+. STORIES AND SKETCHES Relating to Yorkshire. THECA BY JOHN TOMLINSON BIBL AUTHOR OF "SOME INTERESTING YORKSHIRE LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & Co.; DONCASTER: R. HARTLEY. CONTENTS. TICKHILL. PAGE. II.-Describes a journey to Tickhill, under- taken by Roger Fitzhenry, giving a Chap. I.-Is merely an Introduction II.-Brings the Hermit to view, and discloses STORIES AND SKETCHES RELATING TO YORKSHIRE. TICKHILL. CHAPTER I.-WHICH IS MEANT TO BE HISTORICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL. In my rambles through various Yorkshire towns and villages, I have felt surprised, even appalled, at the relative changes which a few centuries bring to pass. Then again, after a few moments' reflection, the enquiry would arise-Why feel surprised at all this? Is not constant change the very law of existence? I look at the physical history of this great globe, and find repose and luxuriance alternating with convulsions and reorganization; a primitive state of things nowhere. There is also a natural life of states; infancy, maturity, and decay. If it be true, what the old adage says, that Nature abhors a vacuum, it is equally evident that our social instincts abhor uniformity, for uniformity must soon degenerate into stagnation, and there would disease fester. Can we live well always on one article of diet? No. Neither can our moral and social life thrive well upon conventional husks. There may be, and doubtless is, a preordained law of development; so that even great evils contain within themselves the germs of their own destruction, proving to all who will understand, that virtue is the supreme goodvirtue in its multiform phases, but universal application. But, halt roving mind; this is no place to garner materials of philosophy: come back again to Tickhill. Well, this place was once of greater consequnce than our largest modern Yorkshire towns; of greater importance than Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley, Huddersfield, Halifax, Leeds, or Bradford. A |