Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/41

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Memoir of John Harland.

of this and several of his other works, he spoke and wrote hopefully of completing his labours within a reasonable time. On my next visit I found he was seriously ill. His medical attendant durst not risk the excitement of an interview, and I left without seeing him. In two days more he had passed to his rest. He died on the 23d April 1868, and his remains were interred in Rusholme Road Cemetery the Tuesday following. Although the funeral was strictly private, the carriages of many private friends joined the procession. The Chetham Society, the Geological Society, the Literary Club, and several other public bodies were represented; and the venerable Samuel Bamford, although blind and upwards of eighty years of age, was also present to do honour to the memory of his old and valued friend. During the week, Mr Harland's career was sketched with appreciative and kindly hands in all the local journals, as also in the Reliquary; and the son of one of his early friends bore testimony to his worth in one of the Hull papers to which he had contributed in early life. He there states that Mr Harland "was a member of the Hull Mechanics' Institute in its early existence, and took considerable trouble to forward its success. He was also a musician of no mean ability, and in the summer season, before the business of the day commenced, he was wont, with one or two of his friends, and with an ordinary hedge, tree, or bush, for a music stool, they would execute a duet, or a trio of some favourite theme, and return home with a sharpened appetite for breakfast." At the time of his death he was under engagements to edit Dr Whitaker's "Richmondshire," "Craven," and the "Whalley," the last of which has since been so ably accomplished by J. G. Nichols, Esq., F.S.A., for issue in two volumes.

Mr Harland "was twice married; first in 1833 to