Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/40

 with places and institutions, genealogy and biography; and concludes with recollections of Manchester persons and places. The life-pictures in these volumes are sketched with a master-hand. The last work which Mr Harland edited for the Chetham Society was issued after his death. It contains "Three Lancashire Documents" of much interest. The first of these is the De Lacy Inquisition of 1311; the second is the survey of West Derby, Amounderness, and Lonsdale, 1330 to 1346; and the third is the Custom Roll and Rental of Ashton-under-Lyne for 1422. To all these he added introductions, indexes, and "after-words," explaining obscure points and giving the meaning of many personal and local names. In February 1868 he finished the third edition of Gregson's "Fragments," which had been revised, enlarged, and indexed by him when confined to bed by the affection in his knee. This edition is a great improvement upon the second issued by Gregson in 1824. The indexes alone occupy thirty-eight folio pages; and he added considerably from the Duchy Records. The last and greatest work he undertook was a new edition of Baines's "History of Lancashire." It was originally issued in four volumes, and had long been out of print. When it was decided to republish the work it was deemed advisable to issue it in two volumes; and although the labour of verification and completion approached at times to a re-writing of large portions of the book, Mr Harland did not shrink from the task, and he did his work well. The writer visited him towards the close of 1867, and found him hard at work with the last sheets of the first volume. He was then looking haggard and careworn—the heavy work was evidently telling on his constitution; and yet both in conversation with myself, and in his letters to Mr Gent, joint publisher