in Twelve Books (1790). Richard Wroe, Warden of the Collegiate Church, who was nicknamed "Silver-tongued Wroe" because of his fine preaching published in 1782 a treatise on The Beauty of Unity. Another local clergyman, Thomas Seddon, had published in 1779 a set of lampoons entitled Characteristic Strictures upon a Series of (Imaginary) Portraits.". Samuel Bamford, born at Middleton in 1788, was a weaver and poet and also active in radical politics in the Manchester district. He is also notable for his autobiography, Passages in the Life of a Radical. The writer Thomas De Quincey was born at Manchester and in early life moved to Greenheys. He attended Manchester Grammar School and is best known for his Confessions of an English Opium Eater. William Harrison Ainsworth (born in 1805) also went to Manchester Grammar School. He wrote many historical novels some of which relate to the history of Lancashire, including The Manchester Rebels which tells the story of six soldiers from the grammar school who fought in the Jacobite cause in 1745. Three members of the Wilson family of Manchester in the early 19th century gained a considerable reputation as poets. Between 1842 and 1866 four editions of their poetical works were published (as The Songs of the Wilsons). Michael Wilson (1763–1840) was a printer and furniture broker who favoured "Jacobinism" in politics. Among his seven sons were Thomas Wilson (died 1852) and Alexander Wilson (1804–46) who like their father wrote poetry. Thomas was imprisoned for smuggling gold, while Alexander (also a self-taught painter) was responsible for compiling the collected verse of the three Wilsons. He died suddenly and his grave at Cheetham Hill has an epitaph composed by Elijah Ridings. In the 19th century, Manchester figured in novels that discussed the changes that industrialisation had brought to Britain. These included Mary Barton: a tale of Manchester life (1848) by Elizabeth Gaskell The factual study The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 was written by Friedrich Engels while living and working in Manchester and drew largely on his observations on the life of the working people of Manchester and Salford. Charles Dickens is reputed to have set his novel Hard Times in the city, and while it is partly modelled on Preston, it shows the influence of his friend Elizabeth Gaskell. John Howard Nodal was president (1873–79) of the Manchester Literary Club, and started its annual volumes of