BOOK 2. THE SEXTON
Chapter 2. The Funeral Oration
Chapter 10. Saint Cyprian’s Cell
Chapter 1. The Rendezvous at Kilburn
Chapter 1. The Hut on Thorne Waste
MEMOIR
William Harrison Ainsworth was born in King Street, Manchester, February 4, 1805, in a house that has long since been demolished. His father was a solicitor in good practice, and the son had all the advantages that educational facilities could afford. He was sent to the Manchester grammar-school, and in one of his early novels has left an interesting and accurate picture of its then condition, which may be contrasted with that of an earlier period left by the “English opium-eater.” At sixteen, a brilliant, handsome youth, with more taste for romance and the drama than for the dry details of the law, he was articled to a leading solicitor of Manchester. The closest friend of his youth was a Mr. James Crossley, who was some years older, but shared his intellectual taste and literary enthusiasm. A drama written for private theatricals, in his father’s house was printed in Arliss’s Magazine, and he also contributed to the Manchester Iris, the Edinburgh Magazine, and the London Magazine. He even started a periodical, which received the name of The Bœotian, and died at the sixth number. Many of the fugitive pieces of these early days were collected in volumes now exceedingly rare: “December Tales” (London, 1823), which is not wholly from his pen; the “Works of Cheviot Tichburn” (London, 1822; Manchester, 1825), dedicated to Charles Lamb; and “A Summer Evening Tale” (London, 1825).
“Sir
