"Choose an author as you choose a friend."-EARL OF ROSCOMMON. "The man is either mad, or he is making verses."--HORACE.

POPULAR LECTURES IN

PENDLETON.

"LANCASHIRE AUTHORS."

"It requires more than genius to be an Author."LA BRUYERE.

"If you would understand an Author, you must understand his age.' -GOETHE.

"The two most engaging powers of an Author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new."-THACKERAY.

On Thursday evening Dec. 5th, 1895, Mr. Thomas Costley, of Broughton, a member of the Salford Board of Guardians, delivered the first of a series of twelve popular lectures in the Pendleton Town Hall. Owing to the boisterous state of the weather, the audience was not a large one, but those present thoroughly enjoyed the intellectual menu provided. The Rev. S. A. Steinthal presided, and in a few brief remarks introduced the lecturer.

Mr. COSTLEY, who was warmly received, said:The subject of my first lecture will, I have no doubt, be of interest, as it ought to be, to all present, treating as it does of some of the authors of our own county during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Now the Lancashire people are known to be an ingenious people-a people who have their wits about them. No other county has exhibited greater inventive genius in all departments of our industrial life than Lancashire, and such being the case it will be of interest to you to know some of its authors. I will lay before you the names of a few, for it is only a few I can touch upon, the number of authors in Lancashire being so large that it is impossible to deal in one paper with one-tenth or one-twentieth part of them. Few of our English counties can boast of a longer roll of eminent sons than Lancashire. For the most part their genius, happily perhaps for us, has

taken a very practical direction, having found its outcome in those great engineering works, and in those manufactures which have carried the names of some of our local firms to the very ends of the earth. Whilst, however, making due acknowledgement of this fact, it must not be supposed that Lancashire has been in any way behind-hand in contributing her share to the literature of the country. A list of the names of somewhere about 1,500 authors is quite sufficient in itself to secure, at any rate, an honourable place for the county palatine in this respect also, though none of them can be placed in the front rank among the creators of the "literature of power." But if Lancashire has never given birth to a Plato, a Danté, or a Milton-I do not add Shakespeare, because the whole world is too small to bring forth more than one genius of his transcendent capacity-she numbers among her literary children not a few singers worth listening to.

Dr.

There are certain names which the mere mention of Lancashire authors will serve to call up in the mind of everyone present-Mrs. Gaskell, the friend and biographer of Charlotte Bronté, and the accomplished author of "Cranford and " Mary Barton;' Mrs. Banks, Harriet Martineau, Roscoe, who first laid open to English readers the fascinating story of the rise and progress of the new birth of learning in Italy; De Quincey, the master of a prose style combining qualities so marvellous as to defy description; Samuel Bamford, the weaver poet; and Lightfoot, the late Bishop of Durham, whose reputation as a scholar stands even higher on the Continent, if that were possible, than in England. This catalogue of Lancashire authors might easily be extended to a much greater length without introducing the names of men fairly entitled to be considered of national if not of cosmopolitan fame. My original intention had been to include in this paper some account, however brief, of the prose writers, as well as the poets, of our county. But a very cursory examination of the subject matter which would have to be brought in, proved that it was impossible to treat both brancbes, so to speak, within the necessary limits of a lecture. I shall, therefore, confine myself this evening to the Poets of Lancashire, and hope to show you before I finish that even if no Milton has sprung from our soil, there have not been wanting men possessed of the true poetic spirit, and, what is still rarer, endowed with the gift of clothing the creations of their fancy in sweet, harmonious numbers.

The first Lancashire poet whom I wish to bring under your notice is Thomas Preston, of Preston,