apart from the Great North Road between London and Edinburgh; but it had its daily mails north and south, as well as to Manchester and Liverpool, and was as well supplied in this respect as most of the manufacturing towns of England. It had, moreover, two newspapers, representing the two different factions in politics, and both well known and widely read throughout the West Riding. There was a mean Theatre in Hunslet Lane, near Leeds Bridge, where strolling companies of actors performed during the summer months. In winter the local aristocracy -who were but poor patrons of the drama-found amusement in the assemblies, which began in October and were continued until the following spring. These assemblies were conducted in the strict fashion then in vogue, under the superintendence of a master of the ceremonies, whose function it was to decide upon the eligibility of candidates for admission to these solemn entertainments. The church was then in a state of lukewarmness. The Nonconformists had absorbed the more active spirits of the town, the Unitarians, Wesleyans, and Independents being the most powerful bodies among the Dissenters. But though Dissent was strong, and in a certain sense fashionable in Leeds in those days, it still laboured under the social and political disabilities that attached to it in the last century; and the inhabitant of Leeds who desired to be married, whatever might

be his religious faith, was compelled to go to the parish church in order that the due sanction of the law might be given to his union.

Such was Leeds at the beginning of this century. Busy, but free from bustle; fairly intelligent, yet by no means intellectual; with a keen eye to business, but a warm side for old manners and customs and the duties of hospitality, its people represented the sturdy English character in its best aspect in the days before railways, and electric telegraphs, and parliamentary reform, and penny newspapers had revolutionised the age. They have been sketched, so far as their moral characteristics are concerned, with admirable power and faithfulness in the pages of Charlotte Brontë. To understand the character of the men and women of the West Riding at the beginning of the present century, indeed, one must go to Shirley' and 'The Professor.' The genius of a great woman has there given permanence to the salient features which then characterised the Yorkshire tradesman or merchant,

CHAPTER III.

MR. HEATON, SENIOR.

THE grandfather of the subject of our memoir was John Heaton of Ossett, who was born on September 4, 1736. He married one Mary Metcalfe, a person in a somewhat superior position in life to himself, the daughter of Urban Metcalfe, a cloth manufacturer of Hunslet; which was then, as will have been gathered from the particulars given in the preceding chapter, a small manufacturing village. It was probably the fact of his having married this Hunslet bride, who there is reason to believe was in a small way an heiress, that induced John Heaton to remove from Ossett to the spot where his wife had been born. At all events he settled in Hunslet very soon after his marriage to Mary Metcalfe in July 1765, and remained in or near Leeds for the rest of his days.

Three children were born of the marriage, the eldest being John Heaton, the father of Dr. Heaton, born July 22, 1769. The two other children were

a son William, and a daughter Hannah.

6

In the year 1783,' says Dr. Heaton in his

journal, my grandfather purchased part of the small estate in Hunslet which I now (1859) possess. His father-in-law, Urban Metcalfe, was residing on it at the time; his name as tenant being mentioned in the conveyance. My grandfather himself afterwards resided on his own property, and his widow continued to live there after his death. He died August 1st, 1790, and was buried in the graveyard attached to the chapel at Hunslet, then a chapelof-ease to the Leeds parish church. His will makes his widow and my father executors. He leaves his personal property to his wife, who has to pay out of it 1007. to his daughter Hannah, and his freehold property, consisting of this Hunslet estate, equally between his two sons, each to come into the enjoyment of his share when of the age of twenty-one. William came of age in 1794, and in the year following, 1795, the two brothers united in the purchase of an additional portion, the whole forming, as I suppose, the estate as it now stands. The two brothers continued in this joint possession up to the time of their death. William resided in the house of his parents throughout his life, carrying on a shopkeeping business, though with little success. In the latter part of his life he got into debt, of which he was relieved by my father, who also allowed him the whole of the proceeds of their joint estate for his maintenance.'

I have given this extract from the journal, although it somewhat anticipates the course of the narrative, because it throws a good deal of light upon the character both of the father and grandfather, and incidentally illustrates the strong characteristics of Dr. Heaton himself. Here is first the shrewd, steady young manufacturer from Ossett, who makes a match with a woman who is considered above him in station, but between whom and himself there were no discrepancies of temper and disposition. He comes to Leeds, the most important town of the district in which he was born, in order to make his fortune'; and in a modest manner he succeeds. Before long he can buy the little piece of property on which his father-in-law resides, and can add to it bit by bit, so that at his death his wife and children are not left altogether without resources. He makes an honest will, giving to his wife and his several children their just dues, and then dies, leaving no other sign behind him to recall his existence. He is the type of a class from whom probably more great and successful families have sprung than from any other in the community. Unless such men were willing indeed and able to lay the foundation of the family, often laying it quite unperceived by their own generation, there would be no hope for the stability of the edifice when at last it came to be reared. Old John Heaton, the first of the family to make Leeds his home, lived his