Now the old Lords of the Manor and owners of the estate of Middleton (the Harbords, afterwards Barons Suffield), were proud men and wealthy, who despised manufactures and resisted any encroachment of trade on the green bounds within which their old Manor House had stood for ages.  So when the inventions of Crompton, Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Cartwright began to coin gold like any philosopher’s stone, for well-managing cotton manufacturers, speculators cast their eyes upon the pleasant waters of Middleton and Thornham, proposing to erect machinery and spin the yarn or thread, and otherwise to use the abundant water-power.  But the Lords of Middleton would have none of such profits, (and if they could afford to reject them, we will not say that up to a certain point they were not wise), and so they gave short answers to the applicants, who went away and found, half-a-mile off, on the borders of Yorkshire, similar conveniences and more accessible ground-landlords in the Byrons, Lords of the Manor of Rochdale.  And when, some time afterwards, a like application met with a like answer, other manufacturers went away to another corner, and built Oldham.

So the Middleton farms continued very pretty picturesque farms; Middleton village grew into a miserable town, and was passed over in 1830, when every population was putting forth its claims to a share in making the laws of the United Kingdom; while Oldham, with 30,000 inhabitants, was allotted two members, (an honour which cost the life of one of them, our best describer of English rural scenery, in racy Saxon English, William Cobbett); Rochdale, with 24,000, obtained one, and eventually made itself loudly heard in the House, in the person of John Bright, a gentleman of pluck not without eloquence, who has done a good deal, considering the disadvantages he has laboured under, in not having been brought to his level in a public school, and in having been brought up in the atmosphere of adulation, to which the wealthy and clever of a small sect are as much exposed as the scions of a “proud aristocracy.”

A few years ago, the late lord, who had occasionally lived on the estate, died.  His successor pulled down the Manor House, became an absentee, always in want of ready money, and introduced the Irish system into the management of his estate.  That is to say, good farming became a sure mode of inviting an increase of rent—­for indispensable repairs no ready money was forthcoming, so tenants who had an indisputable claim to such allowances, received a reduction of rent instead; they generally accepted the reduction, and did no more of the repairs than would just make shift.  The land in the town suitable for building was let at chief rents to the highest bidder, with no consideration for the mutual convenience of neighbours, or the welfare of future residents.

Thus mismanaged and dilapidated, the estates were brought into the market, and purchased for Messrs. Peto & Betts, by their land agent, Mr. Francis Fuller, for less than 200,000 pounds; and the lands of the aristocracy of blood passed into the possession of the aristocracy of trade.  Here was a subject for a doleful ballad from “A Young Englander,” commencing—­