MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. XXIX
Hooper and Coverdale and John Rogers, and legends of tlie Tndors and the Commonwealth. For a 'Puritan' none could have been more fitting, for all around were the family seats of grand old Puritan worthies, Barton-Mere, Talmach Hall, Pakenham, Nether Hall, where ' godly ministers ' were ever welcome to the Bar- nardistons and Brights, Veres and Brooks, Winthrops and Riches, Springs and Cavendishes, and the Bacon stock.
But Sibbes was very soon removed thence to Thurston, a similar hamlet only about three miles distant. Here, our old worthy the Vicar of Thurston informs us, Mr and Mrs Sibbes ' lived in honest repute, brought up and married divers children, purchased some houses and lands, and there both deceased.'
There will be something to say afterward of these ' divers chil- dren' who were 'married ;' but it is to be regretted that, the 'registers having perished, no positive light can be cast on the dates of the de- cease of the elder folks, except that the father was dead before 1608. Concerning him this is Catlin's testimony : ' His father was by his trade a wheel-wright, a skilful and painful workman, and a good, sound-hearted Christian.' ' Skilful and painful'* were very weighty words then, particularly ' painful,' which was the highest praise that could be given to a laborious, faithful, evangelical minister of the gospel. It is found in many an olden title-page, and un- derneath many a grave, worn face. A ' mill-wright,' or ' wheel- wright,' for they are interchangeable, was by no means an unim- portant ' craftsman ' in those da3^s. In country places, such as Thurston and Tostock, where division of labour could not be car- ried so far as in the large towns, the ' wheel-wright ' was compelled to draw largely upon his own resources, and to devise expedients to meet pressing emergencies as they arose. Necessarily this made him dexterous, expert, and ' skilful ' in mechanical arrangements. If thus early, the whole of Smiles's description, on whose authority I am writing this,-f* does not hold (for he speaks of him devising steam-engines, pumps, cranes, and the like) ; yet in those primitive days, perhaps more than some generations later, such tradesmen were, in all cases of difficulty, resorted to, and looked upon as a very important class of workmen ; while the nature of their business tended to make them thoughtful, decided, self-reliant. The cradle of little Richard, therefore, would seem to have been rocked at a fireside not altogether unprosperous. And yet there must have been in the outset somewhat of poverty and struggle, or, the elder Sibbes wiU need the full benefit of Catlin's character of him. For our guileless
* Painful == full of pains, i.e., painstakintr, laboridus.
t Smilus's Life of Briudley, iu Lives of the Eugiucers, V(>1 i. p. 312.
TTT MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBEE5, D.D.
chronicler, carrying us swiftly onward, adds immediately thereafter, ' This Richard he brought up in learning at the grammar school, though very unwillingly in regard of the charge.' We will in charity give Master Paul Sibs, wheel-wright, the benefit of tbe vicar's testimony, and ascribe the ' unwillingness ' to the res angustcB domi. Whether or not, the ' charge,' I fear, had prematurely removed the little fellow from the school to the wheel-wright's bench, but for his own bookish tastes, and the watchful interest of friends. This is explicitly affirmed in what follows. The sentence above, that tells us of the unwilling school-learning, through the ' charge,' thus continues — ' had not the youth's strong inclination to his books, and well profiting therein, with some importunities of friends, prevailed so far as to continue him at school till he was fit for Cambridge.' Most truly the ' boy was father of the man.' I turn asfain to the Izaak Walton-like words of the Vicar of Thurston. He says — ' Concerning his love to his book, and his industry in study, I cannot omit the testimony of Mr Thomas Clark, high constable, who was much of the same age, and went to school together with him at the same time, with one Mr E-ichard Brigs (afterward head master of the Free School at Norwich), then teaching at Pakenham church. He hath often told me that, when the boys were dismissed from school at the usual hours of elevei and five or six, and the rest would fall to their pastime, and some times to playing the wags with him, as being harmless and meani apparelled (for the most part in leather), it was this youth's con stant course, as soon as he could rid himself of their unpleasin; company, to take out of his pocket or satchel one book or other, and so to go reading and meditating till he came to his father's house, which was near a mile off, and so he went to school again. This was his order, also, when his father sent him to the Free School at Bury, three or four miles off, every day. Whereby the said Mr Clark did then conceive, that he would in time prove an excel- lent and able man, who of a child was of such a manly staidness, and indefatigable industry in his study.'* Milton's immortal portraiture of ' 21ie Child ' may be taken to describe Master Richard : —