LIFE AND TIMES OF 

 "THE DRUID/' 



CHAPTER I. 



HIS BIRTHPLACE AND ITS INFLUENCES. 



T is worse than useless to at- 

 tempt to write a man's life 

 unless something is first said 

 about the place and atmo- 

 sphere in which he was born. 

 Horace Twiss, in his admirable biography 

 of Lord Chancellor Eldon, attributes no 

 small portion of his hero's success in life 

 to the fact that he was born at the foot 

 of a " chare." The narrow streets, or lanes, 

 in Newcastle-on-Tyne are called, in local 

 phraseology "chares," and Lord Eldon is 

 said to have remarked one day from the 

 i 



