Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/438

 ‘Craven Blossoms’ (1826, 8vo). He augmented his income by acting as parish clerk and by contributions to the Newcastle papers. But about 1830 his prosperity was rudely interrupted. At the time of the reform agitation Story signalised himself by strong partisanship on the conservative side. His views were obnoxious to the parents of most of his pupils; on various pretexts the children were removed, and the schoolmaster was persecuted in numerous ways. His imprudent attempts at resistance involved him in debt. He met with some success in selling a volume of verse entitled the ‘Magic Fountain,’ written in 1829, and his hopes were wildly excited by the applause which attended his poetic rallying cry to the conservative party, entitled ‘The Isles are Awake’ (1834). In 1843 the conservative members of parliament for the West Riding obtained from Sir Robert Peel a small post for Story in the audit office. For two years he had depended mainly upon the help of his friends and the sale among them of his new volume entitled ‘The Outlaw’ (London, 1839 12mo). In 1842 he issued an autobiographic medley called ‘Love and Literature’ (London, 8vo), which again had a fair sale, mainly in the West Riding and in Northumberland, where he had found a warm friend in William Gourley, a self-taught mathematician. In London he had a struggle to make ends meet, and suffered greatly by the loss of four of his children; but his literary productiveness went on. In 1845 appeared a volume of ‘Songs and Lyrical Poems’ (London, 8vo; 3rd edit. 1849), and in 1852 a versified tale of the Heptarchy, ‘Guthrum the Dane.’ In 1854 he visited Paris and was presented to Napoleon III as a successor of Burns, and in 1857 the Duke of Northumberland issued at his own expense a sumptuous edition of his ‘Poetical Works’ (Newcastle, 1857, 8vo). The beauty of the volume seems to have disarmed the critics, for not only did Macaulay and Aytoun signify their approbation, but Carlyle in November 1857 detected in it ‘a certain rustic vigour of life, breezy freshness, as of the Cheviot Hills.’ This is notably the case in a few of the lyrics, intimately inspired by the localities of the poet's youth, such as ‘The wild thyme still blossoms in green Homil-heugh;’ but, broadly speaking, one is less impressed by the distinctive merit of Story's poems than by the courage and success with which he set about selling them with a view to relieve himself of the debts by which he was at all times encumbered. He died at Battersea on 7 July 1860, and was buried in Brompton cemetery. A short life was prefixed to a selection of his ‘Poems’ edited by John James in 1861.

[Story's Works, especially his Love and Literature; Memoir by John James, with an engraved portrait after R. Waller, 1861; Gent. Mag. 1860, ii. 313; Leeds Mercury, 10 July 1860; Athenæum, 1858, i. 176; Allibone's Dict. of English Literature.] 

STORY, THOMAS (1670?–1742), quaker, son by his first wife of Thomas Story of Justice Town in the parish of Kirklinton, near Carlisle, and younger brother of George Warter Story [q. v.], was born there about 1670. After being educated at the Carlisle grammar school, and acquiring skill in fencing and music, Story read law under Dr. Richard Gilpin at Scaleby Castle, Cumberland. In 1687 he settled in chambers in Carlisle, and, although till then a good churchman, began to have scruples about the christening of infants and other rites. Many of the influential families around were quakers, and Story experienced on 1 April 1689 a call or ‘conversion’ to their tenets. He at once ‘put off his usual airs, his jovial address, and the sword which he had worn as a modish and manly ornament.’ He also burned his musical instruments, and divested himself of the superfluous parts of his apparel. In 1693 he began to preach. That year he first met William Penn (1644–1718) [q. v.], who, on his deciding to settle in London (1695), assisted him to find legal employment among the quakers, in conveyancing and drawing up settlements. He was appointed registrar of the society, and employed to abstract and index the deeds of London quarterly meeting. At this time he paid visits to, and discussed quakerism with, the Countess of Carlisle, Sir John Rhodes of Balbur Hall, Derbyshire; Sir Thomas Liddell of Ravensworth Castle, Northumberland; and the Czar Peter, then on a visit to Greenwich. To the latter he presented the Latin version of Robert Barclay's ‘Apology,’ which, however, the czar could not read, and other books in Dutch.

Story accompanied Penn to Ireland in 1698, stayed at Shangarry, and visited his brother, George Story, then dean of Limerick. In November of that year he sailed for Pennsylvania, where, at the request of Penn, who shortly followed, he remained sixteen years. He was chosen the first recorder of Philadelphia by a charter of 25 Oct. 1701, was a member of the council of state, keeper of the great seal, master of the rolls, and in 1706 elected mayor of Philadelphia, but paid the fine of 20l. for declining to serve (, Hist. of Pennsylvania, i. 421, 450, 484, ii. 60, App. p. 45). Story was also treasurer of the Pennsylvania Land Company, to which, about