By Emily A. Holt Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of in the College of Letters
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Robert Stephen Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstow Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Holt, Emily Adams Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 28/09/2021 11:53:31 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 co to to 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 1 2 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.