Northern Memoirs, Calculated For

NORTHERN MEMOIRS, CALCULATED FOR THE MERIDIAN OF SCOTLAND ; TO WHICH IS ADDED, THE CONTEMPLATIVE AND PRACTICAL / ANGLER. WRIT IN THE YEAR 1658, RICHARD FRANCK, PHILANTHROPIC. Plures necat Gula quam Gladius. NEW EDITION, WITH PREFACE AND NOTES. EDINBURGH : PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO. EDINBURGH; AND HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO. LONDON. 1821. CONTENTS. PAGE. PREFACE, ....:. 1 To Mr J. W. Merchant in London, v DEDICATIONS. To the Virtuosos of the Rod in London, xiii To the Academicks of Cambridge, . xxi To the Gentlemen Piscatorians of Not- tingham, xxviii The Author's Preface, xxxiii The Author to his Book, xliii RECOMMENDATORY POEMS. By John Richards, . xliv By Mercurius Hermon, . xlv By John Slator, .... xlvi By Richard Johnson, . xlix The Author to the Poet, 1 NORTHERN MEMOIRS, 1 Notes on the Northern Memoirs, 363 The Angler ; from Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, . 378 PREFACE. THE following reprint of a scarce book will afford, it is hoped, amusement as well to the topographical antiquary as to the lover of the angle, since it contains some curious particulars respecting the state of Scotland during the sixteenth century. Of Richard Franck, the author, nothing is known beyond what he himself has intimated. He was born at Cambridge, as is stated from one of his three dedications, and during the reign of James VI., as appears from his having lived during the reign of five sovereigns. But, as Franck repeatedly mentions his slender education, it is not likely he participated, to any extent, in the ad- vantages of the university, although one would think some degree of learning was necessary to a have formed so very uncommon and pedantic honoured friend style. He informs his worthy and Mr J. W. merchant in London, that the impend- ing Civil Wars drove him from the university to London ; and if he was born about 1624 (James died in 1625) he would be seventeen years of age in the fatal 1641. Richard Franck seems to have resided at Not- tingham, but in what capacity he give us no op- portunity of conjecturing, nor whether it was be- fore or after his to Scotland he cer- expedition ; tainly served in the Parliament's cavalry during the wars in Scotland, to which he makes repeated allusion, and thence, probably, he derived the title of Captain, given to him by Richard Johnson in his commendatory verses. In religion, Franck appears to have been an Independent, but upon a mystical system of his own, which was no uncommon cir- cumstance in that age. He censures occasionally both Prelate and Presbyter, and throws out, from time to time, his own peculiar tenets, which, in- deed, he was at the pains to publish more at length, though not more intelligibly, in a separate work, called Rabbi Moses, written expressly for that pur- pose. It is singular that, under all these circumstances, Richard Franck, a Cromwellian trooper, and Inde- pendent, should have been represented as an un- fortunate Royalist, who undertook his tour to Scot- land to escape the persecution of the dominant party during the Commonwealth. His enumera- " tion of the six great patriots of the English na- tion," Ireton, Vane, Nevill, Martin, Marvel, and Cromwell,* as well as his subsequent panegyric upon the Protector,f ought to have prevented this misrepresentation. The truth seems to be, that the author's journey into Scotland was owing to his de- sire of withdrawing himself from the disturbances which seemed like to arise in the Commonwealth. At what exact period this occurred, is not surely settled. If written in 1658, the journey must have been performed in 1656 or 1657, in which case the disturbances apprehended might be those betwixt the republicans and the faction of Crom- well, which led to the plot for which Sinder- * Pp. 253-4. f P. 286. 4 combe suffered in 1 656. No doubt, the uncertain state of things which succeeded Cromwell's death, in 1658, was still more likely to have induced a prudent man to withdraw himself from approach- ing evil. But, first, Cromwell only died 3d Sep- tember 1658, rather too late in the season for tour as far as commencing a fishing Sutherland ; and, secondly, an event so remarkable would have been hinted at in the dialogue betwixt Arnoldus, Theophilus, and Agrippa, which precedes the re- solution of the two first to visit Scotland. The general route adopted by Arnoldus (Franck) and his companion, (for in description he often de- a viates from it,) contains very extensive tour in Scotland, which they enter by Dumfries and San- quhar. They then traverse Ayrshire, and come to Glasgow by Kilmarnock, visit Lochlomond and its romantic environs, from thence go to Crieff by Stirling, and from Crieff return southwards to Perth. From Perth the travellers descend Strath- more by Meigle, Forfar, and Brechin, and from thence journey northward by Fettercairn, Cairnie- mount, and Kincardine O'Neall to Loch Ness. From Inverness they proceed to Sutherland, and visit Dimrobin, and the small town of Tain in is also and the tra- Ross-shire ; Cromarty visited, vellers return by Castle Gordon, Aberdeen, and the coast-road which traverses Stonehaven, Mon- trose, Dundee, Bruntisland, to Edinburgh. From Edinburgh the pilgrims return to England by Berwick at Dunbar and ; and, finally, repose Not- tingham, where, as we observed, the author seems at one time to have had his ordinary residence. The sketch of such a tour, made during the se- venteenth century, promises, it must be allowed, a great deal more curiosity and interest than the reader will receive from the actual perusal. The rage of fine writing had unfortunately seized on Richard Franck, Philanthropes, with inveteracy unparalleled, unless perhaps in the case of Sir of and instead of Thomas Urquhart Cromerty ; acquainting us with what actually befel him, like a man of this world, he generally renders himself obscure, and sometimes altogether unintelligible, by his affected pedantry and obscurity. Probably no reader, while he reads the disparaging passages in which the venerable Isaac Walton is introduced, can forbear wishing that the good old man, who had so true an eye for nature, so simple a taste for her most innocent pleasures, and withal, so sound a judgment, both concerning men and things, had made this northern tour instead of Franck ; and had detailed in the beautiful simplicity of his Arcadian language, his observations on the scene- ry and manners of Scotland. Yet we must do our author the justice to state, that he is as much su- perior to the excellent patriarch Isaac Walton, in the mystery of fly-fishing, as inferior to him in taste, feeling, and common sense. Franck's con- tests with salmon are painted to the life, and his directions to the angler are generally given with great judgment. Walton's practice was entirely confined to bait-fishing, and even Cotton, his dis- ciple and follower, though accustomed to fish trout artificial in the Dove, 'with fly, would have been puzzled by a fish (for so the salmon is called, par excellence, in most parts of Scotland) of twenty both alike to that pounds weight ; being strangers noble branch of the art, which exceeds all other uses of the angling-rod, as much as fox-hunting excels hare-hunting. It must not be omitted, that the Northern Me- moirs, though less rich in local description and anec- dote than might have been hoped, contain a great deal of interesting matter, concerning the state of Scotland, during the Civil Wars. They appear to in have been committed to writing 1658 ; but cer- out at until 1685 so that tainly not drawn length ; the author's reflections often relate to events which took place long after the term of his own journey. This is the remark of his friend Theophilus, who " writ book in and says, You your 58, spread the net to 85."* There may be reason to think, that " the first Dedication to Mr J. W., merchant in London," was written for the rough draught of the " Memoirs, and that the prudent and valorous is out as the prince," who pointed healing wounds of the Civil Wars, was the Protector Oliver, whose death and its consequences may have prevented the publication of the work. But this supposition, the reader must be aware, rests on the same arguments which were formerly alleged, for supposing the tour was made in 1656, or 1657. If these do not ap- * P. 285. 8 pear convincing*, and they are by no means offered " as conclusive, the victorious prince" must mean William III., applied to whom, the epithet is of doubtful propriety. At length, so late as 1696, the Northern Memoirs were given to the public. During the interim it would seem, from his publication entitled Rabbi Moses, that the author had been in America, which was a general place of refuge to the soldiers or followers of the Com- monwealth, as soon as the Restoration rendered England an unpleasant or dangerous abode for " them. The full title is, A Philosophical Trea- tise of the Original and Production of Things Writ in America in a Time of Solitude. By R. Franek, London, 1687." At the end of the Northern Memoirs, the same work is advertised as " Rabbi Moses, or a Philosophical, &c. to be Sold by the Author at his House in Barbican." If the Northern Memoirs were published in the year 1694, Richard Franek, the author, born, as we have calculated, during the last years of King James the First's reign, must have attained the of and so did not age seventy upwards ; probably the these few survive publication many years ; and a notices are all the particulars of his life, which ail attentive perusal of his work has enabled us to trace.

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