BERNARD DILPIN. 
309 
of service to his parishioners, and was very assiduous in preventing 
lawsuits. His hall was said to have been often thronged with people, 
who came to him about their differences. Though little acquainted 
with law, he decided equitably, and that satisfied ; nor could the 
royal commission have given him more weight than his own charac- 
ter had given him. His hospitable manner of living was the admira- 
tion of the whole country. He spent in his family every fortnight 
forty bushels of corn, twenty bushels of malt, and a whole ox, besides 
a proportionable quantity of other provisions. Strangers and travel- 
lers found a cheerful reception. All were w'elcome that came, and 
even their beasts had so much care taken of them, that it was said, 
“ If a horse was turned loose in any part of the country, it would 
immediately make its way to the rector of Houghton. ’’ Every Sunday 
from Michaelmas to Easter was a public day to him. During this 
season he wished to see all his parishioners and their families. For 
this reception he had three tables w'ell covered ; the first for gentlemen, 
the second for husbandmen, and the third for day-labourers. This 
piece of hospitality he never omitted, even when loss, or scarcity 
of provisions, made its continuance rather difficult. When he was 
absent from home, no alteration was made in his family expenses ; 
the poor wqre fed, and his neighbours entertained, as usual. 
Notwithstanding the extent of his parish, Mr. Gilpin thought the 
sphere of his benevolence too confined. It grieved him to' see every 
where in the parishes around him so great a degree of ignorance and 
superstition, occasioned by the negligence of the clergy in those parts. 
To , supply, as far as he could, what was wanting in others, every yeas 
he regularly visited the most neglected parishes in Northumberland 
Yorkshire, Cheshire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland ; and that his 
own parish in the mean time might not suffer, he was at the expense 
of a constant assistant. In each place he stayed two or three days, 
called the people around him, and laid before them the danger of 
leading wicked or careless lives, instructing them in the duties they 
'^owed to God, their neighbour, and themselves ; and shewing them how 
greatly a moral and religious conduct would contribute to their pre- 
sent as well as future happiness. As he had all the warmth of an 
enthusiast, though under a very calm judgment, he never wanted an 
audience, even in the wildest parts ; where he roused many to a sense 
of religion, who had contracted the most inveterate habits of inatten- 
tion to every thing serious. And wherever he came, he used to visit 
all the gaols, few in the kingdom having then an appointed ministerr 
By his labours, and aft'ectionate manner of behaving, he is said to have 
reformed many of the most abandoned persons in those places. He 
employed his interest likewise for criminals, whose cases he thought 
attended with any hard circumstances, and often procured pardons 
for them. 
There are two tracts upon the borders of Northumberland, called 
Redesdale, and Tynedale, of all barbarous places in the north, at 
that time the most barbarous. Before the' union, these places were 
called the Debatable land, subject by turns to England and Scotland, 
and the common theatre where the two nations acted their bloody 
scenes. They were inhabited by a kind of desperate banditti, rendered 
