Robert Stephen Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstow

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Authors Holt, Emily Adams

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Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/553973 Robert Stephen Hawker

Vicar of Morwenetow

by Emily A. Holt

Submitted In partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

In the College of Letters,-Arts, and Sciences, of the

University of Arizona

1 9 3 0

S. 7

£ 919/ 9 9 3 0 Z3

The author wishes to express

her indebtedness to Professor S. F.

Pattieon for advice and assistance in

the preparation of this peper.

76721 ■ ■ ■ ■■ P a g e I. Hawker, the Eooentrie VIoar: of I-$orwenitow 1

II. Life and Character_ . 2

1# Aa« jfCeotoring the ohuroh and vioarage to to co t>* Interest in wreotom*8 and smugglers c* Burial of shipwreoked sailors d. Services to ownero of vessels ' ID e. Eooentrioity 12 f* Views on dissenters 14 ge Peculiar beliefs 18 h* Lovo of ancient oust eras 20 1. Care of his parish . 21

2* Later Years cu Struggle with poverty 22 b. Friendship with Mrs* Watson 24 0 # Tennyson’s visit 24 d. Death of his wife 25 e. Second marriage 25 f . Death - 26

III. Works 1* Prose 26 2. Poetry 32

IV. Conclusion, An Estimate , 42 Robert Stephen Hawker

Vicar of Morwenetow

In the middle of the nineteenth century there lived in a tiny hamlet on the Cornish coast, a man al­ most forgotten by this generation, but in his own day of pleasant notoriety throughout England, Hundreds of people who knew nothing of his work as a poet had heard of the ec­

centric vicar of Morwepstow, and interrupted a journey down

the coast to visit his historic church and enjoy his eager

hospitality. Hawker* s was a sociable nature, and yet for forty

years he lived in this out of the way spot, scarcely crossing the

boundary of his parish. When sixty years old he tells us1 that

he has been on a railroad train but once, and is dismayed at

the idea of driving twenty-five miles to a neighboring town to

attend a clerical meeting. Here was a man of some genius, not a great poet, but an interesting one, a fascinating correspon­

dent, and a student who longed for access to a good library

and stimulating intercourse with the great men of his day, who,

nevertheless, spent his life uncomplainingly among a simple,

primitive people, and if at times he longed for preferment, it

was only because he was burdened with debts he had contracted

in building up a neglected parish and was seeking a way out.

1— Byles, "Life and Letters of R. 8. Hawker,* p. 362. 3.

The precarious health of his wife, a woman twenty years his senior, made difficult a change to another parish, and as time went on, he found himself firmly attached to the place and its people. He might have been a greater poet had his lines been oast in other places, but his in­ ti ividual personality, hie most valuable asset, might easily have been dulled in a more conventional atmosphere, even in his beloved Oxford, which held a place in hie affections

second only to his lonely parish. It was a fortunate cir­ cumstance which sent him to a locality so well suited to his genius. He had spent several vacations in the neighborhood

of Morwenstow during his college days, and seems to have come

to love the bleak country before he was offered the parish.

At any rate, he accepted the living gladly and has given us

a charming description of its wild sceneryA

"North Cornwall is a spacious and wind-swept land of bare hills and wooded valleys, with here and there a grey and pin­ nacled church tower crowning a distant height.... One striking feature of the landscape is the scarcity of human habitations. The lanes wind along between high banked hedges for miles and miles, with hardly a cottage to break the solitude.... The western prospect is one long expanse of water, with the (dark hulls of little coasting vessels creeping along like insects on a slate. In the summer the colors of the sea and sky, the wealth of wild flowers in the fields and hedges, the luxuriant undergrowth of ferns and mosses in the woods, the thymy fra­ grance of the turf along the downs, the grandeur of the cliffs and rocks and waves, make this Western corner of the land an earthly paradise. At other seasons when the spirit of the storm is abroad, it is a wild and fearful coast. In exposed places every tree and shrub leans eastward, beaten anti, bent by the force of the wind."

1— Byles, "Life and Letters,H p. 44 3

The secret of its charm for him is explained in his own character. His artistic temperament never tired of the constantly varying, rather tempestuous beauty of the place. Such a nature would chafe at the comfortable com­ placency of the city. Besides, he had the artist's appre­ ciation of the literary possibilities of the country. He thoroughly enjoyed the quaintness of hie people and,in hie

sketches, preserved its flavor. Finally, there was a chal- cv lenge in it, and Hawker was^fighter. When he came to Morwenstow there had not been a resident vicar for a century. The church was in bad repair,

the vicarage in ruins, and the farm belonging to it rented

out to others. He and his wife lived in a two-room cottage

while he set about his task. He believed himself and anti­

quarian, instead of merely a poet. He wove romances shout

the antiquity of the things he unearthed and invented symbol­

ism to explain every detail, and to supplement his really re­

markable fund of information on the symbols of the early church.

He fought single-handed for a shingle roof which he considered

more appropriate for the church than the slate one urged by

some of his more practical parishioners. He bought pews with

beautifully carved ends from a church which was putting In the

more fashionable box pews. "Let us give," he said, "our fair­

est and our best to Him who meant that the earth tould be wJ

paradise for man."1

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 43. 4

Two years later In 1837 he began his vicar­ age. It was Impossible for him to economize. He did every­ thing as It ought to be done without considering whether he could afford It or not. The result was a beautiful and spa­ cious residence. *My House will cost much," he writes. "But

I ought not to build a Shoppy Residence.... I would fain attract too a good Han here in every future generation.

When It was completed he filled his house with old oak, cur­ ious china and antiquities of all sorts. He tells an amusing incident of his difficulty in getting one old bedstead which the owner refused to part with till he was reminded of the many people who had died in it and who might be thought to trouble the dreams of later occupants.** When Hawker came to Morwenstow he found that the school was being held in a tumble-down cottage. In 1843 he built a commodious building and supported it almost single- handed for thirty years. King William’s bridge nearby, he had rebuilt and gave it that name, because the king contributed twenty-five pounds, most of the rest of the expense, however, being defrayed by the vicar. It is easy'to see why he spent the lest of his life in a despairing struggle with debt, and was so bitter over attempts to lower the churoh rate.

The vioar’s amusing description of his pariah-

loners gives a hint of his further difficulties. "My people," 12

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 78 2— Ibid., p • 81. 5 he says, "were a nixed multitude of smugglers, wreckers, and dissenters of various hue....The hulk of the people, In the absence of a resident rlflar, had become followers of the great preacher of the last century,^ who came down Into Corn­ wall and persuaded the people to alter their sins.... If I had not, like the apostle, to 12 fight with wild beasts at

Ephesus1, I had to soothe the wrecker, to persuade the smug­ gler, and to ’handle serpents', in ray intercourse with ad­ versaries of many a kind."2 The wreckers and smugglers, while they were doubtless a trial to the eloar, were a joy to the artist in his nature. He had a keen appreciation of the pioturesqueneas of those characters and the times which they still recalled. His was the time after the height of the wrecking and snugglihg activities, but there were men still

living and in his congregation who could tell him of their

own experiences in those stirring days. He made use of these

stories in sketches which he later contributed to magazines,

and in many of his ballads.

People on an isolated sea coast like that of

Cornwall are rather prone to feel that whatever comes ashore

is a special provision of Providence for them. As an old

Cornish poem says,3

"The 'Eliza' of Liverpool cane on shore To feed the hungry and clothe the poor."

1— John Wesley. 2— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 56. 5——Ibid. , p. 62. 6.

There is a story, too, that the people of the coast teach their children to say in their prayers at night, "God bless

Father and Mother, an1 send a ship ta shore vore mornln1.',1

The coast being cruel and treacherous, wrecks have always been frequent. Hawker says that there were eighty in the vicinity of Morwenstow during the life of a single nan.2 in earlier times "wrecking*, that is, the collecting of goods from a wreck, was a profession. More than that, the natives are said to have deliberately lured ships on the rooks by such means as fastening a light to the parson’s lame mare and letting her walk along the cliff.

There was a superstition that to Gave a drowning man from the sea was to make an enemy and many stories are told of drown­ ing sailors shoved back into the water. ^ Hawker’a old servant warned him solemnly against taking into his home a Jersey sailor whom he once found exhausted on the shore. By Hawker’s time, however, such customs were dying out, though everyone still made haste to the beach if there was a wreck, to carry off whatever he could before the officers of the crown arrived.

When casks of wine came ashore they were broached at once and the people carried off the contents in any utensil they could lay hands on. Hawker tells of one old woman who on such an occasion lay prostrate on a bale cff cloth. All laughed when she began rolling down the beach, and then it was observed

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 63. 3— Ibid., p. 157. 3— "Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall," p. 51. 7 that the bale of cloth was winding round her as she rolled.

She was not so drunk as she appeared and the officer was so amused that he let her go off with the doth,1 The coast wns also a resort of smuggler# and In Hawker*6 letters and sketches are numerous stories

of the "landings” at night, oaves and false floors In barns

for storing goods, and fights with the excise-man. One man

In his congregation had been carried off by a band of smug­

glers and made to serve in their crew for a couple of years -

all because, as he naively observed, "I chanced to see one man kill another, and they thought I would mention it.”2

Hawker kept a servant, Tristram Pentire,

whom he hired as "a man of all work - or, rather, "as he

says, "of no work* - and let him "rolllok away the last few

years of his careless existence as ’the parson’s nan1 23***

merely because he was a picturesque survival of the old

smuggling and wrecking days. He had taken part in every

•landing* on the coast for forty years and had a fund of

stories and quaint Cornish philosophy. Once when Hawker

had been trying to awaken him to the error of his ways, he

finally conceded, "Well, sir, I do think, when I come to look

back and to consider what lives we used to live - drunk all

night and' Idle a*bed all day, cursing, swearing, fighting,

gambling, lying, and always prepared to shet (shoot) the

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 62. 2— Baring-Gould, "The Vicar of Morwenstow, * p. 86. 3— "Footptints of Former Hen," p. 32. 8 gauger - I do really believe, sir, v/c surely was in ein.**•

Even in Hawker1 2s day robbing a dead body was considered thoroughly legitimate. He tells a story of a guileless young curate new to Cornwall who found a body

on the shore and rushed off for medical aid. Meeting a native he asked, "What do you do when you find a nan appar­

ently drowned?" "Saroh •is pockets," was the calm reply.2 Hawker had the strongest convictions on

this point and set about reforming the natives. Finally,

by dint of persuasion and the offer of a reward he succeeded in inducing the men to bring the bodies to the oburoh, carry­

ing them painfully up a narrow path cut in the cliff four

hundred feet high, the vicar himself leading the procession

in his cassock. Then he had the bodies laid out decently and

buried with the services of the church, and since the county -

did not provide a sufficient sun to defray the cost, supple­

mented it from hi® own purse. At one time he had a orane

brought over at his own expense to extricate a body and felt

sufficiently rewarded by the pathetic gratitude of the brother

of the victim.

He endeavored whenever possible to Identify

the bodies, and then wrote kindly letters of consolation to

1— Bylee, "Life and Letters,” p. 64. 2— Ibid., p. 63 9 the bereaved families, giving v?hat information he ooulti and assuring them of the reverent burial of their loved ones.

He cane thus to have a reputation up and down the coast as

the sailors* friend. The vioar was justly proud of his work. "I thought,n one visitor remarked, "that if ships had to be

wrecked, and the men drowned, he was Very pleased that the

calamities should occur near Morwenstow,"1 but his letters,

especially as he got older, give us a far different impres­

sion. Every time there was a storm he was filled with horror

and quite beside himself as he watched the often fruitless

efforts of the crew to escape, and for days he was haunted

with the thought of the bodies coming ashore. His letters

give thrilling accounts of wrecks he witnessed, the most

thrilling being that of the "Margaret Quayle" which occurred

in plain view of his hut on the cliff.^ Five men launched a

boat, succeeded in making the shore, and implored him to get

help for their comrades. He and a neighbor, Rev. Valentine,

tried to get help in Olovelly, but to no avail. Baring-

Gould, in his biography, embellishes this incident consider­ ably:1 23

"First, (came) the vicar of Morwenstow in a claret colored ooat with long tails flying in the gale, blue knitted jersey, and pilot boots, his long silver looks fluttering about his head. He was appealing to the fisher­ men and sailors of Clovelly to put out in their life-boat to rescue the crew of the •Margaret Quail* • The men stood sulky, lounging about with folded arms or hands in their pockets*..* The women were screaming at the top of their voices that they would not have their husbands and sons and sweethearts enticed away to risk their lives to save wrecked

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 607. 2— Ibid. , p. 459,ff. 3— Baring-Gould, "Vicar of Morwenstow,* p. 93. 10. men. Above the olamor of their shrill tongues and the sough of the wind rose the roar of the vicar’s voice: he was con­ vulsed with Indignation, and poured forth the most sacred appeals to their compassion for drowning sailors.

"Second in the procession moved the Rev. W. Valentine with a purse full of gold in his hand offering any amount of money if they would only go forth to the wreck.

"Third came the mate of the ’Margaret Quail* restrained by no consideration of cloth, swearing and damn­ ing right and left, in a towering rage at the cowardice of the Clovelly men.

"Fourth cane John, the servant of Mr. Hawker, with bottles of whiskey under his arm, another inducement to sslent and be merciful to their imperiled brethren. But all this was to no avail."

An attempt was finally made to launch the life

boat which had been brought thither on wheels, but after one

attempt it was given up. All this time the crew was signal­

ling frantically, and Hawker was beside himself.

Eventually, however, the crew were saved in

their own boat. The sequel to the story was that the day

after, the men of Clovelly went out to the wreck and cast

her adrift, so that when the company’s tug arrived she was

loose on the sea and they claimed salvage on the plea that

she was a derelict. Hawker's indignation knew no bounds,

and though he was not called to testify in the trial, be

won the ill-will of the Clovelly men as a parson who had

tried to cheat then out of their just deserts.

It speaks volumes for the vicar’s influence

that time and again he had the goods from wrecks saved for

the owners. 11,

The wreck of the "Primrose" In 1852 Is a good example of this service.1 After telling about the wreck which wae iwashed up on the beach In front of his home, and of hie going out and releasing the two pet dogs of the sailors, he continues,

"When I had searched the Berths and.found no one there, I went on deck,...Ey nan (a Farm Servant) and I then hauled In every rope, andty the time the coun­ try people cane down we had fastened a enable round a rook, I then spoke to the® over the bulwards - told then If they would work to save the property, the law would give them double wages, but that if they robbed the Vessel of the smallest thing I would myself see them sent to Bodmin Goal.

"The result was that all the Cargo was carried up a zigzag path, cut in ny own cliffs for the purpose by the owners, on the back of donkies, and the ship taken to pieces, and sold on the Beach. Not sir^ennyworth even of . her tackle was stolen."

The sequel Is typical of Hawker’s unfailing kindness. The captain had done nothing since the wreck but weep with anguish for the loss of his ship. So when the owners asked Hawker what they could do for him in return for his services he asked that the ocaptain be given a new ship.

They had none to give him, but agreed to build one and let

Hawker name it. When it was launched it was called "The

Morwenna". Soon after the company also sent him a cabinet filled with all kinds of specimens of minerals from their

Cornish mines.

1«— Bylcs, "Life and Letters," p. 221 13

Frequently the viear and his men lighted beacons on the oliffs to assist ships in distress, and sometimes with success. One ship, he records, in February

1853, was saved in that way, and.he received a letter of gratitude from Lloyds.*

Hawker is a man about whom cluster numberless anecdotes. He was naturally eccentric, and there is no doubt he enjoyed the reputation he gained for oddity. He did nothing as anyone else did. He says himself that he never "took the impress of the smoothing iron of the nine­ teenth century.*2 His manner of dress was one of his famous

singularities. Although an Anglican clergyman, he garbed

himself according to his own picturesque fancy. As a "fisher

of men," he wore a fisherman's boots and blue jersey with a

red cross woven in the side to indicate the entrance of the

centurion1s spear. A carpenter's pencil dangled jfrom his

button-hole In token of the Carpenter of Nazareth. He would

wear nothing black, but in earlier days wore a brown cassock,

"a blushing brown, the hue of our lady's hair,® in which he

even managed to scramble up and down the cliffs. Later he

wore a long purple coat. Hie hat in the early days was a

copy of that of a priest of the Greek Catholic church. In

later years he wore a broad beaver. He gives an amusing ac­

count of a trip to London in this unusual costume, minus the

1— Byles, "Life and Letters H P. 230. 2— Ibid. p. 74. 3— Ibid., p. 83. 13. hat, which he had lost out of the window of the train and replaced with a red handkerchief.

He had rather caustic replies for those who commented on his attire. Once at a clerical meeting he replied to a critical brother, "At all events, you will allow me to remark that I don't make myself look like a waiter out of place, or an unemployed undertaker.*1 To another who disliked his garb he orled, "Well, I grant a cassock is not a becoming dress, but the cost is less than two pounds per year... and for many years I have paid my school-master1 423 s salary with the difference between the usual

price of a clergyman's coat and ny stiff cassock.

In the church he freely indulged hie love

of color and a passion he had for ancient symbolism.® He

was one of the earliest to revive the use of the full vest­

ments, and wore the alb, a magnificent purple velvet cape

fastened with a large brooch, a white stole richly worked

with gold, a copy, he said, of St. Cuthbert's, and scarlet

gloves, "the proper sacrificial color for a priest.

He was a man of strong prejudices. One

subject on which he was prone to exercise his caustic wit

was the Dissenters. He bitterly resented the growth of their

power and when his indignation and somewhat irascible temper

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 84. 2— Ibid., p. 85. 3— Ibid,. p. 134. 4— Ibid. , p. 186. 14. were stirred on this subject, he could speak with graphic directness

MIt Is at last made known that all the affairs of the Nation have passed Into the sole hands of one Firm, Messrs. Brag and Sham.,.. So that you believe certain Persons are sure to be damned, it does not matter a penny whether you believe one atom of Gospel or not.... The sole evidences of Xtianity are the votes of the largest number of grimy miscreants. The doctrine of the Trinity must be extinguished because it does not give satisfaction to the greatest number of people.

He refers to Milton as "that double-dyed thief of other men*s brains.*2 Wesley* s teaching about the bodily witness of the spirit is a ”spasm of ganglions,*'* and the great preacher himself, he refers to as *'spasmodic John.In London he has been told the clergy "feed with cold Spurgeon and without mustard."5 , «a Methodist Bawler is far better adapted to the tastes and the exigencies of the lest of England than St. James or St. John. *6 y

Mess is that Pio-llic called Protestantism where every man brings his own dish and eats it sullenly by himself."7 A m o d e m Haaman asks, "Are not YTesley and Whitfield Rivers of

Dissent better than all the Waters of Baptism? May I not

1— Byles,"Life and Letters," P. 372. 2— Ibid.,p. 232. 3— Ibid. P, • 57, 4— Ibid. p., 211. 5— Ibid. p., 382. 6— Ibid. p., 366. 7— Ibid. p, . 519. 15. wash In them and be clean?"* "DlBeentera1 2* eyes are dry, and the nether Millstone Is softer than a Sectary's soul. Much of what he said of them, however, was

In the pure spirit of fun. He was an Incorrigible joker and

Dissenters were an excellent butt. Once he assembled a group of ministers of various denominations, and when someone ex­ pressed surprise, said with; a chuckle, "They are the clean and unclean beasts feeding together in the Ark."3 One day when he was walking past a Wesleyan chapel, a friend called his attention to the fact that someone had written "Satan" on the door. "No doubt he did it himself," answered Hawker*

"It is no uncommon thing for a "gentleman to put his name on his own front door.When one of his friends rebuked him

for assisting heretics, he answered, "I like to give them a

little comfort in this world, for I know what discomfort

awaits them in the next,"5

But in spite of the caustic things he said

of the Dissenting churches, and his conviction that they had

basely led astray the lambs who still belonged to his fold,

we have ample evidence that his relations with them personally

were always friendly. An unusual tribute was paid him by one of the neighboring clergymen after his death: "I was chosen,*

he writes, "at his request...to be churchwarden, though a Wes­

leyan and local preacher....For forty years I have known him

as one of my best and dearest friends. He never reproached me

for being a Wesleyan, but I had every encouragement to virtue,

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 136. 2— Ibid. , p. 148. 3— Ibid., p. 156. 4— Ibid. , p. 9. 5— Ibid., p . 120. 16 and Wesleyan ministers in the early years of his incuafcency were always welcome guests11.12

It is easy, aside from his devotion to his own church, to understand this hatred for dissent. His parish, with no resident vicar, had been neglected, the people had flocked to the new churches, and he had only a handful of adherents when he took his new charge. The noblest of us find it hard to admire those who beat us at our own game, and Hawker is not the first preacher stimulated to more in­ tense devotion by successful competition. In spite of his

firm adherence to the high ohurch party, and his affection

for the Roman Catholic Church, he was himself much more the

caliber of the Dissenters than of the perfunctory country vicars

of his own church. He had their fervor and enthusiasm, their

ardor for souls, and if in his creed baptism rather than the

Mspasm of ganglions" was the key to eternal life, he braved

hadships and discouragements no less valiantly for the simple

people he loved. Even his services would not have seemed more

foreign to a dissenting parson than, in their informality, to

many of the clergy of his own ohurch. He had daily service,

as he said, for the absent, his wife often being the only one

present. In this case he was wont to begin the service, "Dearly

beloved Charlotte, the Scripture moveth us, etc."2 He used;

to say that he did not want the people present. "God hears

1— Bylee, "Life and Letters," p. 156. 2— Ibid., p. 143. 17. me; and they know when I am praying for them, for I ring the bell."1 When it was time for the sexton to stop ringing the bell for service he would shout, "Now, Ton, three for the

Trinity, and one for the Blessed Virgin."3 Sometimes he directed his remarks pointedly at certain members, and one parishioner tells us he has seen people get up and walk out when the vioar preached at them, though he mentioned no names.3 In later years he always preached extempore - and did It excellently, too, according to contemporary report. An incident is told illustrating

his remarkable readiness. He was at a neighboring church on

some special occasion when the preacher failed to appear.

Upon being asked to fill the place, he arose and began, "And

the name's of the Twelve Apostles were these, M reciting them

from memory, and went on to preach a sermon remembered for

years by those who heard it.*

Certainly no dissenting preacher ever

accepted more literally the words of the Bible, or had a more

vivid conception of the reality of Satan. To Hawker, the

Prince of Darkness was ever lurking about, and, because he

himself preached fearlessly against him, he saw in his mis­

fortunes the works of the evil one and his cohorts. "Lent

In every year seems to be the chief Time of Demons....Every

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p, 185. S——Ibid., p. 145. 3— Ibid., p. 133. 4— Ibid. , p. 133. 18.

Lent I nark the prevalence of the Fiend in the atmoapherelo violence as now.1,1 "Although Lent is over The Demon still worries ny flock. Two lambs mlshorn among the Hogs, and one on her back yesterday with her eye® picked out."A

Storm leaped from the Sea and rushed at me roaring - I recog­ nized a Demon and put Carrow into a gallop and so escaped.*®

Twice he wrote a friend, apparently seriously, to secure for him a tracing of the Devil’s autograph, which he was persuaded was at Oxford, "howsoever reluctant the members of a College may be to avow their Founder’s Kin."4 He tells with com­ placency of a vestry meeting In which five of the farmers were trying to get the churchmte reduced. He read the Ex- orcistic Service of the western church and they fled howling from the room. The reading was in Latin, and he remarked,

"They knew not the meaning of the voice, but those vho inhabited them did."5

There is no doubt that he was often facetious, and sometimes only half in earnest, but he also slipped very easily over the borderline between religion and superstition and Indulged In some of the practices current among the simple folk of hi® parish. He mentions a certain manner of moving the fingers of the left hand as a counterohatrm against the evil eye.6

1— Byleo, "Life and Letters," - p. 336. 2— Ibid.> p. 244. 5— Ibid., p. 227. 3— Ibid., p. 440 6— Ibid., p. PR*. 4— Ibid., p. 381 19,

The lady who was later to become his second wife wrote to a friend after one of her first meetings with the vicar, "He Instills Into the youthful mind of Morwenstow the most absurd superstitions about Ghosts and Brownies, which he believes actually exist.He Insisted upon their learn­ ing, too, that angels were young men, and without wings. He was very emphatic about this, "livings, moreover, are to me destructive of all poetry of motion from place to place.

They Imply effort. The Angels glide on chariots and horses of their own desires."2 He Insisted upon their youthfulneae from* the fact that all recorded resurrections were of young people. All babies, he believed, will nature, and all old people $*ow young,3 Hie belief in them was explicit. They were constantly guiding our lives. They "hear what we say, read what we write: one Is looking over my shoulder now.

It is obvious that the life of a nan like

Hawker presents few events of importance. Practically all of his life after his college days was spent in his parish.

Aside from his parochial duties and his writings, the care

of his farm formed a major interest In his life, besides providing one of his chief sources of Income. In this, as

in everything, he was unique. All the work was conducted in

a spirit of patriarchal piety. Certain portions were always

left for the gleaners, and he rejoiced sincerely In the help

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 444. 3— Ibid. , p. 333. 4— Ibid. , p. 631. 3— Ibid. p. 325. 20, this gave to many a poor family. The laborers on his farm, knowing his love of ancient customs, delighted him by pre­ serving many of them for him. One of them he describes is called "crying the neck."1

"One (man) when the sickle is first put in, (cries) 'God send our Master atiLg loaf this year and health to cat it.* The man who reaps the last Sheaf waves it (as the Hebrews did by God's command) runs off a little and shouts thrice, * We have 'un*. The rest cry, 'What have yet' Answer, 'A Neck, a Meek, a Neck!* Then all in the field join in a loud cry, 'A Meek, a Heck, a Meek! They save uni We have uni1 *

Hawker explains that "they (the Trinity or the angels) save it; we - Master and Men - have it." It touches him that they made a special point of it the year of his wife's death.

In the conduct of his farm we see again hie generosity and extravagance. He could not bear to retrench

in any way that would involve meanness to: those who worked for him, and paid with excessive liberality for slight extra

services. There is no doubt that he was imposed upon by the

workmen who felt that he had plenty, and yet the fact that

over and over again both workers and neighbors - Dissenters

among them - left their own fields to come and harvest his

that he might be sure of his grain, argues a large measure

of affection and gratitude. In spite of his peculiarities

his personality seems to have made him beloved equally among the high and the low.

1— Bylee, "Life and Letters," p. 112 §1: It oust not be supposed that his many other interests led him to neglect his parish duties. He was first and feremost a pastor to his flock and never lost the zeal with which he started his work of making Morwenstow a model parish. His people appreciated his eccentricities, but knew him also as their most loyal friend. Byles says in his in­ troduction to his biography:

"To knock at the door of a cottage or farm­ house and mention the name of their former Vicar, •Passon Hawker1 2, as they call him, is a sure passport to their true Cornish courtesy and hospitality. It is in the hearts of his old, his 'mossy* parishioners, as he used to call then, that his best title to honour must be sought, and their memories and traditions are not the least valuable records of his life.

"'He was atit sharp if you offended him,1 said a woman who was once in his service. 'But Lord bless you, it was soon over, if anyone could hold theirselvestack for two minutes. You could have his heart out almost if you pleased him. When Tom was a bit drinky the Parson avoided him, as he was afraid of speaking too sharply to the old man.♦"2

Hawker was the constant friend of the poor and bitterly denounced the poor laws which permitted the aged to be taken to the almshouses to die. He believed that they

should have cottages of their own, and that it was the duty of

the other church members to provide for them when they were

past working. To this end he Instituted a weekly offering and

thereby brought upon himself a very bitter opposition from

the proponents of the law. Nothing ever aroused him to more

scathing (denunciation.

1— Byles, "Life and Letters,* Introduotion, p. xiv 2— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 114. 92.

The poor were not the only ones he "befriended. He was nuch Interested in the young people of his parish, and helped*many a one to a good position in life. He knew a good nany prominent people and a letter from him was con­

sidered a powerful assistance.

In 1850 he was given in addition to Morwenstow

the little parish of Weicorate about three miles distant.

The road thither was steep and rough and difficult for either

nan or beast, but he continued to make the trip every week,

in spite of bad weather and failing health, until almost the

time of his death. His eagerness for the additional salary

is pathetic evidence of the extent to which he was harraased

by debt. The tragedy of the man's life is that his old age

should have been so saddened by his Inability to cope with

material things. The letters of his later years are filled

with anxiety for his loved ones and bitterness over his

failure. Six hundred pounds, he says,! would have cleared him, but that was absolutely unattainable. He wrote fever­

ishly in an attempt to supplement hie income, but his work

brought him very little. His isolation prevented him from making the acquaintance of editors who might have been in­

fluential in bringing his work to the attention of the public.

There was doubtless much justification for hie complaints of the many pbulishers who paid him meagerly or not at all. He

l— Syles, "Life and Letters,” p. 217. 83 guoDeeded in disposing of many sketches and poems to suoh publications aa "Botes and Queries", ."Willis'a Current Botes" and "Household Words", edited at this time by Dickens, who,

Hawker noted, did pay. But most of the volumes of his

collected works were published at hie own expense and, in any case, they brought him practically nothing. In the

depths of hie despair he wrote to Godwin, one of his few friends among the publishers, "One line describes my life,

’Remote, unfriended, solitary, slow.’ My talent, if I have

one, has always heen hidden in other people's napkins, and

I often compare myself to poor Goldsmith, whom a Bookseller

oonoealed in his Garret while he sold off the produce of

his Brains. So M & Co. have always kept me out of sight,

profited by my 1 it tie Books, and never dropped a Shilling in

the dark for me to pick up."^

In June 1867, he writes again to Godwin:

"I have awaited day after day all this while, ever since March 1st, a remittance from %'alford for Sylvanus Urban. But nothing to this date. He said not long ago that Bradbury would so resent being asked for payment that no future me. would be accepted.... It has been to me so real an inconven­ ience that a dead" weight of discouragement has loaded my mind ever since."

A little later he writes, "My heart' is almost gone. I am much too prostrate to write. That accursed Balance at the Bank is a Millstone around my neok and will drag me under one day. Ho one oan have striven more than I have for the last Six months to make money and a paltry fifteen pounds is all my requital.

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 449 8--Ibid,, p. 556. 3— Ibid., p. 568. 24.

His work was not so great as he imagined, but he evidently had reason for the bitter words in which he characterized many members of the editorial profession. It is hard that the fates could not have been kinder to a man of such naturally genial tenderament, but unfortunately, ability to achieve worldly success seldom combines with an aesthetic nature and a generous soul..

One ray of happiness in his gloom was a curious friendship with a Mrs. Watson with whom he carried on a weekly correspondence for years, though they never met. She sent him a donation In answer to an appeal which he had sent out for help in repairing the roof of hie ohuroh, and becoming in­ terested in him when he told her of himself, continued writing to him, sent him a regular contribution to his own expenses, and at her death, left two hundred pounds to his children. One other acquaintance which cheered hie later life was that with the poet Tennyson. It began in a visit made by the poet to Morwenstow in 1848, one of the most memorable events of Hawker’s life.* Tennyson gives it only a meagre men­ tion, but Hawker was filled with elation and gives a detailed account of how they talked of the Arthurian legends which had been hie hobby for years, and which Tennyson was about to embody in a poem. He outlihed his project to Hawker, who, with great delight, lent him some of his own books and manuscripts on the

subject. They had dinner together and then Tennyson borrowed

1— Bylee, "Life and Letters," p. 189,ff. 25. the sexton's pipe and smoked some common shag as Hawker drove him hack to Coorafce. The vicar's cup wasHe never saw

Tennyson again, hut heard from him and from his wife occasion­ ally, received copies of the Idylls when they came out, and sent copies of his own books for which he received cordial notes of thanks.

the climax of Hawker's tragedy came with the death of his wife in 1863. Though she was twenty years older than he, they were a most devoted couple. The last years of her life he never left her side for more than a few hours. As her sight became, dim he read to her volume after volume, of

which he retained not the slightest impression. He was of a

leaning nature, and despite the care he had to give her, he

depended on her to raise his spirits and cheer his endeavors.

With her death he was prostrate. His health suffered severely

and he had no hope nor desire to live.

Then, in a little less than two years, he

did another of the surprising things for which he was famous.

He married a second time, and in this case a young woman

nearly forty years his junior, a Miss Pauline Kuozynski, whom

he had met as governess in a neighboring family. Contrary

to all natural expectation, the marriage proved a very for­

tunate one. His wife restored him to somewhat of his former

cheerfulness and health, and, to his great delight, she was

well-liked in his parish. Three daughters were born to them 36 in these last ten years of his life, and mould have been an unmeasured joy but for the care and anxiety which followed this added responsibility. But bis young wife, buoyant and optimistic, cheerfully bore her share of the burden she bad so valiantly chosen and the still greater difficulties which followed the last aot of her eccentric husband’s life. On his death-bed he was received into the Roman Catholic faith.

Although not a Catholic herself, his wife did what she felt was for her husband’s happiness. To ue, the natter seems of relatively little importance. Such changes are not uncommon, n and there was much in Hawker’s life which might have prepared one for it; though it.must be said that up to the very end, he seemed devoted to the English Church and only at odds with her rationalistic leaders. Among the Anglican clergy, however, the act brought down a storm, much of which descended on the head of his devoted wife.

When we turn from Hawker's life to his writing, we find the flame dominant interests of religion and

country, the antique and romantic, and the same interesting personality vhich charmed those Who:knew him. Aside from his letters, his writings compose a rather slender volume.

He lacked strength of purpose to carry out a sustained work;

but avloar who consolentiously served two parishes, built

a vloarage, restored a church, supervised a farm, burled the bodies of shipwreeked sailor®, salvaged cargoes for their owners, and oared for an Invalid wife, may well he pardoned for not finding time for more and greater literary work.

His prose sketches nearly all concern the more romantic and legendary aspects of Cornwall. Originally printed In magazines, they have been collected In a volume called “Footprints of Former Men In Far CorawSl,M first published in 1870. In it we have some of our most colorful

stories of smuggling days in “The Gauger’s Pocket", "The

Light of Other Days", and “Cruel Oopplnger". They are typi­

cal stories told by Tristram Pent Ire, and contain much of his sly humor. The first is a naive account of a certain

hole in the rooks where the smugglers used to conceal a little bag of gold, and them, meeting the exciseman, remark, "Sir,

your pocket is unbuttoned.“ If the exciseman was a "just

man and satisfied", he answered, "Ay, Ay, but never mind, my

man, my money's safe enough," and the smugglers knew that the

landing of the boats was also safe."1

“Cruel Oopplnger* tells the story of one

of the smugglers of Morwenstow often cited by the inhabitants

as a notorious example of the evils attending the saving of

sailors from a wreck. Oopplnger, however, as a matter of

fact, saved himself. Asroon as he landed on the beach he

1— "Footprints*, p. 40. 38. jumped up behind a girl who was riding her father’s horse,

and urged It home at full speed. He married the girl, and

after her father’s death when he had got possession of her property, he showed hie real nature. The place became a

den of smugglers and lawless men; he Ill-treated his young

wife, terrorized the country-side, carried off villagers

to serve in his crews, until finally he went off in a mys­

terious ship, disappearing as he had come. It is a very

graphic narrative, full of thrilling' detail not indicated

here. Infect, nothing that Hawker writes is dull.

The other sketches are either personal reminiscences of Morwenstow, and very pleasurable reading,

or else more or less historical asoounts of such ancient

Cornish characters as Black John, a singular dwarf, the last

of the jesters, the Cornish giant, Anthony Payne, who be­

longed to the early part of the seventeenth century, and

Thomasine Bonaventure, a Pimple Cornish girl who went to

London and after two marital adventures in which she lost her

husbands, but was left very wealthy, married a third husband

who became Mayor of London. The book is crammed with amus­

ing anecdotes of this interesting, though simple people.

. lone of his writings are more interesting

than his letters, of which a surprisingly large nunfeer have

been preserved. Cut off as he was from the world, he spent 29. a great deal of time and care on him correspondence. He used a yellow-tinted paper with thin red lines, ra.de espe­ cially for him, and two peculiar seals, the nystio fish and the pentads of Solomon. He always had something to say and

even his letters (bout his farm, his home, or his pets include

some graphic description, some bits of observation on life,

or anecdotes of his people. Mr Bylee’ collection of hie

letters easily excels in interest Hawker’s otherrork. Here

we get our best picture of hie parish and hie own enigmatic

self, and incidentally, a great deal of the material after­

wards published in his sketches of Cornwall. His letters are

like the man, always touched with the rays of his own genius,

whimsical, often full of humor, and with no little satire on

people he has met, and on passing events.

"Last Week every day and the week before five times we, as the great folks say, 1 2 received1* And such a mixed multitude as came up out of Egypt - among them — Curator at K.— , a Man who fulfilled the prophecy of his repugnant Nose and controverted (31 that was said.H* "In one of my favorite Volumes, Brewster’s Book, I discover and transcribe a Gordian passage - here it is enclosed - and as the Cornish Charm for Cramp says2

"'The Devil is tying a knot in my leg, S. Peter, 3. Peter, unloose it, I beg.1

So say I to you. I admonish you to acquaint me by return of Post with the exact and clear definition of the phrase 'the Problem of three Bodies': and again cf the name 'the lumi­ niferous ether*. Tell me as you would tell one of your pupils in plain simple small words. So shall you be requited with junket and cream when next you toil hitherward.*2

1— Eylee, "Life and Letters," p. 391 2— Ibid., p. 373. 30

To Mies Kuozynekl! "I restore your Hoofshoe which I have worn with very great advantage. I found that the Grose Town Jettatura^ had not her usual power over me as I rode through! nor Indeed did Carrow shy as usual at things seenty her though not by me. I wore your skin aleo with much satisfaction. The mesmeric effects are wonderful. I am more amiable than I have been for long: so acute aloo and so tentative that I quite envy you the possession of such a Mantle of Elijah. But the oddest result of assuming your vesture is that I am quite overwhelmed with a propensity to draw my pen and to shed the Ink of Morwenstow. I could even orose and reoross this letter."2 To Mr, Somers James who was in the habit of

sending him a diary, but had omitted to do so, he wrote:

"Remember I have it in my power to out you off with a Shilling, and. 1 know a nan who will lend me a Shilling to do it with."3

To Rev. W. D. Anderson concerning certain re­

ligious controversies:

■The plain truth is that the whole Age is a Time of cowardly Negation and, as Earl Derby so bitterly said, of compromise. Formerly there were Men, now there are nothing but Votes. Of old, and Insulted Gentleman damned M s Adver­ sary on the spot. Nowadays the Individual makes up a prim mouth and says, '-May the Lord in his judgments utterly take away every hope of thy final Station.'*4

After attending services in London, he writes:

■The chief feature that struck me in all was the amazing rontent and gratefulness of the English People. Tb see how they receive what they receive is very wonderful. Suoh Services and Sermons and no complaint.*°

1— "Sally Found, a reputed witch* - Hawker1s note 3— Byles, ■Life and Letters," p. 498. 3— Ibid.,p. 552. 4— Ibid. p., 216. 5— Ibid.,p. 610. Letters of denunciation are rather frequent, and he flays those who oppose him with telling directness:

“The Bishop...with an excess of courtesy and compassion acquitted yourself and your party of selfish motives in your strife; I do not. I shall never hesitate to strip the fallacy of its skin, and expose It to the contempt of all men.

He was much interested in what was going on

In his day, but his comments on passing events are apt to be provincial In the extreme. His remarks concerning America -

a country for which he had little use - seem to us surprising

echoes of a quite distant past:

“Lincoln’s death at a Theatre and on a Good Friday was a deed full of horror but as a death no worse than thousands of those bloody slaughters which have desolated New York alone with 30,000 widows. Only a king anointed with oil can declare or levy lawful war. Every other Person so pre­ suming to shed blood inherits the guilt and doom of Cain and violates the commandment ’to do no murder’. My opinion of the American war has undergone no change. There has been a mur­ derous quarrel in the Servants’ Hall, and no wise Master will ever Interfere. The slang about Slavery was long ago denounced by St. Paul. He met one day a bought Slave, Onesiraus by name. He converted, baptised him, and sent him back to his legal Master, Philemon...with an injunction that he was to be re­ garded henceforth not only as a slave, but as a Xtlan Man, a temporal bondsman, but with a spiritual and Eternal tie.

He had little faith in democracy. He wrote

Mrs. Watson in 1866:

"Now ensues the uproar about the New Reform Bill. People have, it seems, found out that to enable a lower class of persons to have a vote will be a panacea for all the evils of the land,*1 32 And later to R. A. Mountjoy:

“They used to call England a Monarchy. I have lived to see it a Vast Republic.“3

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 183. 2— Ibid., p. 516. 4— Ibid. p. 543. 3— Ibid, , p. 536, 33 WI predict the utter and speedy extinction of England as a great power. Her 300 years of Dissent, the larg­ est allotted tine for any Heresy to endure, is now well nigh told o u t . . W h y should England stand7....fthat angel could arrive with duties to perform for that large Blaspheming Snithery, once a great Nation, now a Forge for Railways - a kind of Station!"I In spite of the literest of Hawker* s prose his most important literary contribution is his poetry. It con­

sists very largely of ballads and poems of religious feeling.

The best known and the one which brought him earliest into prominence was "The Song of the western Men1 2*? written In 1824 and published in a Plymouth paper, anonymously, like so many

of his others. It became popular immediately and was mistaken

for a genuine old ballad by no less a person than Sir lalter

Soott. It was also praised by Macaulay in his "History of

England* and by Dlokene in "Household Words11. Hawker says

that he composed all of the poem except the refrain, which was

a popular proverb throughout Cornwall. Thousands who never

heard of Hawker are familiar with the refrain. The poem is

worth quoting entire tc Illustrate Hawker’s remarkable ability

to recreate the pest and to impart to his work the atmosphere

of antiquity:

I. A good sword and a trust hand! A merry heart and true! King Janes* s men shall understand What Cornish lads can do!

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 240. 2— "Poetical Borks of Robert Stephen Hawker,f p. 1. 33

II. And have they fix’d the where and when? And shall Trelavmy die? Here’s twenty thousand Cornish men Will see the reason whyt

III. Out spake their Captain brave and bold, A merry wight was he: "If London Tower were Michael’s hold, "We’ll set Trelawny free!*

IV.

"We’ll cross the Tamar, land to land, The Severn is no stay — All side by side, and hand to hand, And who shall bid us nay?

V. "And when we cone to London Wall, A pleasant sigh to view, Come forth! Come forth, ye Cowards all, To better men than you!

VI.

"Trelawny he’s in keep and hold, Trelawny he may die; But here’s twenty thousand Cornish bold, Will see the reason why!" Another ballad comparable to it is "Sir Seville", celebrating one of the foremost families of the region, mem­ bers of which were still living In Hawker’s time. Like the

Trelawny poem, it was also taken for an antique ballad, being included in Major Egerton Leigh’s "Ballads and Legends of

Cheshire”, published in 1887, where it was described as a

Royalist song found amongst the family papers in an old oak chest, at Erdswlck Hall, one of the seats of the Minshull 34. family.^ Hawker went to some trouble to assert his author­ ship of both poems. It was a sore point that so much of what he wrote was not credited to him, and was even claimed by other people, although there is no doubt that much of the plagiarism was due to his fondness for anonymous publication.

But he was wont to lament bitterly tint while his songs were published, and set to music and praised, he lived unknown.

"Indeed, this has been my unaltered doom, to help others and myself be sacrificed.*2

"Sir Beville‘,s is a stirring bit of verse, and ttie atansas given below will illustrate how Hawker has caught the popular spirit:

Arise! and away! for the King and the land; Farewell to the couch and the pillow: With spear in the rest, and with rein in the hand, Let us rush on the foe like a billow.

Call the hind from the plough, and the herd from the fold, Bid the wassailercease from his revel: And ride for old Stowe, where the banner’s unrolled. For the cause of King Charles and Sir Seville.

Ay! by Tre, Pol, and Pen, ye may know Cornish men, 'Mid the names and the nobles of Devon; But if truth to the King be a signal, why then Ye oan find out the Granville in heaven.

Ride! ride! with red spur, there is death in delay, ’Tis a race for dear*life with the devil; If dark Cromwell prevail, and the King must give way, This earth Is no place for Sir Seville.

So at Stamford he fought, and at Lanetiown he fell. But vain were the visions he cherished: For the great Cornish heart, that the King loved so well, In the grave of the Granville it perished.

1— Shelburne Essays, Fourth Series, P. E. More, p. 3. 2— Byles, "Life and Letters, " p. 263. 3— "Poetical ‘.Yorks of Robert StephenHkwker,* p. 166. 35. Hawker*a subjects, as well as hie genius, lent themselves veil to the ballad. He still had in hie parish the material out of which the type grew. Hie sketch of Hola- oorabe^ describes the almost unbelievable isolation of the people of the little village of TTeloombe. They had not even a post office, the parson carrying their nail to them on Sun­ days; no newspapers ever found their way there, except an ancient sheet from Canada sent by some relative who had emi­ grated thither. The people were simple in the extreme, almost unlettered, and full of the curious beliefs anti customs v? hleh the vicar loved to record. From such surroundings sprang naturally the ballad stories, and Hawker had the instinct to seize upon them. Many of the ballads, like his prose sketches, deal with the wreckers. Many a famous character still living in Morwenetow was a counterpart of Mawgan of Melhuaeh in one of the ballads. Among other crimes, the old man was said to liave buried alive a captain ihoza he found exhausted on the sand.

A boat came for him and landed in a terrific surf:

"Outxlth the boat there," some one cried, — "Will he never come? we shall lose the tide: His berth is trim and his cabin stored. He* o a weary long time coming on board."

The old man struggled upon the bed: He knew the words that the voices said; Wildly he shriek*d as his eyes grew dim, "He was dead* he was dead! when I burled, him. *

1— "Footprints," p. 199. 38

Hard was the struggle, but at the last# With a stormy pang old Mawgan pass’d. And away, away, beneath their sight, _ Gleam’d the red sail at pitoh of night.1 2

"A Croon on Hennacliff” takes us back to the j ocular gruesomeness of some of the genuine ballads. Two ravens are discussing the prospect of feasting on the bodies of sailors which they expect will be washed ashore from a wreck. One suggests that the men may be saved; the cynical one scoffs: "Cawkl cawkl* then said the raven, *1 amIburscore years and ten! Yet never in Bude Haven Did I croak for rescued men.— They will save the Captain’s girdle, And shirt, if shirt there bet But leave their blood to curdle, For my old dame and me.”2 Longfellow made an attempt to get Hawker’s

"Cornish Ballads* published in America for him, but in vain.

However, he later included many of them in his collection of

"Poems of Places".

A number of the poems celebrate the author’s love of Cornwall. "A Rapture on the Cornish Hills* catches in the few lines given below its turbulent fascination;

What doth he here, Man that is born of woman? The clouds may haunt these mountains; the fierce storm Coiled in his oaverned lair — that wild torrent Leaps from a native land: But man! 0 Lord! What doth he here?3

"The Cornish Boy in Italy" is a plaintive bit:

1— "Poetical Works of Robert Stephen Hawker,* p. 14 2— Ibid. , p. 169. 3— Ibid,, p. 38. 37

Ah! the s t e m rock! clothed vrith the cloud. Host o* the young etora, wayward and loud. Where the warm prey hounded to die And awe hath lushed the hunter’o cry!

Hone of ny spirit! could I but see One ancient hut and stunted tree. The chine come forth with looks of care, And sunset fall on ay father’s hair!1

"Morwanna Static” ("The stow, or the place, of

St. Morwanna; hence,..lorwenstow") celebrates the beloved church where he served so long. The first stanza is es­ pecially effective, though the whole poem is full of relig­ ious fervor %

My Saxon shrine! the only ground Wherein this weary heart hath rest: What years the birds of God have found Along thy walls their sacred nest! The storm - the blast - the tempest shock, Have beat upon those walls in vain; She stands - a daughter of the rook — The changeless God’s eternal fane.8

Some of the poems have a local and particular significance. "The Poor Kan and his Parish Church* reiter­ ates his indignation at the law which takes the aged man from hie home and church and claps him in the almshouse to end hie days.3

The poem which he sent to Tennyson on his

Idylls is a graceful tribute. After referring to the old legend that Arthur will never die, he writes:

I read the Rune with deeper ken,

And thus the myth I trace;-

A bardashould rise, mid future men,

The mightiest of his race.

1— "Poetical Works of Robert Stephen Hawker," p. 146. 2— Ibid., p. 47. 3— Ibid., p. 61. 38.

He would great Arthur’s deeds rehearse,

On grey Dundagel12s snore;

And. so, the King, in laurelled verse,

Shall live, and die no norel^ He wrote a number of Christmas chants. One recalled the Cornish custom of using "Aunt* and "Uncle" as terms of greeting and respect. It is called "Modryb Marya"

(Aunt Mary), Aunt Mary being the Virgin Mary. The first stanza is given below: ^

3ow of all the trees by the king’s highway. Which do you love the best? 01 the one that is green upon Christmas Day, The bush with the bleeding breast. How the holly with her drops of blood for me: For that is our dear Aunt Mary's tree.3

The one poem that is conceded to have signs of real greatness is M s "Quest of the Sangraal*. He had considered the Arthurian legends peculiarly his own property from the time when, on his honeymoon at Tintagel - Dundygel, as he Insists the name should be - he began collecting them.

He seems to have contemplated writing only the story of the

Grail, a subject for which M s devotion and mysticism es­ pecially fitted him. Although he had had it in mind for years, he did nothing on it until after the death of his fira wife in 1863. Then he seized upon it eagerly as an Interest to fill the lonely hours and dull the sorrow of his bereave­ ment. Unfortunately, even then he finished only the first of the projected three chants, relating the setting forth on the

1— "Poetical works of Robert Stephen Hawker,* p. 160. 2— Ibid., p. 416. 39 quest, with a sort of cystic prophecy of the euooees of Gala- had and the strife to ooue in Arthur’s realm. The fragment is real poetry and had he completed the poem, he night have en­ joyed a taste of the popular appreciation for which he longed so vainly* As it was, the poem received warm praise from other writers. Tennyson himself was quoted hy a friend as saying,

'•Hawker has beaten me on my own ground. "1 Tennyson questioned his own ability to handle the theme,.because of his lack of faith, and faith was what especially fitted Hawker for the task.

To him, the ihole story was real and living. He filled it with the vitality of hie own imagination and the flavor of his coun­ try. In place of the shadowy Caaelot of Tennyson's poem, we have Cornwall and the great sea which Hawker knew in every mood.

The very names, so strange to us, Tamar, Carradon, St. Neotan’a

Kiev®, were familiar to M s daily life.

The poem begins with the famous line which echoes throughout It!

"Hoi for the Sangraal! vanish’d Vase of Heaven!*

Then it plunges almost immediately into the story:

How the merry shout Of reckless riders on their rushing steeds, Smote the loose eoho from the drowsy rock Of grim Dxmdagel, thron’d along the sea!2

In portraying Arthur’s character Hawker dif­ fers noticeably from Tennyson. The king is a virile person and he it i® who enlists the knight® in the quest. Fherea® 21

1— Bylee, "Life and Letters," p. 418. 2— "Poetical Works of Etibert Stephen Hawker,* p. 171. 40

Tennyson1e Arthur warns then that most of them will follow wandering fires while the kingdom slips hack into barbarism,

he urges them on to the search as the one great deed worth

undertaking.

See! now, they pause; for in their midst, the King, Arthur, the Son of Uter, and the Might, Helm'd with Pendragon, with the Greeted Crown, And holted with the sheath1 d Excalibur, That gnash’d his iron teeth, and yearn1d for war! Stern vas that look (high natures seldom smile) And in those pulses beat a thousand kings. A glance! and they were husht: a lifted hand! And his eye ruled then like a throne of light. Then, with a voice that rang along the moor, Like the Archangel1s trumpet for the dead. He spake - while Tamar SDunded to the sea.

"Comrades in arms! Mates of The Table Round! Fair Sirs, my*fellows in the bannered ring, Ours is a lofty tryst! this day we meet, Not under shield, with scarf and knightly gage, To quenoh our thirst of love in ladies1 eyes: We shall not mount to-day that goodly throne, The conscious steed, with thunder In his loins, To launch along the field the arrowy spear: May, but a holier theme, a mightier Quest— i •Ho! for the Sangraal, vanish’d Vase of God.1 * He pictures the stricken land after the departure of the Grail:

The land is lonely now: Anathema! The link that bound it to the silent grasp Of thrilling worlds is gathered up and gone: The glory is departed; and the disk Bo full of radiance from the touch of God! This orb is darkened to the distant watoh Of Saturn and his reapers, when they pause, Amid their sheaves, to count the nightly stars.2 ####»*#»# Then rose a storm of voices; like the sea, When Ocean, bounding, shouts with all his waves. High-hearted men! the purpose and the theme, Smote the fine chord that thrills the warrior1 s soul With touch anti impulse for a deed of fame.3

1— "Poetical Morks of Robert Stephen Hawker,11 p. 173 2— Ibid., p. 176. 3— Ibid., p. 177. 41.

To Hawker, the poem was a symbol of England. The knights going to the north and South, East and West, In search of the vanished cup, are those who will bring an unregenerate nation back to the purer faith and reverence for the truth of the church.

"Ah! haughty England! lady of the wave!” Thus said pale Merlin to the listening King, "What is thy glory in the world of stare? To scorch and slay! to win demoniac fame, In arts and arms; and then to flash and die! Thou art the diamond of the dsnon-orown. Smitten by Michael upon Abarira, That fell; and glared, an island of the sea. Ah! native England! wake thine ancient cry; Ho! for the Sangraal! vanish'd Vase of Heaven!*1 23

Parts of the Quest" are intensely personal.

When King Arthur mourned, it is Hawker speaking in his lone­

liness: "I have no son, no daughter of my loine. To breathe, 'mid future men, their father's name: My blood will perish when these veins are dry; Yet am I fain some deeds of mine should live - I would not be forgotten in this land."2

The lovely poetry of the next stanza is Hawker again in his

discouragement: "Ah! native Cornwall! throned upon the hills, Thy moorland pathways worn by Angel feet, Thy streams that march in music to tie sea 'Mid Ocean's merry noise, his billowy laugh! Ah me! a gloom falls heavy on my soul — The birds that flung to me in youth are dead; I think, in dreamy vigils of the night, It may be God is angry with my land, Too much athirst for fame, too fond of blood; And all for earth, for shadows, and the dream To glean an echo from the winds of song!

1— wpoetlcal Works of Robert Stephen Hawker," p. 190. 2— Ibid., p • 180. 3— Ibid., p. 186. 42

He has missed, somewhere, his dream; he is im­ potent, he knows not why. It is true he has missed real greatness in his work. It is not even so good as he thought. But he is not forgotten in his land. The nan is "bigger than his work. Next to being himself, he is Cornwall. In a letter to Krs. Watson he writes,1 "Did you ever hear that for every 100 miles you live from London you must reckon yourself a Century back from your own date?

We therefore, who are 250 miles off, are now in the year 1610 in all that relates to agriculture and civilization.” It is,

In a measure, true of Hawker. It is not that he Is not alive to what is going on in the nineteenth century, for Hawker, no matter how great hie isolation, never sinks into rural lethargy.

But he sees the events of his day through the aloofness and naivete of the quaint people of the west Coast. His views are noticeably those of a man who sees, through the eyes of a former

age, and a mystic nature, the discomfiting events of these

energetic days. Hie contribution is that, like his people, he

Is untouched by the prevailing conventionalism. He still has

the capacity for interest and wonder. Superior as he is intel­

lectually to his simple parishioners, he still has enough of

their spirit to give us our most sympathetic picture of Cornwall.

Many have given us travelogues of this quaint corner of England,

but he himself lived it and in his own unusual life, embodied

its genius.

1— Byles, "Life and Letters," p. 361. Bibliography

Works of Robert Stephen Hawker. *wFootprinto of Former Men In Far Cornwall." Edited with an introduction by C. E. Byles. John Lane, 1903.

*"The Poetical Works of Rdbert Stephen Hawker1’. Edited with an ’introduction by Alfred Wallia. John Lane, 1899.

"Cornish Ballade and Other Poems." Edited with an intro­ duction by C. E. Byles. John Lane, 1904.

"Twenty Poems." With an Introduction by John Brlnkwater, Blackwell, 1925.

"Stones Broken from Rocks." (Extracts from MS. Notebooks) Edited with a Preface by C. E. Byles, Blackwell, 1932.

Biography. ♦Baring-Gould, Rev. S., "The Vicar of Morwenstow." 9th Edition, Methuen & Co.* 1929.

Lee, Dr. F. G., "Memorials of the Late R. S. Hawker." Chatto & Windus, 1876.

♦Byles, C. E., "The Life and Letters of R. S. Hawker." John Lane, 1905.

Short Articles.

♦Shelbufne Essays, Fourth Series, P. E. More. G. P. Putnam, 1907,

♦"Hawker of Morwenstow," 0. M. Kelly. Catholic World, Vol. 103, July 1916, pp. 487 - 493.

♦"A Morwenstow Pilgrimage," R. L. Pillebury. Bookman, Sept. 1904, Vol. 20, pp. 36 - 41.

♦"A Famous Cornish Character." Dial, May 1, 1905; Vol. 38, pp. 308 - 310.

"Robert S. Hawker." Temp. Bar 77, p. 323 (1882-87) Spectator 70, p. 777, 1898.

"R. S. Hawker.* Academy 57, p. 103 (1897-1902)

"Vicar of Morwenstow,” P. E. More. International, Oot. 1905, Vol. 12, pp. 46-66. General

♦Encyclopaedia Brltannica.

♦Dictionary of national Biography.

♦MG'anbridge History of English literature," Vol. XII.

Gosa^ Sir E. W.,MJacobean Poets.H A John Murray, 1894.

Goee^ Sir E. VT., "Seventeenth Century Studies.M A Eegan, Paul & Co.* 1883. Hutt, Alfred, "Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail." Folklore Society, 1888.

Smith, D. iviohol, "Characters from Histories and Memoir# of the Seventeenth Century." Oxford, 1918.

Spurgeon, Caroline F. E., "Mysticism in English Literature. Cambridge, 1913.

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