Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/38

 to the good taste and nice appreciation of the compiler. In 1862 Mr Harland assisted Mr William Dobson in compiling a "History of Preston Guilds;" to which he added a new translation of the "Custumal" of the ancient borough. He also contributed a paper containing the names of eight hundred inhabitants of Manchester, who took the oath of allegiance to Charles II. in 1679, to the second volume of the Chetham "Miscellanies;" and edited, for private circulation, an edition of Prestwick's "Respublica," to which he added a carefully prepared explanatory preface. On February 7, 1865, Mr Harland proposed to join the writer of the present notice in preparing and publishing a work on the "Folk-lore of Lancashire." In a letter dated April 30, 1866, he acknowledged the receipt of my "manuscript notes on twenty-six subjects" to be included in the volume; and on May 1st he wrote to say that "another packet of manuscript" had reached him that morning. The work was published in January 1867, when he congratulated me on our work being ended. Our intercourse during the whole of this period was cordial in the extreme; and at the close of every interview I was more and more deeply impressed with his upright manly worth, and his varied attainments. As the matter we had collected more than sufficed for the "Folk-lore," we re-arranged the remainder and began to prepare for a volume of "Lancashire Legends, Pageants, &c.;" but when he undertook the new edition of Baines's "Lancashire" this project was laid aside for a time, and on his lamented decease the manuscript was placed in my possession by his literary executor. It formed the germ of the present work.

In 1863 Mr Harland reprinted from "The Church of the People" a series of essays entitled "Some Account