class="c1">CHAPTER III.

lowestoft.

Yarmouth bloaters—George Borrow—The town fifty years ago—The distinguished natives

54

CHAPTER IV.

politics and theology.

Homerton academy—W. Johnson Fox, M.P.—Politics in 1830—Anti-Corn Law speeches—Wonderful oratory

89

CHAPTER V.

bungay and its people.

Bungay Nonconformity—Hannah More—The Childses—The Queen’s Librarian—Prince Albert

122

CHAPTER VI.

a celebrated norfolk town.

Great Yarmouth Nonconformists—Intellectual life—Dawson Turner—Astley Cooper—Hudson Gurney—Mrs. Bendish

153

CHAPTER VII.

the norfolk capital.

Brigg’s Lane—The carrier’s cart—Reform demonstration—The old dragon—Chairing M.P.’s—Hornbutton Jack—Norwich artists and literati—Quakers and Nonconformists

185

CHAPTER VIII.

the suffolk capital.

The Orwell—The Sparrows—Ipswich notabilities—Gainsborough—Medical men—Nonconformists

226

CHAPTER IX.

an old-fashioned town.

Woodbridge and the country round—Bernard Barton—Dr. Lankester—An old Noncon.

252

CHAPTER X.

milton’s suffolk schoolmaster.

Stowmarket—The Rev. Thomas Young—Bishop Hall and the Smectymnian divines—Milton’s mulberry-tree—Suffolk relationships

283

CHAPTER XI.

in constable’s county.

East Bergholt—The Valley of the Stour—Painting from nature—East Anglian girls

311

CHAPTER XII.

east anglian worthies.

Suffolk cheese—Danes, Saxons, and Normans—Philosophers and statesmen—Artists and literati

320

CHAPTER I.
a suffolk village.

Distinguished people born there—Its Puritans and Nonconformists—The country round Covehithe—Southwold—Suffolk dialect—The Great Eastern Railway.

In his published Memoirs, the great Metternich observes that if he had never been born he never could have loved or hated.  Following so illustrious a precedent, I may observe that if I had not been born in East Anglia I never could have been an East Anglian.  Whether I should have been wiser or better off had I been born elsewhere, is an interesting question, which, however, it is to be hoped the public will forgive me if I decline to discuss on the present occasion.

In a paper bearing the date of 1667, a Samuel Baker, of Wattisfield Hall, writes: ‘I was born at

a village called Wrentham, which place I cannot pass by the mention of without saying thus much, that religion has there flourished longer, and that in much piety; the Gospel and grace of it have been more powerfully and clearly preached, and more generally received; the professors of it have been more sound in the matter and open and steadfast in the profession of it in an hour of temptation, have manifested a greater oneness amongst themselves and have been more eminently preserved from enemies without (albeit they dwell where Satan’s seat is encompassed with his malice and rage), than I think in any village of the like capacity in England; which I speak as my duty to the place, but to my particular shame rather than otherwise, that such a dry and barren plant should spring out of such a soil.’  I resemble this worthy Mr. Baker in two respects.  In the first place, I was born at Wrentham, though at a considerably later period of time than 1667; and, secondly, if he was a barren plant—he of whom we read, in Harmer’s Miscellaneous Works, that ‘he was a gentleman of fortune and education, very zealous for the Congregational plan of church government and discipline, and a sufferer in its bonds for a good conscience’—what am I?

Nor was it only piety that existed in this distant parish.  If the reader turns to the diary of John Evelyn, under the date of 1679, he will find mention made of a child brought up to London, ‘son of one Mr. Wotton, formerly amanuensis to Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winton, who both read and perfectly understood Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic and Syriac, and most of the modern languages, disputed in divinity, law and all the sciences, was skilful in history, both ecclesiastical and profane; in a word, so universally and solidly learned at eleven years of age that he was looked on as a miracle.  Dr. Lloyd, one of the most deep-learned divines of this nation in all sorts of literature,