imney-stacks and blast-furnaces, and with what success the
Yorkshire dialect poets of the towns and cities have interpreted the life
and thoughts of those who work in the mill or at the forge. As we have
already seen, the first attempts to interpret in dialect poetry the life
of industrial Yorkshire were made at Sheffield early in the nineteenth
century by Abel Bywater. As the century advanced, the movement spread
northwards, and the great artisan communities of Bradford, Leeds, and
Halifax produced their poets. Among these pre-eminence belongs to Ben
Preston, the Bradford poet, who stepped swiftly into local fame by the
publication of his well-known poem, "Natterin' Nan," which first appeared
in a Bradford journal in 1856. This is a vigorous piece of dramatic
realism, setting forth the character of a Yorkshire scold and grumbler
with infinite zest and humour. But it is in pathos that the genius of
Preston chiefly consists. In poems like "Owd Moxy," "T' Lancashire
Famine," and "I niver can call her my wife," he gives us pictures of the
struggle that went on in the cottage-homes of the West Riding during the
"hungry forties." In "Owd Moxy" his subject is the old waller who has to
face the pitiless winter wind and rain as he plies his dreary task on the
moors; but in most of his poems it is the life of the handloom-weaver
that he interprets. The kindliness of his nature is everywhere apparent
and gives a sincerity to the poems in which he portrays with rare
discernment and sympathy the sufferings of the artisan, toiling from
morning to night on eight shillings a week. His pathos has dignity and
restraint, and in the poem "I niver can call her my wife" it rises to the
heights of great tragedy. This is Ben Preston's masterpiece, and, though
scarcely known outside of the county, it deserves to take a place side by
side with Hood's " Song of the Shirt" by reason of the poignancy with
which it interprets the tragedy of penury.(5)

The example set by Ben Preston has been followed by other dialect poets
living in the district round Bradford. Mention may be made of James
Burnley, whose poem, "Jim's Letter," is a telling illustration of the
fine use which can be made of dialect in the service of the dramatic
lyric; and of Abraham Holroyd, who not only wrote original verse, but
also made a valuable collection of old Yorkshire songs and ballads.(6)

The rivalry between Bradford and Leeds is proverbial, and, though the
latt