Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/33

 .' Mr Harland turned to the place in his notes, and read off without hesitation, and without waiting for his evidence to be taken down, a passage of one hundred words or more. Again he was required to turn to another part of the speech, and the second passage then read agreed perfectly with what the counsel knew the prisoner had said. The learned counsel desisted, and remarked to the gentleman to whom he had previously spoken, 'I don't think there is another man in England who could do that.'" At first the Guardian was only a weekly paper; but it began to be published on Wednesdays and Saturdays in 1836; and became a daily paper in 1855. Mr Harland continued to occupy an important position on the staff through all these changes; conducting the literary department of the journal with rare skill and industry, until July 1, 1839, when he was admitted to a partnership in the paper, which he retained till his retirement in December 1860. "While thus busied with his own professional work, however, he found time for the cultivation of literary tastes in other and higher directions. Possessing a keen sense of humour; endowed with considerable poetic powers; skilled in mediæval Latin; and a loving student of early English history, he speedily made himself a reputation among local literary men, and, as his pursuits took more decidedly the direction of archæology, gradually became widely known as an antiquary." He published many of his early dissertations in the columns of the Guardian; some of which were afterwards included in the "Collectanea," issued by the Chetham Society, and other works. In December 1854 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and was placed upon the Council of the Chetham Society in 1855; an office which he only vacated by death. He was also