Lyme hills.”

[18] In his very interesting “Reminiscences of a Lifetime in Marple and the Neighbourhood,” 1882, a contribution to our local literature which in the accuracy and variety of its entertaining details does the author genuine credit.

[19] All needful particulars will be found in the little “Guide to Hayfield and Kinder Scout,” purchasable at Hayfield and at Bowden Bridge.

[20] In indicating the share, unacknowledged and unrewarded, which Townley had in the compilation of the “Guide,” we merely wish to give honour where honour is due, neither on the one hand suppressing truth, nor on the other saying a word that shall look like unfair disparagement. It is but just to the memory of a worthy man, now no more, that the living should know what they owe to him.

[21] While such is the original and proper sense of the word, the application, as in the case of Wessenden Clough (p. 150), naturally passed on to similar defiles destitute of trees. Not fewer probably than a third of the cloughs mentioned in the present volume are of the latter character.

[22] Mrs. Taylor, we are very sorry to say, died, though apparently of supreme vigour, in the spring of 1877, and the cottage is now occupied by a totally different family. Mere Clough, too, is not what it was. Though spared the desecrations of Boggart–hole, the grove of fine trees that once filled the bottom has disappeared. The best of the wild–flowers have also disappeared, or nearly so; and the brook is less often limpid than impure. Similar changes have overtaken everything public in the neighbourhood.

[23] On account of their correspondence with others, geologically the same, very extensively present in the portion of Central and Eastern Russia called Perm.

[24] The following pages were originally printed in the Manchester Weekly Times of July 10th, 1858. It gave me great pleasure to see that the article was made the subject of comment and lengthy extract in Chambers’s Journal of the following October 16th, a recognition of the general interest of the matter dealt with that seems to me quite to justify a reprint almost verbatim, with corrections that bring it up to the present date.

[25] i.e. up to 1858.

[26] See the account of the conviction in the Manchester Guardian, of November 30th, 1850.

[27] For further particulars respecting old Joseph Evans, see the Gardeners’ Chronicle for November 14th, 1874, from which we have transcribed, being our own words, a small portion of the above.

[28] See an excellent description of Hall–i’th’–Wood, accompanied by a drawing, in the Manchester Literary Club volume for 1880, p. 254.

[29] Liverpool was omitted even so late as 1635. Vide Selden’s “Mare Clausum, seu de Dominio Maris,” p. 239, Chetham Library, Manchester.

[30] “A Year in a Lancashire Garden,” p. 27.

[31] In loc. cit., p. 20.

[32] A complete catalogue of the thousand botanical works in the Manchester Libraries, with notes upon their various contents, has been prepared by the author of this volume, and only waits publication. Meantime it can be consulted by any person who may wish to use it.