" I give thefe Boolts
for the founding of a CoUege in tills Colony"

iS"^'"!. .IV'^-i!-'*' '^^fe*

'T^LIl«¥]MII¥IEIESIIir¥''

Bought with the Inoome of the
Edward Wells Southworth.
Fund 190^

LITERARY RAMBLES
IN THE WEST OF ENGLAND

UNIFORM WITH THE PRESENT VOLUME
Each with a Frontispiece, crown Svo. , cloth, gilt top, 6s. each.
LAKE-COUNTRY RAMBLES
By WILLIAM T. PALMER
' Much has been written about the Lake Country, but few Lake Country
books have been so observant aud pleasant as Mr. Palmer's " Lake-Country
Rarables." Mr. Palmer's unambitious volume has simplicity and real
appreciation ; he knows what he is writing about, and gives sound advice.'
— Academy,' It would be almost impossible to imagine anyone unmoved to keen
pleasure in the reading of Mr. Palmer's book on the Lakeland he knows and
loves so well. ... It must suffice to recommend all lovers of Nature and
good books to buy it and read it. It will — admirable test — be a delightful
possession in Lakeland itself.' — Vanity Fair.
IN LAKELAND DELLS AND FELLS
By WILLIAM T. PALMER
' We read Mr. Palmer's book, and are writing to say how thankful we are.
We have cheated time and stolen another holiday. It is a charming book.
Mr. Palmer knows his subject in and out ; he loves these dells and fells,
raountains, rivers, shepherds, and sportsmen. His style has a distinction
which marks a true writer. He carries you with him. You live in the Lake
Country while you are reading the book. Mr. Palraer's pictures are
raarvels for truthfulness. You can see the country. . . . This book is one
which will bear reading more than once. It is as good as a holiday. ' —
St. Ja-mes's Gazette.
MARSH-COUNTRY RAMBLES
By HERBERT W. TOMPKINS
' Almost within hail of towns which are developing into suburbs of London
there is a piece of wild country where desolation is tempered only by the
cries of the sea-fowls. It resembles in its primitive life the fringe of
Holland. . . . Mr. Tompkins has wandered through this district, and he
records in this interesting little volume his impressions of scenes which are
as bracing as the sea brine. . . . Pleasant and vivacious pages.' — Scots
man. ' The pleasantly personal chapters in which Mr. Tompkins tells of his
" Marsh-Country Rambles" will be welcome to the great army of genuine
lovers of the English countryside. Mr. Tompkins has the true enthusiasm
of topographic writing, the spirit that makes a keen adventure of every
rural walk, missing nothing of the beauty and the mystery. He delights in
the history, the living romance that clings to every rood of English
ground, and discourses, with a taking style and a deep knowledge, of the
traditions and the tales of each place he comes to in his Essex travels. ' —
Vanity Fair.
London : CHATTO & WINDUS, iii St. Martin's Lane, W.C.

?4O

LITERARY RAMBLES IN
THE WEST OF ENGLAND

BY

ARTHUR L. SALMON
author of
' a book of verses,' ' west-country ballads,' etc.

WITH A FRONTISPIECE

LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1906

NOTE
The first six pages in this volume appeared in the
Westef-n Morning News of Plymouth during the
autumn of 1905. ' Tintagel and its Arthurian
Traditions ' and ' With Coleridge and Tennyson
at Clevedon ' were published in Temple Bar during
the same year, and are now reprinted with the kind
consent of Messrs. Macmillan.

CONTENTS
PAGE
NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE : A LITERARY AND
HISTORIC PILGRIMAGE I
GEORGE BORROW IN CORNWALL - 30
LITERARY MEMORIES OF TAVISTOCK 5 1
THE POET GAY AND THE BARNSTAPLE DISTRICT - 72
WITH SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN DEVON 87
HERRICK IN DEVON, AND OTHER MEMORIES- II O
WITH KEATS AT TEIGNMOUTH I30
HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW 1 49
SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE OF THE WEST COUNTRY 1 82
TINTAGEL AND- ITS ARTHURIAN TRADITIONS- 211
WITH COLERIDGE AND TENNYSON AT CLEVEDON 228
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS OF THE QUANTOCKS 248
RICHARD JEFFERIES : AN ATTEMPT AT APPRECIATION 276
LITERARY BRISTOL - - 303
INDEX - 337

VII

LITERARY RAMBLES
IN THE WEST OF ENGLAND

,yI^

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
A LITERARY AND HISTORIC PILGRIMAGE

Fortune has not been quite impartial in the
favours that she has conferred on rivers. The
streams that have won the greatest poetic glory
have not always been the fairest. No river of
Devon has had full literary justice done to it.
Surely the Dart, the Exe, the Tamar, the Teign,
the Tavy, are more beautiful than the Yarrow of
the ballads or the Doon of Burns ; yet they await
their poet. But it may be urged that these streams
ha' e won their renown in other ways. The Dart
has given its name to .the grand western moorland,
and to one of the most picturesque towns in
England ; the Tiamar goes to feed one of our
finest harbours ; and the Exe, as a brawling rivulet,
bestows its name on another great moorland of the
West Country, while its name also lives in a fair

LITERARY RAMBLES
and ancient city — a city rich in memories of Celt
and Roman, Saxon and Norman, a city that has
been a nursing-mother to the children of the West.
Of this river one of her own sons, John Herman
Merivale, sings :
' Yet poets, too, by Isca dream ;
Rich meadows kiss her sparkling face,
And ancient walls o'erhang her stream.
And peopled towns her borders grace.'
JefFeries, also, in his rich, luminous prose that is
poetry, has written of the youthful Exe, its deep
banks and impetuous waters.
The young river rises in the Somerset portion
of Exmoor, near the little moorland town of
Exford. It crosses the boundary between the two
counties near Dulverton, in a district of varied
loveliness. Losing something of its youthful
eagerness, it joins the Loman at Tiverton — the
' two-ford town ' — and so passes on to wash around
the ' red hill ' of Exeter. At Topsham it expands
to a broad estuary, whose shallow expanse is only
covered when the tide is full ; at other times the
narrowed stream steals through a gull-haunted
desert of sand, mud, and cockles. Blocked in its
direct course by the Warren, it swirls rapidly round
the point on which stands Exmouth, and here
effects its junction with the Channel. Two cen
turies since, it effected this junction on the Dawlish
2

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
side, and it seems to have been on a portion of the
sand-bar, now submerged at full tide, that a fort
was erected by the Royalists during the Civil War.
It is said that even as late as the year 1730 it was
possible to cross to the Warren from Exmouth at
low tide, by a kind of causeway ; so that the river
has now cut for itself an entirely new course. The
Warren, a favourite sumraer camping-ground for
Exonians, can be reached on foot from Dawlish,
but it seems to have parted company with Exmouth
for ever. There is no knowing, however ; that
which has happened once may happen again, or
perhaps in time the force of the Exe may become
insufficient to cut through the gathering sand-banks,
and Exmouth may become a dead port. The sea
ports of the South-West are rather apt to become
blocked in this fashion, as at Axmouth, Sidmouth,
and Helston.
Thus it is evident that this broad river-mouth —
beautiful, but not favourable to navigation — has
experienced some vicissitudes since the day when
Celtic immigrants first arrived, naming the stream
Uisc (' The Water '). We find this root uisc in the
names of many British rivers, such as the Usk,
Axe, Esk, and Ouse ; and the earliest name of
Exeter that we can definitely trace is Caer-uisc,
Geoffrey of Monmouth giv£s us some romantic
nonsense about a pre-Christian city here named
3 A2

LITERARY RAMBLES
Penholtkeyre, in which Arviragus, a revolting
Roman, was besieged by Vespasian ; but the only
probable truth in his story is that which connects
Vespasian with the Exe-town — a connection suffi
ciently proved by coins, as well as by tradition.
When the Romans came they found the red hill
already scarped and defended, with a plot of land
lying snugly beneath its shelter ; and the Caer-uisc
of the Celts became the Roman Isca Dum-
nuniorum. It was a town destined to stand many
sieges, but probably it never saw much hard fight
ing, except when the Danes were ravaging the dis
trict. For a time it experienced a rather difficult
condition of joint occupation by Saxons and Celts
— a division which may still be partly traced in the
church dedications — but at last Athelstan found it
necessary to drive the Celts, or at least the militant
portion, across the Tamar, their tendency to side
with the Danes proving a constant peril ; and the
town became the Saxonized Exanceaster. In
1050 the see-town of the new Devonian diocese
was removed hither from Crediton, and Leofric
was first Bishop. With ideas of semi-independence
still actuating it, the town tried to win good terms
from the Conqueror, offering to render him homage
and tribute as Royal suzerain ; but William would
have no such half-hearted submission. He meant
to be King of England, not merely head lord of
4

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
a number of petty States and towns. Exeter
closed its gates to the Norman, who had marched
ruthlessly through Dorset ; the people were of
stouter heart than the city magnates, who had sent
hostages and proffered submission. One of these
hostages was brought near to the walls, and there
his eyes were put out, as an object-lesson of
William's tender mercies ; but for eighteen days
the town stood a fierce siege. There were too
many enemies — hunger, divided counsels, possible
treachery, mines, and constant assaults of the foe. .
A yielding, after a long enough resistance to win
the Norman's respect, brought tolerably good
terms ; and Gytha, the mother of Harold, whom
the town had harboured, sought safety by sea. It
was a nephew of the Conqueror, War?lwast, who
became the third Bishop of Exeter, and to him the
cathedral is indebted for the fine transeptal towers,
whose only parallel is to be found at Ottery. The
Bishops of Exeter were for the most part wise
rulers and great architects, and the cathedral gives
their record in stone.
Though standing about ten miles from the
river's mouth, the shipping of early days used to
come up to the city walls ; but though Exeter still
figures as a port, it is now only so by reason of the
canal, opened in the middle of the sixteenth cen
tury — a notable feat of enterprise for that day.
5

LITERARY RAMBLES
The effort was forced upon the citizens by the
annoyances and damage done to their shipping
through the enmity of the Earls of Devon. A
long feud waged between the town and this family,
one relic of which is the Countess Weir, which
the vindictive Isabella de Fortibus threw across the
river in order to block the entry of ships to Exeter.
But no recollection of strife now mars the deep
peacefulness of the scene, where the broad estuary
spreads glistening in the sunlight. At all times
the view is impressive, even when the weather is
dull and gray, but perhaps it looks at its best
under one of those lovely sunsets that the painter
Danby so delighted in. He lies now in the
churchyard attached to the ruined St. John's in the
Wilderness, the mother-church of Withycombe
Raleigh, now one of the two Exmouth parishes.
The church dates from 911 — a very respectable
antiquity. Westward lie the Haldon Hills, and
beyond these the great waste of Dartmoor ; the
atmospheric effect of these produces incomparable
sunsets. If the hilltops are racked with cloud the
result may be even finer, but the peacefulness has
gone. The hills then look like the gateway to
some weird region of dark romance and desolation.
On the western side of the river are the stately
domains of Powderham and Mamhead, Powderham
Castle showing finely among its woods and park-
6

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
lands ; while on the Exmouth side is the little fish
ing village of Lympstone, famed for its mussels
and cockles, and formerly for its oysters. Nearer
to Exeter is the entrance to the canal at Turf, and
the decayed port of Topsham reminds us of old
prosperous shipping days, Exmouth itself is a
combination of shrewd enterprise and restful
beauty, and perhaps the two do not readily amal
gamate. It is a bustling town for its size, as any
one will realize who goes through its older narrow
streets at nightfall ; but it has a suburban quarter
of large detached villas on the road towards Little-
ham, and on the Beacon is a further resort of
wealth and fashion. The town of business and
lodging-houses is on the lowland, for the most part,
some of it standing on ground that has been
reclaimed from marsh and seaweed. The process
of reclamation still goes on, and is not beautiful
in itself; nor can it be said that the poorer resi
dential quarter around the docks is altogether
lovely. But the sea-front is pleasant enough, the
public gardens are a model of comfort and taste,
and the view from the Beacon almost deserves the
local estimate. There is everything to remind the
visitor that he is in South Devon ; all is gentle,
graceful, humid, and luxuriant.
Exmouth itself cannot boast many historic or
literary associations, but the district itself is more
7

LITERARY RAMBLES
interesting. Dawlish, just beyond the Warren,
had won fame a century since as a popular resort ;
we learn this from Jane Austen's ' Sense and Sensi
bility.' The two heroines of that delightful book
resided in Devonshire, and a London acquaintance
whom they met fancied that they must therefore be
living near Dawlish. ' It seemed rather surprising
to him that anybody could live in Devonshire with
out living near Dawlish.' Barham also, whose son
lived here, makes something of Dawlish ; but a
word from Jane Austen is worth many from ' In-
goldsby.' Mamhead, a few miles off, has a recol
lection of Boswell. In his ' Life of Johnson ' he tells
us that, in the year 1775, he travelled ' to my friend
Mr. Temple, at Mamhead, in Devonshire.' This
Temple, then Rector of Mamhead, was grandfather
of the late Archbishop of Canterbury. There is
a very fine yew-tree in the churchyard, and Boswell
was so impressed by the appearance of this tree
that he made one of his frequent vows never to get
drunk again. It is rather difficult to note the con
nection of ideas, but it does not matter ; it is
sufficient to remember that Boswell was impressed
for at least five minutes.
There are some magnificent and rare trees in
Mamhead Park, and an obelisk erected a century
and a half since, not easy to find, nor is it easy to
explain the exact reason of its existence. Close to
8

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
the water is the pleasant little village of Starcross,
whose name simply means ' stair-cross.' Long
years ago the ferry here belonged to the monks of
Sherborne Abbey, who, while they pocketed the
revenue, were sufficiently mindful of their spiritual
responsibilities to place a stone cross at the head of
the steps where passengers landed. Even now,
protected by the Warren, the passage is sometimes
fairly rough, as those can remember who used to
cross from Exmouth before the days ofthe nimble
little steam-launch that now accomplishes the
journey. In those good old days persons travel
ling up from the West, and desiring to reach
Exmouth, sometimes continued their journey by
train, and made the detour from Exeter rather
than face wild weather in a small rowing-boat.
The launch, started amid the growls and curses of
local boatmen, has changed all that. Some persons
will remember that the engineer Brunei, who made
a great mark in the West of England, devised a
fanciful scheme for working locomotives by atmo
spheric pressure ; this strange-looking tower by
the Starcross landing-stage is a relic of that ill-
fated venture.
Though it has its own little church, Starcross is
in the parish of Kenton, famous for the exquisite
screen of its church, of which the poetic and anti
quarian Polwhele was once vicar. The church
9

LITERARY RAMBLES
itself has a deserved reputation for beauty, and its
screen is often considered the finest In Devon,
which Is saying a great deal. Polwhele corre
sponded with many of the literary small-fry of his
day, such as Wolcot, Dr. Darwin, Hayley, Miss
Seward, Mrs. Macaulay ; but he also raanaged to
extract a letter or two from Sir Walter Scott. He
wrote usefully enough on Cornish and Devonian
antiquities, but his views were clouded by the false
ideas of his age, and his archaeology is, of course,
almost worthless. His verse Is quite mediocre,
but he wrote one amusing and clever piece, in
which he imagines that the poet Mason is begging
for the Laureateship. The Laurel was somewhat
ridiculous in those days — it has not been quite
unknown to ridicule later. In this poem the
supposed Mason exclaims :
' Tell, then, thy Sovereign, (should his will incline
To bid the Laureate's luxury be mine,
Assur'd, with Horace, that no bard should lack
The sweet enjoyment of a butt of sack) —
Tell him, that if I soar not like a Pindar,
May lightning blast my pinions to a cinder.
Tell him that every blush of New Year's Day
My muse shall more than Whitehead's worth display ;
And soaring far superior to the themes
Of war-worn armies or a nation's dreams.
Triumph as oft she pictures to his view
That work to wonder at. Imperial Kew.'
When Polwhele was at Kenton he became very
intimate with Sir Robert Palk, of Haldon House
IO

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
whom he credits with being ' unaffectedly attached
to literary characters.' He tells us of an occasion
when four clergymen were driven to Haldon
House in Palk's own carriage, and the super
stitious countryfolk imagined they had been sent
for to exorcise evil spirits. ' That Haldon was
haunted by infernal spirits seems to have been the
belief of its vicinity. And the importation of
four parsons in Sir R. Palk's own carriage was a
phenomenon not to be accounted for on any other
ground than their conjuring character, and their
instrumentality in clearing the house frora these
infernal spirits. This, accordingly, was the work
assigned us. And one of the champions, after
a long struggle, was successful In sending a devil
through the roof, and another in locking up the
archfiend himself in an iron chest, like the en
chanted chest of Orismanes. Such was the report
of the neighbourhood : and even now it is firmly
believed bv many people at Exeter of no mean
understanding.' These words were written in
1826, though the event happened earlier; and
there are still persons in Devon who believe, at
least, in ' white ' witchery. But we must not press
the villager too closely ; he may deny with his lips
what he credits in his heart.
Close to Starcross is Powderham Castle, which
has belonged to the Courtenay s since 1325, The
II

LITERARY RAMBLES
Importance of the family is much older than that,
but Powderham only came to them by marriage
with a daughter of the De Bohuns. The older
parts of the present mansion date from the four
teenth century. The Courtenays sprang into fame
at the time of the Crusades, becoming allied with
the Royal blood of France and of Constantinople,
while in England they also had Royal connections.
It is said that there was Courtenay blood in three
of the later Emperors of Constantinople, In
the West Country they were ubiquitous, holding
manors from north to south of Devon, and being
concerned in every great enterprise. The power
of these proud feudal lords was alraost kingly. It
is one young scion of the family whom Tennyson
introduces, none too favourably, in his ' Queen
Mary.' Popular ruraour, which may have been
correct, stated that he loved the Princess Elizabeth,
and was beloved by her sister the Queen. Tenny
son chose to represent Mary as madly In love with
Philip, but there must have been some reason for
the captivity of young Edward Courtenay and his
death In exile. The lately-bestowed earldom was
supposed to have lapsed after the death of this heir,
and for two and a half centuries the title lay dormant.
The Courtenays continued to enjoy other titles
and honours, but they were no longer called Earls
of Devon, But in 1831 William, third Viscount
12

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
Courtenay, proved his claim to the slumbering title,
and Devon again could boast its resident earls. In
a somewhat confusing and perhaps regrettable
manner the dukedom of Devonshire has been con
ferred on a branch of the Cavendish family. The
honour, doubtless, was deserved and is well borne ;
the title chosen might have been different, for the
Cavendishes have no connection with Devonshire
beyond this title. All must recognise that it is
more satisfactory for local titles to be carried by
local families. It is possible that even at this day
some persons confuse the Dukes of Devonshire
with the Earls of Devon,
Though so much historic interest attaches to the
faraily of Courtenay, there is not much tradition
associated with their chief Devonshire seat. Being
a well-fortified place, it was held by the Royalists
In the Civil War, and actually resisted the redoubt
able Fairfax, A story Is told with relation to the
Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, who fell a
victim to Henry VIII. There lived at Topsham
a certain ' wise man ' — a personage whom now,
perhaps, we should style a white witch — who came
to Powderham and warned the Marquis that unless
he saved himself by flight his death on Tower
Hill was assured. The Marquis laughed at the
warning, and when the day safely dawned on which
his arrest was foretold he sent for the prophet to
13

LITERARY RAMBLES
ridicule him and to threaten him with punishment
as an idle and unprofitable tattler. ' Sir,' said the
man, ' the body of horsemen is already on the road
that shall arrest you ; they are even now scarce a
mile from the castle gate,' It was true ; ere night
the doomed Courtenay was on his way to the
Tower under arrest, and within a month his head
fell. Those were days when eminence ever meant
peril, and such a family as that of Courtenay had
to give many hostages to fortune. But later
representatives of the name have not been men
of political ambition. One was rector, not many
years since, at the beautiful church of Bovey
Tracey ; and for the most part they have lived
quietly in their lovely domain by the flowing Exe,
whose waters once ran even nearer to their walls.
But the river has receded a little ; only at full tide
does the water wash close to the meadows and
park-lands of Powderham. Perhaps the pulses of
active life have receded also. The nation's Mlest
life-blood does not course now in the West, except
in the regal port at Tamar's mouth. South Devon
is a trifle languorous and lazy, but it has its
glorious dreams.
A few years ago those who found Exmouth too
lively or too relaxing could seek greater peaceful
ness and a more bracing air at the myrtle-em
bowered Budleigh Salterton, a few miles eastward
14

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
along the coast. But the railway has come, and
Budleigh is becoming fashionable. It has not been
robbed of its grace and beauty ; the valley in which
it lies, with its fresh wayside brook, is still charm
ing, and the pebbles and cliffs render the air cooler
than that which refracts heat from Exmouth sands.
The stream that flows here, past pleasant gardens
and beneath quaint little bridges, until it loses
itself among the fossiliferous shingles, is a tributary
of the Otter, native brook of two great English
men. Walter Raleigh and the poet Coleridge
both spent their boyhood on its banks.
The Otter presents another of the West-Country
estuaries that have been blocked by sand and
pebbles. At one time it was navigable to Otterton
and East Budleigh, both of which were small
ports ; Otterton also could boast of a priory, the
traces of which have almost disappeared. The
priory was founded by King John as an appanage
of St. Michael's, Normandy ; it consisted of four
monks only, whose duties were to perform religious
service, and to distribute weekly doles of bread to
the poor. Later, it was given to Sion Abbey.
But East Budleigh, on the western bank, has the
nobler memories, for here, in 1552, was born Sir
Walter Raleigh, one of the most gifted and
versatile of the great Elizabethans. His family
had estates both at Colaton Raleigh and Withy-
15

LITERARY RAMBLES
combe Raleigh, the latter said to be held by the
tenure of presenting two arrows In an oaten cake
to the King whenever he should hunt on Dart
moor. Walter Raleigh, the father, came frora
Fardell, near Plymouth, and settled at Hayes
Barton, where the room In which his famous son
was born Is still shown. He had already married
two wives, but his third, the mother of Sir Walter,
was Katherine Champernowne, then a widow,
having been wife of Otho Gilbert and mother of
the two gallant Gilberts, Sir Humphry and Sir
Adrian. The Champernownes themselves were a
notable family, whose seat was at Modbury.
Of Sir Walter — navigator, soldier, courtier,
statesman, historian, poet — there is little need to
speak ; his name is writ large both In English
history and English literature. To hira the poet
Spenser addressed that letter in which he explained
the purport of his ' Faerie Queene ' — ' To the right
noble and valorous Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight,
Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and Her Majesty's
Lieutenant of the County of Cornwall ' ; and the
letter is signed ' Yours most humbly affectionate,
Ed. Spenser.' This was no idle compliment of a
writer seeking patronage ; the poet and Raleigh
were old friends, and we have in Colin Clout's
Come Home Again ' a record of their late meeting
in Ireland. i6

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
Of Raleigh's appearance we read elsewhere that
' his eyes were large and intelligent, his nose some
what long, yet not out of proportion ; his lips
delicately curved, with a fair moustache on the
upper lip, and a beard of moderate growth, hand
somely rounded under the chin beneath. His
stature was six feet full, with limbs elegantly yet
strongly moulded. A braver soldier, a hand
somer man, or a more accomplished gentleman,
the Court of Elizabeth did not contain at that
time,' Living in a time of great men, he rather
dwarfed others than was dwarfed by the com
parison. Yet when the pusillanimous James
succeeded the capricious but more discerning
Elizabeth, this man, to whora the kingdom owed
so much, was arraigned for high treason, and
languished for many years in the Tower, being
finally beheaded by the coward King to gratify
the hatred of Spain, All the learning and
eminence of the lawyer Coke can hardly make us
forgive the bitterness with which he dealt with
Raleigh at his trial in 1603. The words are pre
served for us in the records of State Trials :
' Coie. Thou art the most vile and execrable traitor that
ever lived.
* Raleigh, You speak indiscreetly, barbarously, and un
civilly. ' Coke. I want words sufficient to express your viperous
treasons.
17 B

LITERARY RAMBLES
' Raleigh. I think you want words, indeed, for you have
spoken one thing half a dozen times.
' Coie. Thou art an odious fellow ; thy name is hateful to
all the realm of England for thy pride.'
Judge Jeffreys himself could not have done
better — or worse — in Insulting a helpless prisoner.
Such was the legal process of the good old times.
Often, wearying In prison, ere he was permitted
to make his last luckless expedition to Guiana, the
mind of Raleigh raust have wandered to his peace
ful old home in East Budleigh, to the pleasant
banks of the Otter, and the beach where as a boy
he had loved to watch the whjte-winged ships.
Though there was much loyalty in the West, yet
when the day came for reckoning with the Stuarts
there raust have been some who remembered how
one of Devon's noblest sons was struck down by
the cruel and pitiful cowardice of an English King.
It is to Ottery St. Mary, higher up the river,
that we go for memories of Coleridge. There are
several Otteries, but this, the most important, is
so named by reason of its manor having been
given by the Confessor to the Rouen Abbey of
St. Mary, At the time of Domesday the manor
was a wealthy one. -It was purchased from the
Rouen monks by Bishop Grandisson in 1335, ^"d
he founded a college here, of which the fine old
church became a part. He built the north
western chapel, and largely transformed the whole
18

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
building, but itwas probably Bronescombe who gave
its transeptal towers, in imitation of those at Exeter.
There are some who think the Ottery church
a finer specimen of architecture even than Exeter
Cathedral ; but, of course, one must not venture
to breathe this within hearing of the ' Ever Faith
ful City.' Ottery folk actually dare to say that
the Cathedral is merely an imitation of their own
noble structure, and though this will not bear
examination, it is well enough as a creditable
sample of local pride. The church is, indeed, a
very beautiful blend of Early English, Decorated,
and Perpendicular, and may certainly claim to be
the best parish church in the county. This ought
to be enough for the stoutest local patriot ; but
when the town's connection with the Coleridges is
added, it would seem that the cup of self-satisfac
tion may run over.
And it must be remembered that the Coleridge
family has by no means been a family of a single
reputation, though its chief crown and glory is the
poet ; ever since his day there has been no lack of
notable Coleridges, and the stock is not extinct.
They all derive from the Rev, John Coleridge, once
a poor South Molton lad, whose father was ruined
in the wool trade, but who, nevertheless, con
trived to go to college, take Holy Orders, and gain
both the vicarage and headmastership of Ottery.
19 B 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
The school at Ottery is In direct descent from
the college founded by Grandisson In the four
teenth century. At the dissolution Henry VIII.
granted a considerable part of its wealth for the
maintenance of the parish church and of a Free
Grammar School. Thus was formed the Church
Corporation Trust, to which the * King's School '
belonged. The stipend was not large, but, com
bining it with his receipts as vicar, doubtless the
Rev. John Coleridge got along fairly comfortably,
in spite of his absent-mindedness and eccentricity.
He established a private academy next door to
the Grammar School. His second wife, an
Exmoor woraan, bore him ten children, of whora
Samuel Taylor, born October 21, 1772, was the
youngest. She was a woman of strong common-
sense, but little education, clearly not so lovable
as the father seems to have been. The poet, who
often compared his father to Parson Adaras, speaks
thus of his decease : ' In my ninth year my most
dear, most revered father died suddenly, O that
I ^mlght so pass away, if, like him, I were an
Israelite without guile ! The image of my father,
my revered, kind, learned, simple-hearted father,
is a religion to me,'
As the author of several theological and
scholastic works, the good old Ottery parson
proved himself a man of sound learning and
20

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
industry. It is related that he sometimes used
to quote the direct Hebrew words of Scripture
to his pupils and his congregation, that they
might have the advantage of hearing what
he considered the 'immediate language of the
Holy Ghost.' A greater proof of his enlighten
ment is the fact that he preached strongly against
the insensate breach with our colonists in America ;
yet he was no reslster of established power, but a
firm believer in the Divine ordering of Church
and State, After the death of his father Coleridge
passed to Christ's Hospital, to open another
memorable epoch of his life ; but these nine years
of impressionable childhood at Ottery must have
left an abiding, mark on character and mental con
stitution. We cannot assert that they gave rauch
direct colour to his writings, for Coleridge was in
no sense a local poet. Among his earlier poems
there Is a ' Song of the Pixies,' which proves that
he had not forgotten native superstitions, but there
Is little of the true Devonshire spirit In this rather
stilted ode. It gives, however, a reference to the
Otter, in a passage that tells how the pixies
'With quaint music hymn the parting gleam,
By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading stream;
Or where his wave, with loud, unquiet song.
Dashed o'er the rocky channel, froths along;
Or where, his silver waters smooth'd to rest,
The tall tree's shadow sleeps upon his breast.'
21

LITERARY RAMBLES
More interesting is the preliminary note, in
which he mentions the ' Pixies' Parlour,' a wooded
cave near his birthplace. ' The roots of old trees
form its ceiling, and on its sides are innumerable
ciphers, among which the author discovered his
own cipher and those of his brothers, cut by the
hand of their childhood. At the foot of the hill
flows the river Otter.' Among his early poems
also is a sonnet to the same river, which prove
that memories of his childhood's home followed
him tenderly :
' Dear native brook, wild streamlet of the West,
How many various fated years have pass'd.
What blissful and what anguished hours, since last
I skimm'd the smooth thin stone along thy breast.
Numbering its light leaps. Yet so deep impress'd
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny blaze.
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise.
Thy crossing plank, thy margin's willowy maze.'
In their revised condition the lines vary
slightly. But it must be confessed that the value
of Coleridge's early poetry is rarely great ; Bowles
himself could write quite as pleasingly, and Lamb,
with his simple sincerity, did far better. There
was little to foretell the bursts of erratic beauty
and power that were to distinguish the ' Mariner '
and ' Christabel.' The precocity of his youth was
not shown in poetry, or shown only In brief
22

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
glimpses. Yet Coleridge was not one of those
who develop from a commonplace boyhood into a
wonderful manhood ; his boyish years were far
from ordinary. At three he could read, at six he
was in the Latin class of the Grammar School,
and he was a devoted student of giant legends,
boyish books, and witch stories. He was dreamy,
imaginative, and retiring. ' I never played except
by myself,' he says, 'and then only acting over
what I had been reading or fancying, or half one,
half the other, cutting down weeds and nettles
with a stick, as one of the Seven Champions of
Christendom.' Such was the boy when, through
the good offices of Sir Francis BuUer, he was
presented to Christ's Hospital in 1782, and
journeyed to that school to form his lifelong
friendship with Charles Lamb. From that time,
so far as residence is concerned, Coleridge ceased
to be a Devonian.
A visit to the church will remind us that there
have been other Coleridges besides the poet. In
the churchyard is a fine Celtic cross of granite
in memory of Sir John Taylor Coleridge, once
editor of the ^ar terly, father of the late Lord
Coleridge, and author of a ' Life ' of Keble, In the
south transept is a marble effigy of Lady Cole
ridge, But the poet himself lies at Highgate,
his son Hartley at Grasmere, his wife at
23

LITERARY RAMBLES
Keswick, Another son, Derwent, one of the best
linguists in England, was headmaster of Helston
Grammar School when Charles Kingsley was a
pupil there.
Ottery itself has some other noteworthy
memories. The poet William Browne lived here
for sorae time ; Bishop Pattison and R. Hurrell
Froude were pupils at the school. In the north
aisle of the church Is an effigy of John Coke, said to
have been accidentally shot by his brother ; and ' in
the stillness of the night, when the inhabitants of
Ottery are for the most part slumbering, this effigy
becomes restless, and, descending from its niche,
noiselessly paces up and down the church until
the dawn of day, when it assumes its former
position.' Equally eccentric is the large stone
lying before the Hunter's Lodge Inn, which
at night-time rolls down the hill to drink
water at the river. We can be sure that stories
like this were eagerly listened to by the boy
Coleridge. Another point of literary importance with regard
to Ottery is that it is the Clavering of Thackeray's
'Pendennis.' Thackeray used to spend his school
boy holidays with his stepfather, Major Carmichael
Smith, at Larkbeare, near Ottery, and he gained
an intimate knowledge of the district, as was
natural to an active, rambling boy. Readers will
24

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
remember his description of 'Fairoaks': 'At
sunset, from the lawn of Fairoaks, there was a
pretty sight ; it and the opposite park of Clavering
were in the habit of putting on a rich golden tinge,
which became them both wonderfully. The upper
windows of the great house flamed so as to make
your eyes wink ; the little river ran off noisily
westward, and was lost in a sombre wood, behind
which the towers of the old Abbey Church of
Clavering (whereby that town is called Clavering
St, Mary's to the present day) rose in purple
splendour.' The ' Chatteris ' of the same book,
with its Cathedral Yard, ' where they could hear the
music of the afternoon service,' is Exeter ; ' Bay-
mouth,' with its belles, is Sidmouth,
Thackeray the boy may have delighted in Ottery
and its neighbourhood ; we may suspect that
Thackeray the man thought It as dull as Major
Pendennis did, ' Except on raarket days there Is
nobody in the streets.' The novelist is not quite at
his best in description of places, but he gives some
characteristic touches In depicting Ottery. ' On
the south side of the market rises up the church,
with its great gray towers, of which the sun
illuminates the delicate carving, deepening the
shadows of the huge buttresses, and gilding the
glittering windows and flaming vanes. The image
of the patroness of the church was wrenched out
25

LITERARY RAMBLES
of the porch centuries ago ; such of the statues as
were within reach of stones and hamraer at that
period of pious demolition are maimed and head
less, and of those who were out of fire only
Dr. Portman knows the names and history,
for his curate, Smirke, is not much of an anti
quarian, and Mr. Simcoe (husband of the Hon.
Mrs. Simcoe), incumbent and architect of the
Chapel-of-Ease in the lower town, thinks them the
abomination of desolation.' Perhaps some of the
' pious demolition ' was done by the Roundhead
troops who were quartered in the church in the
year 1645 '¦> ^^ least, it is safe and comfortable to
give them the blame. But the damage so freely
ascribed to ' Oliver's men ' was often committed by
local ebullitions of Puritan feeling, and sometimes
for sheer mischief. What boy can see a statue
without longing to fling a stone at It ?
Sidmouth, the novelist's ' Baymouth,' has some
august memories of its own to console it for
a rather quiet present. It was really a ' mouth '
once, but there is nothing like a haven here now ;
not only has the Sid been strangled with pebbles,
but the cliffs have fallen back, Sidmouth may
claim to be the oldest of Devon watering-places.
In the modern sense ; It was visited by the Prince
Regent, who might have made a Brighton of it,
perhaps, had It been nearer to London. No one
26

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
can deny that the natural charms of the Devon
shire resort exceed those of the great seaside
towns in Sussex. But Sidmouth enjoyed a con
siderable tide of fashion in the late Georgian days.
In the early years of last century the Duke of Kent
lived here, at Woolbrook Glen, with his Duchess
and the Princess Victoria, our late Queen ; there is
a memorial window to his memory in the church.
The pleasant little town has still an old-fashioned
flavour about it, with its solid and comfortable
houses, luxuriant gardens, and bright esplanade ;
but its genuine attractions are just those that
the average pleasure -seeker thinks of least.
Seaton, a little fiirther eastward, is in many
respects similar, but in spite of its claim to be the
Roman Moridunum — a claim strenuously disputed
— it lacks some of the quiet dignity of Sidmouth.
Like Sidmouth, it was once a port ; the Axe was
then navigable. Leland says : ' Ther hath beene
a very notable haven at Seton,' but ' the toun of
Seton is now but a mene thing, inhabited with
fisschar men. It hath been far larger when the
haven was goode.' Beer, a mile to the west, is
perfectly delightfiil.
There is one more notable memory to be
spoken of before leaving this eastern corner ot
Devon, At Ashe House, on the Musbury road,
about two miles from Axmlnster, was born in
27

LITERARY RAMBLES
1650 John Churchill, afterwards Duke of
Marlborough, perhaps the greatest soldier born
on British soil. The building still stands, not
greatly changed ; some persons iraagine that it has
been burned and rebuilt since the birth that
renders it so memorable, but this is an error. It
was certainly destroyed during the troubles of the
Civil War, but these troubles were over at the
date when the illustrious child was born, and the
house had been partly restored. The fire in 1778,
in Sir John Pole's time, only extended to stables
and outbuildings. The entry of the christening
is in the Axmlnster register, the child having been
privately baptized at Ashe, It Is as follows : ' John
the Sonne of Mr. Winstone Churchill was Baptized
at Ash the 12th Daye of June in the year of our
lord god.' It is clear that the year was in
advertently omitted ; it is added in the margin.
There seems to be some doubt about the date of
the month, as there has also been a dispute
whether the boy was not born at Great Trill, in
Axmlnster. But the clearest evidence points to
Ashe House. The child's mother was Elizabeth
Drake, and it would be pleasant to connect one
great soldier with another, in the instance of
Marlborough and Sir Francis Drake, both
Devonians. But no connection can be traced
between the Drakes of Tavistock and those of
28

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE EXE
Ashe ; Drake Is, Indeed, too common a name In
Devonshire. There are some very striking monuraents of
the Ashe Drakes in Musbury Church. Sir
Winston Churchill, the father of John, was a
Dorset man. We cannot claim that beyond birth
and maternity the .gallant victor of Blenheim,
Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, had much
to do with Devon ; and the only later visit that
we can be certain he paid was when he came
hither to assist in smothering the rebellion of the
Duke of Monmouth. But Devon may proudly
remember that she, who gave to the Elizabethan
epoch its most glorious naval heroes, gave to the
Europe of Queen Anne and Louis XIV. its
greatest military conqueror.

29

GEORGE BORROW IN CORNWALL.
Perhaps the West of England has not been
sufficiently forward in claiming a share in certain
great writers who do not directly belong to her.
The spot in which a man is born does not settle
everything, nor does the ancestry of one parent.
In naming a country's worthies, very often the
place of birth is alone taken into consideration ;
but this is sometimes taking a half-truth for a
whole one. Devon cannot claim the whole of
Charles Kingsley from the mere fact that he was
born at Holne Vicarage ; but, on the other hand,
the West Country has a right to borrow some ofthe
credit cast by the genius of the Brontes, from the
fact that their mother was a Cornishwoman, So,
likewise, the West may boast some of the glory
of John Keats, for it is certain that his father was
Western, though whether Cornish or Devonian Is
not quite clear. With another great writer there
is an equally definite connection, and that is
George Borrow. It is the fashion to speak of
3°

GEORGE BORROW IN CORNWALL
Borrow as though he were a pure East Anglian,
but if paternity goes for anything, we have a right
to claim at least part of him for the West Country.
His birth took place at East Dereham, whfere his
father's regiment was quartered at the time ; but
that father was a thorough Cornlshman, while the
mother was of a family of French Protestant
refugees. We get the hereditary Protestantism
strongly enough in Sorrow's books. Such
mixtures of blood are often fruitflil of great
results. The two main influences of mind and
character being recognised as heredity and early
surroundings, we have in Borrow a blend of Celt
and Norman, with a strain of East Anglian blood
through his mother ; while, owing to his father's
wandering life as a soldier, his childhood was one
of constant change of environment, from south to
north, from Norfolk, Sussex, Kent, to Yorkshire,
Northumbria, Scotland, and Ireland, The result
was what might have been expected. Perhaps it
raay be adraitted that the strain of East Anglianism
came out on top among all these varying influ
ences, for the boy stayed longer in the Eastern
Counties than he did elsewhere, and the man
elected to live there. But fatherhood is certainly
an influence not to be ignored, and Borrow never
forgot the old Cornish home from which his father
came. 31

LITERARY RAMBLES
In the opening sentences of 'Lavengro' we
read : ' My father was a Cornishman, the youngest,
as I have heard him say, of seven brothers. He
sprang from a family of gentlemen, or, as some
people would call thera, gentillatres, for they were
not wealthy ; they had a coat of arms, however,
and lived on their own property, at a place called
Tredinnock, which, being interpreted, means the
house on the hill, which house and the neighbour
ing acres had been from time immemorial In their
possession.' To which he adds the Cornish
proverb, ' In Cornwall are the best gentlemen.'
Tredinnock, usually written Trethinnick, is In
the parish of St. Cleer, near LIskeard. Cleer is
simply a corruption of Clether, who was one of
the great Brychan family of saints, and came to
Cornwall in the fifth century. The name is given
in its purer form at St. Clether, about a dozen
miles north of St. Cleer, and in both places there
are notable holy wells dedicated to the Celtic saint.
A most absurd mistake has been made by some of
the guide-books, and by Dr. Knapp, the biographer
of Borrow, in regarding St. Cleer as a debased
form of St. Clare. Such a derivation shows a
reraarkable ignorance of Celtic hagiology ; and at
least the narae of^ the neighbouring St. Clether
might have been a guide to the meaning of the
name of St. Cleer. There was no Celtic saint named
32

GEORGE BORROW IN CORNWALL
Clare, nor were there ever any Clare monks on
this spot. But Borrow himself did not always
touch accuracy on these points ; the fascination of
his books does not lie in their historic value.
They rise to the higher character of pure litera
ture, but fail in the domain of archseologic record.
His family had been settled at the farra of Tre
thinnick at least since the seventeenth century,
and probably far earlier ; but there is no definite
memorial earlier than that of John Borrow, or
Burrow, who married Mary Lyne at the parish
church of St. Cleer In 1690.
The name itself is too indefinite to give any
satisfactory clue as to the origin of the family. It
is clearly connected with the burghs, burgs, or
burys, that we find scattered so thickly throughout
Britain, and, indeed, throughout Europe, the
earliest meaning having probably been an encamp
ment. Some early resident or settler In the West
of England had lived near or among the remains
of a Celtic or Roman stronghold, and in the
Norman-French of heraldry and title-deeds had
becorae known as De Burgh, A similar name
might have originated simultaneously in different
parts of the country, so that it is impossible to
say that all Borrows, Burrows, and Burroughs
come from the same stock. There was one such
family, we know for certain, at Northam, in North
33 c

LITERARY RAMBLES
Devon, but we cannot claim that they were
relatives of our Cornish Borrows.
Knowing George Sorrow's character and
opinions. It Is natural to find that the Borrows
of Cornwall stood solidly for Church and State
during the troubles of the Civil War, when, if
death had not removed the gallant Cornish
leaders —
' The four wheels of Charles's wain,
GrenviUe, Godolphin, Trevanion, Slanning, slain ' —
It Is possible that the war might have had another
issue. Charles proved by his own presence how
fully he realized the importance of the support
given to him by the loyal West Country, where,
however, the trading towjis, as elsewhere, almost
invariably took the opposite side. It needed the
direct presence and skill of Cromwell and Fairfax
themselves to crush the loyalism of the West.
The battle of Braddoc Down in 1643, when Sir
Ralph Hopton utterly routed the Parliamentarian
forces, took place only a few miles from Trethin
nick, and we may feel sure that some of the
Borrows, whose property had already suffered
from marauding Roundheads, would be engaged
on that occasion. Equally probably, they may
have come into personal contact with the King
during his two visits to LIskeard.
The father of George Borrow was born at the
34

GEORGE BORROW IN CORNWALL
family homestead, and baptized at St. Cleer Church
in the year 1759. ^^- Cleer was a busier place In
those days, for it was a centre of some active
raining. The church is an interesting structure,
with a good tower and a curious walled-in Nor
man doorway. The young Thomas Borrow was
apprenticed to a maltster at Liskeard, named
Hambly ; and it is interesting to note that when
George Borrow visited Cornwall, seventy years later,
he met some Hamblys, who were doubtless descen
dants of the man, though he does not say so.
Young Borrow also joined the local militia, and,
as became a true Cornishman, was a sturdy man
with his fists and a stout wrestler. Even yet,
the West Country has not lost its love of a practice
that, traditionally, dates from the age of the
giants ; and wrestling matches created as much
excitement in those days as football matches do
now. The great rivalry at that time was between
the champions of Devon and Cornwall. Each
county had its distinguished style, the Cornish
using the upper part of the body more, the
Devonians the lower. The Cornishman relied
chiefly on arms and shoulders, the Devonian on
his legs, and it must be confessed that the Devon
style sometimes deteriorated into what was very
like kicking.
Thomas Borrow becarae locally faraed for his
35 ^2

LITERARY RAMBLES
prowess, and he carried his skill with him when
he left Cornwall ; for his son tells us, with filial
pride, how he fought a drawn battle with Big Ben
Brain In Hyde Park. The cause of his leaving
home was one not specially discreditable in itself,
though it brought him within reach of the law,
and proves him to have had an ungovernable
temper — partly inherited, certainly, by the author
of ' Lavengro. ' In 1783 the inhabitants of Men-
henlot and Liskeard, meeting at a fair, signified
their good neighbourship by a hand-to-hand
contest of a. kind dearly loved by different
parishes In those days, and the bold assistance of
Thomas Borrow turned the tide of battle in favour
of Liskeard. At the close of the skirmish the
constables Intervened — as they often zealously do
when a trouble is over — but Borrow so resented
their interference that he struck to the ground
those who came within reach of his fist. Not
only so, but he twice felled his master, the
LIskeard maltster. The penalty for such mis
deeds could only be evaded by flight. The youth
disappeared, and nothing was heard of him until
a few months later, when he enlisted in the
Coldstreara Guards, under the Cornish Captain
Morshead. His career In the army was one of
solid merit and slight reward. From private he
passed slowly through the grades of promotion to

GEORGE BORROW IN CORNWALL
the position of Adjutant, with the rank of Captain,
in the West Norfolk Militia. Success in the
army of those days depended less on honest merit
than on wealth and influence, of which Borrow
had little enough.
In 1793 he married Ann Parfrement at East
Dereham, and ten years later George Borrow was
born. It is no blame to the senior Borrow to say
that he never understood his brilliant son. For a
touching and beautiful picture of the father we
must turn to ' Lavengro,' where, whatever else
raay be fictitious, it Is certain that the portrait of
the stout-hearted old soldier is a faithful one,
drawn with filial tenderness. The portrait must
rank among the finest In literature, worthy of the
great book in which it appears. If we may credit
this book, and there is no reason for not doing so,
Thomas Borrow died in his son's arms. ' There
was a deep gasp ; I shook and thought all was
over ; but I was mistaken — my father moved,
and revived for a moment ; he supported hiraself
in bed without my assistance. I make no doubt
that for a moment he was perfectly sensible, and
it was then that, clasping his hands, he uttered
another name, clearly, distinctly — it was the name
of Christ. With that name upon his lips, the
brave old soldier sank back upon my bosom, and,
with his hands still clasped, yielded up his soul.'
37

LITERARY RAMBLES
It was not until his fiftieth year that George
Borrow entered .the land of his forefathers, and
then, though he had never before breathed Its air,
It was very much like going home. The visit
had little definite fruit, yet something would have
been lacking from his life had he not paid it. He
was now a matured man, with his idiosyncrasies
ripely developed, and that fine crustedness that
renders him so delightful to read, but not, perhaps,
the easiest man to have met amicably. He had
already won about as much fame as was to be his
during his lifetime ; the ' Bible in Spain ' had
appeared, and had run to six editions within a
year of its publication. ' Lavengro ' also, a book
of still rarer charm, had been published In 1851,
and was slowly dragging through its first edition
— more shame to the unappreclative public ; it
did not. Indeed, reach its fifth English edition
until the year 1896, when its author had passed
away. In 1853 Borrow had settled at Yarmouth
with his wife and stepdaughter, and was engaged
in finishing ' Romany Rye,' a book which only in
Its earlier chapters quite sustains the charm of
' Lavengro.' One of the storms to which Yarmouth is liable
— readers of Dickens will carry vivid recollections
of another such — occurred in the autumn of this
year, and it happened that a ship's boat foundered
38

GEORGE BORROW IN CORNWALL
close to shore. Borrow plunged into the raging
sea from the jetty, saving one man and assisting
in the rescue of the rest. The act won its due
recognition in a local journal, and thus became
knpwn at Plymouth, being celebrated in a Ply
mouth newspaper as the ' Gallant Conduct of
Mr. G. Borrow.' The Plymouth paper found its
way to Liskeard and St. Cleer, and it quickened
the memories of the Cornish Borrows. They
recollected the Thomas Borrow who had left them
half a century since, and they realized that this
George Borrow, not only a distinguished writer,
but a man, clearly, of heroic courage, must be his
son. There were cousins at St. Cleer and
Trethinnick and Liskeard, who began to think it
was time to claim relationship. A letter was
written to George begging him to pay a visit to
his father's old horae and his father's surviving
kinsraen. He replied cordially, stating the
pleasure it would give him to visit them, and the
joy with which he heard there were still those
living who remembered his ' honoured father, who
had as true a Cornish heart as ever beat.'
The promised visit was paid at the Christmas-
tide of the same year, forming an occasion for a
tramp through Cornwall, similar in nature, though
not in result, to his later tramp through Wales.
Borrow took train to Plymouth, and then, finding
39

LITERARY RAMBLES
that the LIskeard coach was full, he made light
work of walking the remainder of his journey.
He found a hospitable lodging at the home of
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Taylor, of Penquite Farm,
a mile or so from St. Cleer, Mrs. Taylor being his
second cousin. At this place there was a gather
ing of the Borrow clan to meet him ; and it is
tolerably clear that the worthy Cornish folk
scarcely knew what to make of their newly-
discovered, notable kinsman. Certainly Borrow
abated nothing of his individuality ; they might
take hira as he was or leave him alone. One
feature, at least, they could readily appreciate, and
that was the fineness of his physical manhood.
No West Countryman ever thought little of that.
This visit to Cornwall was the first of a series
of walking tours made by Borrow in different
parts of the British I sles — a mode of progression
that entirely suited his nature, and which doubt
less he would have pursued even had he lived In
the days of bicycles and motor-cars. Of these
tours he kept such notes as, with the assistance of
his memory, would have enabled him to produce
books about each, which he did, happily, in the
case of ' Wild Wales.' But the notes in them
selves are not always very illuminating. To him
self they wou d have suggested many memories,
the clues to long strings of recollection ; to us
40

GEORGE BORROW IN CORNWALL
they must necessarily be often bald and unsug-
gestive. But, condensed and somewhat confused
as are the notes of his tramp through Cornwall,
they enable us to track his steps closely, and to
realize how delightful the issue might have been
had he only produced the book on Cornwall
which he certainly contemplated. It is just in
books of this nature that Borrow rises to his
greatest ; ' Lavengro ' and ' Romany Rye,' ' Wild
Wales ' and tbe ' Bible in Spain,' are really
specimens of glorified topography, vitalized with
autobiographic touches, which in the case of
' Lavengro ' became an actual life-history. That
his records are often blended with imagination
does not affect their value as literature.
On Christmas Day, 1853, Borrow went with
his Penquite friends to the church of St. Cleer,
where he seems to have noticed little beyond the
absence of an organ and the presence of a fiddle.
On the following day he walked to the Trevethy
Stone, which is about a mile distant from St. Cleer,
and is probably the finest surviving dolmen In
Cornwall, being more than 14 feet In length.
The table-stone of the dolmen is holed. As such
holes are frequently found in these stones, anti
quaries have conjectured that they were intended
to allow food to be passed to the dead man within,
or to allow his spirit to have egress and ingress.
41

LITERARY RAMBLES
In the present instance there seeras to be a raore
prosaic explanation. We are told that a hole was
bored In the stone, raany years since, to support a
flagstaff. But Borrow clearly Identified the stone
with old superstitious rites, and, with his instant
adaptability to local conditions, he thrust his arra
through it and shouted, ' Success to old Cornwall !'
At the Penquite Farm, besides different members
of the Borrow family, he met the Vicar of St. Cleer,
an Irishman named Berkeley, who wrote some
memories of the occasion. This Mr. Berkeley
states that, in spite of great difference, it was easy
to detect a likeness between George Borrow and"
the ' simple yet shrewd Cornish farmers,' his kins
men. It was evident to Mr. Berkeley that
Borrow's mind, on the evenmg when he first met
him, was reverting to his father ; he seemed both
excited and distracted. Mrs. Taylor, his hostess,
described him as ' a fine tall man of about six feet
three, well proportioned, and not stout, able to
walk five miles an hour successively,' and she adds
significantly, ' The more I see of him the less I
know of hira.' His marked individuality, his
pride, reserve, prejudices, and occasional bitterness,
his aloofness, and yet the touch of cosmopolitanism
that rendered him a ready comrade of gipsy and
outcast, were sufficientiy puzzling even to those
who had known him longest. He soon gathered
42

GEORGE BORROW IN CORNWALL
from his Cornish fi-iends such tales of superstition
and folk-lore as still lingered in the district, but
his notes of these sometimes betray a confusion
either on his own part or on that of his informers.
For instance, he speaks of the ' piskies ' having to
drain Dosmary Pool with a leaky limpet shell ;
but this is the task really allotted by tradition to
the doomed Tregeagle, not to the pixies.
In the early days of the new year he started on
a tramp to Land's End. Frora Redruth he
ascended Carn Brea, where the rock basins at
tracted his notice and proved that his archaeology
was not better than that of his time generally, or
than the popular notions that prevailed in the
locality. Quite without historic warrant, he
speaks of the ' sacrificial rock,' and says : 'In the
principal basin — the horrid place of sacrifice —
there are outlets for the blood to stream down.'
Most present-day antiquaries will agree that this
is moonshine ; the rock basins are purely natural
formations, caused by the weathering of granite.
Of course, Borrow came upon some gipsies here,
as in all parts of Europe that he visited, and he
entered into conversation with them in their own
tongue, learning that they bore the true Romany
name of Bosvile. He passed in one day from
Redruth to Hayle (' a filthy place '), Marazion,
and Penzance ; from thence to Newlyn, Paul, and
43

LITERARY RAMBLES
Mousehole. At Mousehole he was entertained by
Mr. H. D. Burney, of the coastguard. He was
specially interested by the traces of a Spanish
descent on this part of the coast, made in 1595,
and singularly fulfilling an old Cornish prophecy.
The memory of Dolly Pentreath also attracted
him. Persons with whom he conversed had
known her, and could bear witness to her know
ledge of the old Cornish tongue. This woman
was born at Mousehole, and lived to the age
of ninety-two ; it was at Mousehole that she was
visited by Daines Barrington, who published a
record of his interview with her. She was buried
at Paul, which, of course. Borrow visited. Her
grave is in the churchyard, with a stone erected
by the joint efforts of Prince Lucien Buonaparte
and the Vicar of Paul. This nephew of the first
Napoleon was especially interested in philology.
The epitaph on the stone reads :
' Here lyeth interred Dorothy Pentreath, who died in
1778, said to have been the last person who conversed in the
ancient Cornish, the peculiar language of this county from
the earliest records till it expired in the eighteenth century,
in the parish of St. Paul.'
Borrow went to a service in Paul Church, and
liked the sermon ; he particularly noticed the
Godolphin armour beneath which he sat, and also
a Cornish epitaph on the walls, which he asked
the parish clerk to copy for hira. From Mouse-
44

GEORGE BORROW IN CORNWALL
hole he went by boat to St. Michael's Mount, but
had nothing notable to say about It, except that
he was shown over the castle by ' an exceedingly
civil young woman,' To such civility he was
always readily responsive ; but those who gave
him anything different were generally well repaid
in their own coin. A visit to the Logan Rock,
at Treryn, proved an occasion for Irish lore rather
than Cornish, for Borrow's guide was an Irishman
named Cronan ; and it was here that he heard the
stories of Finn and Odeen which he relates in
' Romany Rye,' as told by Murtagh, Another
tale of Cronan's Borrow quotes as ' told on a wild
road by a wild native.'
Frora Mousehole he returned to Penquite and
Trethinnick, and gathered some further local lore
from his kinsmen. One tale that struck hira was
of an old man who lived in a lonely hiit of turf
and stones, built by his own hands — one of those
primitive hovels that are almost identical with the
prehistoric huts whose remains may be traced on
Dartmoor and the Bodmin Moors, sometimes
causing antiquaries to wonder whether what they
see Is of two thousand years' antiquity or raerely
oftwo hundred. The doubt can rarely be settled
without further concurrent testimony. The old
man in question was one night snowed in so com
pletely that not a ray of light could pierce to his
45

LITERARY RAMBLES
window ; he lay in bed for thirty hours or more,
deeming it the longest night he had ever passed.
His neighbours at length dug him out, and brought
the long night to an end and an explanation. Mr.
Baring-Gould tells a similar story of an old couple
whose windows were darkened by a practical joke,
and who spent a day in bed, imagining that morn
ing had not dawned.
Borrow found that a firm belief In the pixies still
existed among the labouring folk ; and even his
cousin, Mr. Henry Borrow, declined to express a
disavowal of such belief. This same gentleman
stated that once, when a boy, he had heard the
'durdy dogs.' These 'durdy dogs' are similar
to the wish-hounds of Devon ; In Cornwall they
were usually called the ' dandy dogs.' They were
supposed to dash over moorlands and desolate
places, either led by a demon huntsman or
following their ghostly chase unled. The souls
of the wicked, or perhaps of poor unchristened
babes, were their prey ; it was perilous to hear
them, more perilous to hail them.
Soon after his return from Land's End, Borrow
started on a tramp to Lostwithiel, and thence to
North Cornwall. Of this, the grandest part of
the duchy, he appears to have least to say.
Dr. Knapp found nothing in his notes worth
quoting, even when he got to Tintagel and the
46

GEORGE BORROW IN CORNWALL
haunts of Arthurian legend. But it is on record
that he expressed wonderful pleasure when, on
looking over some church registers, he came
across the name of Jennifer, and, with that quick
perception which sometimes led him wrong, rightly
conceived this to be a corruption of the name
Guinevere, But for the best impressions of his- Cornish
visit we are, after all, indebted to those who met
him here. Mr. Berkeley relates how he would
sometimes mope in silence for hours, suffering
from the gloom that at times almost maddened
him.' Once he was roused from such a mood by
the music that Mrs. Berkeley kindly played.
Sometimes he would pour forth endless tales of
his wanderings — tales of which we can guess
soraething frora the raagic pages of his books ; or
would start up to sing a gipsy song or an ancient
Danish ballad. At times he would pour forth his
prejudices without stint — his loathing of sherry,
his scorn of sherry-drinkers, his detestation of the
name of Hambly (a memory of his father's un
happy relations with the maltster), his detestation
of the then popular ' Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and
many another passionate sentiment, which his
listeners could little enough have understood.
Sometimes, it seems, he could not understand
them ; but it was the West-Country speech that
47

LITERARY RAMBLES
perplexed him, accomplished linguist as he was.
In a letter to his wife he wrote : ' My relations are
most excellent people, but I could not understand
more than half they said.' In an earlier letter he
said : ' You can only see Cornwall or know any
thing about it by walking through it. It is
romantic to a degree, though probably one would
not like to live in it.' Certainly, at his age, and
with his matured prejudices, it would have been
impossible for hira to settle comfortably in Corn
wall. He was tied by memory and association
and bias to the East of England ; his visit to the
West did not render him less proud of being an
East Anglian.
In February he was in London, consulting the
British Museum for material that he wanted to
Include in ' Romany Rye ' ; he had spent about
six weeks in Cornwall, and he never returned there.
When ' Romany Rye ' was published, a few years
later, it contained an advertiseraent of a forth
coming book on Cornwall ; but Borrow was rather
fond of announcing books before they were
written, and it is tolerably certain that he never
did anything towards this projected work beyond
the rough notes that have already been quoted
from. It is a pity ; the book would have been a
charming one, though it would doubtless have
been hasty discursive, inaccurate, and prejudiced
48

GEORGE BORROW IN CORNWALL
In Borrow all these things are readily forgiven.
Even errors and Illusions become touched with
gold when they pass through the crucible of his
genius. It would have been a rare feast Indeed to have
had such a Cornish book from the author of
' Lavengro ' and ' Wild Wales. ' Full scope would
have been given to Borrow's love of the Anglican
Church, which here, as in Wales, he might have
described as persecuted and downtrodden. He
never really understood the position of Dissent in
these Celtic lands, partly, perhaps, because he never
realized the actual nature of the old Celtic Church,
from which Anglicanism is almost as far removed
as Romanism. In his archaeology and his facts
there would surely have been many flaws ; but it
must be remembered that when Borrow met a
man or woman face to face he usually did so in
full human sympathy, whatever might be the race,
creed, or opinions of that man or woman. His
quarrel was with creeds and systems rather than
with humanity ; he could discourse in perfect
brotherhood with Russian or gipsy or Spaniard,
Greek,. Armenian, or Jew, Irishman or Welshman.
Strong as may have been his antipathies, his
sympathies were yet stronger. He may have
been vain and biassed, and sometimes bad-
tempered ; but beneath all lay a large heart, a
49 D

LITERARY RAMBLES
sensitive nature often misunderstood, and a genius
never fully recognised by his contemporaries. It
has remained for posterity tardily to acknowledge
that in George Borrow English literature has one
of her brightest ornaments.

5°

LITERARY MEMORIES OF TAVISTOCK.
Tavistock Is so beautiful in itself, so exceptionally
favoured in its surroundings, that it does not
depend on personal associations for its reputation.
It can afford to stand alone. Few, if any, inland
towns can offer such a variety of fascinations,
Dartmoor alone, of which it stands at the ' western
gateway,' sheds sufficient glamour over the towns
on its border ; but Tavistock has not only this
great moorland, reaching to her eastward walls —
she has on the west the lovely valley of the Tamar,
the Cornish borderland, while only a few miles to
the south are the junction of Tamar and Tavy,
the Hamoaze, and the magnificent harbourage of
Plymouth Sound. Yet beyond these natural gifts
Tavistock, though only a small town of about
5,000 inhabitants, can also boast of unusual his
toric and personal interest. The district has the
towering memory of Sir Francis Drake, and the
town itself so rich a store of association that a
large volume might easily be devoted to this
51 D 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
alone. But students of literature, when they
come hither, will perhaps chiefly remeraber that
this town was the birthplace of William Browne,
one of our best purely pastoral writers.
By the general reader Browne is quite forgotten.
And yet the general reader, if he looks at local
guide-books. Is pretty sure to come across some
lines of his, for these books scarcely ever resist
the temptation to quote from his poem on ' The
Lydford Journey.' Browne was not a great poet,
but he caught something of the rich, melodious
manner of the Elizabethans, and a collection of
extracts from his works might still be read with
pleasure by those who love that good old style —
those who love to pass from well-trodden paths
and saunter in the byways of literature. To read
his works from cover to cover would be a task,
perhaps not impossible, for there are people who
can read anything, but so difficult that we can
only imagine it as a penance. For Browne's long
pastorals flow on In a semi-allegoric monotony,
devoid of huraan interest, lacking any power of
reflection or philosophy, only relieved by occasional
touches of graceful, and even beautiful, description,
and by a true patriotic love for England and for
Devonshire. An age that does not read Spenser
Is not likely to remember Williara Browne.
Browne, whose family originally came from
52

LITERARY MEMORIES OF TAVISTOCK
Betchworth, in Surrey, was born in Tavistock
about the year 1590. As a boy he was educated
at the Tavistock Graramar School, which is sup
posed to be derived directly from a Saxon founda
tion. From thence he passed to Exeter College,
Oxford, the college usually favoured by Devonians.
Studying for the law, he entered Clifford's Inn,
and finally, in 16 11, the Inner Temple, He was
twice married, his second wife being a Sussex lady,
daughter of Sir Thomas Eversfield, of Horsham,
whom he married after a courtship that lasted
thirteen years. Though we know little enough of
his life or character, we know that he enjoyed the
intiraate friendship of such raen as Drayton, Ben
Jonson, Wither, Chapman, and Daniel, the last
named of whom, a fine poet, might also claim to be a
West Countryraan, having been born near Taunton.
Instead of practising the law, he seems to have
lived as tutor. Of his latter days we know
so little that it is not even clear where he died ;
but it Is generally thought that his last days
were spent at Ottery, and that he died there.
Against this there is certainly an entry in the
Tavistock register, 1643, stating that 'William
Browne was buried ' ; but there might easily be
another William Browne, and as adrainistration of
his estate was not granted until November, 1645,
It seems hardly likely that he could have been

LITERARY RAMBLES
dead so long. Being described in this deed as
'late of Dorking,' we must conclude that if he
died at Ottery, he had only recently removed
thither. The matter Is one of mere curiosity
rather than of importance. It is enough to turn
to Browne's poems to find that, whether he lived
or died far from his native county, that county
was never far from his heart, and his recollection
of It always coloured his imaginations.
Browne was emphatically the bard of the Tavy,
and never was a river more worthy of possessing
its own poet. In comparison with its natural
beauty, some more renowned streams have won
their reputation cheaply. Judged by such a
standard, the Tavy deserves a Wordsworth or a
Burns. But in default of a better, we must make
the most of William Browne, who Is not to be
despised, though we may find his complete works
unreadable. His native river is born on Dartmoor,
near the desolate Cranmere Pool, that is the mother
of so many Devon streams. After passing through
exquisite scenery, giving its name to a beautiful
town and some charming villages, it joins the
Tamar near Beer Ferrers ; and the three rivers —
Tamar, Tavy, and Lynher — flow through the
Hamoaze to Plymouth Sound. Browne tells us
how the ' Tavy creeps upon
The western vales of fertile Albion,
54

LITERARY MEMORIES OF TAVISTOCK
Here roughly dashes on an aged rock
That his intended passage doth up-lock ;
There intricately 'mongst the woods doth wander.
Losing himself in many a wry meander :
Here amorously bent, clips some fair mead ;
And then dispers'd in rills, doth measures tread
Upon her bosom 'mongst her flow'ry ranks.'
Of its surroundings, also, he finds much to say :
' Here stands a bridge, and there a conduit head ;
Here round a Maypole some the measures tread ;
There boys the truant play and leave their book ;
Here stands an angler with a baited hook ;
There for a stag one lurks within a bough ;
Here sits a maiden milking of her cow ;
There on a goodly plain (by time thrown down)
Lies buried in his dust some ancient town.'
He boasts that he will make the reputation of the
Devon rivers vie, at least in the extent of their
reputation, with Tiber and Thames :
' I'll strive to draw
The nymphs by Tamar, Tavy, Exe, and Taw ;
By Torridge, Otter, Ock, by Dart and Plym,
With all the naiades that fish and swim
In their clear streams, to these our rising Downs,
Where, while they make us chaplets, wreaths, and
crowns,
I'll tune my reed unto a higher key,
And have already conn'd some of the lay.
Wherein, as Mantua by her Virgil's birth.
And Thames by him that sung her nuptual mirth.
You may be known, though not in equal pride.
As far as Tiber throws his swelling tide.'
Throughout Browne's writings, indeed, there
are constantly-recurring notes of local patriotism ;
he glories continually In the loveliness and gallantry
55

LITERARY RAMBLES
of his native Devon. We can forgive this touch
of narrowness, which distinguishes him from such
poets as Spenser and Milton, who are national
rather than local ; we can forgive it, for we know
that with Browne Devon was simply typical of
England, and the England of that day was typical
to Its sons of all that was best in the universe.
We are becoming more cosmopolitan now ; the
nobler purposes of patriotism are passing away ;
the sentiment has played its part in the education
of nations and the protection of their rights. The
necessity now is for a larger love of mankind, of
which patriotism shall only survive as a subordinate
portion. The attachment to native scenes, the
love of locality, will, of course, always survive as
an Individual passion ; but this has no bearing on
the relation between man and man. While we
admire the patriotic outbreaks and vauntings of
Elizabethan or later poets, we can only hope that
the 'imperial thinking' of future poets may be of
a far different order — a thinking of truly imperial
love, charity, and generosity. But it was natural
and fitting for Browne to exclaim :
' Hail, thou my native soil ! thou blessed plot,
Whose equal all the world affordeth not.
Show me who can so many crystal rills,
Such sweet-clothed valleys or aspiring hills ;
Such wood-ground, pastures, quarries, wealthy mines
Such rocks in which the diamond fairly shines,
S6

LITERARY MEMORIES OF TAVISTOCK
And if the earth can show the like again
Yet will she fail in her sea-ruling men.
Time never can induce men to o'ertake
The fames of GrenviUe, Davies, Gilbert, Drake,
Or worthy Hawkins, or of thousands more
That by their power made the Devonian shore
Mock the proud Tagus ; for whose richest spoil
The boasting Spaniard left the Indian soil
Bankrupt of store, knowing it would quit cost
By winning this, though all the rest were lost.'
But perhaps Browne is not quite at his best
either in the ' Britannia's Pastorals ' or in his
' Shepherd's Pipe,' which is distinctly modelled on
the ' Shepherd's Calendar ' of Spenser. He is
better where more compressed, as in his sonnets
and his epitaphs. The latter are especially ex
cellent of their kind, such as that on his wife :
' Thou need'st no tomb, my wife, for thou has one.
To which all marble is but pumex stone ;
Thou art engraved so deeply in my heart,
It shall outlast the strongest hand of art.
Death shall not blot thee thence, although I must
In all my other parts dissolve to dust.'
And, again, that classic epitaph to the Countess of
Pembroke :
' Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse :
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother :
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Fair and. learn'd and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.'
It has generally been supposed that this epitaph
is the work of Jonson, but evidence shows almost
57

LITERARY RAMBLES
conclusively that it is Browne's ; and while we
cannot say there Is actual proof, the weight of
probability is all in Browne's favour. It is at
least certain that the lines were either penned
by Browne or by the lady's own spn, William
Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, to whora Browne
dedicated the second book of his ' Pastorals.'
There is. In any case, no doubt as to the author
ship of the elegy on the Countess of Pembroke,
in which Browne, amid some exaggerated emotion
and forced conceits, introduces at least one
touching and natural figure :
' Yet (could I choose) I would not any knew
That thou wert lost but as a pearl of dew,
Which in a gentle evening mildly cold
Fall'n in the bosom of a marigold,
Is in her golden leaves shut up all night,
And seen again when next we see the light.'
These poems, good as they are, have nothing
to do with Devonshire ; but the ballad entitled
' Lydford Journey ' is thoroughly local, and parts
of It were at one time locally proverbial. Tfie
fame given to it by old travellers and fiddling
minstrels is now perpetuated by the guide-books,
which rarely fail to quote it when they deal with
Lydford. The poem begins with a reference to
' Lydford law':
' I oft have heard of Lydford law.
How in the morn they hang and draw.
And sit in judgment after';

LITERARY MEMORIES OF TAVISTOCK
and the reference is probably to the cruel and
peremptory laws of the Stannary Courts, of which
Lydford was one. Something or other had given
this Dartmoor town a bad name, which the neigh
bouring folk were slow in forgetting. Lydford,
doubtless, had all the customary pridq, of a decayed
place, having once been the second town in Devon,
its vast parish embracing the whole of Dartmoor
forest ; and places, like persons, that live upon past
traditions are apt to make themselves insufferable.
There was clearly little love lost between Tavistock
and Lydford, and Browne's ballad is one long
piece of satire. He touches point after point on
which the Lydfordians prided themselves :
' They have a castle on a hill ;
I took it for an old windmill,
The vanes blown off by w-ather.

' When I beheld it. Lord, thought I,
What justice and what clemency
Hath Lydford, when I spy all !
They know none there would gladly stay.
But rather hang out of the way
Than tarry for his trial.
' Near to the men that He in lurch
There is a bridge, there is a church.
Seven ashes and an oak ;
Three houses standing and ten down ;
They say the parson hath a gown.
But I saw ne'er a cloak.'
59

LITERARY RAMBLES
This lack, the poet slyly asserts, is a proof of
Lydford's love of plain simplicity :
' For in that town, both young and grave
Do love the naked truth, and have
No cloaks to hide their knavery.'
He then refers to the Gubbinses, a clan of savages
who Inhabited the Lydford gorges — something
like the reputed Doones of Exmoor, but less
civilized, a sort of survival of the cave-men,
living In holes of the earth, and supporting them
selves by murder and pillage. Then he turns to
the local boast that Lydford was a strong town In
Caesar's time :
' One told me, in King Caesar's time,
The town was built of stone and lime,
But sure the walls were clay ;
For they are fall'n for aught I see.
And since the houses werq-got free ^
The town is run away.''
And he begs Caesar to come again while there is
yet a house standing ; if he delayi; but five years
more 'they may commit the %hdie -town into
prison.' Sorrow is dry, he say^quotlng the old
proverb, but he could get no^|fck beyond some
milk and water, and somethi(^Bii|i' had once been
claret : ' At six o'clock I came ai^^k
And pray'd for those tha^^tto stay
Within a place~so arra^^^^
Wide and ope to winds that roar :
By God's grace I'll come there no more.
Unless by some tin warrant.'
60

LITERARY MEMORIES OF TAVISTOCK
The piece is far more lively and vigorous than
anything we could have expected from the author
of the ' Pastorals,' whose main quality is certainly
not vitality.
For the most part Browne's 'Pastorals' are
spoiled by their tiresome plot and rambling
allegory, features that go far to spoil even
Spenser himself; if Browne had simply tried to
depict plain Devonshire rustic life, and not
troubled about nyinphs and naiads, he could have
done far better. The loves of Tavy and Walla
may be a pretty enough fancy, but a true picture
of old English country would be of greater value,
and Browne was well quaUfied had he chosen.
But our pastoral poets have too often failed to do
just that which itwas their province to accomplish;
they have to forget themselves, to thrust aside
their artifices, before they truly belong to the
raeadows and pastures, the cottages and village
waysides, Browne is only truly pastoral, and
truly English, in snatches. It almost makes one
wish that the Renaissance had never restored
classic literature to Europe, when one notes
how servilely the old Greeks and Latins have
been imitated and borrowed from. Until the
dawn of the nineteenth century It was only
the greatest poets who broke through the fetters
of an alien imagery, foreign sirailes, dead
6i

LITERARY RAMBLES
mythology, and gave us a living native pro
duct. It is not easy to agree with Henry Neele,
who gave It as his opinion that Browne was
' thoroughly and entirely English. His scenery is
English. He paints not Arcadia or Utopia ; but
he takes us to the leafy shores of Devon, and the
fertile banks of the Tamar, and describes their
beauties with the ardour of a lover and the truth
of a painter.' There Is some truth in this
generous eulogy ; his scenery is, for the most
part, English enough, and he occasionally touches
on native English sports of the countryside ; but
his tales are usually inane impossibilities, and his
characters are nymphs, shepherds, satyrs, and
swains, the like of which were certainly never
known in Devon, or in any other part of these .
islands. Yet we must not deny great merits to
the Tavistock poet, or fail to recognise that his
faults are largely those of his time. That he
did not rise above these faults, as Herrick did,
only proves that he had not such original
genius as Herrick. With greater poets, with
Spenser or Chaucer, it would be absurd to com
pare him.
In the fashion of those days, Browne has given
us a description of himself, but the description is
unreal and intangible : 62

LITERARY MEMORIES OF TAVISTOCK
' Among the rest a shepherd (though but young.
Yet heart'ned to his pipe), with all the skill
His few years could, began to fit his quill ;
By Tavy's speedy stream he fed his flock,
Where,. when he sat to sport him on a rock,
The water-nymphs would often come unto him,
And for a dance with many gay gifts woo hira.'
Mrs. Bray, who devoted a chapter of her
' Borders of the Tamar and Tavy ' to the Tavi
stock poet, showed considerable discernment in
her recognition of his beauties and his faults. She
acknowledged the weakness that he never knew
when to stop ; the material for a good couplet is
often spun out into a dozen or a score of lines.
To many visitors the memory of Mrs. Bray herself
will be a greater attraction than that of the poet,
and it is only right that she should be gratefully
remembered in the district that she did so rauch
to celebrate. Mrs. Bray was not a Devonian by
birth, and she had claims to distinction apart alto
gether from her connection with the county ; but
it is almost entirely her Devonshire writings that
perpetuate her memory. She was born in London
in the year 1790, her maiden name being Kempe,
and her early ambition was to be an actress. Ill-
health alone prevented her from fulfilling this aim,
after which disappointment, her biographer sug
gests, her ailments became her pet hobby. He
adds, with some sarcasm, that few persons ever
had a sounder constitution, and when we remember
63

LITERARY RAMBLES
that Mrs. Bray lived to the age of ninety-three,
we must confess that her sufferings were probably
of the kind intimated when a person is said to
' enjoy ' very bad health.
In 1818 she married the antiquarian draughts
man, Charles Stothard, son of the more famous
Thoraas Stothard. Three years later her husband
was killed by a fall from a ladder, while copying a
monument In the church of Beer Ferrers. Though
the lady married again, and survived more than
sixty years later, her devotion to this early affection
never diminished. During his lifetime she came
in contact with many eminent men, Including Sir
Walter Scott, and it was then that she published
her first book. Relics of her first husband and of
the little daughter who only lived a month or so
were found in a drawer after her death. In 1825
she married the Rev. E. A. Bray, who was born
in the Abbey House of Tavistock, and to whom
the Duke of Bedford had given the vicarage of
that town. He was a man of archseologic, artistic,
and literary tastes, and the union was one of
genuine congeniality. In association with him,
Mrs. Bray studied the antiquities of the Dartmoor
borders, and it was during the thirty years of their
married life that she published most of the books
that made her reputation, a majority of which had
to do with the locality,
64

LITERARY MEMORIES OF TAVISTOCK
Archasology in those days was not in an ad
vanced condition ; the terra ' ancient Briton '
vaguely had to do service for all the inhabitants of
this island previous to the Saxons, and the word
Druid was a supposed key to all mysteries. From
such restrictions the two Brays very partially
escaped, but they both did good work in pre
serving local monuments and traditions. To
Mr. Bray Tavistock owes the preservation of its
inscribed stones ; to Mrs. Bray we owe many a
legend and story of Dartmoor and its borders
which must otherwise have perished. Her book
on the Tamar and Tavy is a storehouse to which
all subsequent writers on Devonshire have been
indebted ; it is written* with an earnest desire for
accuracy, and with access to sources that are now
unavailable. Every page is readable, though every
page is not correct. Very rauch the- same must
be said of her novels, 'De Foix,' 'Fitz of Fitzford,'
' Warleigh,' ' Trelawney of Trelawne,' ' Henry de
Pomeroy,' ' Courtenay of Walreddon,' which in
colour and detail are far truer to history than the
average historic novel, either of that day or this.
They, were republished some twenty years since
with considerable success, but their appeal can
never again be a wide one:. Those that relate to
Devon will always retain a local value, which they
thoroughly merit, but the book of Mrs. Bray's
65 E

LITERARY RAMBLES
that posterity will most highly prize, in spite of its
erroneous theories. Is the 'Banks of Tamar and
Tavy.' There is another most pleasant local book,
entitled ' Home Scenes,' also due to a Tavistock
lady. Miss Rachel Evans, But this does not
exhaust the list of the literary ladies of Tavistock.
Mrs. Charles, author of the once popular ' Chron
icles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family,' was amongst
them. This praiseworthy tale, dear to young
readers of sober tendency, is now dead as a door
nail, but its writer could do pleasing work, both
in prose and verse. She was a daughter of John
Rundle, and was born in Tavistock in 1828. She
has given us an -interesting account of a meeting
with Tennyson, which took place in 1848. The
poet was touring westward with Ideas of the
' Idylls ' germinating in his mind, and at Tavistock
he visited Mr. Rundle.
Miss Rundle ' was staying at Upland, a country
house belonging to an uncle of mine, four miles
from Plymouth. Whilst there we were walking
on the Hoe at Plymouth one day, when, to my
delight, we were told that my father was to drive
Mr. Tennyson from Tavistock to pay us a visit
at Upland. , , , We went out for a ramble in
the wood, were caught In a shower, and ran home.
Mr. Tennyson was there, in the hall, just arrived ;
66

LITERARY MEMORIES OF TAVISTOCK
my father introduced me to him, and he came into
the drawing-room and said to my mother, " You
have a party," which he did not seem to like.
My father then called me in to make tea for
Mr. Tennyson in the dining-room, and we had a
quiet talk. A powerful, thoughtful face, kind
smile, hearty laugh, extremely short-sighted.' Of
course, the young lady's poems were brought
before his notice ; he took them back to Plymouth
with him, not sleeping at Upland, because he
thought that he could not smoke freely there.
He returned next day and praised the poems ; he
even condescended to go into the kitchen-garden
and pick gooseberries. He confided to his girl
companions that he was really a shy man, but
chiefly ' with false or conventional people.'
It may be owing to the manner in which it is
reported, but specimens of Tennyson's farailiar
conversation too often have a touch of conscious
ness, something stilted and unbending, a lack of
fresh self-forgetfulness. Probably, like most other
talkers, the poet was never reported when at his
best. Boswell s, with an unerring tact to record
just the easiest flow of conversation, are rare
indeed, and the filial official memoir of Tennyson
is, perhaps, the most un-Boswellian biography
ever written. The reverence that is beautiful in
a son becomes a little too pronounced in a bio-
67 E 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
grapher. We do not want pryings and peepings,
and the petty details of a valet de chambre, but
we do want a living picture.
At Lamerton, a few railes north-west of Tavi
stock, there Is another literary raeraory. Though
there has been sorae confusion as to the place of
his birth, there is no question that the dramatist,
Nicholas Rowe, was of a Lamerton family. It has
been stated that his father was rector of the parish,
and that the boy was born at the rectory. Dr.
Johnson, with partial correctness, states that the
poet's family had long owned a considerable estate
' at Lambertoun, in Devonshire ' ; that his father
professed the law and was burled in Teraple
Church ; and that the boy Nicholas was born at
Little Beckford, in Bedfordshire. The real facts
seem to be that Nicholas was born at Little Bar-
ford, Bedfordshire, in 1674, the son of John
liowe, Serjeant -at -Law, who married a lady
belonging to the poet's birthplace. Even Mrs.
Bray, though she hesitates to say that the poet
was born at Lamerton, repeats the error that his
father was its rector. There may have been a
clergyman among the long succession of Rowes at
Laraerton — there is, indeed, a ruraour that one of
these was Rector of Lydford — but it is certain that
no such name occurs in the list of rectors of Lamer
ton from the thirteenth century to the present day.
68

LITERARY MEMORIES OF TAVISTOCK
The genius of Rowe, though not great, is not
to be slighted in any estimate of the county's
worthies. He was the author of ' Tamerlane,' the
translator of Lucan, the friend of Pope and
Addison. Pope found him a delightful com
panion. Another friend says that ' he had a
quick and fruitful invention, a deep penetration,
and a large compass of thought, with singular
dexterity and easiness In making his thoughts
understood. He was master of both parts of
polite learning, especially the classical authors,
both Greek and Latin ; understood the French,
Italian, and Spanish languages, and spoke the first
fluently and the other two tolerably well.'
' Peace to thy gentle shade and endless rest,'
wrote Pope, when he was laid in Westminster
Abbey. It was he- who, In his ' Fair Penitent,'
gave us the character of the ' Gay Lothario,' now
become a byword, and his ' Jane Shore ' held the
stage until some fifty years since. He wrote one
comedy, which he sat out himself, laughing hugely
at his own jokes ; but the public did not laugh,
and he tried no more to be comic. The spiteful
anecdote is told by Johnson, who seems to have
borne Rowe no goodwill. ' Tamerlane ' was in
tended to be a glorification of William III., and
for many years was acted on each anniversary of
69

LITERARY RAMBLES
that King's landing at Brixham. Rowe expressly
wrote in imitation of Shakespeare, but modern
readers and playgoers prefer Shakespeare himself.
Even Dr. Johnson admitted that, though Rowe
' seldom moves either pity or terror, he often
elevates the sentiments ; he seldom pierces the
breast, but he always deUghts the ear, and often
improves the understanding.' After this some-^
what grudging praise of the dramas, Johnson
proceeds to claim the poet's translation of Lucan's
' Pharsalia ' as ' one of the greatest productions of
English poetry.' The most ardent Devonian of
to-day will confess that English poetry can boast
greater glories. That was a period when poets and
poetasters loved to translate the classics into rhymed
couplets ; but it needed the genius of Dryden
or Pope to give genuine vitality to such efforts,
and Rowe's Lucan, though an excellent perform
ance according to its aims, has in no sense retained
the public attention. It remains one of the best
rhymed versions of the Roman poet, and is more
faithful to its original than Pope was to Homer ;
but In whatever form presented Lucan now only
interests the scholar, and the scholar will prefer to
go to the Latin. We must not forget that Rowe
became Poet Laureate, but the British public has
learnt that this distinction does not always raean a
great deal, 70

LITERARY MEMORIES OF TAVISTOCK
Besides these literary associations, the district of
Tavistock teems with traditions and memories :
legends of the Abbey and of the moor, of the
river and its bridges, the manors, the villages, the
churches. These are the things to look for in the
guide-books, which in this respect have done their
duty admirably. But it is a satisfaction to find
that so beautiful a town and neighbourhood can
claim some distinction also in the glorious annals
of English literature.

7'

THE POET GAY
AND THE BARNSTAPLE DISTRICT
At the present time, perhaps, the poet Gay can
only be said to have an academic reputation, and
the fact that he was born in or near Barnstaple
may not greatly excite visitors to the town upon
the Taw. Yet he was really a notable figure in
the literary world of the age of Pope. He was
the intimate friend of men greater than himself —
dearly loved by Pope and by Swift, held in affec
tion by Addison, Parnell, Bolingbroke. The
man who could win and keep the fond regard
of such men must have had something In him
even better than genius. We can hardly speak
of him as a typical Devonian : he became rather
a typical Londoner ; but we meet with glimpses
of his early environment in his writings, and there
are some things that he would certainly never
have written had he not been born to a personal
knowledge of rustic life. Without claiming too
much for his gifts, it is at least pleasant to find
72

THE POET GAY AND BARNSTAPLE
that the West Country has this definite link with
the so-called Augustan literature of the age of
Queen Anne.
There is a little doubt as to the exact spot of
Gay's birth, some asserting that he was born in
the neighbouring parish of Landkey, and not in
Barnstaple itself; but it is certain that his parents
lived in Joy Street, and there is no solid reason
for doubting that his birth took place in the corner
house that Is still pointed out. Some years after
his death an old armchair belonging to this house
was sold, and on examination was found to contain
a drawer in which were a number of unpublished
pieces by the poet. Undoubtedly these were
some of his youthful productions, left behind him,
and probably forgotten when he travelled to
London to become a silk mercer's apprentice.
Though then in humble circumstances, his
family, that of Le Gay, had formerly been more
considerable. Dr. Johnson tells us that this
family had ' long been in possession of the Manor
of Goldsworthy, in Devonshire,' himself append
ing the note that ' Goldsworthy does not appear
in the Villare.'
There is a Goldsworthy about halfway between
BIdeford and Clovelly, and an East Goldsworthy
near Appledore ; either of these manors might
once have belonged to the Gays. The boy was
73

LITERARY RAMBLES
born In 1688 — the year in which William of
Orange landed at Brixham — and was educated at
the local Grammar School, then presided over by
a man named Luck. This Luck had himself
some reputation as a writer of verses, both Latin
and English, so that it is probable he encouraged
such talent as he noticed in his pupil. How long
he stayed here Is not told in the memoirs, but it
Is certain that he was a mere boy when he began
his career as draper's 'prentice In London. From
this position he passed, in 1 7 1 2, to becorae secre
tary of the Duchess of Monraouth, a post for
which his gentle and dependent spirit suited hira.
But his connection with Devon was broken when
he travelled townwards, and though we raay
imagine that he paid some visits to his home at
Barnstaple, we have no particulars of such, and
nothing that proves him to have been a man of
local attachment.
Those who settled in London in those days, and
succeeded in establishing themselves prosperously,
were too apt to forget the places from wl)ich they
came ; the country was still considered semi-
barbarous, and town the only true centre of
gentility. But we have merely negative evidence
in concluding that Gay did not make much of
his Devonian origin. Some of his works show
that he did no tmind confessing an acquaintance
74

THE POET GAY AND BARNSTAPLE
with rustic life, and once or twice he even proves
that he was not above referring to the West
Country, for which small mercies it behoves us
to be duly thankful.
His first publication was the poem entitled
' Rural Sports,' dedicated to Pope, who already
was recognised as the ' coming man,' and in this
we might certainly expect to find traces of Devon
shire. But we may search it in vain for any but
the most commonplace descriptions of ordinary
country occupations, without a trace of local
colour or of original observation. There is more
life in the pastorals named 'The Shepherd's
Week.' They were apparently meant satirically
by the author, to ridicule the spurious pastoral
then in fashion, and they give some realistic
touches of country life that are certainly more
to the point than anything done by Pope or
Ambrose Philips. 'Thou wilt not find my
shepherdesses idly piping on oaten reeds,' says
Gay in his preface, ' but milking the kine, tying
up the sheaves, or if the hogs are astray, driving
them to their styes. My shepherd gathereth
none other nosegays but what are the growth of our
own fields ; he sleepeth not under myrtle shades,
but uilder a hedge ; nor doth he vigilantly defend
his flock from wolves, because there are none,'
This is very well said, but it may be that
75

LITERARY RAMBLES
Gay, in his attempt at realism, goes too far,
especially in the names that he gives to his charac
ters. Lobbin, Bumkinet, Luberkin, Blouzelinda,
Grubblnol, are names no more common to country
folk than are the Damons and Strephons of the
more conventional pastoral ; it is simply rushing
from one unreality to another. But there Is a
refreshing plainness and at least a suggestion of
Devon farms in some of the verses, as when one
of the swains speaks of catching sight of his love
busied in the dairy :
' Set off with kerchief starch'd and pinners clean.
Sometimes like wax she rolls the butter round,
Or with the wooden lily prints the pound.
Whilome I've seen her skim the clouted cream.
And press from spongy curds the milky stream.'
When this good farm-maid lay dying,
' " Mother," quoth she, " let not the poultry need,
And give the goose wherewith to raise her breed.
Yet, ere I die — see, mother, yonder shelf,
There secretly I've hid my worldly pelf.
Twenty good shillings in a rag I laid ;
Be ten the parson's, for my sermon paid." '
Poor persons in those days often saved money
to pay for their funeral sermon, and everyone
knows what an event a fiineral sermon is still
considered in quiet country parishes. On this
occasion the preacher
' Spoke the hour-glass in her praise quite out,'
76

THE POET GAY AND BARNSTAPLE
doubtless thinking he was giving her good value.
Her mourners trudged homewards to her mother's
farra to quench their grief in new cider, mulled
with warm ginger —
' For Gaffer Treadwell told us, by-the-bye.
Excessive sorrow is exceeding dry.'
There are touches in this that can have only been
borrowed from nature, not distinctly Devonian,
perhaps, but true of Devon as of many another
countryside. In one pastoral we have actually
a Devon word, in the line that speaks of
' Cic'ly, the Western lass, that tends the kee ' —
kee being an old Devon form of cows or kine,
like the Scottish kye. One couplet will apply
well enough to Dartmoor itself, telling how
' Will-a-wisp misleads night-faring clowns
O'er hills and sinking bogs and pathless downs.'
In the same eclogue we have "a picture of a
village fair, just as those festivities used to be in
Devon :
' Now he goes on, and sings of fairs and shows.
For still new fairs before his eyes arose ;
How pedlars' stalls with glittering toys are laid.
The various fairings of the country maid.
Long silken laces hang upon the twine,
And rows of pins and amber bracelets shine ;
How the tight lass knives, combs, and scissors spies,
And looks on thimbles with desiring eyes.'
Gay even finds room for the wayside gipsy,
77

LITERARY RAMBLES
leading the way where many later poets and
romancers were to follow :
' Last Friday's eve, when as the sun was set,
I near yon stile three sallow gipsies met.
Upon my hand they cast a poring look.
Bid mc beware, and thrice their heads they shook.'
This may not be poetry of the highest order, but
there is a genuine value in it, for it is at least
truthful, and far better than the inane, smooth
couplets produced by the average Queen Anne
poetaster. There is a direct faithfulness to rustic
life, which we rarely find in Thomson, a much
greater poet, and which we can hardly parallel
except in Bloomfield. But Bloomfield had no
humour, and Gay had a fair share. These
pastorals are more pleasing, if not more clever,
than the ' Trivia,' In which he deals with the art
of walking London streets, bringing the same
realism that had dealt with country doings to
deal with city nastlnesses.
So far as popular success Is concerned. Gay's
great work was 'The Beggar's Opera,' Its sub
ject set an example which Burns was glad to
follow, and it has given us at least one phrase in
general currency —
' How happy could I be with either.
Were t'other dear charmer away.'
Swift, Pope, and Congreve were consulted in
78

THE POET GAY AND BARNSTAPLE
its preparation, and all three seemed somewhat
dubious of its success. But its first night settled
all doubts. Besides this. Gay wrote a large collec
tion of rhymed ' Fables,' once highly esteemed.
They are pleasant enough, but their smoothness
and sameness of rhyme is monotonous, and the
public has no longer any fancy for an English
La Fontaine. They have less literary merit than
his two ballads, ' Black-eyed Susan ' and ' 'Twas
when the Seas were Roaring,' which of their kind
are excellent.
Gay had the courage to dare to be original
at a time when originality in verse was very
nearly esteemed a crime. There was a fresh
ness as well as amiability in the man, which was
one of the secrets of his success In winning friends.
' He was quite a natural man,' says Pope, ' wholly
without art or design, and spoke just what he
thought and as he thought it.' He was ' never
designed by Providence to be more than two-and-
twenty,' says Swift. And when Gay died, in 1732,
Pope wrote : ' One of the longest and nearest ties
I have ever had is broken all on a sudden by the
unfortunate death of poor Mr. Gay. Good God 1
how often are we to die before we go quite off this
stage ? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves,
and the best part.' Swift, anticipating some mis
fortune, allowed the letter that brought the news to
79

LITERARY RAMBLES
lie for a week unopened. Gay was buried In
Westrainster Abbey, and Pope wrote his epitaph '.
' Of manners gentle, of affections mild ;
In wit, a man ; simplicity, a child. . . .
A safe companion and an easy friend,
Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end.
These are thy honours — not that here thy bust
Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust ;
But that the worthy and the good shall say.
Striking their pensive bosoms — Here lies Gay.'
Barnstaple, which, though she gave Bishop
Jewell his early education, must certainly reckon
Gay as her particular literary star, has some other
things to boast of. One of these Is her bridge,
of 700 feet in length. Her name Is Brannock-
staple, and perhaps the local Barum is another form
of the name of Brannock, or Brynach, the Irish
saint, who seems first to have settled at Braunton.
There Is another notable thing to be told of the
town. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
a number of refugees escaped from Rochelle in a
small vessel, and after a stormy passage reached
Barnstaple Bay. It does not appear what had been
their actual destination, but, arrived there, they
were not in a condition to go farther. They ' sailed
over the bar and up the river, and landed on the
quay during Divine service. Utterly destitute,
they ranged themselves in the market-place, and
thither flocked the townsfolk when they left the
80

THE POET GAY AND BARNSTAPLE
churches. Happily, neither the good Samaritan
nor his spirit was wanting. An old gentleman,
whose name, unfortunately. Is not preserved, took
a couple of the refugees home to dinner, and
recommended his example to his fellow-townsmen.
In a few minutes the Huguenots were distributed
throughout the town, their immediate wants
supplied, and the foundation laid of a new
period of comraercial prosperity for the hospit
able borough.'
The French exiles brought their skill In the
woollen trade with them, and Barnstaple's good
deeds were rewarded by the establishment of a
thriving business. Among these refugees was
a young man named St. Michel, who came frora
Anjou. Settling in the district, he married a lady
said to have descended from the Cumberland Clif
fords. They had a daughter named Elizabeth.
By some means the imraortal diarist, Samuel Pepys,
came across this girl, who was of great beauty, and
married her in her fifteenth year. There was a
brother, Balthazar St. Michel, whom Pepys fre
quently raentions, soraetimes familiarly styling him
' Baity.' Perhaps Mrs. Pepys may not always play
a very dignified part in the Diary — neither does
her husband. French names can still be traced In
Barnstaple and the neighbourhood, sometimes
much corrupted or purposely disguised. Buzza-
8l F

LITERARY RAMBLES
cott, for instance, might pass for very genuine
Devonian, did we not know that it is simply a
corruption of Boursaquotte ; and Mr. Baring-
Gould identifies Blampy as Blanchepied. Until
about the year 1760 a French service was held in
the chapel of St. Anne, afterwards used for the
Grammar School.
Perhaps BIdeford Is a more attractive town than
Barnstaple, with its bright memories of the Gren-
villes, and it has an even more striking old bridge;
but Kingsley a little exaggerated the part played
by BIdeford in Elizabethan days. Her greatest
prosperity was a century later, when the Newfound
land trade was flourishing at its height. Readers
will always love the town for the sake of ' West
ward Ho,' but they will carry still more intimate
memories of Kingsley with them to Clovelly,
There are some who would have us believe that
Clovelly was known to the Romans, under the
name of Clausa Vallis, and even that the poet
Virgil wrote of the place ; but this legend is in
vented simply to account for a name that has
proved rather puzzling. The name of Clovelly
may possibly contain some forgotten Celtic root ;
more probably it is genuine Saxon, and a corrup
tion of Cloven-lea or Cleave-lea. There is no
proof that the Romans were ever here at all,
though they may very likely have passed along
82

THE POET GAY AND BARNSTAPLE
the coast in their galleys. We may conclude with
tolerable certainty that the hamlet running down
the hill to the waterside belongs entirely to a later
date. The true old Clovelly was the finely-placed
and extensive, earthwork known as the Clovelly
Dikes or Ditchen Hills, This was clearly the
centre of a large resident population in Celtic days.
If not earlier ; it was a town, and not raerely
a camp. Though mutilated by road-making, the
remains are the finest of the kind in Devon.
Perhaps the inhabitants of this strong settlement
had a landing-place for their coracles at the site of
the present tiny harbour. At the time of the
Conquest there was a cluster of fishermen's huts
here, and possibly a homestead at Clovelly Park ;
the estate passed from the Saxon Brictric to Queen
Matilda, There is a tradition that Matilda had
formerly loved this Brictric, and that he had
declined to marry her, which may explain the
Queen's avidity in seizing his Devon manors.
After belonging to the Giffards, Clovelly passed to
the Carys, one of whom built the small stone pier
for the protection of the fishing-boats. Along the
cliffs above we have a recollection of the Danish
Hubba, in the beautiful Hobby Drive.
We are apt to think of Kingsley as the modern
discoverer of Clovelly ; but the poet R. S, Hawker
had been here first, and wrote a poem on the
83 F 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
place before yet the eyes of the boy Kingsley had
seen it :
' Thou quaint Clovelly ! in thy shades of rest,
When timid Spring her pleasant task hath sped.
Or Summer pours from her redundant breast
All fruits and flowers along thy valley's bed ;
Yes, and when Autumn's golden glories spread,
Till we forget near Winter's withering rage.
What fairer path shall woo the wanderer's tread.
Soothe wearied hope and worn regret assuage ?
Lo, for firm youth a bower — a home for lapsing age !'
After the birth of Charles Kingsley at Holne,
his father very quickly removed to the Fen
Country residence, there sowing seeds that bore
fruit later In the finely-written ' Hereward the
Wake.' But when the boy was about eleven years
old the rectory of Clovelly was presented to the
senior Kingsley. There must have been a deep
resemblance between father and son. The meraoir
tells us that Clovelly folk ' sprang to touch under
the influence of their new rector — a man who
feared no danger, and could steer a boat, hoist
and lower a sail, shoot a herring-net, and haul
a seine as one of themselves. And when the
herring fleet put to sea, whatever the weather
might be, Mr. Kingsley, with his wife and boys,
would start down to the quay, and give a short
parting service, at which men who worked and
women who wept would join In singing the
1 2 1st Psalin out of the old Prayer-Book version,
84

THE POET GAY AND BARNSTAPLE
with the fervour of those who have death and
danger staring them in the face.' Too often those
who thus set forth returned as mangled corpses
washed up by the waves, or perhaps never returned
at all, ' Hardly an old playmate of mine but is
drowned and gone,' wrote Kingsley later.
Such were the scenes which coloured his boy
hood, were reflected in his after life, and produced
his well-known song of ' The Three Fishers,' a
literal transcript of what he had seen again and
again at Clovelly, His love for Clovelly was a
passion. ' Now that you have seen the dear old
paradise,' he wrote to his wife after her first visit
there in 1854, ' you know what was the inspiration
of my life before I met you.' From Clovelly the
boy went to school, first at Clifton, then at the
Grammar School of Helston, presided over by
Derwent Coleridge, son of the poet. It was a real
grief to him when his father exchanged his Devon
shire living for one at Chelsea, but no absence ever
caused him to forget Clovelly. It was appropriate
that his youngest daughter should marry a later
rector of the living once held by her grandfather,
and should give a further consecration of genius to
the place that her father loved best in the world.
Powerful mental endowment was shared by all the
Kingsley brothers ; and In the cases of ' Lucas
Malet' and Miss Mary Kingsley it is clear that
85

LITERARY RAMBLES
this descended to the second generation. Clovelly
Is difficult to spoil ; the position is not favourable,
and there is no railway nearer than BIdeford.
But there are pleasure-boats from Ilfracombe and
South Wales, and for three or four hours of many
days during the suraraer this ' village like a water
fall ' is invaded and desecrated by the trippers.
But it must be confessed that at Clovelly it is
very easy to escape from them.

86

WITH SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN
DEVON
Considerable as is the literary record of Devon
shire, It must be confessed that the county's artistic
record is as great, if not greater. A serious gap
would occur in the chronicles of British painting
if we were to omit the names of Reynolds, North
cote, and Eastlake, Prout and Haydon. There
are other names to be added to these, all
Devonians — Hart, Hudson, Gandy, Hilliard,
Brockedon, Lee, Cook, and Johns. The greatest
of these names all belong to one small district.
No other centre in the whole kingdom, with the
doubtful exception of London, can claim to have
nurtured so many painters as Plymouth and its
immediate neighbourhood; an assertion that may
be proved by the bare mention that Reynolds,
Easdake, Northcote, Haydon, all received their
boyish education at Plympton School. Of these,
Reynolds was a native of Plympton, Eastlake,
Haydon, Northcote, of Plymouth. Plymouth can
87

LITERARY RAMBLES
also claim Samuel Prout and Solomon Hart,
Samuel Cook and A. B. Johns.
The ' Three Towns ' are not backward in
boasting of their naval distinction, their mercantile
growth, their Elizabethan glories, and the loveli
ness of their scenery. Here Is a brilliant crown
to add to their laurels of peace. The narae of
Reynolds alone is enough to shed an artistic
glamour over this south-west corner of Devon.
There may perhaps be dissent if we claim for him
that he was the greatest of English painters ; there
can be no dissent from the assertion that in his
special department he has been without rival. Not
only was he a fine artist, but he was a man of
broad culture, enlightened and dignified aim, free
from all the narrowness that sometimes attaches to
the special pursuit of a single art. There was no
pettiness In his character ; prosperity did not spoil
hira. His love of literature enabled hira to
associate freely with the distinguished literary
circle presided over by Dr. Johnson. His faults
were slight blemishes, inseparable from human
nature ; his qualities were not only those of a
great artist, but of a great and good man.
Plympton, which deserves such veneration from
all lovers of art, was In a manner the mother town
of Plymouth. It makes the usual boast raade by
the decayed or unprogresslve neighbours of more

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN DEVON
prosperous settlements in the often -repeated
rhyme —
' Plympton was a market town
When Plymouth was a furzy down.'
Sometimes the boast, as when made by Crediton
with respect to Exeter, will not bear inspection,
but In Plympton's case it is undoubtedly legitimate.
The name, written in Domesday as Pllntona, does
not refer to any imaginary river Plym ; the Plym
is simply a corruption of the Celtic pen-lyn, ' head
of the water ' or ' stream,' and Plympton was ' the
town at the head of the water.' In this light we
see that the name of Plymouth, which did not
exist till much later, was a foolish misnomer,
arising from a popular misinterpretation of Celtic
place-names. We judge, both fi-om the name and
frora ancient records, that Plympton itself was at
one time a port, accessible by water from the open
sea. There were two divisions in early Plyrapton,
the religious and the secular, whose traces still
survive in the names of Plympton Erie and
Plympton St, Mary, the latter being the portion
attached to Plympton Priory, which at the Dis
solution was the richest monastic house in Devon,
There was a collegiate settleraent here at least
as early as the tenth century, and this was sup
pressed by the Norman Bishop Warelwast in 1 12 1,
ostensibly because its canons declined to give up
89

LITERARY RAMBLES
their wives. If there was one point on which
Rome determined to be inflexible^ it was this
question of clerical celibacy ; possibly the freedom
hitherto enjoyed by the Plympton clergy was
borrowed from Celtic precedent. In place of the
foundation thus destroyed V/arelwast established
a priory of Augustinian regular canons, which was
endowed later with many wealthy manors, and
possessed that part of youthful Plymouth known
as Sutton Prior. It took Plymouth, Indeed, many
years to break loose from the leading-strings of
the Plympton monks, and assert Its Independence.
Some few fragments of the great Priory church
may still be traced ; there are also relics of the
monastic buildings.
Early Plympton owed a great deal, both in
ecclesiastic and secular matters, to the powerful
family of De Redvers, which at one time owned
as many as i8o raanors in Devon alone. Henry I.
gave the barony of Plympton to Richard de
Redvers, whom he also created Earl of Devon ;
and the Norman castle on the spot doubtless dates
from the time of this feudal lord, though it
appears certain that there had been a British earth
work, and perhaps a Saxon fortalice, here before.
Baldwin, Sheriff of Devon, son of this Richard, is
chiefly remembered as builder and custodian of
Exeter Castle, under the immediate direction of
90

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN DEVON
the Conqueror ; and another Baldwin, grandson
of the first, played a prominent part in the revolt
against King Stephen. He left a garrison in his
castle at Plympton while he himself was absent
busily defending Exeter against the King's
forces. The town itself, outraged by the insolent and
tyrannical behaviour of Baldwin, gave its sym
pathies to the King ; but Rougemont Castle was
so strong that, had it been fully provisioned and
supplied with water, it could have resisted attack
for an indefinite period. But the supply of water
failed, and the garrison must have perished or
surrendered had not Stephen, with remarkable
generosity, allowed them to march forth scatheless.
But In the meantime Plympton Castle, though
strongly garrisoned, surrendered to Stephen with
out striking a blow, in a manner which suggests
a similar lack of sympathy with Baldwin to that
shown by the Exeter folk. Unmoved by the
King's generosity, the Earl continued to act a
traitor's part, suffering deprivation of honours and
estates, which he regained on the accession of
Henry II. The castle was dismantled after its
surrender, and never saw more fighting, though
Royalist forces held Plympton during the Civil
War, especially at the time when the siege of
Plymouth was proceeding. Leland found the
91

LITERARY RAMBLES
ruins ' a faire large castelle and dungeon, whereof
the walles yet stande, but the logginges within be
decayed ' ; yet the norainal office of Constable of
Plyrapton Castle, with a yearly fee, continued
araong the charges of the Royal Household till
the year 1606.
Plympton Erie, called also Plympton Maurice,
from its parish church of St. Maurice, had an
interesting Parliamentary record, cut short, like
that of so many a West Country borough, by the
Reform Bill of 1832. It sent two raembers to
the House from the time of Edward I,, among
whora were some notable representatives, such as
Sergeant Sir John Heie, of the time of Elizabeth,
William Strode, a later member, was one of the
Five Members whom Charles I. sought to arrest
and irapeach. He belonged to the distinguished
family of Strode, of Newnham, whose monuments
may be seen in the church of Plympton St. Mary.
Strangely enough, another member of the same
period was the Royalist Cornishman, Sir Nicholas
Slanning, one of the ' four wheels of Charles's
Wain.' Other representatives were Sir Christopher
Wren and the much-abused Lord Castlereagh.
But the connection between members and their
constituencies in those days was often very slight ;
In many cases the member never visited his
voters. There Is a well - known story of a
92

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN DEVON
country member who, when driving through a
small town, inquired Its name, and exclaimed:
'Why, that is the place that I sit for!' Castle
reagh's relations with Plympton were quite of this
nature. But the true lion of Plympton is the old
Grammar School, whose educational career has un
happily ended. The school was founded in 1664,
with endowments left by the benevolent Elize
Heie, of WoUaton. This benefactor left a con
siderable property for charitable and educative
purposes, giving special instructions in his will
that a school should be established for the poorer
children of Plympton, Brixton, and neighbouring
parishes. Though somewhat restored, the old
cloistered schoolhouse, one of the earliest objects
of young Joshua's pencil, still remains, but the
adjoining master's house is a later building, re
placing that in which the painter was born.
In the early eighteenth century the Rev. Samuel
Reynolds was headmaster of Plympton School, and
here, July 16, 1723, his son Joshua was born, being
tenth of a family of eleven. There can have been
little luxury in such a home, for the master's
salary was not a large one. The father is de
scribed as a pious but easy-going man, not above
some shrewdness of worldly wisdom, as a sample
of which it is stated that the name of Joshua was
93

LITERARY RAMBLES
given to this tenth child because there was a rich
uncle living in the neighbourhood who bore the
same Scriptural name, and whose favour might
thus be conciliated. The device almost miscarried,
however ; for the careless or absent-minded clergy
man to whom the babe was taken to be christened
duly baptized him as Joshua, but entered the
name in the register as Joseph. It Is a nice legal
question whether the artist was not strictly Joseph
Reynolds to the end of his life.
If the boy Joshua was not exactly a prodigy. It
is certain that he gave unmistakable proofs of his
talent. An artistic child educated by a lenient
and indolent father is not likely to accomplish
great things in the field of classical learning ; but
such a training as the boy received was perhaps
best of all for his success in the field to which
nature impelled him. His father tried to do his
duty, and made the lad stick fairly closely to the
curriculum of the school, which was a sound one
after the old fashion of education ; but Joshua^
who seems to have been first prompted to draw
ing by the sight of some attempts by his sisters,
soon gave every spare moment, and doubtless
some that ought to have been otherwise occupied,
to copying prints and sketching natural objects.
An early sketch of the boy's is preserved, done on
the back of a Latin exercise, on which Is written
94

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN DEVON
in the father's handwriting, ' This was drawn by
Joshua in school, out of pure idleness.' Severe
though the words may seem, they probably con
tain a covert touch of pride.
We can certainly recognise such pride in the
words written upon another sketch, ' Drawn, not
from another picture, but from life.' Among the
few artistic books that fell into the boy's hands
was one entitled, ' The Jesuit's Perspective,' and,
acting on the principles here laid down, 'he made
a drawing of the Plympton schoolhouse, on seeing
which the father exclaimed : ' This is what the
author of the " Perspective " asserts in his preface,
that by observing the rules laid down in this book
a man may do wonders — for this is wonderful !'
Many a youthful genius has laboured under far
less encouragement than that given by this good
old Devon parson and his wife.
Dr, Johnson has told us that ' Sir Joshua
Reynolds, the great painter of the present age,
had the first fondness for his art excited by the
perusal of Richardson's treatise.' Remembering
the close intimacy between Sir Joshua and John
son, the statement is certainly authoritative, and it
Is probable that this ' Treatise on Painting ' first
gave definite form to the boy's vague instincts ;
it is certain that he had already begun to copy
prints from his favourite books, such as Plu-
95

LITERARY RAMBLES
tarch's ' Lives,' before this work was placed in his
hands. Another early book whose engravings
strongly influenced Him — a work of a rarer and
more useful kind — was the ' Book of Emblems,'
by the Dutch poet, Jacob Cats, a volume that once
enjoyed great popularity in the Low Country,
where its author was affectionately styled ' Father
Cats.' The prints in this were really excellent
models for the boy to iraitate.
It is interesting to learn that this book had been
brought to England by the boy's great-grand
mother, herself a Dutchwoman ; and Holland,
mother of notable painters, can thus claim a small
share in the genius of our Reynolds. Guided in
this manner, but with no personal tuition, the lad
occupied all his spare time in making drawings
and taking the portraits of all who would indulge
him, among whom was the Rev. Thomas Smart,
tutor in the family of Lord Edgcumbe, whose
portrait Joshua painted, using a piece of common
sail-cloth for his canvas and the paint used by
shipbuilders for his mediura. He produced this
youthful masterpiece at the age of twelve, and
confirmed the opinion of his friends that he was a
born artist. It was felt that Plyrapton offered no
scope, either for his fitting tuition or for his
ultiraate career ; but the father's means were
too straitened to afford the necessary opportunity.
96

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN DEVON
At Plympton, therefore, the boy remained until
the age of seventeen.
At that time the painter's eldest sister, Mrs.
Palmer, helped his father to raise the needful sum,
and in 1740 Joshua was despatched to London to
study under Thomas Hudson. Hudson, himself
a Devonian, having been born at Exeter, was then
at the height of his fame as a portrait-painter, and
was a painstaking artist of no great gift. Pro
bably, however, he was fitted to teach a certain
amount of useful technique. With Hudson
Reynolds stayed for more than two years ; but
the fact that he had been bound for four seeras
to show that there ^ was some kind of breach
between master and pupil. This breach has never
been satisfactorily explained. It has been at
tributed to jealousy on the part of the elder
painter, but there is insufficient ground for the
statement, and the friendship between the two
men was not broken by the severance of the tie.
Perhaps both teacher and pupil realized that
Reynolds had learned all that Hudson could
impart. In 1743 Reynolds was back in Devonshire
once more. He reraained here during three
years, which he afterwards regretted as a serious
waste of time, but the unconventional manner in
which he pursued his art may have been quite as
97 G

LITERARY RAMBLES
valuable as more regular study would have been.
He painted many portraits. Including one of the
first Lord Eliot, of Port Eliot, St. Germans.
Some good specimens of Reynolds' work are still
to be seen in the gallery of Port Eliot. At this
time also he studied and intensely admired the
drawings of the Exeter painter, William Gandy,
some of whose work he considered as fine as
Rembrandt's. With the exception of a short visit to London,
Reynolds now remained in Devonshire until 1749.
It is possible that this London visit would have
developed into a permanent settlement, but the
illness of his father recalled him to Plympton,
The father died on Christmas Day, 1746, leaving
none but tender memories to his children and
parishioners, and on the home being broken up,
Joshua took two of his sisters to live with him at
Devonport, then known as Plymouth Dock,
Here he pursued his profession as portrait-
painter, having already so considerable a local
reputation that most of the neighbouring mag
nates and gentry sat to his pencil. He was ofi:en
at Mount Edgcumbe, being greatly encouraged by
the first Lord Edgcumbe, who had known his
talent from his boyhood. Three generations of
the Edgcumbe family hang in the dining-room of
Mount Edgcumbe, painted by Sir Joshua.
98

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN DEVON
In an article written by Lady Ernestine Edg
cumbe herself, we read that the second lord, when
a boy, had assisted young Reynolds in painting
the memorable portrait on sail-cloth of the Rev.
Thomas Smart, already mentioned, who was the
boy's tutor and vicar of the neighbouring Maker
church. Biographers of Reynolds do not usually
mention this collaboration, and it is probable that
Reynolds himself did all the real work ; but it
is pleasant to think of the boyish comradeship
between the lads, and the excitement which their
joint labours doubtless caused to them. It is clear
that Reynolds possessed the valuable power of
making good friends, and the still rarer gift of
retaining them.
One of the most interesting of those who sat to
Reynolds at this time was Miss Chudleigh, who
afterwards became the notorious Duchess of
Kingston, the original of Thackeray's Beatrix in
' Esmond.' She came from the Chudleigh family
seated at Ashton, near Chudleigh, and was a lady
of exquisite beauty. Later she became Countess
of Bristol, and finally, probably imagining that
her clandestine marriage was of no account, she
imprudently implicated herself with the Duke of
Kingston, whom she married. Hence came her
famous trial for bigamy at the House of Lords,
on which occasion the Devonian, John Dunning,
99 G 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
Lord Ashburton, took a bitter and discreditable
part In the prosecution. But when the lovely
woman was painted by Reynolds this sad history
all lay in the future. She was paying a visit to
Saltram, the present seat of the Earl of Morley.
The painter at this time had not quite emanci
pated himself frora the prevalent conventionalities
of portrait-painting, some of which he must un
consciously have caught fi"om his old master,
Hudson. It is asserted that his subjects, when
raen, invariably held their hats in their hands, and
rumour has it that on one occasion, when the
subject specially wished to be painted as wearing
his hat. It was discovered when the portrait was
finished that Reynolds had unknowingly given
him two hats, one upon his head and the other
beneath his arm. Perhaps th.e story Is a malicious
invention. Even Reynolds, in the dawn of his
fame, was largely at the mercy of his subjects,
who, with the authority of those who pay for what
they demand, thought themselves free to insist on
any pose, however pompous and Inartistic. The
painter had not yet reached the pinnacle where he
could be dictator. '
It was at Mount Edgcumbe that Reynolds met
Commodore, afterwards Admiral, Keppel, who was
commissioned to cruise in the Mediterranean for
the protection of the British mercantile marine
lOO

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN DEVON
from Algerian pirates. Entirely pleased with the
young artist, Keppel offered him a berth on his
ship, if he cared to take this opportunity of
foreign travel, and the painter gladly accepted.
His stay In Minorca and Italy does not here con
cern us. In October, 1752, his foreign travels
were over, and for the benefit of his health he
came to Devonshire for a three months' rest,-
before definitely setting up his studio in London.
His sister Frances now became his housekeeper.
She was a woman of some artistic taste, which she
exemplified by making copies of some of his
paintings ; but it Is stated that her fussiness and
irritability often disturbed even the serene temper
of her famous brother.
It is clear that the Intelligence of the Reynolds
family was not monopolized by one member, for
there is In existence a dialogue in the Devon
shire dialect, published for the first time in 1837
as written ' by a sister of the late Sir Joshua
Reynolds.' In the sarae volume is published a
glossary by J. F. Palmer, which raakes it evident
that this sister was the Mrs, Palmer whose
generosity assisted the boy's early studies. The
dialogue represents the Devon tongue exactly as
it was spoken when Reynolds was a Plympton
schoolboy ; it is brightly written, and its linguistic
value is considerable. Many of the words have
lOI

^ LITERARY RAMBLES
now passed out of use, but much remains that
will be recognised and enjoyed by all who have
any familiarity with the genuine old Wessex
speech. The two daughters of this Mrs. Palmer,
his nieces, were often taken as models by the
painter, and one of them sat for the Comic Muse
in the picture of Garrick, Polwhele tells us that
this lady, Mrs. Gwatkin, showed him the very
copy of Cats' ' Emblems ' which had been such a
delight to the boy Joshua.
The success which came to Reynolds in London,
and the brilliant circle In which he played a part,
never dimraed his fondness for his Devon home,
or his tender recollection of Devon friends. He
frequently ran down to spend a few weeks at
Plympton or Plymouth, never once getting out
of touch' with the scenes and surroundings of his
boyhood. On one such visit he was accompanied
by Dr. Johnson, and thus had the honour of
introducing that great man to Devonshire. It Is
said that Johnson's 'Life of Savage' had come
into the painter's hands during one of his Devon
shire holidays ; he was immediately struck with
its power. Soon afterwards a meeting took place
between the two, and at this first meeting
Reynolds, unlike the blundering Boswell, chanced
to make a remark which won the doctor's approval.
The ladies whose guests they were were mourning
I02

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN DEVON
the death of a friend to whom they owed great
obligations, and Reynolds remarked, 'You have,
however, the comfort of being relieved from a
burthen of gratitude.' Such a saying, somewhat
in the manner of La Rochefoucauld, was sure to
please Johnson, who himself loved to speak more
cynically than he felt, and, to quote from Boswell,
' the consequence was that he went home with
Reynolds and supped with him.'
Ten years passed before Reynolds triumphantly
carried the lexicographer with him Into Devonshire,
and they were ten years of unbroken, affectionate
intercourse. Unhappily, no Boswell accorapanied
them, and Reynolds did not act the part ; our
record of the visit is therefore fragmentary. In
the immortal biography, under the year 1762, we
read : ' This year his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds
paid a visit of some weeks to his native county,
Devonshire, in which he was accompanied by
Johnson, who was much pleased with this jaunt,
and declared he had derived from it a great
accession of new ideas. He was entertained at
the seats of several noblemen and gentlemen in
the West of England ; but the greatest part of
the time was passed at Plymouth, where the
magnificence of the navy, the shipbuilding, and
all its circumstances, afforded him a grand subject
of conteraplation. The Coramlssioner of the
103

LITERARY RAMBLES
Dockyard paid him the compliment of ordering the
yacht to convey him and his friend to the Eddystone,
to which they accordingly sailed. But the weather
was so tempestuous that they could not land.'
On this occasion the two friends were the
guests of Dr. Mudge, son of the Rev. Zacharlah
Mudge, whose fine bust by Chantrey is one of
the great adornments of St. Andrew's Church,
Plymouth, of which he was the beloved vicar.
Johnson, who seldom neglected church - going,
came to this church to hear a sermon preached
specially on his behalf by Mr. Mudge, and he
recorded his impression in the character of this
clergyman which he wrote for an obituary notice
In 1769, The character proves that Johnson re
tained grateful memories of his visit to Plymouth ;
it does equal honour to himself and its subject.
He speaks of the reverend gentleman. Prebendary
of Exeter and Vicar of St. Andrew's, in Plymouth,
as ' a man equally eminent for his virtues and
abilities, and at once beloved as a companion and
reverenced as a pastor. His discharge of parochial
duties was exemplary. How his sermons were
composed may be learned from the excellent
volume which he has given to the public ; but
how they were delivered can be known only to
those who heard them, for as he appeared in the
pulpit words will not easily describe him.'
104

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN DEVON
St, Andrew's Church has some great memories,
of which this visit of Johnson is not the least
interesting. He thoroughly entered into the life
and affairs of Plymouth, and he indulged so
heartily in the local luxuries of cider, honey, and
Devonshire cream, that observers feared the result
must be disastrous. At this time there was a
rivalry and some bitterness between the rising
Plymouth Dock, now Devonport, and Plymouth
proper ; and both as a guest and a consistent
Tory, Johnson championed the cause of the old
town. The Dock was petitioning for a supply of
water from the plentiful Plymouth leat, and
Johnson, more Royalist than the King, exclaimed :
'No, no ; I am against the Dockers ; I ara a
Plymouth man. Rogues ! let them die of thirst ;
they shall not have a drop !' In the same half-
playful vein, he protested, ' I hate a Docker.' Let
Devonport think of hira no less kindly for this.
It was at Plymouth also that a lady asked hira
why, in his dictionary, he had . defined pastern as
the knee of a horse, and he replied : ' Ignorance,
raadam — pure ignorance.'
There can be little doubt that Johnson drew
the lion's share of notice during this Devonshire
visit. In those days literature spread a more
rapid reputation than could the noblest art ;
besides which, Plymouth folk had known Reynolds
105

LITERARY RAMBLES
from his boyhood, and certainly few amongst
them were capable of justly appraising his genius.
There was one, however, to whom the painter
appeared the greater hero. This was the young
James Northcote, who later became Reynolds'
pupil and biographer. ' Mr. Reynolds was
pointed out to me at a public meeting,' he says,
'where a great crowd was assembled. I got as
near him as I could, frora the pressure of the
people, to touch the skirt of his coat, which I did
with great satisfaction to my mind.'
But It was not until the artist had been unanim
ously hailed as President by the members of the
new Royal Academy, which he did so much to
distinguish, and had received knighthood from the
King, that Devonshire fully awoke to the fame of
her son. These events happened in 1768. In
1 773 Plympton began to think that where the King
and the greatest celebrities of the kingdom had con
ferred honour, some recognition was due from itself;
it therefore bestowed upon Sir Joshua the distinc
tion of an alderman's gown. Next year the civic
honour culminated in the invitation to be Mayor.
Both honours were gladly and proudly accepted
by the painter, who received more true pleasure
from the position that he won In his beloved
native town than from any of his numerous
triumphs. He told the King himself, on receiving
106

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN DEVON
congratulation, that no honour which he had ever
received had given him so much pleasure, only
just recollecting himself in time to add discreetly,
' Except that which your Majesty was graciously
pleased to confer upon me.' Enraptured with his
mayoral dignity, he painted his own portrait and
presented it to the Plympton Corporation, who
hung it in the Guildhall between what they
imagined to be two ' old masters ' ; but the ' old
masters ' were siraply early paintings by Sir Joshua
hiraself, presented to the town in his youth.
But the end of the story Is sadder than the begin
ning. To the shame of Plympton, this portrait is no
longer hers. When the borough was disfranchised
in 1832, the Corporation disgracefully sold it to
the Earl of Egreraont for £1 S°- It may now be
seen at Silverton Park. Had the painter foreseen
this, his greatest pleasure would have been turned
to his greatest grief. Plympton has proved itself
unfit to nurse the reputation of one who con
ferred chief honour upon It: in 1832 it sold
Sir Joshua's portrait, in 1868 it destroyed his
birthplace. A neighbouring clergyman, the Vicar
of Cornwood, penned a Latin epigram which he
wished to be inscribed on the portrait. Reynolds
modestly, yet wisely, declined.
' Laudat Romanus Raphaelem, Grascus Apellem.
Plympton Reynoldem jactat, utrique parem.'
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LITERARY RAMBLES
The painter's own sense of his magisterial
dignities was notified on the back of a portrait
that he sent to Florence, where he describes
himself as ' Necnon oppldl natalis, dicti Plimpton,
comitatu Devon: praefectus, justiclarus, morumque
censor. '
He survived these honours nearly twenty years,
dying in 1792, amid the regret and reverential
esteera of all who could appreciate perfection of
art and dignity of character. Goldsraith has drawn
him for us in a few vivid lines of admirable light
verse :
' Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind.
He has not left a wiser or better behind ;
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand.
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ;
Still born to improve us in every part.
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart.
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering.
When they judged without skill, he was still hard
of hearing :
When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios,
and stuff.
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff.'
Of his genius it Is difficult to speak soberly.
He Is one of those painters that enable England
to turn calmly to Italy and the Netherlands, and
not shrink from the comparison. In his efforts to
produce richness of colouring he sometimes un
wisely dabbled In experiments that have been fatal
to the permanence of his pictures, but such decay
108

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN DEVON
as they have suffered has been purely material ; no
decay has come to the painter's reputation, no later
school has been able to depreciate his merit. He
not only painted good portraits ; he could endow
them with the sublimity of great pictures, as In his
' Mrs. Siddons,' or could render them exquisitely
fanciful and sportive, as in the ' Lady Cockburn
and her Children.' In dealing with childhood.
Sir Joshua had an unerring touch — a touch instinct
with insight and tender love. We see it wonder
fully revealed in his ' Age of Innocence,' a portrait
of a little Devonshire grandniece. Wherever he
went Sir Joshua's eyes were open to notice the
children : peasant children, the little beggars in the
streets, all presented some grace of attitude, some
beauty of colouring, which his eyes were ready to
notice and his pencil to seize. He not only prac
tised his art nobly, but could discourse of it elo
quently and wisely. It has been a pleasure here
to speak of him as a son of Devonshire, but he
was something far more than a local genius ; his
art was for the world, and for all tirae. For his
sake Plympton is a sacred spot to all lovers of art,
and its old schoolhouse a temple of painting.
Four notable painters studied as boys within these
walls — Reynolds, Northcote, Eastlake, Haydon ;
but the greatest of these Is Reynolds,

109

HERRICK IN DEVON,
AND SOME OTHER MEMORIES
We make a great deal about the birthplace of a
great writer or notable man ; surely there is equal
propriety in speaking of the birthplace of a book.
The book, like the man, is often largely the result
of environment. It is, therefore, not an idle boast
that a volume containing some of the most ex
quisite lyric verse ever published in the English
language was born in Devonshire, The ' Hes-
perides ' of Robert Herrick is a garland of Devon
flowers that he brought to London from his par
sonage on the Dartmoor border. He abused
Devon and its people, seldom allowing himself to
say a good word for either ; he regarded his stay
here much as a tedious banishment ; yet he was
bound to confess that the locality was kindly to
his muse. ' More discontents I never had.
Since I was born, than here ;
Where I have been and still am sad
In this dull Devonshire. IIO

HERRICK IN DEVON
Yet justly, too, I must confess
I ne'er invented such
Ennobled numbers for the press.
Than where I loathed so much.'
The recognition is sufficiently grudging, yet we
thank him for it. His parsonage at Dean Prior
was situated in one of the most lovely districts
of the Dartmoor borderland. Westward rise the
heights of Ugborough and Three Barrows and
Brent Moor ; northward is the noble-placed
Buckfast Abbey, reminding one by Its site of the
glorious monastic houses in Yorkshire ; and the
beautiful Dart winds past Holne Bridge and Buck-
fast and Staverton to Totnes, Dittisham, Dart
mouth. Visited freely enough by tourists — for
the railway comes as near as Brent and Buckfast-
leigh — the peaceful and romantic charm of the
district is not yet spoiled. The air that blows
from the moors has usually a bracing and tonic
vigour, even in summer, reminding us that
it comes from a land of heather, desolate tors,
dark morasses ; but here all is luxuriance and
fertility. In Herrick's time, doubtless, the spot was lonely
enough, with poor means of intercourse ; even
now the population of the parish of Dean Prior
is less than 300, and there Is nothing to show
that there were more three centuries since.
Roads were worse, and conveyances fewer ; educa-
III

LITERARY RAMBLES
tion and enlightenment were limited ; there was
much superstition and rauch Ignorance.
In spite of this, it was an ideal retirement for a
poet. But Herrick was of the town, of the Court.
Richmond or Hampton would have provided as
much rustic retirement as he cared for. Though
he had deep spiritual instincts, the sensuous part
of his nature was well developed ; he would have
been more at home in St. James's Park or Ver
sailles than among the blunt country squires and
peasants of Devonshire. He felt this to the full ;
but though in his poetry he utters many complaints,
he does not seem to be really unhappy. Very
often his verse sparkles with gaiety and merri
ment ; he could make much of his pastoral sur
roundings ; he allowed their spirit to permeate
hira. The subjects they inspired are better than
the fopperies and gallantries of town would have
been. He became a Devonshire poet — more truly
so than Coleridge, who was born here. We are
only here concerned with the Devonshire life of-
Herrick, yet It is not araiss to raention that he
was born In Cheapside, in the year 1591. He
came of a long-lived stock, himself reaching the
age of eighty-three ; and of his grandmother, who
died aged ninety-seven. It Is stated on her tomb
stone that ' she did see before her departure, of her
children and her children's children, to the number
112

HERRICK IN DEVON
of 142.' Apprenticed to his uncle, a goldsmith,
the poet left trade and entered Cambridge, where
he graduated.
For some years he seems to have lived among
the wits and poets of Ben^ Jonson's circle — gaily
enough, we cannot doubt; but in 1629 he took
Orders, and was , presented to the living of Dean
Prior. It is like the Irony of fate that such a
man should receive such a living ; yet Herrick's
friends were wealthy : he must have enjoyed plenty
of patronage, had he desired it. Why did he come
to Devonshire at all, if it was so distasteful to
him.'' He raust have known clearly what such
a country parsonage would be like. Perhaps he
' protested too much,' and really preferred country
life, though he chose to persuade his town friends
that it was an abhorrence to him. We have the
incontrovertible fact that he held the Dean living
for eighteen years, until he was ejected by the
Puritans, and he returned as soon as the Restora
tion made it possible. Actions speak louder than
words, A residence of thirty years in Devon,
which can hardly have been compulsory, must
weigh something against the grumblings and abuse
In the poems. Yet the lines he wrote on leaving
Dean, when the Puritan Syms was appointed to
his living, are impolite, to say the least, and contain
also a prophecy that he lived to prove false,
113 H

LITERARY RAMBLES
' Dean-Bourn, farewell ; I never look to see
Dean or thy warty incivility.
Rocky thou art, and rocky we discover
Thy men, and rocky are thy ways all over.
O men, O manners ; now and ever known
To be a rocky generation !
A people currish, churlish as the seas,
And rude almost as rudest savages.
With whom I did, and may resojourn when
Rocks turn to rivers, rivers turn to men.'
Of his life in Devon we know little more than
we can gather from his writings, and these writings
are in varying moods. They have all the incon
sistency of a vagrant fancy. In the poem on ' A
Country Life,' addressed to his brother, he gives
a beautiful description of such a state ; and in
' A Thanksgiving to God for his House,' he writes
with a spirit of full contentment :
'A little house, whose humble roof
Is weatherproof,
Under the spars ofwhich I lie
Both soft and dry. . . .
Low is my porch, as is my fate,
Both void of state ;
And yet the threshold of my door
Is worn by th' poor,
Who thither come and freely get
Good words or meat.
Like as my parlour, so my hall
And kitchen's small ;
A little buttery, and therein
A little bin.'
He proceeds to speak of the sticks that make
114

HERRICK IN DEVON
his fire ; the pulse, worts, purslane, and watercress,
that garnish his meal ; the spiced wassail-bowls,
the eggs, the lambs, the cream. There Is nothing
here but the fullest joyful satisfaction ; and in
another poem he apostrophises ' sweet country
life.' Living as he did In a centre of rustic
'eves and holidays,' he enumerates these In a
manner that proves they must have had their vital
interest for him :
' Thy wakes, thy quintals, here thou hast.
Thy Maypoles too with garlands graced.
Thy morris-dance, thy Whitsun-ale,
Thy shearing feast, which never fail ;
Thy harvest home, thy wassail-bowl.
That's tossed up after fox-i'-th'-hole,
Thy mummeries, thy Twelfthtide kings
And queens, thy Christmas revellings,
Thy nut-brown mirth, thy russet wit,
And no man pays too dear for it.'
Every phase of country life, every passing
mood, finds expression in some snatch of lyric
or some pungent epigram. In spite of the im
mortal Julia and Silvia, and Anthea and Perilla,
the poet-parson remained unmarried :
' Chaste I lived, without a wife ;
That's the story of my life.'
But he had an incomparable ' maid Prue,' whom
we raay take to have been his housekeeper, and
who in return for her fidelity has won undying
115 H 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
fame. Speaking of the birds that leave us at the
coming of winter, Herrick writes ;
' But thou, kind Prue, did'st with my fates abide
As well the winter's as the summer's tide ;
For which thy love, live with thy master here.
Not one, but all the seasons of the year.'
Wnen she is sick, he becomes Pagan, and vows
to offer a cock to ^Esculapius for her recovery.
When she dies, and Is burled in the churchyard of
Dean Prior, he writes :
' In this little urn is laid
Prudence Baldwin, once my maid,
From whose happy spark here let
Spring the purple violet.'
We must not conceive from this that Prudence
was a youthful damsel ; her burial is entered in
the register as ' Prudence Balden, an olde maid.'
In this Dean Prior church there Is a handsome
monument to Sir Edward Giles, of Dean Court,
with an epitaph written by Herrick. But while
things like these more directly link him to the
locality, there are hundreds of touches In his
poems which speak equally loudly of a Devonshire
origin. Who does not know his lovely poem ' To
Daffodils '— ' Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon ';
and where are there more rich and plentiful
daffodils to be found than here in the West
u6

HERRICK IN DEVON
Country ? We know that the poet has rambled
among these meadows and gathered with his own
hand the ' primroses filled with morning dew,' the
wild-roses, the lilies, the lurking violets ; he has
bidden the daisies not to shut so soon, and has
watched the glow-worms, asking them to lend their
light to Julia. He has played at stool-ball with
Lucia, and been to the village fair with Anthea.
Every rustic sport and festival has drawn his
notice, and most of his neighbours seem to have
been mentioned at least once in some poem. We
can hardly imagine that throughout this long
residence — only interrupted by the Commonwealth,
and resumed as soon as circumstances permitted —
he was really unhappy and pining for the town.
He was probably more sincere when he said that
' whatever comes content makes sweet ' than when,
forced to leave, he wrote :
' First, let us dwell on rudest seas ;
Next, with severest salvages ;
Last, let us make our best abode
Where human foot as yet ne'er trod ;
Search worlds of ice, and rather there
Dwell, than in loathed Devonshire.'
Herrick died in 1674, a few days before the
death of Milton, and was buried in the graveyard
of his own church. The exact spot cannot now
be traced, but an indirect descendant has placed
a tablet in the church to his memory. He lives in
117

LITERARY RAMBLES
literature as one of the last of those wonderful
lyrists that distinguished the period from Elizabeth
to the Restoration ; yet beautiful as they often
are, his works mark the decadence of that lyrical
outburst. At his best his songs cannot be sur
passed for lucid melody, but rather often there
are conceits and artifices ; many of the pieces are
too fragmentary, and the epigrams are sometimes
revolting rather than pleasing. There are also
a few Indecencies to be condoned ; but we feel that
this country parson knew his own character fairly
well, and sometimes deplored its genial weaknesses.
There must have been a true sense of religion in
the man who could write the ' Litany to the Holy
Spirit': ' In the hour .of my distress.
When temptations me oppress.
And when I my sins confess.
Sweet Spirit, comfort me.'
Though he treated amorous subjects freely, there
Is no doubt at all that in this particular his ' bark
was worse than his bite.' We may safely accept
his own assertion :
'Jocund his Muse was, but his life was chaste.'
Dean Prior takes Its name from the Priory
of Plympton, to which it belonged, passing
at the Dissolution to the family of Giles. Sir
Edward Giles, long Member of Parliament for
ii8

HERRICK IN DEVON
Totnes, was worthy even of an epitaph by Her
rick. Beginning life as a soldier in the Low
Countries, he lived to be a remonstrai\t against
ship-money. Only about two miles north of Dean Combe is
Buckfast, where a settlement of Benedictines is
renewing the monastic life of centuries ago. There
was a wealthy religious house at Buckfast in the
days ofthe Conquest, as there was also at Tavistock;
that of Buckland carae later. It seems almost
certain that the original abbey was Benedictine,
which gives appropriateness to its revival by monks
of the same rule ; but in the twelfth century it
became Cistercian, and remained so until the
Dissolution. Lovely in its situation, rich In its
manors, the abbey also did a thriving trade in
woollens ; and it was largely for the convenience
of its pack-horses that the Abbot's Way was
constructed across Dartmoor to Buckland and
Tavistock, at a time when there was no other
road. Their sheep, feeding on the border moor
lands, supplied plenty of wool to the weavers.
On feast-days there was unfailing fruit and Devon
cream ; on fast-days there was ample fish from
the Dart. That the fish was duly valued we
know from the fact that one of the abbots, named
Simons, who flourished about the middle of the
fourteenth century, conducted several litigations
119

LITERARY RAMBLES
in defence of fishery rights. This same abbot
had an action brought against him by one of his
tenants, or villeins, for theft of property ; but the
abbot claimed that there was no case, the villein
having no legal rights. It was actually decided,
scandalously enough, that the Churchman was
right. The country labourer was still a mere
chattel in those days.
After the breaking up of the monastery the
ruins remained for about three centuries as a
diminishing reminder of what had once been.
At last, in 1 8 8 2, a party of French monks bought
the site ; monastic rule was re-established, with
ringing of bells and lighting of tapers ; the spirit
of the old world returned to Its former habitation
by the Dart. Close by. In the active little town
of Buckfasdeigh, the old woollen industry also
survives ; but it has admitted change — It pulses
with the strong life-blood of a new age. The
townsfolk still make woollens, as they did in the
former days of the abbots ; but they have admitted
modernism to their methods, and this Is the secret
why the trade has survived, while almost every
where else in Devon it has succumbed.
But Rome changes not ; the rule, the ritual,
the dogma, is what it was. So far as possible,
the monks have Incorporated the remains of the
former abbey, and in time they hope to gather
I20

HERRICK IN DEVON
enough wealth to rebuild the great abbey church
in such a manner that it may rival or surpass its
old wonderful beauty. In such a spot, perhaps,
we can hardly grudge the presence of monks,
though we may dislike their method and dread
their teachings. Romantically, at least, they are
appropriate to the place ; they give It that pic
turesqueness of sentiment that Is so dear to many.
But the country parson, the pastor of the wayside
Bethel, has now to contend face to face with the
shaven priest ; the Reformation has to be fought
over again ; and behind the priest lies the long
purse of his wealthy patrons, the broad, fertile
acres of gift or purchase.
Fifteen or sixteen years since, Richard Jefferles
penned some striking words in his essay on ' The
Country Sunday. ' He said : ' The tonsured
priest, and the monastery, and the nunnery, and
the Mass, and the Virgin Mary, have grown to
be a very great power indeed in English lanes. . . .
In some places whole villages belong to English
monks, and there is not a man or woman in them
who is not a Catholic ; there are even small
country towns which, by dint of time, money, and
territorial influence, have been reabsorbed, and are
now as completely Catholic as they were before
Henry VIIL' If Jefferles, no prejudiced observer,
could write thus in 1887, what would he write
121

LITERARY RAMBLES
now.^ For thousands more monks have elected
to leave France, and have flocked to England.
In no part is their presence more manifest than In
the West. Truly enough, the tonsured priest is
becoming a power among the peasantry; he has
long been a power among the gentry.
About five miles north of Dean Prior, on the
banks of the Dart, there is localized another great
literary memory — very different from that of
Herrick, though again it is that of a clergyman.
At the vicarage of Holne, on June 12, 1819, was
born Charles Kingsley. He may be said to have
only been a Devonian by accident, for his father
came from Hampshire ; and as a Devonian his
associations are far more close with North Devon
than with Dartmoor or the south. His father
was merely taking temporary charge of the living
when the boy Charles was born, and the parsonage,
as the register tells us, ' being very dilapidated,
was taken down and rebuilt by the vicar in the
year 1832.' There is, therefore, little left at
Holne to remind us of Kingsley, and the father
left before the glorious scenery could have made
any Impression on the baby eyes. It was in 1849
that he paid his first conscious visit to Dartmoor,
and was deeply impressed ; naturally, the visit
Included Holne.
Climbing to an eminence above the Dart, his
122

HERRICK IN DEVON
native stream, he writes : ' I was alone with God
and the hills, the Dart winding down a thousand
feet below : I could only pray. It is an infinite
relief and rest to me to have seen even some little
of the Moor. I was always from a child longing
for it, and now, thank God, that is fulfilled. To
morrow I walk to Holne by Cator's Beam, over
the highest mountain on the South Moor, from
which all the South Devon streams rise. Sunday
I spend at Holne.' But the meraoir tells us
nothing about that Sunday, which is just what
we should like to know.
Soon after the boy's birth the father removed to
the Fen Country, and then, when the lad was
eleven years old, came back to Devon, becoming
Rector of Clovelly. To his dying day he loved
Clovelly, as the dearest and loveliest spot on earth.
Though his story takes him to Plymouth In ' West
ward Ho !' it is North Devon that he loves to
glorify in his books — Clovelly, BIdeford, Northam,
Lundy, and the district of Exmoor. But the
visitor to Holne will not easily forget that this
great-hearted and intellectually-gifted man was
born here — the writer of novels -that throb with
life, emotion, and vivid history ; of a few lyrics that
can never die ; of sermons that induced a more
generous and Christian theology. Devon is glad
that the father of Charles Kingsley came to Holne.
123

LITERARY RAMBLES
Holne Church, built In 1310, belonged to the
Abbey of Buckfast. The manor is mentioned
in Domesday under its present name, which is
simply the old Saxon plural of ' holly,' for which
the Chase is still reraarkable. Holne Chase,
together with the Buckland Drives, on the oppo
site bank of the river, is the finest piece of wood
land on the Dartmoor borders. At, one time it
certainly formed part of the Forest itself Every.
mile of this valley of the Dart has a beauty that
is transformed to sublimity when we see the mighty
tors rising beyond. It is a magnificent gateway to
the moorland.
There are some notable names that attach to the
town of Ashburton, such as those of Dunning
and William GIfford ; but a parish lying a few
miles north has a more striking raeraory. In
Ilsington, the parish of Heytor, is the Manor
House of Bagtor, formerly belonging to the Fords ;
and here, in 1586, was born the dramatist, John
Ford. He was a giant among giants ; yet little
is known of his life, nothing of his death. The
church in which he was christened Is an interesting
Perpendicular building, with a fine corbelled roof,
and beautiful, though mutilated, screen. Some of
the old bench-ends bear the arms ofthe Pomeroys.
The name of Ford links Devon with the great
age of the drama. He was bred to the law,
124

HERRICK IN DEVON
entered at Exeter College, Oxford, and later
belonged to the Middle Temple, Probably his
family was one of wealth ; among local charities
Is an endowment of six acres, to be used for the
schooling of poor children, left by Jane Ford in
1665. It does not appear what relation she was
to the poet. Ford's dramatic career lasted for
about twenty-five years, during which he col
laborated with Dekker, Rowley, and Webster,
besides producing plays entirely his own ; after
this period, in 1639 or 1640, he is supposed to
have retired into Devonshire, and lived quietly
until his death. Some state that Sir Henry Ford,
Irish Secretary in the time of Charles II., was his
grandson. Of the dramatist's personal character
we know little, but we can guess much from the
striking couplet penned by some nameless con
temporary, which gives a vivid portrait at a touch :
'Deep in a dump John Ford alone was got.
With folded arms and melancholy hat.'
From this and from his works we may conclude
that he was a reserved, unsociable man, with
gloomy spirit and a strain of morbidity ; but the
morbidness, of subject and treatment, is a char
acteristic trait of the times, so far as the draraa is
concerned, from which even Shakespeare is not
wholly free. With no humour whatever — a serious
lack in a dramatist — Ford's command of tragedy
125

LITERARY RAMBLES
Is very great. Referring to his ' Broken Heart,'
Charles Lamb says : ' I do not know where to find
in any play a catastrophe so grand, so solemn, and
so surprising as in this. Ford was of the first
order of poets. He sought for sublimity, not by
parcels, in metaphors or visible Images, but directly
where she has her full residence in the heart of
man — in the actions and sufferings of the noblest
minds. There is a grandeur in the soul above
mountains, seas, and the elements.'
All critics have not endorsed this verdict ;
but Hallam, while ranking Ford much below
Masslnger in general power, conceived that he
had ' In a much higher degree the power over
tears ; we sympathize even with his vicious char
acters.' Though his works are now the study of
the scholar rather than of the general reader, and
have lost all hold of the stage. Ford was a man
of original and powerful genius ; and an in
terest must ever attach to the house at Bagtor,
raodernized as it is, in which he first saw the
light. Hardly on the Dartmoor border, but situated
In a district of rich beauty, there is another parish,
about ten miles south of Ilsington, to which a very
different literary Interest attaches. This is Dart-
ington, near Totnes, the Derentun of Domes
day, whose rector for many years was the Venerable
126

HERRICK IN DEVON
R. H. Froude, Archdeacon of Totnes, Here,
in 1818, was born James Anthony Froude, the
great historian of that period of English history,
when Devon's activity and fame were at their
height. Here also was born his brother, R. Hurrell
Froude. Somehow, the closer personal association
of Froude seems to be with Salcombe, where he
lived in his later years, and where he died ; but to
all who love England and her heroic memories
the parsonage of Dartington must ever be a sacred
spot. The character of Froude has been aspersed
lately — unwisely aspersed, and perhaps unwisely
defended ; It has been pitted against that of a
great man with whom his relations were those of
the sincerest friendship. But we must remember
that the gravest charge against Froude is merely
a question of discretion, as a man, and as historian
a question of accuracy. The former point we may
leave, not wishing to lessen two great names by
condescending to the fruitless bitterness of a
posthumous squabble ; the point of accuracy may
also be left for those whose chief concern is the
letter, not the spirit, to whom a wrong date or
error of detail is the unpardonable sin. Froude
wrote something like a grand epic of English
history ; he wrote it as a dramatic and picturesque
historian, not as an antiquarian drudge. To realize
127

LITERARY RAMBLES
how beautifully he could write on many varying
subjects we only have to turn to his shorter studies,
and we can appreciate his discernment and fore
sight if we consider his sketches of South Africa
in the light of subsequent events. Conceptions of
history must always be different, some Insisting on
a literalness of chronicle which is practically im
possible, while others prefer a masterly grouping
of events, an eliciting of their inner truth, a vivid
picturing of scene, and a colour that makes the
picture live. In this latter school Froude must
rank with Macaulay and Carlyle ; but he is greater
than Macaulay in depth and variety of tone —
greater than Carlyle in beauty and lucidity of
style. Carlyle was more a philosopher than
historian ; his Frederick, and probably his Crom
well, were as strongly Idealized as Froude's
Henry VIII.
The present church of Dartington is not that
which formerly stood close to Dartington House.
The situation of this was found inconvenient, and
in 1878 the structure was removed to the present
spot, but the old Champernowne monuments, un
happily, did not corae with it. However, the fine
pulpit and beautiful screen are preserved in the
new building. Dartington House has been a seat
of the Champernownes since the sixteenth century,
but the great hall and kitchen were certainly built
128

HERRICK IN DEVON
much earlier than this — probably by the Duke of
Exeter, half-brother of Richard II. A curious
thing is related of Gawaine Champernowne. He
was married to a French Huguenot lady, daughter
of the Comte de Montgomeri, and her behaviour
was such that he obtained a divorce in 1582. The
singular fact is, that after the divorce was gained
wife and husband immediately came together again,
and lived on the best of terms, five children being
born to them — strictly in illegitimacy. But the
heir, having been born previously, was safe from
the results of the divorce.
This district is so rich in loveliness of scenery
and in variety of topographic association that it is
difficult to tear one's self away. But the wealth of
such detail belongs more strictly to books of the
guide-book order. This sketch has simply sought
to touch on its literary memories. Herrick,
Kingsley, Ford, Froude — it is no mean record for
a few miles of country, and three of these were
natives. As to the fourth, the poet Herrick, parts
of his writings will be found a wholesorae correc
tive If Devonians find themselves too rauch puffed
up with local patriotism — which, unluckily, they
are sometimes disposed to be.

129

WITH KEATS AT TEIGNMOUTH
It must be confessed that to the loyal West
Country raind John Keats, exquisite poet as he
was, must ever appear something of a monstrosity.
Here was a man who was connected by paternity
with the West, yet he never paraded the fact on
the house-tops ; he may be said almost to have
kept it a secret. He was quite content to be
considered a Londoner. Not only so, but when
he did visit Devonshire he did little but abuse
that delightsome county, and hardly a sentence
that he wrote about It would bear quotation at
a Devonian dinner. It is true that he came to
Devon when in ill health, and at a period when
the climate of that county, as is sometimes its
wont, was indulging in a superfluity of rainfall.
It is true also that the spirit of locality never
greatly affected Keats as it did Wordsworth ;
he was a creature of town and suburbs, with no
taste for archaeology, slight feeling for history,
and only a partial regard for tradition, ' The
130

WITH KEATS AT TEIGNMOUTH
light that never was on sea or shore' could
illumine his way just as well In the smoky city as
by the flashing sea.
Difficult as it is to explain, his letters written
fi-om Devonshire are not to be read with pride
by the faithful Devonian. They are to be
perused with private grudging and despair and
wonderment, and a charitable hushing-up of their
excesses. But, perhaps, if a man wished to brave
martyrdom,, he might carry the volume to the
next meeting of Devonians in London, or some
kindred gathering, and read a choice selection of
extracts. In the outburst of frenzy that would
follow, poor Keats would be left with few rags
of reputation remaining to him, unless more sober
counsels prevailed, and the gathered clans from
Devon resolved to pity and forgive.
Interesting as the question Is, it is not possible
to say whether Thomas Keats, the poet's father,
was a Devonshire man or a Cornishman. His
own daughter stated that she had heard It said
in her childhood that he came from Land's End.
One might Imagine that this would be considered
final, but it has not been held so. Some believe
that Thomas Keats came from Plymouth to
London, in which case he might still be originally
a Cornishman, Plymouth being the Cornishman's
metropolis. It ought to be still possible for the
131 I 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
point to be raade plain. The one thing that is
certain is that Thomas Keats came up from the
West Country, and obtained a position as osder
at the livery stables of John Jennings, Finsbury,
Charles Armitage Brown, the poet's friend, who
ought to have known, says he was a 'native of'
Devon,' There are persons spelling their name
in the same way both at Plyfhouth and Bristol,
Keats clearly approved himself to his employer,
and to his employer's daughter, whom he married ;
and on October 29, 1795, was born their eldest
son, the poet. The fether is described as a man
of remarkably fine common -sense, respectable
bearing, and native energy ; he was short, with
an eager countenance like his son's, brown hair,
and hazel eyes. He died of a fall from a horse
when John was nine years old. It Is worthy of
notice that early in the last century there was a
notable naval commander bearing the same name.
Admiral Sir Richard Godwin Keats, who after
wards became Governor of Greenwich Hospital.
It is not claimed that the Admiral had any
connection with the family of the poet ; but
when we remember that Sir Richard came from
BIdeford, and that the name Keats, spelt in this
fashion, is very rare, we can hardly avoid con
cluding that the original stock may have been
the same. Those who knew John Keats in his
132

WITH KEATS AT TEIGNMOUTH
boyhood always thought he would achieve distinc
tion in a military capacity rather than in literature,
and it is interesting to find even so slight a link
as that of a mere name between the brave-spirited
young poet and a gallant naval hero.
It was in the March of 1 8 1 8 that John Keats
joined his brother Tora at the beautiful little
watering-place of Teignmouth. Tom was dying
fast of consumption ; John himself was in a poor
enough condition of health, with the seeds of the
same fell disease lurking in his constitution. The
medical faculty of those days generally concluded
that warmth was the best friend of consumptives ;
open-air methods of treatment had not come into
practice, but mildness of climate was sought for,
and the counteracting dangers of humidity were
not sufficiently recognised, A more bracing air
would certainly have been better for the two
brothers ; in spite of the beauties and advantages
of Teignmouth, It can scarcely be doubted that
North Devon or Dartmoor would have better
suited their complaint. After some uncertainty,
it has been decided that they lodged at the house
now numbered 35, The Strand,
It seems strange that there should be any doubt
about a spot of such permanent interest ; but it
must be remembered that the reputation of Keats
was almost entirely posthumous, and that he never
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LITERARY RAMBLES
became really popular. By the time that curiosity
was aroused with regard to his Teignmouth lodg
ing, those few who might have spoken with
certainty were dead, and the exact residence had
to be decided upon chiefly by inference from
the poet's writings. He speaks of ' the girls
over at the bonnet shop,' and the shop is still sur
viving. The brothers George and Tom Keats had
already been established at this lodging through
the winter, and now John came, apparently to
take the place of George in nursing Tom, - and
because his friends were a little anxious about his
own health. They had good friends at Teign
mouth in Mrs. Jeffrey and her daughters ; it Is
not quite clear how the intimacy arose, though
it is easy to understand how it ripened into
friendship. Teignmouth is a place that, not having had
much history to speak of, makes the most of the
fact that in 1690 it was burnt by the French;
this explains the name of French Street, It had
been burnt once before by French pirates, in 1340,
and had doubtless been in the trouble of lOoi,
when the Danes landed and destroyed ' Tegntun,'
at which tirae, we may feel sure, there were a
few fishermen's cottages here at the mouth of
the river.
But the burning of 1690 had really some
134

WITH KEATS AT TEIGNMOUTH
national importance, for it showed England what
it might expect if the French friends of the
Jacobites had their way, and was thus useful
in consolidajting the position of William III.
Admiral Tourville, with a commission from the
French King and from James II,, made a display
of his fleet in Torbay, but the gentlemen and
yeomen of Devon put in so prompt an appearance
on the shore, ready to give a warm welcome, that
he thought it prudent to raove off. So he brought
his galleys to poor little Teignmouth, and here
had time to make a demonstration before the
defence was ready. The inhabitants were first
frightened away by such a bombardment as the
naval gunnery of those days could raanage, and it
must be confessed that they played their part of
being frightened with great celerity.
Was Keats thinking of this when he wrote,
' Were I a corsair, I'd make a descent on the
south coast of Devon, if I did not run the chance
of having cowardice imputed to me. As for the
men, they'd run away into the Methodist meeting
houses, and the women would be glad of it'.?
Such wo'rds are not to be recommended for the
perusal of ardent Devonians, but they may pass,
for the poor poet was unwell and cross, and the
weather was wet when he wrote them.
It is certain that everyone capable of moving
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LITERARY RAMBLES
disappeared from Teignmouth, leaving the homes
and churches to the mercy of the invaders, who
pillaged and destroyed and at last set fire. In
fact, one of the inhabitants, a curate, disappeared
so effectually that he was never heard of after.
It Is said that the French were only on shore
about three hours, but they did their work
thoroughly, and had contrived to deal a fatal
blow to the cause they were supposed to be
serving. In thousands of parish churches through
out ' the kingdom was read the story of the
French landing, serving a double purpose : by its
means contributions were gathered for the relief
of the ravaged town, and the people were warned
what they might expect if James II. was allowed
to land with a foreign army behind him. The
political capital made out of the event may not
have been quite fair, but It was natural.
After reading of this, it is clear we raust not
expect to find much architectural antiquity at
Teignmouth, though the churches, except in
ternally, could not be much damaged in the
space of a few hours. Restoration, however,
accomplished what the enemy had failed to do,
and little remains to East Teignmouth Church
but a good position and fair tower ; while the
Perpendicular church of West Teignmouth has
been converted into an octagonal monstrosity.
136

WITH KEATS AT TEIGNMOUTH
But Teignmouth, both inner and outer, is very
interesting. Within the spit of sandbank that blocks the
estuary nestle the fishing-boats and the coasters,
around quays that have a flavour of nautical
quaintness ; while on the opposite shore of the
river, within shelter of the Ness, are the snug
little villages of Shaldon and Ringmore. Between
these and Teignmouth runs the long toll-bridge,
like a great centipede, once boasting of being
the longest wooden bridge in the country. This
bridge was not here in Keats's day ; if he went
to Shaldon, he went by ferry, as we may do still,
Leland was here much earlier ; he tells us that
' the very utter west point of land at the mouthe
of the Teigne is cauUid the Nesse, and is very
high red cliffe ground.' He also speaks of the
' sandy ground caullld the Deane,' now the Den,
the name having been explained as a corruption
of Dane, but being more probably dune. It
is a stretch of sand converted into a garden,
facing which are the best lodging-houses ; In the
front we have the conventional pier and bathing-
machines. To the eastward runs a deservedly popular
promenade, along a powerful sea-wall that protects
the main Great Western line ; eastward still is
dear little Dawlish, and the legendary rocks of
137

LITERARY RAMBLES
the Parson and Clerk. Behind Teignmouth and
Dawlish, a miniature Dartmoor, rise the Haldon.
Hills, which, unhappily, seem to regard It as
their mission to collect rain for the neighbouring
district. They are beautiful enough, but, as
Keats once mildly suggested, what is the good
of beautiful scenery if you don't see it ?
Such was the place in which the poet found
himself in this March of 1818. His impressions
are not exhilarating. ' You may say what you
will of Devonshire: the truth is, it is a splashy,
rainy, misty, snowy, foggy, hally, floody, muddy,
slipshod county. The hills are very beautiful,
when you get a sight of 'em ; the primroses are
out, but then you are in ; the cliffs are of a fine
deep colour, but then the clouds are continually
vieing with them.' Having abused the weather,
he proceeded to be very rude to the natives. ' I
think it well for the honour of Britain that Julius
Caesar did not first land In this county. A Devon-
shirer standing on his native hills is not a distinct
object : he does not show against the light ; a
wolf or two would dispossess him. ... O
Devonshire, last night I thought the moon had
dwindled in heaven !'
What had the men of Devon done to merit
such a castigation ? It is very well to have a
poor historic sense, but at least Keats might have
138

WITH KEATS AT TEIGNMOUTH
remembered that the county he was slandering
had given birth to heroes like Drake, and Raleigh,
and Monk, and the Duke of Marlborough. It
is useless, however, to fret at what may have
been only a poet's license ; nor must we expect
everyone to treat Devonshire with the respect
that would satisfy all its natives. A county is
fair food for criticism — especially when it has
somewhat highly vaunted itself. A little correc
tive is useful soraetiraes. We will turn to another
dose of Keats:
'Being agog to see some Devonshire, I would
have taken a walk the first day, but the rain
would not let rae ; and the second, but the rain
would not let me ; and the third, but the rain
forbade it. Ditto four, ditto five, ditto ; so I
made up my mind to stop Indoors. . . . The green
is beautiful, as they say, and pity it Is that it is
amphibious. The flowers here wait as naturally
for the rain twice a day as the mussels do for the
tide. This Devonshire is like Lyd-Ia Languish,
very entertaining when it smiles, but cursedly
subject to sympathetic moisture.'
A few days later he was writing to Haydon,
himself a Devonian ; and, indeed, it Is probable that
mutual friends had already shown some of his
letters to the painter. Though again abusing the
rainfall, Keats now finds it in him to say some-
139

LITERARY RAMBLES
thing good : ' I have enjoyed the most delightful
walks these three days, beautiful enough to make
me content here all the summer, could I stay.'
And his newly -awakened enthusiasm suddenly
launches him into verse :
' For there's Bishop's Teign,
And King's Teign,
And Coombe at the clear Teign-head —
Where close by the stream
You may have your cream
All spread upon barley bread.
' There is Newton Marsh,
With its spear-grass harsh,
A pleasant summer level
Where the maidens sweet
Of the Market Street
Do meet in the dusk to revel.'
And so on for half a dozen verses, following
which he gives us a fresh piece of Devon lyric In
another vein :
' Where be you going, you Devon maid.
And what have ye there in the basket ?
Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy.
Will ye give me some cream if I ask it ?
' I love your hills and I love your dales,
And I love your flocks a-bleating —
But O, on the heather to lie together,
With both our hearts a-beating.'
It seemed as though a sudden turn of fine weather
was putting new life and spirit into the young poet,
who was always immediately responsive to external
influences, and who needed the brightest environ-
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WITH KEATS AT TEIGNMOUTH
ment, poor fellow, to contend with the deadly
shadow that was at his side and in his own heart.
It is worth while to give Haydon's reply to this
letter of prose and rhyme, or at least to give a
portion of it.
The ipoem he refers to is ' Endymion,' which
was nearing completion, and whose last touches
were given at Teignmouth, 'I am most happy
to hear your poem is advancing to publication.
God grant it the most complete success, and
may its reputation equal your genius. Devon
shire has somehow or other the character of
being rainy, but I must own to you I do not
think it more so than any other county. And
pray remember the time of year ; it has rained
in town almost incessantly ever since you went
away — the fact is, you dog, you carried the rain
with you as Ulysses did the winds, and then,
opening your rain-bags, you look round with a
knowing wink, and say, " Curse this Devonshire,
how it rains !" Stay till the summer, and then
look into its deep blue summer sky, and lush
grass, and tawny banks, and silver bubbling rivers.
You must not leave Devonshire without seeing
some of its wild scenery, rocky, mossy, craggy,
with roaring rivers and as clear as crystal — it will
do your mind good.' All which, for a Devonian,
is most just and reasonably expressed,
141

LITERARY RAMBLES
A few days later Keats was sending the last
pages of his ' Endymion ' to the publishers, with
its preface written at Teignmouth. Teignmouth
ought to be proud of having thus, in a manner,
given birth to a poem which, with all its youthful
faults, is still one of the most exquisite works of
the nineteenth century. It would be unkind,
however, to ask Teignmouth folk if they have read
* Endymion,' though it is probable that most of
them know its first line, and quote It unconscious
of Its source. Those who imagine that Keats
was an ultra-sensitive, hypochondriacal poet, always
brooding over his productions and suffering from
the brutal criticism to which they were exposed,
will find from his letters that he was singularly
free from such self-absorbed weakness.
In one written just about the time that
' Endymion ' was despatched to its publishers, he
gives an imaginary anecdote which had better not
find its way Into the Devon guide-books. He
says : ' I have heard that Milton ere he wrote his
answer to Salmasius came into these parts, and
for one whole month rolled himself for three
hours a day in a certain meadow hard by us,
where the mark of his nose at equidistances is
still shown. The exhibitor of the said meadow
further saith that, after these rollings, not a nettle
sprang up In all the seven acres for seven years. . . .
142

WITH KEATS AT TEIGNMOUTH
This account made rae very naturally suppose
that the nettles and thorns etherealized by the
scholar's rotary motion, and garnered in his head,
thence flew, after a process of fermentation, against
the luckless Salmasius, and occasioned his well-
known and unhappy end.' Visitors to Teign
mouth need not trouble to look for that meadow,
nor seek for the indentations made by the poet's
nose. At the conclusion of the sarae letter Keats
breaks into rhyme : ' I went yesterday to Dawlish
fair.' ' Over the hill and over the dale.
And over the Bourne to Dawlish,
Where ginger-bread wives have a scanty sale.
And ginger-bread nuts are smallish.'
Doubtless this was the fair that still takes place
at Dawlish on Easter Mondays. Dawlish at that
time was beginning to prosper as a bathing-place,
and had recovered from its disastrous flood of
1810, when the brook that flows so pleasantly
through the lawn had washed away houses and
bridges. The snug little resort had already
won a place In literature ; we read in ' Sense and
Sensibility ' that ' it seemed rather surprising to
hira that anybody could live in Devonshire with
out living near Dawlish,' proving that the spot
loomed large in the minds of persons little
acquainted with the county. A day later Keats
143

LITERARY RAMBLES
was writing to his friend Reynolds, and passes
from prosaic abuse to rhyme that breaks Into true
poetry. ' The rain is come on again. I think
with me Devonshire stands a very poor chance.
I shall damn it up hill and down dale if it keep
to the average of six fine days in three weeks,'
But sorae of us have known the three weeks
without even the six fine days. The familiar
lines that follow occasionally rise to loveliness, and
near the close give a genuine touch of Teign
mouth scenery : ' 'Twas a quiet eve.
The rocks were silent, the wide sea did weave
An untumultuous fringe of silver foam
Along the flat brown sand.'
The rain continued, but It did not prevent the
poet from having some delightful rambles, one of
which took him along the coast towards Torquay.
' Devonshire continues rainy. As the drops beat
against the window, they give me the same sensa
tion as a quart of cold water offered to revive a
half-drowned devil — no feel of the clouds dropping
fatness, but as if the roots of the earth were rotten,
cold, and drenched. I have not been able to go
to Kent's Cave at Babblcombe ; however, on one
very beautiful day I had a fine clamber over the
rocks all along as far as that place.' Kent's
Cavern had not won Its wide reputation in thos&
days ; its wonderful vestiges of early man were
144

WITH KEATS AT TEIGNMOUTH
discovered later, but the little cove of Babbacombe
was lovelier then than now — it was still unspoiled.
No one could have learnt to love Devon more
readily than Keats, had circumstances only favoured
his advances. But ' the climate here weighs us
down completely ; Tom is quite low-spirited. It
is impossible to live in a country which is con
stantly under hatches. I wanted to send you a
few songs written in your favourite Devon — it
cannot be — rain, rain, rain. What a spite it is
one cannot get out — the little way I went yester-..
day I found a lane banked on each side with store
of primroses, while the earlier bushes are beginning
to leaf Devon has many such primrose-lanes ;
but even the poet's muse was being drenched
into nothingness. Another letter to Reynolds
says : ' We are here still enveloped in clouds — I
lay awake last night listening to the rain, with a
sense of being drowned and rotted like a grain of
wheat.' We learn little of the Jeffreys from these
letters, but it is certain that their friendship must
have been a very real consolation to the two lonely
young men, the one dying, the other unconsciously
doomed. Keats had not yet met Fanny Brawne, and there
is a tradition that he was In love with one of the
Jeffrey daughters. That he was impressionable
and impressed is probable ; it seems more certain
145 K

LITERARY RAMBLES
that one of them was in love with him. Later in
life, she married a man named Prowse, residing at
Torquay, and In 1830 she published a volurae of
verse of more than average raerit. There is really
roora for nothing but conjecture, but keen eyes
have chosen to note traces of hopeless passion for
the poet In some of the verses. There is one
lyric, touching in spite of the affectation of closing
each stanza with a line of Latin, which has been
interpreted as bearing reference to the poet's
departure :
' Yet, dearest, go ; the pang will be
Soon o'er ; I shall not live to see
Thy look of love, which is my heaven,
My happiness, to others given ;
'Tis best we part ; I could not bear
Thy coldness — nor the sick despair
Of love decaying ; go, then, go —
Si lieseris, ah ! pereo.'
Another poem, of clearer reference to Keats,
shows that its author shared the opinion that his
death was at least hastened by the ruthless criticism
to which he was subjected. After saying that
' the minstrel's heart was stricken, and he died,' the
poetess goes on to reflect :
* Yet died he not in vain ; if, ere they rush
To wreak their thoughtless malice on their kind.
His fate may bid men ponder ere they crush
The first aspirings of the poet's mind ;
Spare the weak blossom future fruit to find.
And leave to Time, the perfecter, to bring
A plenteous Autumn from a tardy Spring.'
146

WITH KEATS AT TEIGNMOUTH
But the lines betray a singular misconception of
the poet's character, and to speak of his spring as
' tardy ' betrays also a misconception of his genius.
It is evident from letters written later that Keats
and his brother enjoyed much happy familiarity
with these Jeffrey girls, and there may have been
more than one aching heart left behind when, in
May, the two returned to Hampstead.
On the tedious coach journey back the poet
wrote briefly to Mrs. Jeffrey from Honlton, stating
that so far his brother had borne the fatigue well.
In a later epistle, after referring to various
Teignmouth personages in a vein of light banter,
he says, ' Lord, what a journey I had, and what a
relief at the end of it — I'm sure I could not have
stood it raany more days. Hampstead is now
in fine order. I suppose Teignmouth and the
contagious country is now quite remarkable ; you
might praise it I dare say in the manner of a
grammatical exercise : The trees are full ; the Den
is crowded ; the boats are sailing ; the music is
playing. I wish you were here a little while, but
lauk, we haven't got any female friend in the
house.' In spite of its rain, Keats was able to
remeraber Devonshire with some tenderness. It
recurred to him when touring with Brown in
Scotland: 'The country is very rich, very fine,
and with a little of Devon,' but he wished the
147 K 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
cottages ' were as snug as those up the Devonshire
valleys.' Before the year was out Tom Keats was dead,
and the poet, terribly affected by the loss, was
himself beginning to sicken. He had put his
constitution to too severe a strain, in tramping
through Scotland. Devonshire saw no more of
him. But surely a kind of consecration must ever
cling to Teignmouth, when we remeraber that
here ' Endymion ' was finished, and here also was
written the greater part of the lovely ' Isabella.'
And Devonians, though they may grudge at some
of his references to their county, will recollect
that its climate did not treat him kindly — will~
recollect that he was fondly and despairingly
nursing a dying brother, while skies were dark
and drenching, only allowing an occasional glimpse
of those beauties which none would have loved
better. Where appreciation was possible, Keats
never failed in it.

148

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
Morwenstow — sometimes still spelt Moorwin-
stow, and anciently Morestow — has had reputation
thrust upon it by the presence of one man. But
it is worthy of reputation in itself, and if it remains
untouched by the railway it will become increasingly
worthy, as that feature becomes increasingly rare.
At present it lies In one of the least accessible
corners of the kingdom, and it is only within the
last few years that there has been a railway-station
at Bude, eight miles distant. It is a large parish
of scattered hamlets, with five miles of sea-board,
in a district of wind-swept down and more or less
wooded combes ; It faces a sea where the waves
are said to be huger than at any other spot on the
coast, and where the current sets unbroken from
Labrador. It is a land of contrasts ; on peaceful
days and nights there is the most utter stillness,
for the lap of the waves is too far below to be
audible ; but in times of storm the roar of sound
is immense and indescribable. In storm, it is said
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LITERARY RAMBLES
that the thunder of the Atlantic can be heard ten
railes inland. The sea is raighty, deep, and often
cruel, with rich colouring of blues and greens
and blacks beneath the cliffs, yet sometiraes calm
and limpid as a lake. But the calmness is always
that of strength, and it is a mood of great rarity.
In these days, happily, there are better coast-lights
and fuller charts ; wrecks are fewer than they
were when Hawker carae to be vicar of Morwen
stow, There is an old local saying :
' From Padstow Point to Lundy light
Is a watery grave by day and night ' ;
and no advance of nautical science can render the
sea less fierce, the rocks less cruel. There Is
nothing that can be called harbourage within
many miles ; Indeed, in the whole of North Devon
and Cornwall there is nothing that can be terraed
a suitable harbour for ships of considerable size.
The little haven at Bude is a trap rather than a
refuge ; it Is difficult to make in the finest weather,
impossible in rough, and the whole Bude district
is scattered with memorials of wreck.
' " Cawk, cawk !" then said the raven,
" I am fourscore years and ten,
Yet never in Bude haven
Did I croak for rescued men." '
We have to realize that, seventy or eighty years
150

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
since, the people of this coast were almost as
rough as their surroundings — they were ruthless
and dauntless smugglers. If they thanked God
for anything, it was for the vessels that the sea
cast upon their shores ; their convenient folklore
dissuaded them from rescuing a drowning man ;
not only did they refrain from giving assistance,
they would sometimes do what lay in their power
to lure vessels to destruction. In saying this, it
must not be supposed that the inhabitants of
the West were worse than those of any other
isolated spot on the British coast. They were
only specially favoured by wind and waves.
There was smuggling all along the shores, and
in lonely spots wrecking also. The superstition
against saving a drowning seaman was as familiar
in the Shetlands (see Scott's ' Pirate ') as In Corn
wall. But in old days Corn^v^all was isolated to a
degree that we can now hardly dream of, and in
some respects its manners suffered. In some they
undoubtedly gained. The people were hospitable
enough to i those who came to them in landward
fashion ; and even to those who came by water
the record of such a town as St. Ives can tell of
many a hearty benevolence. From the picturesque
view, also, and In the matter of local tradition, the
country gained immensely through the poverty
of road-communication. A distinct flavour still
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LITERARY RAMBLES
hangs about the West Country in consequence,
which has hardly yet succumbed to railways and
tourists. Morwenstow is a composite narae ; that is to
say, the ' Morwen ' is Celtic, the ' stow ' Saxon.
There are a good many ' stows ' In this borderland
of the two counties, proving a considerable Saxon
settlement ; but from this we need not infer any
great displacement of Celtic population, and cer
tainly very little loss of Celtic tradition. Hawker
loved to speak of his ' Saxon shrine,' but the
dedication points to an earlier foundation ; and
Morwenna, according to the most probable con
jecture, was a grand-daughter of Brychan, the
great progenitor of saints in the fifth century.
Both Hawker, and Leland before him, seem to
have confused her story with that of St. Modwenna
of the Midlands ; but it must be confessed that
all the labours of the hagiologists fail to present a
convincing picture of the patroness of Morwenstow,
though Hawker himself was certain that he met
and conversed with her In his lonely vigils.
Perhaps we are safe in concluding that she was a
sister of St. Nectan, whose memory Is enshrined
at Hartland and at St. Nectan's (or Nighton's)
Kleve. But it Is the later-day saint — the strong,
virile, and eccentric parson — whose memory now
dominates the neighbourhood of Morwenstow.
152

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
He himself, though he apostrophised ' native
Cornwall' as though it had been his birthplace,
was born at Plymouth, December 3, 1803, at the
house that is now No. 6, Norley Street. His
father was a doctor, but later took holy orders,
becoming vicar of Stratton ; his grandfather was
the Dr. Hawker who wrote the once popular
' Morning and Evening Portions,' being for forty-
three years vicar of Charles Church, Plymouth.
The early days of the poet were instinct with
utter boyishness and mischief; he exercised his
unfailing animal spirits in practical jokes that
sometimes went a little too far. This propensity
continued with hira, and sorae of the jokes were
harmless enough, as when he swam out to a rock
off the shore at Bude, and decking himself with
seaweed, most effectually played the part of a
mermaid. The Cornish folk of that time had a
devout faith in ' merry-maids.' After an education
at Liskeard, he passed, at sixteen, to Cheltenham
Grammar School, and in 1823 to Pembroke
College, Oxford, Soon after coming to Oxford
he married Miss Charlotte I'ans, being then
scarcely twenty, and his wife forty-one. Her
father was Colonel Fans, of Whitstone, and of
Efford Manor House, now the Bude vicarage.
His wife and her two sisters resided with him
when he returned to the University, and we can
^S3

LITERARY RAMBLES
Iraagine that there was a fine opportunity for the
display of undergraduate humour ; but Hawker
seems to have weathered the storm comfortably
enough. The Oxford Movement was then merely in
embryo, and Hawker left before it broke into
flame ; he himself was not definitely wedded to
theology at this time. He associated with the
future fathers of Tractarianism : ' How I recollect
their faces and words — Newman, Pusey, Ward,
Marriott — they used to be all in the common
room every evening discussing, talking, reading,
I remember that the one to whom I did not take
was Dr, Pusey, He never seemed siraple in
thought or speech — obscure and involved^ — and
the last in all that set, as I now look back and
think, to have followers called by his name,'
In 1827 he won the Newdigate prize for a
poem on Pompeii, and in the following year was
ordained deacon by the Bishop of Exeter, taking
the curacy of North Tamerton. Whitstone and
North Tamerton are close together, and neither is
far from Stratton ; so that his curacy here placed
Hawker quite in the circle of his friends. It is
said that he already evinced his remarkable love
of animals by keeping a pet pig ; and when his
sister, wife of the rector of Whitstone, objected to
the pig following hira into her house. Hawker
154

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
would protest, 'he's as well behaved as any of
your family.'
The young clergyman was fast making his
mark in the district, and had won the favour of
Bishop Phillpotts ; and when, in 1834, the living
of Morwenstow became vacant, the Bishop gave
him the opportunity of declining it. But Hawker
did not decline, he had no ambition to figure in
high places (his ambitions were rather literary),
and he felt that Morwenstow was ordained to be
his future home. The neighbourhood was linked
with his dearest associations ; he had loved it in
the Stratton days of his boyhood. Yet he
probably did not imagine that he was to spend
the remaining forty-one years of his life in
this secluded parish ; in those younger days
perhaps such a contemplation would have daunted
him. At that time he had dreams not only of literary
feme but of ecclesiastic preferment ; but as the
gladness of the man gradually passed away, his
anxiety grew to be only for a quiet resting-place,
and his letters became often a wail of misery.
Yet the years at Morwenstow were years of great
accomplishment, of spending and being spent ; they
had their brighter side as well as their darker.
Until the publication of the late life and letters,
more was known ofthe brighter than of the darker.

LITERARY RAMBLES
We know now the bitter disappointments and
disillusionment that slowly darkened Hawker's
mind ; the failure of his writings to provide any
return, the nervousness and dread that overtook
him, the long years of depressing suffering
endured by his wife, his horror of wrecks, and
Inquests and the lonely burial of mutilated
dead. May we not add to these things an increasing
sense that, dearly as he had loved the Church of
England, his true place was in the Catholic priest
hood.? Not a word must be breathed against
Hawker's honesty of purpose ; he truly regarded
the two Churches as one communion ; but - to his
mind, whether we deem him mistaken or not,
the Anglican Church had betrayed her trust, had
yielded to Dissenting doctrine, had allowed herself
to be permeated with Wesleyanism, and the very
narae of Wesley, to Hawker, was almost synony
mous with that of Satan. It Is true that, as his
Dissenting neighbours said, the Cornish parson's
bark was worse than his bite ; it is true that he
never regarded consistency as a desirable virtue ;
it is true that opium may sometimes have coloured
his visions and heightened his expressions.
But with all deduction it is manifest that much
bitterness came into the life and into the mind of
one whose heart was naturally a nest of loving
156

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
thoughts and mystical ecstasies; and during the
years passed at Morwenstow there were some in
which he simply longed for the night of repose
and forgetfulness. In a letter written in 1862,
he refers to his correspondent's recollection of
his birthday : 'the fidelity of your remembrance
recalled the fatal third of this raonth when with
me sorrow began. . , . What can I call my own
poor existence ? After all a most unavailing life.
As to what I have been able to do for a few souls
— another could have done it as well. And yet,
perhaps, I am ungrateful. I have been able to
accomplish many things for this remote and wild
place which others might have shrunk from,
Altho' most ruinous to me, there are here a
vicarage and glebe houses — a school and master's
abode — a restored church — and other parochial
comforts which may lead the future incumbents
to be glad that I went before them. I found it
a wilderness, and I shall leave it a habitable place
for those I know not,'
Perhaps in one sense, though it almost seems
ungracious to make such a suggestion, these years
of Hawker's life exemplify the unwisdom of
marriage where there is a great gulf in age
between the husband and wife. The twenty years
between Mrs. Hawker and her husband could
never be bridged over ; when he was still a young
157

LITERARY RAMBLES
man, she was already aging. For a long time she
was almost continually ill ; yet every trace of her
suffering caused infinite sorrow to the devoted
vicar, and distracted him when he had enough
external cares and worries. He wanted hopeful
ness and stimulus ; she could only give him
peace and utter affection. It was much ; but the
depressing influence of her slow decay became too
heavy ; the racking view of her weakness, the
inability to alleviate, the long anticipation of dis
solution, were conditions that enhanced Hawker's
original tendency to morbidity.
The best proof that this suggestion is not an
unkind or untrue one, was proved by the vicar's
happy second marriage, to a woman rauch younger
than himself; when he enjoyed something like
a resurrection of energy and happiness. His
yearning for love had always been satisfied ; but
he needed also gladness, hopefulness, the bracing
pulse of a fuller life.
To some extent, this gladness was to come to
him, and strangely enough the death of his wife
was followed by the fullest outpouring of his
poetic genius. His poetry was doomed to be
always more a matter of fitful impulse than of
constant inspiration ; its spirit was never lacking,
but the utterance often flagged. As long back as
his Cheltenham days, in 1821, he had published a
158

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
small volurae of verse entitled 'Tendrils,' by
Reuben. Fifty years later he had forgotten the
very name of it. ' I have but a hazy recollection
of the Cheltenham affair,' he wrote to a friend.
' " Fibres " is the nearest guess I can make ' ;
and again : ' if " Fibres " fail, why not try
"Pendicles".?' We do not expect much from the early poetry
of even the greatest poets, and Hawker is no
exception ; the work is largely Imitative, showing
the influence of Moore and of the least mature
poems of Byron. But the author's characteristic
taste and his tendency to mysticism show them
selves In some of the lines ; we note his love of
the sea, and of night. There is a very fair ' Night
Sketch,' written on Efford Down, Bude, in his
seventeenth year, in which, boylike, he speaks of
' The vanisht joys of youth and youthful days.'
Much of the expression and sentiment is jejune
enough, as where he says : .
' I could not leave that place of many thoughts
Till I had wept.'
In 1826 appeared his 'Song of the Western
Men ' in a Plymouth journal, anonymously, and
was taken to be a genuine relic of antiquity by
Sir Walter Scott, Macaulay, and later by Dickens.
Hawker's habit of pubUshing anonymously was
159

LITERARY RAMBLES
responsible in part for his limited fame, and for
the confusion that long surrounded much of his
work. As he himself said, ' All these years the
song has been bought and sold, set to music and
applauded, while I have lived on among these far
away rocks unprofited, unpraised and unknown.
This is an epitome of my whole life.' We have
his own assurance that he wrote the entire ballad,
with the exception of the lines,
' And shall Trelawny die ?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why !'
These lines, he asserted, were traditional from the
days of the trial of the Seven Bishops, of whora
Trelawney of Exeter was one. But it seems more
likely that the refrain really dates from the early
days of Charles I., when John Trelawney was
committed, to the Tower for certain supposed
offences against the State, and the zealous af^c-
tions of Cornish folk were roused by the idea that
he might suffer death. The Seven Bishops were
never in near danger of a death-sentence ; but It is
likely that the stir caused by their imprisonment
recalled the old refrain, with other verses that may
now have perished.
This is the piece by which Hawker is best
known, .the doubtfulness of its origin having
materially assisted its reputation ; but, though
1 60

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
bold and stimulating as an outburst of local
feeling, and finely adapted for musical rendering,
the ballad cannot be said to attain any supreme
height of poetic merit. The refrain Is the part
that ' sticks,' and this. Hawker always confessed,
was not his. His prize-poem ' Pompeii,' which
won the Newdigate in 1827, Is a good conven
tional piece of heroics, not much above but
certainly not below the average of such efforts.
Something raore distinctive and more worthy of
permanence was given in the ' Records of the
Western Shore,' published at Oxford In 1832,
which include some of his best Cornish ballads.
One of the most beautiful of these, ' The Silent
Tower of Bottreaux,' has provided a legend for
the church of Forrabury, standing on the cliffs
above Boscastle Harbour, which has been accepted
by the guide-books as a genuine tradition. But
in this, as in sorae other instances, the legend
appears to have been a pure invention of the
poet's. Hawker complained somewhat bitterly after
wards that the legend was taken up by other
writers, and given in different prose renderings as
if it were a mere bit of history, without his
receiving any of the credit ; but his own manner
of giving the tradition, in the note to his poem,
was the true cause of any misconception. He
161 L

LITERARY RAMBLES
said, later : * The sole materials that I gathered
on the spot were, that a certain church tower on
the sea-shore, called in reality Forrabury, but by
myself, in poetic license, Bottreaux, was devoid of
bells, because they had been lost at sea. The
remainder of the legend, the incidents and
language of the pilot, the captain, the storm, if
any man should suppose them to be historic, or
claim thera for his own, I must encounter him in
the phrase of Jack Cade, " He lies, for I Invented
them myself." ' This by no means tallies with the
earlier note appended to the ballad, and Hawker
had himself to blame. Bottreaux was a genuine
local name, apparently surviving, corrupted, in
Boscastle, Two lines from this ballad,
' Come to thy God in time.
Come to thy God at last,'
have been inscribed on a new bell, hung in Mor
wenstow Church to the memory of the poet.
Other little volumes of verse published by
Hawker, bringing a poor return either of money
or reputation, were ' Ecclesia,' and two series of
' Reeds Shaken with the Wind,' together with
' Echoes from Old Cornwall.' Besides these he
published some pieces in pamphlet form, and con
tributed others to different periodicals. But his
ripest literary harvest was to come about the time
162

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
of his marriage with his second wife, which took
place in the winter of 1864, the lady being Miss
Pauline Kuczynski, who had been a governess in
Morwenstow. She was the daughter of a Polish
political refugee by an English mother,' and at the
tirae of the marriage she was twenty years of age,
while Hawker himself was just over sixty. There
had been twenty years between Hawker and his
first wife ; there were forty between him and his
second. Both marriages, so far as utter affection
was concerned, were perfectly happy ; but the
second came like a gush of new life to the worn
and despondent Vicar, The lady's own feelings
raay be judged by her assertion that she would
prefer ten years with Hawker to a lifetime with
any other man, and she faithfully acted up to her
utmost protestations of love.
It was immediately before this marriage that he
wrote and published his noblest piece of literature,
' The Quest of the Sangraal,' which he intended
to extend to four ' Chants,' only one of which was
written. It was not that the poet had outlived
his genius ; but he had outlived his impulse.
Tennyson's Idyll on the same theme was not
published till five years later, and there is a very
definite difference in the manner in which the two
poets approach their subject. Hawker's poem is
conceived in fine sincerity and spiritual earnestness ;
163 L 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
Tennyson's, exquisite as it Is, has more of the
dilettantism of a conscious artist. It is stated that
Tennyson once said, ' Hawker has beaten me on
my own ground ;' and Longfellow also is reported
to have preferred Hawker's version. Comparison
between the two is unavoidable, and it must be
acknowledged that the lonely country parson has
no reason to fear the test, keen as it is. The idea
seems to have been in Hawker's mind ever since
he spent his honeymoon at Tintagel in the young
days of 1824.
It appears that Hawker himself suggested the
subject to Tennyson, when the author of the
future ' Idylls ' paid his memorable visit to Mor
wenstow In 1848. Tennyson came to Bude with
ideas of King Arthur seething in his mind, and a
brother-in-law of Hawker brought him over to
the vicarage. Tennyson's own notes on the visit
are utterly bare and unsatisfactory — the merest
tantalizing fragment ; but happily Hawker made
a fuller record, though even he only filled a few
pages where he said he could easily have filled a
book. Tennyson at first thought the vicar cold,
but the two minds soon got together ; and when
Hawker began to quote Tennyson's own lines to
him, it was not long before the poet revealed his
name. Hawker thought that Tennyson looked
like a Spaniard. They talked of their mutual
164

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
love of the sea, and then of the Arthurian tradi
tions. When the time of parting came, the visitor
produced a * package of very common shag,' and
called for a pipe. Hawker did not smoke in
those days, but his sexton did, and a ' short black
dudheen' was procured. There was some little
correspondence and exchange of poems, but the
two never met again ; and in after years Hawker's
opinion of the greater poet apparently diminished,
Tennyson drifted into a Broad Church standpoint,
and to Hawker's raind had grown less religious,
having become a Mauriclan, with too little rever
ence and grace. Hawker deemed, to fitly deal
with the Sangraal. It seems that Tennyson him
self had long shrunk from the subject. It is
certain that he could not treat it with the intense
faith and certitude that characterized the Cornish
parson, to whom the doubts of the nineteenth-
century were only known as the machinations of
demons, with which he had no concern except to
loathe and decry them. Tennyson was a man of
his time, in immediate touch and full syrapathy
with it ; Hawker was a mediaeval, whose theology
was that of the Fathers, his philosophy that of
those who wrote the old lives of the saints. In
the light of such ideas he interpreted all private
and public events. 165

LITERARY RAMBLES
When typhus never came within his parish for
a very lengthened period, he attributed its absence
to the sound of his church bell rung for daily
prayer. Misfortunes to his flock he ascribed to
the evil eye. When India broke into mutiny he
imagined that the ' demoniac gods ' of the people
were driving them into furious revolt. He was
persuaded that ' ages of time have not altered a
single demoniac usage. What they were at Gadara
and Ephesus they are this day ; all things remain
as they then were — angels, demons, possession by
fiends, etc., no change in these, not one.' War,
tempest, famine, cattle disease, he considered direct
chastisements from God's hand. To hira the
Grail, the mythic chalice froni which Christ is
supposed to have drunk at the Last Supper, was
the most real of realities, and the search for it
was no mere visionary quest. He beheved firmly
In the existence of most sacred relics ; he credited
a rumour that the devil's autograph survived on
sorae old raanuscript. When therefore he began
' Ho ! for the Sangraal, vanish'd Vase of God !'
he felt that he was approaching a religious mystery,
and no mere therae for literary adornraent. The
poem was written chiefly in a little hut that he
had constructed for himself, from the remains of
shipwreck, on the .cliff-side ; and here, in hours of
i66

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
stormy sunset and dusk, he wrought the rugged
verses with deep care and meditation, the cry of
seabirds, the voice of wind and waves in his ears.
There are strong Homeric lines in the piece —
' Like the sea,
When ocean, bounding, shouts with all his waves.'
Once we have a fine touch of daybreak —
' The dawn is deep ; the mountains yearn for day.'
There is a picture also of the loneliness that
Hawker too often felt in his own soul — the
loneliness that is the doom of greatness :
' But he, the lofty ruler of the land.
Like yonder Tor, first greeted by the dawn,
And wooed the latest by the lingering day.
With happy homes and hearths beneath his breast,
Must soar and gleam in solitary snow.
The lonely one is, evermore, the King.'
There is a lovely apostrophe to the Cornwall that
he loved so dearly :
' Ah, native Cornwall ! throned upon the hills.
Thy moorland pathways worn by angel feet,
Thy streams that march in music to the sea
'Mid ocean's merry noise, his billowy laugh 1
Ah me ! a gloom falls heavy on my soul —
The birds that sung to me in youth are dead ;
I think, in dreamy vigils of the night,
It may be God is angry with my land.'
The laugh of ocean is a favourite iraage of
167

LITERARY RAMBLES
Hawker's ; he borrowed it from Homeric Greek.
But all is not laugh or gladness :
'That night Dundagel shuddered into storm —
The deep foundations shook beneath the sea.'
In the whole of modern poetry, it would be
difficult to find anything nobler than the lines
with which the poem concludes :
' He ceased ; and all around was dreamy night :
There stood Dundagel, throned ; and the great sea
Lay, a strong vassal, at his master's gate,
And like a drunken giant sobb'd in sleep.'
This was the high-water mark of Hawker's
poetry ; he rarely attained it, and his average,
especially In shorter pieces, is much below. The
second spring that came with his marriage showed
its new energy chiefly in prose, in the sketches
that go to make up ' Footprints of Former Men
in Far Cornwall,' most of which were contributed,
with sorae apparent difficulty, to All the Year
Round of 1865-67. All that the poet offered
was not accepted ; some that was accepted was
treated in a manner that greatly distressed the
writer. ' It Is most debasing to have one's manuscripts
at the mercy of such a man as Wills,' wrote
Hawker, who never minced his words. When
the ' Sangraal ' was published, brief and incomplete
as it was, he had some expectation of long-delayed
168

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
renown ; but though critics were mostly favour
able, the book appeared too quietly, and Tennyson's
fame was too all- dominant, for it to create any
stir. One unhappy reviewer seems to have sug
gested that Hawker was a plagiarist, in return for
which the poet stigmatised him as ' an utter
donkey and worse.' The terms were justified,
for the charge is an absurd one. But though
posterity is largely atoning. Hawker was doomed
to comparative neglect when living ; such reputa
tion as he enjoyed was the limited credit that
attaches to a local poet, who has failed to raake a
universal appeal. His work brought hira scarcely
the sraallest monetary return : his offered contri
butions were declined, and the large circulation
that some of his ballads attained was often anony
mous. Partly, it was his own fault — if we can call
it a fault — that he would never pander to the
literary magnates, would only write what he cared
to write, and never simply that which the public
demanded. Perhaps, if he could have seen that
he was writing his name large on this district of
the West, he might have been comforted ; but he
was not a man to foresee anything that was cheer
ing and gratifying.
Perhaps the poetry of Hawker's good deeds
won a wider recognition than the poems of his
169

LITERARY RAMBLES
minstrelsy. He was the parson of drowned
sailors and the friend of living poor. Certainly
it is better to be kind to a living dog than
magnanimous to a dead lion ; but there was a
picturesqueness and an absolute true-heartedness
about the manner in which Hawker performed
his duty, and more than his duty, to the corpses
thrown on his shores, that has deeply touched
the imagination of the public. In the most
forlorn instances, the parson spared no efforts
to rescue the crews of sinking vessels. He would
drive in frantic haste to Bude or Hartland or
Clovelly to obtain succour, and to induce lifeboat
men to put out ; he would rave, and plead, and
command, and offer rewards from his own poorly
supplied pocket. If the men hesitated no word
of scorn was too strong ; sometimes, doubtless,
used unjustly, for seas on that coast are terrible ;
but sometimes, as Hawker never hesitated to
suggest, a hope of fuller salvage made men chary
of rescuing the crews.
The men both of Bude and Clovelly fell
under the sting of his reprobation for their
alleged cowardice ; but we need not take the
parson's charges too literally, or allow any
stigma to remain on these sturdy longshore folk.
Hawker was too frenzied with anxiety for the
imperilled ships, to be always just in his allega-
170

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
tions ; but it was a noble anxiety. That all
bodies might be reported to him, he added to
the reward given by the authorities, and he
inspired his people, sometimes in opposition to
inherited and lifelong tendency, with something
of his zeal. Every body, every fragment of body
thrown upon the coast within his cognizance,
received the tenderest attention and the rite of
Christian burial. The parson was so sensitive
to the horror of it all, that it haunted his rest
and disturbed his dreams ; his ears, in time of
storm, seemed always ringing with the cry of
drowning sailors. On one occasion, within little
raore than a year, he buried as many as fifteen
bodies in his graveyard — not piling them into
one unrecognised pit, but giving each his separate
resting-place. A striking picture is given us in the admirable
memoir lately published by his son-in-law, with
regard to a corpse that had been extricated with
great difficulty from a cleft of rocks : ' It was
dark, and the party of bearers, with the Vicar
at their head, were making their way slowly up
the cliff, by the light of torches and lanterns,
when suddenly there rose from the sea three
hearty British cheers. A vessel had neared the
shore, and the crew, discovering by night-glasses
what was taking place, had manned their yards,
171

LITERARY RAMBLES
as the Vicar writes, to greet the fulfilment of
duty to a brother mariner's remains.'
Once a Jerseyman named Le Dain was rescued
and cared for by Hawker ; the story of his life
long gratitude is very beautiful. Of all this there
is ample record in the Vicar's own writings, and
it is these personal recollections and experiences
that are the most valuable part of his prose ;
when he takes up archaeology he is usually mis
leading. He was master of a style that makes us
regret he wrote so little — vigorous, strong, limpid,
with easy coramand of pathos and of humour.
The man's nature pervades each page ; there is
no mere making of literature, no aiming at
effect ; even when detail Is inaccurate, the spirit
is absolute sincerity. Yet for the 'Footprints
of Former Men,' now almost a classic, he appears
to have received only j^io, and the sale of a small
edition flagged sadly.
We gradually realize that the whole career
of this gifted man was a struggle against sorrow
and disappointment. He was hampered by debts,
and often in the sorest straits for lack of money ;
in frequent dread of insolvency and exposure.
Yet the money that came to him was never spent
in self-indulgences or extravagance ; he spent it
on his church and on his people ; his one ex
travagance was that of giving. Happily there
172

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
were sorae in his parish that could appreciate ;
filled with Dissenters as it was, it is certain that
the parish as a whole was proud of Its Vicar,
If we might judge from Hawker's own violence
of language,- we should imagine that his relations
with Dissent must have been a perpetual feud ;
this was far from being the case. He Interpreted
a certain incident in the New Testament by
saying that Chrisf ' horse-whipped the Dissenters
out of the Temple ' ; yet on the same page we
read that a local farmer, a Wesleyan and a
preacher, brought his own new grass-machine
and mowed Hawker's meadows gratuitously.
' No one knows how grateful I am for every
deed of kindness, small or great,' says the Vicar
in reference to this. ' Many were surprised at
the preacher's cutting my grass — the first In all
the parish, but I was not, for he has always
shown great respect and goodwill, although I
never spare heresy and schism ministerially.'
In 1863 a fire broke out at the vicarage, and
the men of Morwenstow, Dissenters and all,
rushed zealously to the spot, and risked life and
limb till the flames had been extinguished. ' Their
conduct was beyond all praise. I shall never
forget it or cease to be grateful for it as long
as I live. The delicacy too with which when
the fire was stopped they went away, as if not
173

LITERARY RAMBLES
to intrude even for praise, was very striking,'
At the burial of the first Mrs. Hawker, the
Dissenters flocked to the church with the other
parishioners, and added their tears to the Vicar's.
Hawker was fully persuaded that as soon as a
seaport became inhabited by Dissenters it was
deserted by the fish ; once, when a lady inquired
as to his objection to burying Dissenters, he
replied, ' I should be only too pleased to bury
you all,'
On the occasion of a Wesleyan revival in his
parish, he preached from the text : ' Abide ye
here with the ass, while I go yonder and worship,'
and he made it very clear what his interpretation
signified. Yet he was ever willing to assist
Wesleyans of the district ; sometimes excusing
his apparent inconsistency by saying that he was
glad to give Dissenters a little comfort in this
life, knowing what they had to expect in the
future. Once he wrote to a lady who had a
Baptist servant : ' Never mind the sect. He or
she can't be wrong whose life is in the right.' In
contrast to this we read his opinion that ' John
Wesley years ago corrupted and degraded the
Cornish character, found them wrestlers, caused
them to change their sins, and called it con
version. . . . He found the miners and fisher
men an upstanding rollicking courageous people.
174

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
He left them a downlooking, lying, selfish-hearted
throng.' His attitude towards Wesley was un
changingly bitter. But the man was a tissue of
glorious inconsistencies ; he was nobler and broader
than his opinions. In his small parish there were
some that were worthy of him ; one such was his
great-hearted and devoted churchwarden, Thomas
Cann. It does one good to read of such a man.
Hawker had three children In his old age, all
being girls, and one of these, long after her
father's death, becarae the wife of his future
biographer. The children brought him much
joy, but also many anxieties ; their childish
ailments terrified hira, and he was haunted by the
idea that he could lay by no provision for their
support. He had wished for a boy to perpetuate
his race, but It was not to be. After the first few
years of new life and hope, trouble and depression
again began to master him ; his literary efforts
alraost continually failed — he felt that he might
have done so much and had done so little ; there
was so much that might have been, and now it
was ' too late,' Disease and weakness crept upon
him. In 1874 he went to London, seeking medical
advice for himself and for his wife, and while in
town he preached with much success on one or
two occasions ; but on the whole he seems to
175

LITERARY RAMBLES
have been received with no great warmth by the
London clergy. Of course, there could be no
sympathy between him and the Evangelicals, nor
with the Broad Church which was then a power ;
but he found even the Ritualists ' narrow and
selfish,' and his verdict on the London clergy was
that they were ' a very inferior lot.' He had
hoped to obtain offertories for the restoration of
his church at Morwenstow, but was only partially
successful through the loyalty of a few old friends.
Though after his long seclusion it was a fierce
ordeal for Hawker to preach in strange churches,
when once on his feet he could always preach
with impressive eloquence and power ; the power,
as he grew old, being only heightened by the
emotion that sometiraes for a moment checked his
voice and dimmed his eyes.
Such emotion came naturally enough when he
was persuaded to preach In the pulpit that had so
long been occupied by his father at Stratton ;
when the Vicar's voice broke with the words, ' I
stand amid the dust of those near and dear to me.'
His last months were clouded by the still pressing
need of raoney. In the summer of 1875 ^^^ ^^^^
resolved to try if change of scene and relief from
work could restore his sinking health ; the Vicar
hiraself felt that he was leaving Morwenstow for the
last tirae. It is stated that he so clearly expressed
176

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
this idea in the last sermon that he preached to
his old parishioners, that they crowded around
him in tears after the service was over. He first
visited his brother at Boscastle, but the visit to a
house of sickness can hardly have brightened him,
and then he passed on to Plymouth. He had
come back to his birthplace to die. His own
choice would certainly have been to die at
Morwenstow. At Plymouth, his wife, conscious that the end
was approaching, sent to Morwenstow for his
surplice, stole, and biretta, and a week before he
died his portrait was taken in these vestments.
Mr. Baring-Gould raentions the fact as though it
had been the Vicar's own whim, and says that he
had never been in the habit of wearing a biretta ;
but the son-in-law's evidence Is the more reliable.
All this time the sick man was longing to return
home ; he wished to die near the shrine of
Morwenna, amid the familiar sights and sounds
that haunted his dreams ; but the medical adviser
announced that it would be impossible for him to
leave Plymouth.
On August 14, Mrs, Hawker, without con
sulting the dying man, sent for Canon Mansfield,
and the Vicar of Morwenstow was received into
the Church of Rome. When he heard what his
wife had done, his despondency and sense of pain
177 M

LITERARY RAMBLES
passed away, he recited the Gloria in Excelsis
and the 'Te T)eum, and he exclaimed repeatedly,
' What shall I render to the Lord for all that He
hath rendered unto me ? I will take the Chalice
of Salvation and call upon the name of the Lord,'
The next day he was dead. He was buried in
Plymouth cemetery — it seems a pity that he was
not taken to his own parish church ; and in 1 904
a memorial window was unveiled to his memory
at Morwenstow,
The reception into Rome was debated with
much unseemly bitterness at the time, and
Mrs, Hawker was severely censured. It must be
remembered that this lady was not herself a
Catholic, though she joined the Church later ;
what she did was in a full and justified belief
that it would bring joy and peace to her dying
husband. We may say, though it sounds
paradoxical, that Hawker joined the communion
of Rome as a Catholic, not as a Papist, and a
Catholic, in the full sacramentarian sense, he had
long been.
Of late years doubts had troubled him as to
whether the English Church was truly Catholic,
in the sense in which he Interpreted that word;
but it was simply with regard to the validity of
sacraraents that he troubled — he rarely gave any
thought to the question of the Papacy, If the
178

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
supposed certitude that he was brought into full
communion with the one true Church, could
bring absolute peace to a dying man, who among
us, however much we ourselves may repudiate
the sacerdotal ideal, will care to cast a stone at
the loving wife who accomplished this satisfaction
for her husband ? Rather let us regard the step
with reverent forbearance, and deem it something
of a sacrilege to question it too closely.
Some men seem to be born out of due time ;
certainly Robert Hawker came four or five
centuries too late. He was a typical mediaeval
Christian, and would have made a splendid
Franciscan. To him all the advances of science
and discovery were as nought ; he actually
thought them demonic. Railroads were an
abomination ; he had no sympathy with com
raercial growth ; he held that a nation, and an
individual, often grows rich when deserted by
God. He believed in the personal assaults of the
devil and his angels, and to every word of Scrip
ture he gave its literal significance. Those who
criticised and even discussed were ' infidels ' ;
there was no half-way house.
The opiura to which he soraetimes resorted
may have coloured some of his extravagant utter
ances, but in general the man absolutely meant
what he said. Yet he had a heart brimming with
179 M 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
love towards man and beast. He believed in the
immortality of animals, and clairaed that they had
a right of admission to places of worship. Acting
upon this, four or five of his cats would some
times accompany him In church, and on one
occasion his dog actually sat by his side in the
pulpit while he preached. When a visiting
clergyman wanted to shut his dog outside.
Hawker protested that the dog was more fit to
enter than many Christians. At one time he was
agonized by knowing that two dogs had been left
on a sinking vessel near his shores. When his
own dog died, he and his wife both wept bitterly.
But it would be a mistake to regard him as a
man of constant gloom and frequent emotion.
Even in deep grief he could hold himself In fine
control, and his nature was often overflowing with
humour and mirthfulness. To the end he loved
a practical joke, and he sometimes hoaxed visitors
unsparingly, when conducting them around his
premises. Children always loved him. He was
so eccentric that his second wife's first impression
seems to have been that he was a little cracked ;
but he proved that he had the power of winning
and holding the deepest affection of two women,
one much older, the other much younger than
himself. He dressed In the most extraordinary
fashion, caring not a straw for cleric or other
i8o

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW
convention. He could be hasty and passionate —
possibly rude where he did not take to a person ;
his likes and dislikes were equally strong. Dis
appointment, neglect, sorrow, dogged his steps ;
posthumous honours are a poor compensation.
Yet he has writ his name large along the cliffs and
valleys of his lifelong home ; he * will not be for
gotten in his land,' When we come to Morwen
stow, we think of Robert Stephen Hawker, not of
Morwenna.

i8i

SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE OF THE
WEST COUNTRY
In the matter of architecture the churches of the
West of England raust generally yield to those of
the East. Districts of East Anglia that are flat
and comparatively uninteresting are redeemed by
the most picturesque of villages clustering around
churches of Infinite charm. In the West Country
there is for the most part a greater natural beauty,
but the churches are less distinctive. Somerset is
the best of the three counties In this respect ; it
had a fine school of tower-builders, and a Somerset
tower is a byword for strength and elegance among
lovers of architecture. There are some noble
churches also in Devon and Cornwall, and in
Cornwall especially there are many of a rugged
simplicity that harmonizes well with the granite
moorlands among which they stand.
But there is one feature in which these West
Country churches far excel those of the east, and
that is in the interest of their dedications. In the
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SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
eastern counties we find a prevalence of the
ordinary dedications of the Latin calendar, inter
spersed with a few native Saxon names. In the
far west it is different. There are comparatively
few of the orthodox dedications of Romanism,
except in the case of quite modern erections. In
Somerset there is a ' Celtic fringe ' of dedication,
leading to the deeper Celticism of Devon and
Cornwall, and when we reach the Duchy we can
luxuriate in a positive wealth of genuinely Celtic
church-names and place-names. The distinction
is rendered more emphatic when we realize that
most of the church-names have attached them
selves to the parishes also, so that the names of
most towns and villages in Cornwall are simply
the embodiment of the name of some old Celtic
saint, sometiraes so transformed or distorted by
the course of generations that it is difficult even
for the Initiated to unravel.
Unless the visitor has some knowledge of
western saint-lore, this characteristic of the
dedications Is a constant perplexity, and a source
of mistake. He comes to a church dedicated to
St, Paul, and he naturally concludes that the great
apostle of the Gentiles is commemorated ; but the
real dedication is to St, Paul or Pol, the Breton
Bishop of Leon, Less excusably, he may imagine
that a dedication to St. David pays homage to the
183

LITERARY RAMBLES
Hebrew psalmist, or that the name of St, Sampson
signifies a canonization of another Old Testament
hero. Even well-informed residents are con
tinually making mistakes. Throughout his life
time, the Rev. R. S. Hawker confused the
dedication of his own church at Morwenstow,
and at Cubert an error has almost certainly been
made in taking that name for a corruption of
Cuthbert. But though a little knowledge may be
a dangerous thing, it is certainly better than none
at all.
There Is a further reason why the hagiology of
the West Country claims attention. It directly
connects the present day of vital Cornish and
Devonian Nonconformity with the old age of
saints. To a great extent the missionaries who
came in the sixth century frora Wales and Ireland
were nonconforming, if such a term may be used.
They were the founders of independent congrega
tions ; their efforts were for the most part local
and tribal ; their bishops had little episcopal
authority beyond the power of ordination. They
recognised no metropolitans, though they bowed
to the traditions of the greater Celtic saints ; and
they certainly paid no allegiance to any alien See.
The Cornishman of to-day very often has deserted
the church dedicated to his old local saint, but
perhaps he is following most closely in the steps
184

SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
of that saint by going to a conventicle instead of
to the parish church. He becomes a Methodist,
or a Baptist, or a Plymouth Brother; and the
most zealous Episcopalian must admit that this
suits his character and his traditions better than if
he were a staid Anglican.
The quaint old granite church with Its curious
dedication will be almost empty ; the plain, perhaps
positively ugly, little Bethel will be fuU. Its bare
walls and rude benches will thrill to the tones of
earnest wrestiings in prayer, and the fervent shout
ing of devotional songs. Wesley speedily won his
way among the roughest of Cornish audiences,
and he paid repeated visits to the West, of which
we see the fruit to-day. From such an environ
ment came the strenuous and popular Billy Bray,
idolized by the West Country peasant ; from such
have come Mark Guy Pearce and the brothers
Hocking, and many other devoted leaders of
Methodism. It would hardly be just to say that the people
have drifted away from the Church ; it might be
truer to say that the Church, when she adopted
Latin methods, drifted away from the people.
All this becomes clear to a student of Western
saint-lore ; and if he seeks for the true descendants
of the old Celtic saints, he will find them most
often, in Cornwall as In Wales, among the fervid
185

LITERARY RAMBLES
dissenting congregations. There may be a whisper
abroad that this fervour is cooling — that the
earnestness sometimes veils hypocrisy — that a
shouting of hymns and power of prayer may
soraetimes co-exist with indifference to the genuine
teachings of religion. It is possible ; human
nature has the defects of Its qualities. But another
rather singular feature is making itself manifest in
the West Country ; it is becoming a happy hunt
ing-ground of foreign priests. Numbers who
have preferred exile from France to a corapliance
with the Republic's enactraents, have purchased
estates in the Western counties, and in the country
lanes the dissenting parson is now confronted by
the shaven monk,
Ireland has proved that the Celt may easily
become a devout Catholic, and In these very
Western counties there was a convulsion, in the
sixteenth century, arising from the zeal of the
Cornish and Devonians for their Catholic faith.
They were loyal and patriotic to the core, but
they clung to the beliefs in which they had been
bred, and never took kindly to the Reformed
Church. The enforced Reformation, In Cornwall
and Wales, merely induced a religious stagnation
of two centuries. But the converts whom the
priests may gain must not Imagine that they are
reverting to the faith of the Celtic age of saints.
i86

SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
The temporal authority, the spiritual lordship, of
Catholicism, is something wholly alien to the
primitive Christianity of St. Piran and St. Petrock,
St. Columba and St. Patrick,
The hagiology of the West, of Cornwall raore
especially, is largely shared by Wales, by Brittany,
and by Ireland, In other parts of England Celtic
dedications, though not actually non-existent, are
very rare ; we naturally find a few In parts of
Strathclyde and Northurabria, and on the Welsh
borderland. Celtic place-names we can discover
in the most Teutonized parts of England ; names
of river and headland and hill survive the fiercest
ordeal of invasion and occupation. With dedica
tions of churches it was different. There were
Christian churches at such eastern towns as
Canterbury and Sf. Albans when the Saxons came,
but the link in their continuity was broken by
ruthless destruction. The Saxons were heathens
when they reached our shores, and they remained
heathen for a century and a half later. Whatever
Christianity they may have met in the eastern
counties, they crushed pitilessly, just as they
crushed the higher civilization against which they
brought a bloodthirsty paganism and an inferior
culture. In the West it was otherwise.
Just at a tirae when Saxon and Celt were at a
death-grip in the south-east, numbers of Welsh
187

LITERARY RAMBLES
and Irish missionaries were pouring into Cornwall
and Devon. When Teuton and Celt finally met
at Exeter, and later at the Tamar, it was a case
of Christian meeting Christian ; something of the
fierceness of the struggle was diminished. Not
much, perhaps ; for we must remember that
religious quarrels are among the bitterest that the
world knows, and the Christianity that the Saxons
brought was that which they had derived from
Rome, and was utterly inimical to the independent
claims of the Celtic clergy. But certainly the
contact of the two races was no longer one of
extermination, if it had ever been such ; and as a
matter of fact, the Saxons never really overran
the West Country at all. The most they did was
to settle in certain districts, and obtain a species
of over-lordship, like that which the Normans
later obtained over theraselves. It is true that
' West|Wales,' even as far as Land's End and
Scilly, was hurriedly conquered by Egbert and
Athelstan, if a more or less warlike progress can
be called a conquest ; but It was colonized rather
than occupied, and the colonies never extended
much beyond the Taraar. The great central
moorland of Devon was not touched ; and in
Somerset many of the Celtic inhabitants continued
to hold, or at least to till, the soil.
With the Norman Conquest came the gradual
i88

SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
moulding of many divergent eleraents into one
nation — a compound of Ivernian, Roman and Celt,
Saxon, Dane, and Norman — in which heterogeneous
mixture some good persons astonishingly recognise
the surviving 'lost tribes' of Israel. But the
Cornish saints were secure. They had affixed
their names to the village churches in an intimate
personal fashion, quite unlike the dedications ot
the Latin Church ; they had become part and
parcel of the people's traditions, not to be eradi
cated by the most Ultramontane of later bishops,
or the most iconoclastic of Reformers. To this
day the traveller from far counties reads their
names on the signboards of railway-stations, and
raarvels what the strange designations raay signify.
The story of how the saints came to the West
is involved in a vast amount of myth, with just
enough truth to render it perplexing. It has been
complicated by bardic romance and by the fabrica
tions of monkish chroniclers. The whole question
of the bringing of Christianity to Britain is, of
course, obscure, though It is tolerably safe to con
clude that the first Christians in this land were
certain of the Roman legionaries. Travelling mer
chants from the East may also have brought
rumours and details of the new religion to south
Britain ; but we resign as entirely unproven the
pleasing stories of St. Paul, and even of St. Joseph.
189

LITERARY RAMBLES
Though the West Country was very little affected,
directly, by the Roraan occupation, yet the
Romans had stations In Devon, and, apparently,
one near Truro. Their position at these places
seems to have been quite peaceful, and their rela
tions with the Dumnonii generally were those of
friendly suzerainty. It Is possible that they intro
duced the first Christianity to the Western counties ;
fragments of Roman pottery, inscribed with the
cross and the sacred monogram, have been dis
covered at Padstow.
In the fifth century Constantine, Prince of the
Dumnonii, was converted, and was the founder of
a faraily of saints. In using the term ' saint ' we
must disabuse our rainds of the usual ideas con
nected with that word. The Celts eraployed the
word In something the same manner as that in
which Roman Catholics sometimes speak of
' religious ' ; they neither mean one who has been
canonized, nor one who is particularly holy in
character, but simply one who belongs to the
religious settiement as distinct from the secular
settlement. All social organization in those days
was on tribal lines ; Christianity introduced the
'tribe of the saint.' As the pagan tribes had
formerly their own peculiar magicians and medi-
cine-raen, so now they had their rival saints, and
thus differences of ritual were fostered. Saintship,
190

SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
after the earliest days of Celtic missions, went by
birth and relationship, but it might be adopted,
just as foreigners may now become nationalized by
observing certain formalities.
The most notable of the West Country saints
were not those of home-production, but were
iramigrants from Wales and Ireland or from
Brittany. They had a tendency to run in families,
including all degrees of relationship, like the great
Irish- Welsh Brychan family in Wales, Those
belonging to the Constantine family were both
the earliest and the most truly native to the West.
To this, the royal Dumnonlan race, belonged the
Gereint whose name has been familiarized by
Tennyson, though Tennyson's Geraint belongs
to romance rather than to history. There were
almost certainly several princes bearing this name,
which we trace at St, Gerrans and at Dingerrein in
Cornwall. ^
The lonely sea-washed church of Gunwalloe,
near Helston, reminds us of another member of
this family, the saint Gwinwalloe, or WInwaloe.
Another was the Winow, or Wfnnoc, whom we
trace at St. Winnow, at Lewanick, and probably
also at Landewednack and Towednack. A son of
Geraint was the Cyngar or Congar, whom we find
at Congresbury in Somerset. Another relative
was the Cybi, or Cuby, who has doubtless been
191

LITERARY RAMBLES
robbed of his rights at Cubert, where the dedica
tion is wrongly attributed to the north-country
St. Cuthbert. But we are on quicksands in deal
ing with these semi-mythic saints ; even so expert
a hagiologlst as Mr. Baring-Gould is by no means
sure of his footing. A little more certitude is
attainable when we come to the Welsh and Irish
saints, who left their footprints in the Western
counties, who wandered, like the early Apostles,
from land to land, founding churches, and bringing
such light as they could to the dark places.
From the number of his dedications, St. Petrock
is, perhaps, the most noteworthy of all the Western
saints ; we find him at Padstow and Bodmin, at
Lydford, Hollocorabe, Petrockstow, Dartmouth,
and Exeter, to narae only some of his footprints.
We are not bound to imagine that he visited all
these places in person, though there is nothing to
prove that he did not. Like so many other Celtic
saints, Petrock was of royal birth, but the records
are contradictory, some stating that he was a
Cornishman, others a Welshman. Possibly he
sprang from one of the Irish clans that attempted
to establish their rule In South Wales, and suc
ceeded for a time ; it is certain th.-it he had in
tiraate connections with Ireland, where he passed
many years in study. His name is interpreted as
' Littie Peter,' and some ill-informed writers have
192

SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
confused him with the great Irish Patrick. He
arrived at the estuary of the Camel, near the
present town of Padstow, about the middle of the
sixth century or a little earlier, and undoubtedly
he founded a religious cell here before passing on
to Bodmin.
The narae of Padstow is a corruption of Pet-
rock's-stow, and the sarae name was also applied
to Bodmin {^Bod-minachau, ' the abode of monks '),
causing endless confusion to earlier writers. Even
now, when we find Petrockstow In early records,
it is difficult to be sure whether Padstow is meant
or Bodmin. It seems probable that Petrock made
Bodmin his headquarters, starting frora thence on
long missionary journeys that carried him as far as
the borders of Somerset ; and he returned here to
die. Mythical accounts speak of a magic voyage
that he made, like that of St. Brendan, touching
on an island of the blest, and passing many years
like a few hours of rapt oblivion. Besides two
churches in Wales, there is one French dedication
in his name, which, perhaps, accounts for the theft
of his bones in 1177, when a canon of Bodmin
Priory carried his remains to France, raising a
storm of indignation throughout Cornwall. So
great was the outcry that the bones were returned,
and the casket in which they were preserved is stil]
shown. But in spite of many dedications and
193 N

LITERARY RAMBLES
much legend, we do not get a personal glimpse of
Petrock ; he remains cold and lifeless to us.
St. Piran, the patron of Cornish tin- miners, has"
a far more vivid touch of personality. He is
-genuine Irish, being identified with the famous
St. Kieran of Saigir, the Goidelic K being changed
to P by a common principle of Brythonic muta
tion. A fox, a wolf, a badger, and a wild boar,
are said to have been his first monks — proving, at
least, that a love of animals was one noble feature
in this rugged Irishman's Christianity, as in that
of St. Francis. He tamed these beasts, calling
himself their abbot ; and when the fox comraitted
a theft he made him do penance. On one occasion,
when the sacred fire at Saigir was allowed to go
out, it is said to have been miraculously kindled
by a thunderbolt.
It is related that Kieran's raother founded a kind
of convent-school for girls at no great distance from
his monastery. The plan did not work well. One
ofthe girls who went to this school was the Bruin-
sech, or Buriena, whose name we find at St. Buryan,
a maiden of royal blood. She was carried off by
an amorous chieftain, but Kieran promptly followed
and terrified the seductor with his thunders of
ecclesiastical threatening. This and some other
things made Ireland rather too hot for him ; in
fact, it is said that the Irish tied him to a millstone
194

SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
and dropped him into the sea. The common
legend is that he came to Cornwall floating on a
stone, the truth being that saints in those days,
when they removed from one place to another,
sometimes carried their altar-pieces with them.
Tradition says that when the millstone touched
the water it immediately floated, and hundreds of
those who were watching from the shore were
converted by the miracle.
Kieran had had enough of Ireland ; he carae to
Cornwall and became St. Piran. It is often stated
that he was the discoverer of tin, one irreverent
tale saying that he discovered the metal while
doing a bit of illicit distilling, having brought a
taste for good ' Irish ' with him. But, of course,
tin had been known and worked in Cornwall before
the Christian era, and Piran did not arrive till the
close of the fifth century. He built a cell at
Perrenzabuloe, which name, most appropriately, is
Piran-in-sabulo, ' Piran in the sand.' A later, but
still very ancient chapel built on this site, was
buried by the sands for centuries, and lost sight of
by all but a discredited tradition ; but the tradition
proved right, and the little sanctuary was dis
covered about seventy years since. The ruins have
very nearly been swallowed by the sand-drifts again,
but are shortly to be restored. A huge skeleton,
about seven feet six inches in length, which was
195 N 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
found here, has been supposed to be that of Piran
himself ; countless human remains lay in the dunes
around, marking a densely filled burial-place.
Amid so much that is mythical, it is not even
certain that Piran ended his da.ys in Cornwall at
all; but the probability is great that he did so.
Some authorities believe he is the same as St.
Keverne of the Lizard district ; but if so, it is
difficult to explain the mutation of the initial letter
in one case and not in the other. Others say that
Keverne, or Chebran, was a different personage
entirely, and almost certainly they are right.
Difficult though it is to identify this St. Keverne,
a rather delightful story Is told about him, which
tends to make him a living reality He was
visited one day by his brother-saint St. Just, of
the Land's End district, who likewise is most
difficult to identify. With genuine Cornish
hospitality, Keverne made his visitor drink his
health out of a beautiful piece of plate, some
say a chalice. St. Just immensely admired the
cup, and thought it would do finely for his own
communion-table. When Keverne was absent
for a moment he pocketed it and ran off without
saying goodbye: Keverne soon returned, and
found that both his guest and his chalice were
missing; he started in hot pursuit, and as he
went picked up three lat^ stones on Crowza
196

SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
Down. He soon caught sight of the saintly
absconder, running as fast as his burden would
let hira. Keverne shouted, but St. Just raade
no reply ; he then threw one of his stones, with
words more forcible than polite. St. Just ran
on. Keverne threw another stone, and then
the third. It is not related whether his aim
was true, but by this time St. Just realized that
discretion would be the wiser course. He dropped
the cup and made the best of his way home.
The Lizard saint returned to his cell indignant
but triumphant.
The three stones lay where they had fallen
for many centuries, and were known as Tre-men
keverne, 'the three stones of Keverne.' There
was thus a tangible proof of the story's reality,
for they were bulky fi-agments of a rock still
found on Crowza Downs, but not found in the
field on which they lay. From their size, it is
clear that popular imagination had confused stories
of the saints with traditions of the giants. But
there Is a refreshing touch of human nature In
the tale, which marks it as utterly different from
the vapid fabrications of the average Latin saint-
legend. Another interesting saint of the Land's End
district is the Irish St. Levan, whose name may
be a corruption of Siluan or Silvanus. He lived
197

LITERARY RAMBLES
in a cell near the present St. Levan Church, and
it is said that he supported hiraself on a single '
fish each day, which came miraculously to his
hook, and which doubtless appreciated the honour
of satisfying a saintly appetite. A woman named
Joanna lived near, between whom and the saint
there seem to have been continual bickerings.
One Sunday, as Levan was going down to the
shore to catch his fish, he saw this woman in
her garden gathering herbs. She abused him as
being a fine specimen of a saint, breaking the
Sabbath-day by fishing. He retorted that it was
quite as bad to gather vegetables ; she replied
that there was no comparison between the two.
Probably she was an early speciraen of the
vegetarian. Levan made cutting remarks about
female logic and female talkativeness ; and he
declared that if any girl were baptized in his
well with the name of Joanna, she should be a
greater fool than this present Joanna. It is
a fact that no Cornish parent took his child to
St. Levan Church for baptism, if he had set his
heart on her bearing this name. It was spiteful
of Levan, but doubtiess the woman was aggra
vating. Another story told of St. Levan is that one
day two fishes came to his line Instead of one
— rival candidates, probably, for the honour of
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SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
feeding him. According to his custom, he threw
them both back, and tried again. Again he
caught two, and yet again. Then he realized
that there must be some supernatural purpose
in it ; he took the fishes home, and found that
his sister Breage had unexpectedly come to visit
him with her two • children. All three visitors
were hungry, especially the children, who ate -so
greedily that the fish-bones choked them. Sorae
say that the fish were chad ; others, who represent
thera as being caught in the saint's well, not In
the sea, say bream ; certainly bream were com
monly known in Cornwall as ' choke-cheeld,' It
is also said that Breage, herself a saint, took the
matter very unkindly, though It is difficult to
see how Levan was to blame,
A little nearer to Land's End is the parish of
Sennen. There are doubts about the identity
of St, Senan, but it is generally concluded that
he was the Irish Senan of Inascathy, If so,
he was the saint who founded a raonastry on an
island, and made a rule that no woman should
set foot on its shores, a tale which Moore
embodied in one of his ' Irish Melodies.' As a
boy this saint must have been rather provoking ;
in fact, the saints of tradition were often most
annoying persons to live with. It is said that
when his parents were changing houses, he
199

LITERARY RAMBLES
persisted in kneeling down and praying in the
midst of all the confusion. No modern house
wife, in the bustle of spring-cleaning or any other
feminine delight, would tolerate such mis-placed
devotion. His mother thought a little help
would be more to the purpose, and she told
him so ; but he continued on his knees. Then
she poured water over hira. Even this did not
divert him from his devotions ; but the domestic
articles and furniture began to move of them
selves and placed themselves in the removal-van
— if such articles were known In those days.
Senan certainly reversed the maxim, which
says that to work is to pray. Not much else
is told of him, beyond the fact that, when his
body was being carried to burial, he suddenly
sat up aid directed that his anniversary should
be kept on March 8, instead of March i. He
did not say why, but his wish was respected.
Celtic saints sometimes did funny things, even
after they were dead ; thus St. Cadoc, a Welsh
saint who came to Cornwall, roared angrily in his
coffin when the bearers accidentally jostied him.
Prominent among West Country saints must
be mentioned some holy women. The traditions
show that women in those days often played a
far from subordinate part. In Ireland there was
the famous St. Brigid, or Bride, whose name was
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SAINTS AND SAINT- LORE
brought by Irish settlers to Devonshire. Wales
had St. Winifred, though perhaps . her history
must be received as cautiously as her miracles.
Northumbria had the great St Hilda ; St. Ives
being a typical Cornish town, we may take St. Ia,
its patroness, as a typical Cornish woman-saint.
Yet there is suprisingly little to be told about her.
She formed one of a body of Irish missionaries
who came over in the fifth century. Of the
current accounts part is conjectural, part fictitious,
part perhaps symbolical. It is stated that she
came to Cornwall on a leaf; probably it was a
species of coracle. Tradition also states that she
and her companions were slain by King Tewdrig,
or Theodore, almost immediately on landing ; but
as many of these saints accomplished a good deal
in founding churches and settlements, it is clear
they were not all killed so rapidly.
It is a curious corruption that has changed
St la's into St. Ives ; the true name of the town
was formerly Porthia. Its present narae must
neither be confounded with the other St. Ive of
Cornwall nor with the St. Ives of Huntingdon ;
neither of those two dedications have anything to
do with la. Another most Interesting saint is
St. Morwenna, the patroness of Morwenstow,
which in itself and by reason of its connection
with R. S; Hawker, is one of the most attractive
20I

LITERARY RAMBLES
parishes in Cornwall. Hawker himself always
confounded Morwenna with the Modwenna of
the Midlands, and he equally wrongly styled his
church a 'Saxon shrine,' whereas the dedication
is certainly Celtic. Morwenna belonged to the
large Brychan tribe of saints, and she came over
from Wales in company with a large party of her
relations. It is possible that she established her
first oratory at Marhara Church, but later she
reraoved to the present site of Morwenstow. It
Is said that she selected this position because on
clear days her eyes could catch a glirapse of her
beloved Wales. However far they wandered
from home — and they were great vagrants — ^the
Celtic saints seem generally to have experienced a
passion of home-sickness. When Morwenna was
dying, she exclaimed to her companion : ' Raise
me in your arms, that my eyes may rest on my
native Wales.' Morvyn is still the Welsh for
virgin, and it is possible that the name of Morwenna
stands for a maiden otherwise unnamed.
Among other woman-saints the West Country
has footprints of St. Nonnlta, or Non, the mother
of the Welsh St. David. Her holy well was at
Alternon, and this was reputed to possess remark
able powers of curing insanity. According to
Carew, the ' frantic person was put to stand, his
back toward the pool, and frora thence, with a
202

SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
sudden blow in the breast, tumbled headlong into
the pond, where a strong fellow, provided for the
nonce, took him and tossed him up and down,
alongst and athwart the water, till the patient, by
foregoing his strength, had somewhat forgot his
fury. Then was he conveyed to the church, and
certain masses said over him ; upon which hand
ling, if his right wits returned, St. Nun had the
thanks ; but if there appeared small amendment,
he was bowssened again and again, while there
remained in hira any hope of life or recovery.'
These practices were fully In keeping with the old
treatment of lunacy ; it was a case of * kill or cure.
In one case out of twenty, the shock might work a
cure ; it would be better not to inquire too closely
about the other nineteen.
Traces of St. Non's famous son, whom Wales
has somewhat unaccountably taken for her patron
saint, may be found at Davidstow, and at St.
David's, Exeter, to name only two of his dedica
tions. It is interesting to notice that the former
pronunciation of Davidstow as Dewstow, preserved
the genuine Welsh form of the name David, Dewi.
Exeter has some other interesting dedications, in
cluding a rather surprising one to the Norwegian
Olaf St. Sidwell, or Sativola, was reputed a
virgin-saint, probably a native of Britain ; the
Exeter legend says that she was martyred, her
203

LITERARY RAMBLES
head being cut off with a scythe. At Hartiand,
and also near Tintagel, we meet with St. Nectan,
or Knighton, supposed sometimes to have been a
brother of Morwenna. There are several Cornish
dedications to the Welsh St. Samson, who left his
name to an island of the Scillies, and to St. Samp
son's, Guernsey,
The danger of taking names for granted is
proved at the Scilly island of St, Agnes, and at
St. Agnes north of Truro. In both cases the
name is locally pronounced St. Anne's, and this
almost certainly gives us the true dedication.
The St. Anne in question is a mysterious product
of heathenism and Christianity ; she seems origin
ally to have been a Celtic goddess, and is after
wards spoken of as a sister of King Arthur. Her
story is connected by Cornish folk with the age of
giants. She is said to have had a religious cell
where now stands the village of St, Agnes, and
close by lived the famous giant Bolster, About a
mile from the village stands the hill of St, Agnes'
Beacon ; and Bolster used to amuse himself by
striding with one foot on this summit and another
on that of Carn Brea, six miles distant. The artist
Crulckshank has drawn him in this position, by a
wonderful effort of perspective.
It appears that the giant fell violently in love
with St. Anne, whom legend represents as marvel-
204

SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
lously beautiful, but a woman of strict virtue, as
became her sanctity. Celtic saints, however, were
not always so immaculate in this respect ; and as
the Celtic Church allowed its clergy to marry, this
was another cause of the anathemas thundered
against that Church by early Ultramontanism.
Bolster being already a married man, it was
certainly improper of him to pay attentions to
another lady, even though that other might be a
saint ; and so St. Anne told him, counselling hira
to be kinder as well as more faithful to the unhappy
Mrs. Bolster, But the giant's love was more
powerful than the lady's reasonings ; he represented
Mrs. Bolster as a poor, miserable creature, only
fit for the rough manual labour that he imposed
upon her ; whereas his love of the saint was a
thing of the soul, and might reform him from
wicked ways.
At last the lady seemed to relent. She asked
him to give her one final proof of his devotion.
There is a little hole in the cliff at Chapel Porth ;
would he consent to fill this hole with his blood ?
Of course the giant would do so ; a very few
drops from his immense frame would fill this tiny
cavity. So he lay at full length and opened a
vein for the blood to flow. The life-blood came
pouring forth, but the hole did not fill ; It flowed,
and the giant became weaker and weaker, while
205

LITERARY RAMBLES
the sea beneath the cliffs was gradually crimsoned
with a colour as of the ruddiest sunset. Perhaps,
as his dying swoon came over him, the deceived
giant realized that the apparently small cavity led
into a sea-washed cave below ; this tiny hole could
never be filled with the life-streams of many giants.
If this truth came to darken his dying agony, it
must considerably have modified his conception of
saintiiness as it was understood In Cornwall. It
Is perhaps wrong, but one's sympathies go to the
deluded monster of misguided humanity, rather
than to the crafty calculations of the relentless
lady. It is said that the red stain of the giant's
blood may still be traced on the cliff-side, retained
by ruddy lichens and mosses.
At St. Neot's, near Liskeard, we have one of
the few Saxon dedications in Cornwall, and the
legends told of him belong far more to the con
ventional type of monkish inventions. He is
represented as the elder brother, sometimes as the
uncle, of King Alfred, and Asser tells us that
Alfi-ed himself once came to kneel in the chapel
that held his remains. It is said that he would
stand for hours imraersed in his well, each day,
while he recited or sang the entire psalter ; and
this same well contained three fishes, one of which
he took daily for his fare, yet the number never
became less. On one occasion he fell sick, and
206

SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
his servant came to the well for the usual fish.
Thinking to please his master's appetite, the
servant took two fish Instead of one, boiling one
and broiling the other. Angered at this breach
of the conditions of the miracle, St. Neot prayed
over the cooked fish, and then ordered his man to
cast them back into the water. They immediately
returned to life.
Neot became an abbot, and once when the oxen
of his monastery were stolen by robbers, deer of
the forest came and offered themselves to drag the
ploughs. The robbers heard of this miracle, and
of course repented, not only restoring the cattle,
but themselves embracing a religious life. On
another occasion a fox swallowed the saint's shoe,
but left its string hanging from his mouth. The
saint pulled the string and recovered his shoe.
Perhaps he gave the hungry fox some more
dainty morsel, for he had that love of animals
which is one of the most pleasing features of early
saintdom-, and the beasts In his neighbourhood
enjoyed a kind of sanctuary. It would even seem
that some of these saints discouraged hunting,
and we admire them the more for doing so ; but
they must have preached to a deaf generation,
just as they would to-day.
It must be confessed that some of the stories of
West Country saints give us a very curious notion
207

LITERARY RAMBLES
of Celtic saintship, and it is just here that their
historic value lies. For the Celts had a notion of
their saints quite different from that of peoples
whose ideas have been coloured by Latin Chris
tianity. Very few Celtic saints have been canonized
by the Roman Church, not because of their un
worthiness, but because they quite failed to meet
the requirements of the Latin ideal ; many of them
were married, and few submitted to the claims of
the Roman See. A far deeper controversy lay
behind the trivial dissensions as to the tonsure
and the date of Easter. It was the Christianity
of these saints that existed In the West of
England long before the Italian mission landed
in Kent.
Founded by these zealous men from Wales
and Ireland, this Christianity became tribal and
monastic, not territorial. To speak paradoxically,
there were bishops, but no bishop. The Celtic
bishops were recognised as belonging to the
highest of the three orders, and in virtue of this
they enjoyed a certain precedence, chiefly in
matters of ceremony. No monastic settlement
could be complete without a bishop, or the
occasional visits of one ; but in all questions of
monastic rule, the bishop, even when residential,
was completely subordinate to the abbot. This
was directly counter to the Latin system, and
208

SAINTS AND SAINT-LORE
was one of the points of disagreement between
Canterbury and the early British Church.
The Latin rule, with its infinitely better organiza
tion, ultimately triumphed; but its triumph was
very gradual. Rome, whose temporal legions had
once held Europe, now sent forth spiritual legions
to resume their sway. While admiring the
tenacity with which the Celts clave to their
system, we cannot fail to recognise that this
system was deficient as a working order ; It
lacked method, it militated against centralization,
it induced divergent units rather than a controlled
aggregate. The Latin Church had learned
Rome's superb statecraft. The Celtic Church
was as great in spirituality ; it was weak in
temporalities. It gave us raany saints and many
churches ; Latin Christianity produced the parish
and the diocese.
The invasion of Teutons that began in the
middle of the fifth century was an Invasion of a
Christianized land by pagans. Gildas could truth-
fiilly exclaim : ' They have burned with fire Thy
sanctuary ; they have polluted on earth the
tabernacles of Thy name.' A far greater survival
of Christian monuments in the West has caused
some to think that the West of England was
more thoroughly Christianized in Celtic days than
the East ; but this is by no means certain. But
209 o

LITERARY RAMBLES
the uncivilized heathens that devastated Kent and
Sussex had become Christian when they reached
Devonshire, after an interval of about four
centuries. The quarrel was now between two
differing conceptions of the faith, not between
Christianity and heathenism. When Eadulf was
appointed as the first bishop of the Crediton
diocese, established in 909, he was specially
instructed to visit Cornwall thrice yearly, to
' extirpate the errors of the Cornish.'
These errors were, of course, those Celtic
notions which the Latin Church resented so
deeply. First and foremost, was a natural refusal
to recognise the jurisdiction of Canterbury.
Lesser grievances, often exaggerated for political
purposes, were lingering features of tribal church-
government and ritual. In all points the British
Church ultimately had to give way, but the
process was very gradual, and the marvellous
development of revivalistic Nonconformity was in
some sense a recrudescence of Celtic Christianity.
As in Cornwall and Devon, so in Wales. In
their strength, and perhaps in their weakness,
Wales and Cornwall show survivals from the days
of the old British saints, who had human short
comings, but were seldom lacking in a fiery zeal
and impassioned eloquence.

210

TINTAGEL AND iTS AHJHURIAN
TRADITIONS
There are several things that may add powerfully
to the charm of locality. Perhaps the most per
manent and natural of these is a spot's beauty or
its grandeur — the wild loneliness of Cornish cliffs,
or the rich cradled loveliness of a Yorkshire valley.
Great historic events may dignify places otherwise
unattractive — sorae raighty conflict of races or fac
tions, some onward step in the world's slow progress.
Or there raay be association with the memory of a
notable personage — the birthplace of a Shakespeare,
the home of a Wordsworth. Again, there may
be the vague charm of Indefinite tradition.
In such a spot as Tintagel we have a combina
tion of these attractions. The grandeur of the
scene would be undeniable, were it barren of all
human record ; but added to the impressiveness
of sea and coast there is the rumour of events that
hover on the borderland between history and
romance, and association with a personage who is
something between a racial chieftain and a mythic
211 o 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
demigod. To Briton, Welshman, and Breton,
this is one of the most holy places of national
tradition, and Its narae has looraed so large In
legend and chronicle, that it is just possible a
visitor may experience a slight feeling of disappoint
ment on first making acquaintance with the reality.
Some such feeling seems to have been Tennyson's,
for in the rough notes of a tour in Cornwall which
he made in 1848, we read, ' Clomb over Isle, dis
appointed.' In the later tour of i860 we have a
few raore jottings, such as : ' Arrived at Tintagel,
grand coast, furious rain ' ; and again : ' Black
cliffs and caves, and storm and wind, but I weather
it out and take my ten-miles-a-day walks.' The
poet's companion, F. T. Palgrave, adds :
' This was perhaps specially entitled to be
named Tennyson's Arthurian journey. At a sea
inlet of wonderful picturesqueness, so grandly
modelled are the rocks which wall it, so trans-
lucently purple the waves that are its pavement —
waves whence the " naked babe " Arthur came
ashore In flarae — stands the time-eaten ruin of
unknown date which bears the name Tintagel.'
The notes are meagre enough, and we have to
be content with the certainty that Tennyson's first
feeling of disappointraent must have given way
before the gradual and wonderful fascination of
the locality. 212

TINTAGEL AND ITS TRADITIONS
When George Borrow made a tour to the old
home of his Cornish father, he also tramped to
Tintagel, but we do not know what were his
impressions ; he never wrote that book on Corn
wall which might have been as delightful as his
* Wild Wales.' We can picture him washing
down his weariness in draughts of ale at the
Trevena Inn, and chanting fragments of bardic
verse as he scrambled about the ruins. We have
at least a record of his joy when he discovered
that the name Jennefer was still coramon in the
Duchy, and the quick apprehension with which
he recognised this as siraply a corruption of
Guinevere. One wonders whether he raet
Hawker, the poet-vicar of Morwenstow. It
would have been a meeting of two fine originals
— raen of a ripe individuality that might probably
have set them at loggerheads. What a loss to
literature, that Borrow never wrote ' Wild Corn
wall' There can be no denying that the ideas of the
average visitor to Tintagel are vaguely borrowed
from Tennyson, that is to say, if the average
visitor has any ideas on the matter at all. It is
claiming too much. In this age of halfpenny news
papers and snippety periodicals, to expect that one
man or woman In a hundred has read the ' Idylls
of the King.' It might be unkind to listen to the
213

LITERARY RAMBLES
casual conversation of the tourists who struggle
up the steep steps to the door ofthe ruins. There
is generally complete mystification as to what it all
means, and a physical condition ready to indulge
eagerly in Cornish creara and saffron-cake. Al
most every visitor iraagines that the ruined walls
to which he is climbing are the actual remains of
Arthur's castle ; and this at least is pardonable,
for some erring antiquaries have fostered the
same idea.
But among the visitors are sorae who have
really read the ' Idylls,' and some who have
studied the subject closely enough to know that
Tennyson himself is unhistorlc. The poet simply
took that version of the perplexed Arthurian
legend which best suited his purpose — the tale as
borrowed from Welsh sources by Geoffrey of
Monmouth, a tale neither proven nor disproven,
but containing a few local touches which give
a glimmer of probability amid a cloud of
uncertainties and anachronisms. This version
tells how Uther, Pendragon or head chieftain of
the Britons, fell In love with Igerne, wife of
Gorlois, Earl of Cornwall. Not liking the king's
attentions to his wife, Gorlois withdrew her from
the court, and the angered prince marched In arms
against him :
' And as he was under more concern for his wife
214

TINTAGEL AND ITS TRADITIONS
than himself, he put her into the town of Tintagel
upon the sea-shore, which he looked upon as a
place of great safety. But he himself entered the
casde of Dameliock, to prevent their being both
involved in the same danger, If any should happen.'
Uther was soon besieging Dameliock, which
survives as a large earthwork about seven miles
south-west of Tintagel, and is one of the best
verifications of an uncertain story. Tintagel itself
was considered too strong for siege :
' For it is situated upon the sea, and on every
side surrounded by It ; and there Is but one
entrance into It, and that through a straight rock,
which three men shall be able to defend against the
whole power of the kingdom.'
Force being evidently useless, the magic of
Merlin was called into play ; Uther was changed
into the likeness of Gorlois, and so deceived both
the porter at Tintagel and the wife. It Is only
right to add that, Gorlois being killed, Uther and
Igerne eventually married, and if we choose to be
credulous we may believe that the ceremony took
place at the little church standing on the cliffs of
the mainland, whose bells, tradition tells us, pealed
forth supernaturally at the birth and at the death
of Arthur. If Arthur was the fruit of this union,
the tale has been worth the telling ; but a varying
tradition, still dearer to the Celtic imagination,
215

LITERARY RAMBLES
gives him a more supernatural origin. It is said
that on the night when Uther died in Tintagel,
wailing the lack of an heir, a naked babe was
brought by the sea to the feet of Merlin, and this
child * from the great deep ' was Arthur.
Readers of Tennyson will recognise that the
poet took his materials from Malory, Geoffrey of
Monmouth, and the Mablnogion ; but he rapidly
drifted into allegory, and the result Is something
that manifestly differs from any of his sources.
He failed to maintain the standard of the first
noble fragment, ' Morte d' Arthur.' A doubt as
to the existence of his hero coloured the whole
picture, or we may rather say, rendered its colour
ing dim and visionary. There is no reason why
good poetry should not also be good history ; but
in the case of Arthur the matter of good history
was lacking, and Tennyson had not the genius
of Shakespeare, who could convert shadows into
realities. There Is always a suspicion that his King
Arthur is an idealized portrait of Prince Albert.
It has been complained that he emasculated
his subject, converting Arthur into a white
washed plaster-saint, and blackening Guinevere by
contrast. But the excuse raay be urged that a
bolder treatment of the legend would have ren
dered the poem unsuitable for general reading.
216

TINTAGEL AND ITS TRADITIONS
The poet toned the coarser features into the
gentlest symbolism of romanticism, where a realist
would have depicted unclad vices. We may admire
the picture, but we know It is utterly unlike any
Arthur who could have lived in Early Britain.
The true Arthur must have been a semi-civilized
barbarian, with a thin veneer, perhaps, of Chris
tianity, and probably a touch of Roman culture.
He was a man, virile and hot-blooded. Sorae of
the Welsh legends represent him as disagreeably
given to bullying ; a later age Idealized him, and
it was left to a Victorian poet to make him a
saint. The attempt to unravel the tangled web of
Arthurian tradition is hopeless and endless ; one
can only strive to pick out a few possibilities. It
is most probable that the confused legends com
bine memories of a real personage with myths of
a folk-lore god or culture-hero. Professor Rhys
imagines that the association of the hero with a
Round Table may be a recollection of the first
introduction of tables into Britain ; others think
that the Table itself is purely mythic and sym
bolic. It Is usually conceded that Arthur, if he
lived at all, flourished in the early sixth century,
a Romanized Brython, filling the Roman office of
Comes Britannia, having in his charge the military
defence of the whole province — no sinecure at any
217

LITERARY RAMBLES
time, but especially not so when the Roman legions
were withdrawn, and hordes of Picts, Norsemen,
and Saxons began to exploit the country for con
quest and settlement. The Welsh dignified his
office into that of Amherawdyr or 'emperor,'
That he was a Brython Is the one point certain
in the whole tradition, for his name Is common
wherever the Brythonic tribes extended. In Wales,
Brittany, south-west England to Land's End, and
North Britain as far as Edinburgh, Naturally, he
plays no part in Goidelic or Ivernian Ireland and
the Scottish Highlands.
It is difficult and, perhaps, inconsistent, to speak
of localities In connection with a personage whose
very existence Is In doubt ; but it Is impossible to
place a note of interrogation after every statement.
It would seem ridiculous to say : ' Here Arthur
was born — if he ever lived ; here he fought a great
battle — if he ever fought battles.' Yet it may
almost be asserted, absurd as it seems, that there Is
greater certitude about Arthurian localities than
there is about the man himself The stout sceptic
may wax credulous when he visits Tintagel, where
wind and wave tell tales of the dim old hero, whose
very spirit is supposed to haunt these cliffs In the
form of a crying sea-gull or a red-legged chough.
Who can refuse credence, when he sees the Im
mense earthworth of Dameliock, and recollects
218

TINTAGEL AND ITS TRADITIONS
how the ill-used Gorlois was besieged and met his
death ; or when he sees the Kelly Rounds, and
remembers that they are the genuine relics of
Arthur's palace of Kelli Wie or Celliwig, frora
which one of the King's marksmen could shoot
with his longbow and kill a wren on the far coast
of Ireland }
We shall do well if, surrendering the letter, we
retain the spirit of these old traditions. We need
not all be cold-blooded dissectors of legend. A
little faith may be wiser than much Incredulity
when we visit Cornwall, whose
' Cairns with clash of phantom-arms resound.
And nights of vision melt to days of dream,
Filled with romance of old Arthurian time.'
Or if we go to the delightful little Caerleon of
Monmouthshire, where the Usk laps with a
whispering of dim Arthurian glories, shall we take
nothing but a skill In callous criticism.'' There
are other notable localities of Arthur in the West
of England, besides those immediately around
Tintagel, There is the near Camelford, sometimes
supposed to be Camelot, and still more often
identified as the scene of Arthur's last great battle.
Both identifications are very dubious, but what of
that } There is the fine old Tor at Glastonbury,
which we picture to ourselves as being the fabled
Island of Avilion, with the ruined abbey of
219

LITERARY RAMBLES
St, Joseph of Arimathea lying in the rich meadows
below, where the bones of the dead Arthur are
said to have been discovered.
In the sarae lovely county of Somerset is the
castle of Cadbury, near the villages of West Camel
and Queen Camel. What wonder if fond dreamers
have imagined this to have been the old palace-fort
of Camelot, and others, knowing the nearness of
Glastonbury, have conjectured that among these
Camels was fought the King's last battle of Camlan,
when he received that wound of which he could
only be healed in the blessed valleys of Avilion ?
Yet the stern seeker after truth will break in upon
our imaginings, and assert that Arthur's last blow
was struck neither here araong the Somerset
meadows nor In the dim land of Lyonesse that
now lies burled beneath tumbling waves ; but that
the battle of Camlan was really fought at Camelon,
In Scotland, near the Firth of Forth, against
Mordred, King of the Picts, the King's nephew.
And amid all this perplexity the discomfited lover
of tradition turns wearily to Tintagel, and thinks
that here, at least, is a secure nest for the fondest
of Arthurian dreams.
It Is best, after all, to forsake disquieting
criticism, and to come into the land of Arthur
as one might pass into Spenser's faery land, or any
other region of pure imaginative delight. There
220

TINTAGEL AND ITS TRADITIONS
is a veracity greater than that of record. We make
no compromise with dishonesty, we do not lower
the dignity of scientific fact when we claim that
imagination also has its legitimate domain, and
that its unverified facts are often more potent to
move us than the utmost accuracy of proven events,
Tintagel is still the birthplace of Arthur, and the
resting-place of the dead Tristram :
' In Cornwall Tristram and Queen Iseult lay ;
In King Mare's chapel in Tyntagel old,
There in a ship they bore those lovers cold.'
It is not surprising that Tintagel should have
irappsed its narae on the neighbouring village of
Trevena, whose church stands on the gusty head
lands west of the castle. Far less in keeping with
the ruin and its traditions is the modern hotel,
built somewhat aggressively on the eastward side
of the ravine. Commodious, and doubtless in
every way satisfactory as this hotel may be, it is
the one jarring touch in a landscape of pure
romance. No railway brings material realities too
near this haunt of dreams ; the nearest station is
not less than five miles distant, and the coaches
that bring loads of sightseers from Bude and Bos-
casde and Camelford deposit them in the village
about a mile from the place of pilgrimage.
The village itself is peacefiil and pleasant, beloved
by the quiet tourist, the cyclist, the painter ; there
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LITERARY RAMBLES
Is one delightful old gabled building, formerly a
post-office, that finds its way into many a photo
graph and picture. The spot is unassuming enough,
yet with a certain dignity and charm — a perfect
spot, it must be, in which to idle away a month of
golden summer-time. The gentle undulations of
the fields and roads are refreshing and soothing,
after the eye has drunk deeply of the rugged sea
ward chasms and precipices. There is little to tell
that a wild coast lies so near ; but the path through
the stream-hollowed gorge, whose mouth is the
tiny cove at Tintagel, gradually prepares the mind
for a view of rugged magnificence and a broad
expanse of rolling Atiantic,
At this small cove there is some little shipping
of slates, but it cannot in any sense be called a
harbour. Such miniature activity as we see here
reminds us that the famous Delabole slate-quarries
are only a mile or two distant. Above rises the
massive, almost insular, bluff of rock which bears
the main body of the ruins. Well was it named
Dun-dlogl, the ' safe stronghold.'
' There stood Dundagel, throned ; and the great sea
Lay, a strong vassal, at his master's gate,
And like a drunken giant sobbed in sleep.'
In the thirteenth century ' High History of the
Holy Grail ' there is a picture of Tintagel which
proves that the chief features of the place have
222

TINTAGEL AND ITS TRADITIONS
altered little within the past seven centuries, except
for the ruined condition of the buildings :
'They carae into a very different land, scarce
inhabited of any folk, and found a little castle in
a combe. They came thitherward and saw that
the enclosure of the castle was fallen down Into
an abysm, so -that none might approach it on that
side, but it had a right fair gateway and a door
tall and wide, whereby they entered. They beheld
a chapel that was right fair and rich, and below
was a great ancient hall.'
There are still traces of this little chapel, which
must not be confounded with the parish church.
Tradition says that a drawbridge once connected
the castle buildings on the island with those on
the mainland, but the chasm has now become so
great that It would be difficult to span it in this
manner ; and it seems to be actually by the
crumbling of walls and slate and fragments of
rock-ruin that the insular character of the mass
has been destroyed. Though so powerful a
natural stronghold would certainly have been
used in very early ages, even before the coraing
of the Celts, yet probably nothing of the surviving
ruin is older than the twelfth century.
The castie was allowed to lapse into decay in
the reign of Elizabeth, as Burleigh grudged
spending the money to keep it in repair. The
223

LITERARY RAMBLES
crumbling fragments can give us little idea even
ofthe Plantagenet fortress that stood here ; still
less can they recall the rugged rock-stronghold in
which Gorlois placed his wife for safety. Massive
and titanic this may have been, but we cannot
imagine it other than cheerless and utterly un
comfortable. Those who climb the uncouth
steps, and, passing through the low archway, sit
on the sward facing the sea with its ever-changeful
depth of colour, will find even the charm of im
memorial tradition swallowed by the still greater
charm of immediate natural beauty. On a calm
day, with the slumbering Atlantic washing the
foot of the steep, and the warm sunlight bathing
the mouldered walls, we pass from dreams of
Arthur into a deeper dream of the marvellous
loveliness and the perpetual mystery of nature.
We cease to wonder whether the crying gull is an
incarnation of the old Celtic king, or whether he
still, as a rare chough, exposes himself to the risk
of appearing, stuffed, in the show-case of some
museum or private dwelling. These things, after
all, are temporalities ; eternal things of the spirit
are stirred within us : ' We are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul.'
But it Is not always peaceful here ; in fact, the
waves seldom lap quite restfully. The full weight
224

TINTAGEL AND ITS TRADITIONS
of a mighty ocean lies behind these waters, and a
western wind can rouse them to fury. Or chill,
clammy mists will float in sometimes from the sea,
wrapping headland after headland, blotting out
the sea itself, and the modern hotel, and the lonely
church upon the hill. In such a gloom, the poet
pictures, was fought the ' last dim, weird battle of
the west ' :
' A death-white mist slept over sea and sand.'
Only a few miles northward along the coast lies
Boscastle, and here again we are within touch of
the Arthurian legend, for Pentargon, the name of
one of its cliffs, is supposed to mean Arthur's
Headland. But Boscastle deserves attention on its own
account, as an absolutely unique little watering-
place. If the term watering-place raises ideas of
Brighton or Scarborough or Margate, the visitor
will smile Indeed when he sees the reality ; and if
he come expecting sands, pavilions, and promenades,
he will bitterly resent the disillusion. But those
who expect better things will not be disappointed.
The village is long, straggling down a hill and
along the sides of the ravine that forms a tiny
land-locked harbour. It is a stern and forbidding
little port, though it ships a good deal of the
Delabole slate, but its coast is of fine subhmity,
225 p

LITERARY RAMBLES
and there is good store of inland loveliness.
Rugged hills rise on either side of the tortuous
gorge with its rude stone quays, between which
vessels are warped by immense hawsers. On the
south hill, Willapark Point, stands the parish
church of Forrabury, but like Trevena at Tintagel,
Forrabury has had its name stolen from it. Bos-
casde is a supposed corruption of Bottreaux' Castie,
which castle has now quite disappeared. In
position the church very much resembles that of
Tintagel, and it has a legend which has been told
in verse by Hawker of Morwenstow.
It is said that the parish of Forrabury resolved
to have a peal of bells that should rival those of
Trevena. The bells were cast, and were being
shipped to the harbour. As they neared the shore
the pilot heard the bells of Trevena chiming from
the coast, and he thanked God for the safe voyage,
' Thank God on land,' exclaimed the skipper with
an oath, ' at sea thank the captain and the good
ship.' Suddenly, though the sea had been sleeping
peacefully, a great wave rose, as immense waves
sometimes do on the Cornish shores, and the
vessel was wrecked at the very gate of the port.
The pilot was saved, and he alone ; the bells sank
to the bottom with the doomed ship, but it is said
that they may still be heard chiming in times of
storm, 226

TINTAGEL AND ITS TRADITIONS
• Still when the storm of Bottreaux' waves
Is wakening in his weedy caves.
Those bells, that sullen surges hide,
Peal their deep notes beneath the tide.
" Come to thy God in time,"
Thus saith the ocean chime ;
" Storm, billow, whirlwind past,
Come to thy God at last," '
Those who linger in the churchyard of this gray
old sanctuary, will not forget the touching story
of ' The Pet,' told by Baring-Gould in his memoir
of Hawker. If they be merely casual visitors to
this land of myth and dream, they will have failed
completely in appreciation if they do not carry
away with them some imperishable memories. It
is not necessary to be learned in archaeology or
antiquities, to be profoundly versed in history, or
to have fathomed the mysteries of modern com
parative folk-lore, the perplexities of culture-
heroes and sun-myths, in order to win their true
secrets from these north Cornwall coasts. The
best things are sometimes withheld from the wise
and learned, to be revealed to loving hearts.

227 p 2

WITH COLERIDGE AND TENNYSON
AT CLEVEDON
A WRITER on Clevedon once spoke of ' Severn's
silver sea,' He was not speaking of the Severn
among the Welsh hills, but of the Severn as it
flows in its broad estuary. The stranger visiting
the Somerset coast must eliminate any idea of
' silver ' frora his mind, otherwise the shock of
disillusionment may be considerable. More aptly,
another writer has spoken of the river as being
'yellow as Tiber,'
At Clevedon the water, dignified- by Bristolians
with the name of ' sea,' is neither silver nor yellow,
but simply mud-coloured. Under' dull skies it is
a dead chocolate-brown ; though it possesses in
coramon with all water the magic gift of trans
figuration, flashed into gold by sunshine, shim
mering into silver under moonlight. It has
further the atmospheric charm that we find in all
similar estuaries, giving it an endowment of rare
sunsets ; lacking the breadth of a llmitiess horizon,
228

WITH COLERIDGE AND TENNYSON
but bounded by the hills of a coast that appears
far or near according to change of weather.
This broad river is the true gate of the West
Country, it is the genuine ' Celtic fringe ' ;
traversed in old days by missionary saints journey
ing southward from Wales, at a time when there
was one race on both shores of the wide water.
On the northward side issue the Usk, with
whisperings of King Arthur's Caerleon, and the
Wye, loveliest of British rivers ; on the south
comes the Avon, with legends of old Bath and
historic Bristol. When the sunset glow has died
into too transient a memory, gleams strike across
the water from the Flat Holm and the Lightship ;
the lights of Cardiff and Newport break the black
horizon, together with the sudden flare of smelting-
furnaces. A passenger steamer, perhaps, calls for
a moment at the pier, and again passes into the
night ; the lights are extinguished ; esplanade and
Green Beach are left to utter solitude.
But this muddy-hued water, allied on the one
hand with far Plinlimmon, on the other with the
broad Atlantic, has one characteristic at least that
renders its title of ' sea ' not undeserved. It can
be roused to fury by winds from the west and
north-west, and at such times its banks are all too
narrow to restrain its chafing surges. Such a
storra took place in the autumn of 1903, when
229

LITERARY RAMBLES
the havoc wrought upori the Soraerset coast was
enormous. Clevedon, with its neighbours Weston-
super-Mare and Portlshead, suffered severely, as
did the little ports of Minehead and Watchet ;
its esplanade was torn to pieces by the waves, and
the garden-walls of houses cast down ; bathing-
machines and boats were shattered to fragments.
It is only through the kindness of residents
that the local boatmen have been enabled to renew
their activity. These houses along the beach and
by the pier are near enough to get a true taste of
the water's quality ; during many tides the road
and the gardens are drenched with sea-spray, and
the windows encrusted with brine. The ' sea ' at
Clevedon is at least a very good understudy, and
it can Impregnate the air with a stimulating
bracklshness worthy of the open Atlantic,
But the literary pilgrim to Clevedon will come
indifferent to the colour of its water or the fierce
ness of its storms. He comes with memories of
Coleridge, Tennyson, and the Hallams ; he comes
with stanzas of ' In Memoriam ' ringing in his
ears, to seek the local habitation of a great elegy.
There is a pathos in the recollections with which
both poets have endowed this littie watering-place.
With Coleridge, it is the record of an unfulfilled
vision of happiness ; with Tennyson, the memorial
of a deep grief. 230

WITH COLERIDGE AND TENNYSON
The approach, by rail or road, is not impressive.
The cyclist or pedestrian from Bristol has a choice
of three routes, of which the quickest and the
most attractive is that which leads through Failand
and Wraxall to Tickenham. Alternative routes
may be taken through the ancient settlement of
Portbury to Portlshead, and thence along the
coast or by an inland road to Clevedon ; or by
the ' lower ' road through Long Ashton and
Nailsea Common. The little town is connected
with the Great Western system by a branch-line,
a few miles in length, frora Yatton, passing
through flat low-lying country typical of this
portion of Soraerset. It is a pastoral land, the
train gliding by peaceful farmsteads and orchards,
with an occasional splash of water that wet weather
transforms into a lake. Ruraour says that all this
country, as far as Glastonbury Tor and the
Mendips, was once submerged, and the tradition
is not difficult to believe. How else indeed could
Glastonbury be identified with the island of
Avilion ?
It Is probable that the stranger, when he alights
from the train and ascends the steep hill leading
from older Clevedon to modern Clevedon, will
mistake the finely-placed Christ Church for that
in which Arthur Hallam's tablet ' glimmers to the
dawn.' But the true old Clevedon Church has a
231

LITERARY RAMBLES
less commanding though a more picturesque situa
tion. It stands in a hollow between two head
lands, about a mile distant from the station, with
the Severn breaking just beyond — out of sight
but not always out of hearing. Mr. Stopford
Brooke speaks of it as it was when he visited it :
' It was then a lonely, quiet place. In a furrow
of the sandy slopes, not a house standing near
it ; and fifty yards from it, but hidden from view,
the broad estuary of the Severn filled with the
tide. I heard the water w^sh the feet of the low
cliffs as it passed by. Sorrow and death, peace
that passeth understanding, the victory of the
soul, seemed present with me, and the murmuring
of the Severn became, as I dreamed, the music of
eternal love, into whose vast harmonies all our
discords are drawn.'
There is very little change yet In the surround
ings of this peaceful kirk ; though even at the
time of Mr. Brooke's visit there must have been
houses nearer than he imagined. The church
is not particularly striking in itself; it may be
matched or surpassed in many an English village,
in spite of a rather fine Norman chancel-arch and
some rugged qualntnesses of detail. Probably it
may look for a less attractive future, for restora
tion Is threatened, and we know the mutilation,
the conventionalizing, usually covered by that
232

WITH COLERIDGE AND TENNYSON
dread word. Even now, a clergyman of ' Higher '
tastes having succeeded a sturdy Evangelical at
the vicarage, there has been some thrusting of
' new wine Into old bottles,' and a rustic congreg
ation is being taught to worship in a fashion that
their forefathers kne:w not.
On the old road that runs between the railway-
station and the church stands the little house that
has boldly taken the name of Coleridge Cottage,
and which is usually claimed without hesitation
as the residence of the poet during the happy
weeks that he spent in Clevedon. Two firs
stand in the small garden that fronts the road ;
behind rises a somewhat sheer piece of quarried
rock named the hangstone. In front glides the
Yeo, a pleasant little meadow - stream winding
through the flats to the Channel ; and beyond are
lowlands where the tide is only kept in check by
an embankment known as the ' sea-wall.' In the
distance lies the village of Kingston Seymour ;
further still, Worlebury Hill rises into view,
concealing the popular Weston that spreads
between this hill and Brean Down. These salt
flats around the mouth of the Yeo are the haunt
of many sea-fowl, and in winter sometiraes of
snipe, wild-duck and teal.
It is unfortunate that all Coleridge's references
to his Clevedon home are so vague, that they
233

LITERARY RAMBLES
would suit half-a-dozen different parts of the
locality and any one of a score of cottages. But
it seems extraordinary that an incident of first-rate
literary importance should not have left definite
trace in a spot where such incidents have been
rare. The Clevedon resident ought to be able
to point with pride to the four walls within
which Coleridge made his home. Clearly enough,
his stay here was unnoticed or was deeraed of
little consequence, till so long after the date that
no one knew with certainty which cottage he
had occupied. This house in the Old Church
Road has won the larger nuraber of votes ; but
there is another in the Walton Road, East
Clevedon, close to All Saints' Church, which has
some claims. We can only regret the un
certainty, and leave it to be a source of debate
for future Inquirers. The poet's own words fit
the East Clevedon cottage best :
' Low was our pretty cot — our tallest rose
Peep'd at the chamber window. We could hear.
At silent noon and eve and early morn,
The sea's faint murmur. In the open air
Our myrtles blossomed ; and across the porch
Thick jasmine twined ; the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refreshed the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The Valley of Seclusion.'
Elsewhere he speaks of the spot as a ' quiet
dell.' Neither the term valley nor dell would be
234

WITH COLERIDGE AND TENNYSON
appropriate as applied to the situation of the so-
called * Coleridge Cottage ' ; either the poet was
most unhappily indefinite in his description, or
the claims of this cot must be given up.
On October 4, 1795, Coleridge was married
at the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, to
Sara Fricker, one of three sisters, the other two
of whom were respectively married to Southey
and Lovell, Writing to his friend Poole, of
Nether Stowey, the poet says :
'On Sunday morning I was married at St.
Mary's Redcliff, from Chatterton's church. The
thought gave a tinge of melancholy to the solemn
joy which I felt, united to the woman whom I
love best bf all created things. We are settled,
nay, quite domesticated, at Clevedon, in our
comfortable cot. The prospect around is perhaps
more various than any other in the kingdom ;
the sea, the distant islands, the opposite coast.'
A few days later the newly-wed pair received a
visit from Cottle, but even his description does not
lend rauch aid in identifying the situation. He says :
' I was rejoiced to find that the cottage possessed
everything that heart could desire. The situation
was also peculiarly eligible. It was in the western
extremity, not in the centre of the village. It had
the benefit of being but one story high, and as
the rent was only five pounds per annum, and
235

LITERARY RAMBLES
the taxes nought, Mr. C. had the satisfaction of
knowing that by fairly mounting his Pegasus, he
could write as many verses in a week as would
pay his rent for a year.'
The vision was one of beauty, and for a few
weeks it was realized. Yet it bore within itself
the seeds of its own dissolution. For young
husband and young bride there came a bitter
awakening, a shattering of hopes, a chilling of the
love that had glowed so warmly and truly.
These were undoubtedly the happiest days of
Coleridge's life. They were lit with dreams of
love and of poetry, of a philosophy that was to
reform the world, and a religion that was to
render all men happy ; while the dreamer still
meditated that scheme of Utopian society which,
whether it was instituted on the banks of the
Susquehanna or here beside the Severn, he
pictured as his own life-portion. He, Southey,
and some other ardent young spirits, had imaged
a condition which they named Pantisocracy ; but
the more practical Southey had already seen that
the idea was visionary, and a first foreshadowing
of gloom was Coleridge's own doubt whether his
vision could ever become practicable. The pathos
of his life lies in the brilliance of his dreams and
the weakness of h's will.
But to the young wife there was another pathos,
236

WITH COLERIDGE AND TENNYSON
It has been whispered that the poet had already
been disappointed in his affection before he wooed
Sara Fricker, and that his love for her, genuine
as it was in its dawn, was not of a quality to with
stand the discovery that this woman to whom he
was united had slight sympathy with his visions
and his philosophy. In the first bright days of
the honeymoon, while the eloquent husband was
thrilling her heart with the intense music of his
utterances, painting a glorious future for them
selves and for the world at large, it was natural
that the loving woman should believe even where
she did not understand, and should trust entirely
that this man, who was pledged to do such great
things for humanity, would at least fulfil a
husband's common duties by providing her with
a happy and comfortable home.
But the mission of Coleridge was to talk and to
write, not to act. We must not blame him too
severely, though we can have nothing but
sympathy for the gradually disillusioned wife. A
man of commonplace mind would have made a
far better husband — at least for such a woman as
Sara. Coleridge's early passion dwindled into
weary indifference, the poetry died in arid deserts
of speculation ; the man who was to reform the
world could not control his own nervous impulses.
Idleness, even though spent in a ' valley of
237

LITERARY RAMBLES
seclusion ' with the woman whom he thought he
loved best, began to pall on one whose mind was
seething with projects of work never to be carried
out. Perhaps the eloquent talker began to sigh
for other listeners ; perhaps he began to suspect
that the ready ear lent by the bride had not really
signified mental affinity.
About two months after marriage in the fine
old Bristol church Coleridge, professing that he
must be up and doing, returned to that city of
historic memories and picturesque quaintness,
leaving his wife behind. It was an ominous step.
He postponed and postponed his return to the
Clevedon cottage ; until at last the wife, realizing
that their honeymoon of happiness had passed for
ever, followed him to' Bristol, reminding him by
her presence of duties which even so early as this
he had begun to forget.
The dream was renewed, with somewhat
diminished brightness, a few months later at
Nether Stowey ; but the life of the poet became
more and more absorbed in thoughts and dreams.
The rift was there, and it led to separation. We
cannot doubt that the poet's own prophecy was
fulfilled, and that in after days his memory
reverted, with sadness if not with remorse, to the
brief dream of happiness associated with the village
by the Severn Sea. 238

WITH COLERIDGE AND TENNYSON
' Yet oft when after honourable toil
Rests the tir'd mind, and waking loves to dream.
My spirit shall revisit thee, dear cot,
Thy jasmine, and thy window-peeping rose.
And myrtles fearless ofthe mild sea air.'
But more visitors come to Clevedon thinking
of Tennyson than of Coleridge ; the later name
carries the greater fascination. We need not
contend that Tennyson was the better poet, for
Coleridge at his rare best was Indisputably the
greater, and was a far deeper thinker. But
Tennyson's average is much higher ; and he more
fully voiced the mind of his day. He had not
only a bright sunrise, but a beautiful setting. It
is around Clevedon Court that the associations
cluster linking Tennyson with Clevedon, Henry
Hallam, the historian, married the daughter of
Sir Abraham Elton, aud Arthur Hallam was their
son. The Eltons themselves have only been at
Clevedon since the early eighteenth century. In
Domesday the manor is mentioned as Cllvedon,
and when it was granted to Matthew de Morton
or Mortain, he took the name of De Cllvedon,
Later the lands passed by marriage to the Hog-
shaw, Lovel, and Wake families, the Wakes being
proud to claira descent from the great Hereward
the Wake.
In 1630 the estate passed to the Earl of Bristol,
and was purchased from him in 1709 by Abraham
239

LITERARY RAMBLES
Elton, afterwards first baronet of that name.
The Eltons seem to have come from Hereford
shire, and became prosperous merchants in Bristol,
in which city Abraham Elton was first sheriff,
then mayor, and finally Member of Parliament.
He was created baronet in 1717. There is a
local rhyme which apparently suggests that the
name had originally been Elt :
' In days of yore, old Abra)iam Elt,
When living, had nor sword, nor belt.
But now his son, Sir Abraham Elton,
Being knighted, hath both sword and belt on.'
There is no authority for this witticism ; it was
merely an election squib. The family continued
to play a prominent part in the concerns of Bristol,
and two at least of the later baronets showed dis
tinguished literary ability. Sir Charles Abraham,
the sixth baronet, who resided for many years at
Clifton, was a poet of some gift, a skilful translator
from the classics, and a fine scholar. His poem,
' The Brothers, ' records the fate of his two sons,
boys of twelve and fourteen, who were drowned
while attempting to cross from Birnbeck island to
the mainland, at Weston-super-Mare, during a
rising tide. Though not great as poetry, there is
genuine pathos in the father's description. Cleve
don seems fated to be the home of elegy.
But Sir Charles was not deprived of all his
240

WITH COLERIDGE AND TENNYSON
children ; he had a son, Arthur Hallam Elton,
who succeeded to the manor in 1853. Sir Arthur
won considerable success as a novelist, his best tale
being ' Below the Surface,' which may still be read
with pleasure ; while among his other writings
were 'Tracts for the Present Crisis,' published
during the Crimean War. Their aim was to
remind the public that there were manifold
grievances to be attended to at home, which really
had a more Immediate claim on the care of the
nation than any purely foreign matters. To give
utterance to such thoughts during a time of war-
fever, proved at least that he had the courage of
his convictions. The sister of Sir Charles Elton
was the mother of Tennyson's Arthur Hallam,
who was born in 1 8 1 1 , and first met the poet at
Cambridge. It is interesting to know that Arthur
Hallam visited Coleridge at Highgate, and we can
hardly doubt that during the interview some
mention was made of Clevedon — a reference,
probably, of profound sadness on the part of the
elder man.
In 1833, after having become the accepted
lover of Emily Tennyson, Hallam left England
to travel on the Continent with his father, the
historian ; his last letter home was written on
September 6. On the 13th his father and he
were at Vienna ; and the father, returning from a
241 Q

LITERARY RAMBLES
walk, found, him lying on a couch, apparentiy
asleep. It was death, caused by a stroke of
apoplexy. The remains were brought to England,
and to Clevedon ; but it was not till January 3
that the interment took place, 'In the lonely
church which overlooks the Bristol Channel.'
Already had the germs of ' In Memoriam ' been
born from the poet's sorrow. The authoritative
memoir of Tennyson, a raodel of biographic
restraint, is often silent where we should welcome
somewhat more detail; the reticence seems carried
too far. The memoir tells us very little about
Clevedon ; but by placing the lovely lyric ' Break,
break, break ' at the head of Chapter XIV., it
certainly countenances the firm faith of Clevedon
folk that these lines were written there. In reality
the lines were written in Lincolnshire. Immedi
ately after quoting them, the poet's son writes :
' Half a mile to the south of Clevedon in
Somersetshire, on a lonely hill, stands Clevedon
Church, "obscure and solitary," overlooking a
wide expanse, where the Severn flows into the
Bristol Channel. It Is dedicated to St. Andrew,
the chancel being the original fishermen's chapel.
From the graveyard you can hear the music of
the tide as It washes against the low cliffs not a
hundred yards away. In the manor aisle of the
church, under which Is the vault of the Hallams,
242 '

WITH 'COLERIDGE AND TENNYSON
may be read this epitaph to Arthur Hallam,
written by his father.'
Then follows the epitaph inscribed on the white
tablet that lived so powerfully in the poet's
memory : ' When on my bed the moonlight falls,
I know that in thy place of rest.
By that broad water of the west.
There comes a glory on the walls.'
The great elegy was published in 1850, after long
years of slow maturing, and in this same year
Tennyson was married at Shiplake to Emily
Sellwood : —
' The day after the wedding they went to
Weston-super-Mare, on their way to Clevedon.
" It seemed a kind of consecration to go there."
They saw Arthur Hallam's resting-place, and were
received by Sir Abraham Elton in the beautiful
old Manor House, Clevedon Court.'
Thence they passed on to North Devon, and
afterwards visited Glastonbury. It is the fashion
nowadays to insinuate some depreciation of
Tennyson's reputation. His fine artistic touch
and exquisite finish are alluded to as though they
veiled a lack of strength ; ' In Memoriam ' is
sometiraes called a poem of third-rate philosophy,
and the ' Idylls ' are dubbed an emasculated
rendering of a robust tradition. There is the
243 Q 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
glimmering of a half-truth in some of the charges,
and yet the spirit and nature of the criticisra are
largely false, Tennyson followed truly and boldly
the bent of his own gifts ; he did not seek to
become a Byron or a Victor Hugo or an Ibsen,
He was above all things true to himself ; and
whatever passing cloud, of disfavour raay cloud
his fame in the eyes of transient schools of criti
cism, his place in our literature is firmly assured.
' In Memoriam,' the poem that hallows Clevedon
church, may not be a great piece of metaphysics,
but it is a great poem in spite of inequalities. Its
emotion is stronger than its thought — some may
cynically hint that the art is greater than the
emotion. That Is not true. Tennyson's sorrow
had passed from the dumb anguish of its first
misery ; but it must never be supposed that he
merely made literary use of a personal grief
The ceaseless craving of a poet's soul is for
utterance ; and in so far as utterance can lessen
sorrow, his sorrow raay have been lessened.
Time, also, with poet as with -all, diminishes the
sting of bereavement. But there is no trace of
insincerity In this grand elegy ; it is a living love,
not a mere memory that the poet is recording.
Perhaps we shall best do justice if we take it
rather as a collection of lyrics with a single key
note, than as a long consecutive work. We must
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WITH COLERIDGE AND TENNYSON
always remember that its true spirit is that of
poetry, not philosophy. In the latter capacity it
may fail ; the logic is rarely driven home, the
question is begged, the issues are avoided. Yet
there is something better here than the most
triumphant metaphysic. Our literature is rich in
elegies, but there are only a few — 'Lycidas,'
' Adonais,' and perhaps Gray's ' Country Church
yard' — that can claim a higher position than
Tennyson's. Before leaving Clevedon, it is pleasant to recol-
Ject its connection with another great name in our
literature, that of Thackeray. He was a frequent
visitor at Clevedon Court, owing to his intimacy
with the Brookfields, Mrs. Brookfield being the
daughter of Sir Charles Elton. It is now said
that Clevedon Court is the original of Castlewood,
in ' Esmond,' but it must be confessed that if so
the novelist allowed himself much latitude in
dealing with the place. Perhaps it may be com
plained that all who have immortalized Clevedon
in literature have been needlessly vague In their
touches ; Coleridge has not enabled us to identify
his cottage with certainty ; Tennyson has given
some rash readers an idea that the lonely church
stood within hearing of the 'babbhng Wye,'
Thackeray's picture of Castlewood Hall may be
coloured by recollections of Clevedon Court, but
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LITERARY RAMBLES
he has clearly permitted his imagination to add
many details :
' It stood on a rising green hill, with woods
hanging behind it, in which were rooks' nests,
where the birds at morning, and returning home
at evening, made a great cawing. At the foot of
the hill was a river, with a steep ancient bridge
crossing it, and beyond that a large, pleasant green
flat, where the village of Castlewood stood, and
stands, with the church in the midst, the parsonage
hard by, the inn with the blacksmith's forge beside
it, and the sign of the " Three Castles " on the
elm. The London road stretched away towards
the rising sun, and to the west were swelling hills
and peaks.'
We are left in uncertainty whether this picture
is intended to be of Clevedon village or of Walton ;
it will only fit either with considerable looseness.
But it is pleasant to be able to add this literary
association to the beautiful old English home, with
its traces of Edwardian times, its hall with Jacobean
minstrels' gallery, its Elizabethan window and
kitchen. Castlewood, readers of 'Esmond' will
remeraber, had suffered during the Civil War, but
no such excitement happened at Clevedon, In spite
of the stirring scenes enacted round Bristol at that
date. Perhaps the. best description is that by a
former owner of this ' haunt of ancient peace ' ;
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WITH COLERIDGE AND TENNYSON
Sir Charles Elton thus introduces the scene into
his ' Brothers ' :
' The thick
And deep-leaved laurel darken'd the recess
Of massive buttresses ; the mansion's walls.
Gray in antiquity, were tapestried o'er
With the fig's downy leaves, and roses climb'd
Clust'ring around the casements' gothic panes.'
Although it has become to some extent a
popular watering-place, there is an atmosphere at
Clevedon that harmonizes well with its literary
memories. The livelier crowds from Bristol and
Cardiff much prefer the wide sands and noisier
amusements of Weston ; those who come to
Clevedon generally do so because they seek peace
and quietude rather than donkeys and seaside
minstrels. The residents, with the exception of
the commercial element, are well content that the
place should remain what It Is. There is a touch
of conservatism here ; the most conservative of
religious faiths is thriving under the auspices of a
settiement of Franciscans. But let Clevedon
preserve or discard what it may, memories of
Coleridge and of Tennyson will long draw the
literary pilgrim to hear the Severn breaking on
its ' cold gray crags,' and to listen to the wind
that once whispered promises of unutterable hope
to the dreaming young poet who carae hither In
the day of strength and gladness.
247

THE LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS OF
THE QUANTOCKS
About a century since, for one brief period, the
Quantock Hills became the central haunt of British
poetry, Wordsworth and Coleridge were living
here, within a few miles of each other, drawn to each
other by the raagnetic power of their genius, and
attracting visitors of kindred gift to this lonely
corner of north Somerset. The spot was quiet
enough then ; it is hardly less quiet now. Mine-
head and Watchet attract a few summer guests, and
the love of hunting brings others ; but the Quan-
tocks are not greatly visited for their own sakes.
They lie away from the central route of the Great
Western Railway ; and the literary pilgrim is
generally content to seek the footprints of Words
worth at the Lakes, without following him to
Alfoxden. But to the two poets themselves,
and to our literature, this residence among the
Quantocks was a momentous thing.
Most of Coleridge's best poetry and a con-
248

THE QUANTOCKS
siderable portion of Wordsworth's, was produced
here ; these hills were indeed the birthplace of the
'Lyrical Ballads,' whose publication in 1798 was
one of the supreme epochs of British poetry.
Near the closing lines of his ' Prelude ' Words
worth looks back with tenderness to
' That summer, under whose indulgent skies
Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved
Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs.'
He reminds Coleridge that
' Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart,
Did'st chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man,
The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes
Did'st utter of the Lady Christabel ;
And I, associate with such labour, steeped
In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours.
Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found
After the perils of his moonlight ride
Near the loud waterfall ; or her who sate
In misery near the miserable thorn.'
It was with feelings of solemn retrospection that
Wordsworth, in 1 841, after the death of Coleridge,.
revisited their old haunts among these hills beside
the Severn Sea, But the sadness that must have
attended this farewell visit, was touched with
placid hope as well as tender memory ; and the
benediction of a steadfast faith robbed recollection
of its sorest sting.
In 1795 Coleridge was spending his early weeks
of marriage in Clevedon ; Wordsworth and his
249

LITERARY RAMBLES
sister were established at Racedown, just over the
border of Dorset, within easy distance of Lyme
Regis and the fringe of Devon. As yet the two
poets were strangers, but in the following year
they met at Bristol, which was something of a
metropolis to them in those days ; but the real
friendship may be said to have dawned at Race-
down, when Coleridge came over from Stowey,
where he had settled under the auspices of his
friend Thomas Poole. The spirit of Wordsworth
was experiencing the soothing influences of nature
and of his sister's society, at Racedown, and was
recovering its tone which had been impaired by
the disappointments of the French Revolution.
In no narrow sense, the poet was being ' born
again.' It was here that he wrote his 'Guilt and
Sorrow,' his tragedy 'The Borderers,' and the far
finer ' Ruined Cottage,' which became incorporated
in the first book ofthe ' Excursion,'
The perfect solitude of the place and its
rusticity entirely delighted the poet and his sister ;
indeed, the sister wrote, later : ' I think Race-
down is the place dearest to my recollections
upon the whole surface of the island ; it was the
first home I had,' When Coleridge came, in
1797, the three were ripe for mutual friendship.
The young men compared notes, shared each
other's literary aspirations and ideals, read each
250

THE QUANTOCKS
other's poems ; Dorothy Wordsworth added the
gracious touch of femininity, ' I am sojourning
a few days at Racedown,* wrote Coleridge to
Cottle, ' the mansion of my friend Wordsworth.
He admires my tragedy, which gives me great
hopes : he has written a tragedy himself I speak
with heartfelt sincerity, and I think unblinded
judgment, when I tell you that I feel a little man
by his side.' So fervent a commencement led to
a rapid ripening of intimacy.
The Wordsworths returned his visit, and while
staying at Stowey, Miss Wordsworth tells us, she
and her brother came across Alfoxden in their
wanderings : ' William and I had rambled as far
as this house, and pryed Into the recesses of our
little brook, but without any more fixed thoughts
upon it than some dreams of happiness in a little
cottage, and passing wishes that such a place
might be found out. We spent a fortnight at
Coleridge's: in the course of that time we heard
that this house was to let, applied for it, and took
it. Our principal inducement was Coleridge's
society.' Alfoxden House, sometimes written Alfoxton,
is about three miles frora Nether Stowey and
two railes from the sea, of which the house
commands an extensive view. The park, stocked
with deer, has many fine oaks and a luxuriant
251

LITERARY RAMBLES
undergrowth of holly. Not far from the house
is a waterfall which Wordsworth early discovered
and made his own, in that intimate fashion with
which he appropriated localities. 'It was,' he
says, ' a chosen resort of mine. The brook fell
down a sloping rock, considerable for that country,
and across the pool below had fallen an ash-tree
from which rose perpendicularly boughs in search
of the light, intercepted by the deep shade above.
The boughs bore leaves of green that for want of
sunshine had faded into almost lily-white ; and
from the under side of this natural sylvan bridge
depended long and beautiful tresses of ivy, which
waved gently in the breeze that might be called
the breath of the waterfall,' This Is the same
glen that Coleridge describes in his poem, ' This
Lime-tree Bower ray Prison ':
' The roaring dell, o'er-wooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun ;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Slings arching like a bridge ; that branchless ash
Unsunned and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still
Fanned by the waterfall.'
The raanor of Alfoxden, which once belonged
to the St. Aublns, has been a good deal altered
since the time when it gave a home to the poet
Wordsworth. Being a private residence it can
only be visited by special permission, and Holford
252

THE QUANTOCKS
Glen itself, the poet's glen, Is a portion of the
grounds. But the memorial of the poet's stay
here is something more permanent than mere
bricks and mortar. We know also that though
certain foolish persons, misinterpreting the in
fluence of locality, chose to dub Wordsworth the
' Lake poet,' his genius was as fully at home here
in Somerset as among the grander hills of the
Lake Country. He himself looked back to the
period spent at Alfoxden as one of happy pro
ductiveness. Seeing that it was the direct in
fluence of Coleridge that brought Wordsworth
to the Quantocks, it is interesting to note what
it was that induced the younger poet to settle
here. Coleridge, who had left his wife alone at
Clevedon so long, that, in despair of his return,
she , herself followed hira to Bristol, left her to
a second widowhood in Bristol, while he lingered
in London. All manner of schemes were agita
ting his mind, most of which proved abortive
through that constitutional weakness of will which
made him rather a drearaer than an actor. Both
before and after this stay in London, he had
delivered lectures in Bristol, which had drawn
large audiences by their marvellous eloquence.
It was by this means that Wordsworth had
made his acquaintance, and the same oratory
253

LITERARY RAMBLES
brought him to the notice of Thomas Poole, a
tanner, who had risen from humble ppsition to
affluence. Poole's home was at Nether Stowey.
De Quincey has described him as ' a stout,
plain-looking farmer, leading a bachelor life in a
rustic old-fashioned house, the house, however,
upon further acquaintance, proving to be amply
furnished with modern luxuries, and especially
with a good library, superbly mounted in all
departments bearing at all upon political philo
sophy, and the farmer turning out a polished
and liberal Englishman, who had travelled ex
tensively, and had so entirely devoted himself
to the service of his humble fellow-countrymen
— the hewers of wood and drawers of water in
this southern part of Somersetshire — that for
many miles round he was the general arbiter of
their disputes, the guide and counsellor of their
difficulties, besides being appointed executor and
guardian to his children by every third man who
died in or about the town of Nether Stowey.'
To this may be added Wordsworth's opinion
of Poole : ' During my residence at Alfoxden
I used to see much of him, and had frequent
occasions to admire the course of his life, es
pecially his conduct to his labourers and poor
neighbours. Their wishes he carefully encouraged,
and weighed their faults in the scales of charity.
254

THE QUANTOCKS
He was much beloved by distinguished persons —
Mr. Coleridge, Mr. Southey, Sir H. Davy, and
many others, and in his own neighbourhood was
highly valued.'
Poole found Coleridge in a vortex of difficulties,
largely of his own creation ; vacillating from
subject to subject, idea to idea — now thinking
of taking a Unitarian pulpit, now of founding
a newspaper, but doing nothing to provide him
self and his wife with a permanent home, or to
steady the aims of his own genius. He offered
the poet the use of a cottage close to his own
house at Stowey. A norainal rent was named, but
it is doubtful whether Coleridge ever paid it ; for,
as has been sarcastically remarked of him, one
feature of his early communism always clung to
hira — ' he never ceased to live upon his friends.'
Lamb put it more gentiy when he classified
Coleridge as belonging to the race of ' borrowers.'
It is tolerably clear that the poet thought he was
repaying all obligation by the charm of his own
company and conversation ; and doubtless friends
like Poole agreed with him. To Stowey, there
fore, he removed in 1797 ; and at Stowey sorae
of the glad hopefiilness of the Clevedon period
was renewed. The drooping faith of his wife
was given a new lease of life.
When the visitor enters Stowey he will see on
255

LITERARY RAMBLES
the right hand a house bearing the inscription:
' Here Samuel Taylor Coleridge made his home,
1 797- 1 800.' There is no doubt of identity in
this case, as there is with the Clevedon cottage.
A path ran between the cottage and the larger
house of Poole ; the two were almost like one
residence.
' And now, beloved Stowey, I behold
Thy church-tower, and methinks the four huge elms
Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend;
And close beside them, hidden from my view.
Is my own lonely cottage, where my babe
And my babe's mother dwell in peace.'
In this cot Coleridge lay and listened to his
babe's 'gentle breathings,' and resolved that this
babe should wander like a breeze
' By lakes and sandy shores ' ;
and this cottage nurtured the dreamings from
which sprang the ' Ancient Mariner,' and ' Chris
tabel.' It was here that the poet wrote his
beautiful poem, ' The Nightingale ' ; and here
he penned the lines in which occurs the phrase,
*my gentle - hearted Charles,' that so annoyed
poor Charles Lamb.
There are three Stoweys in Somerset — Stowey
proper, Nether Stowey, and Over Stowey — the
name being probably a mere corruption of the
Saxon stowe. Nether Stowey, situated midway
256

THE QUANTOCKS
between Bridgwater and the little port of Watchet,
lies about five miles inland from the sea, under the
shelter of the hills. There was formerly a silk
factory here, but the place is now given over
to agriculture and to the chase of the red deer ;
there are also 'broom-squires' here, as well as
in Surrey. They make their brooms with heather
from the hills, however, not of the plant that
has given its name to this article of domestic use.
There is a good Early English church, and some
remains of a castle once belonging to the Audleys.
With Coleridge in this village settled the young
Quaker, Charles Lloyd, himself something of a
poet, and beloved by posterity for his association
with Charles Lamb.
For a time the literary gatherings of Stowey were
the most brilliant in the kingdom. Coleridge him
self, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Southey,
Lamb, De Quincey, Hazlitt, Sir Humphrey Davy,
Lloyd, Poole, Thelwall, were at one or at different
times residents or visitors to Stowey. Poole had
good reason to feel pride when he reflected that
it was his initiative that had made Quantock the
home of the English muse, and had concentrated
the greatest genius and eloquence of the day
within his peaceful residence at this obscure
Somerset village.
It is not only the hilliness of the Quantocks
257 R

LITERARY RAMBLES
that differentiates thera frora the low-lying parts
of Somerset. There is also a distinction in people
and tradition. During the time of the Saxon
progress westward — a progress which gradually
became a peaceful settleraent rather than a march
of extermination — this district was known as
Devon-in- Wessex. It was recognised as a part
of ' West Wales,' and the Saxonizing of it was
never very complete. To this day it does not
present the characteristic Somerset type, which Is
Saxon, but has a Celtic element almost as strong
as we find in Devon. This element Is traceable
in the local legends and folk-lore, in some of the
place-names ; and even the dialect is more akin
to that of Devon than of Somerset. Celtic
hagiology has left Its memorials freely, even as
far eastward as Bristol, where we meet St. Brendan
and St. Ewen. The church at Watchet Is dedi
cated to St. Decuman ; that of Por lock to the
Welsh St. Dyffrig, the ' Dubric ' of Tennyson.
At Culbone we have the name of a St. Columba
or Columban, not to be confounded with the great
Columba of Ireland, who certainly never came so
far south; whoever this saint may be (It may be
the virgin St. Columba), it is probably the same
individual that is commemorated in the Cornish
St. Columbs. Congresbury, beyond the Quantock
limit, perpetuates the name of St. Congar. But
258

THE QUANTOCKS
there are traces of another Cornish saint, Carantoc
or Carantac, among these hills, and unless there
were two personages of this name, this must be
the Carantoc, the Irish Cairnech of Crantock near
Newquay. More likely, however, it is a Welsh
Carantac whom we meet in the Quantocks, and
whose name might be regarded, by a somewhat
far-fetched conjecture, to be the origin of the
word ^antock. More probably that rather
puzzling word comes from a Celtic cantoc or
gwentog, meaning, a place of valleys ; certainly
it is not the quantum -ad -hoc that has been
suggested. Carantoc, after whom Carhampton
is suppose to be named, belongs traditionally to
the time of King Arthur ; and a legend says
that he gave Arthur the famous Round Table,
which came floating across the sea from South
Wales. Travelling saints of those times used soraetimes
to carry their altar-pieces with them, and perhaps
the table was of this nature. Tradition often
spoke of these saints being borne over the sea
from Ireland or Wales on mill-stones ; a concep-
which doubtiess arose frora this fact that the
saints brought their altar-stones on the boats or
coracles in which they travelled.
Contemporary legends of dragons also linger
among these hiUs, perhaps deriving from the days
259 R 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
of racial struggle when the standards both of Celt
and Saxon bore dragons. There is a representa
tion of a fight with a dragon on a raost interesting
bench-end in the church of Crowcombe, a charm
ing Quantock village that contains two of the old
crosses mentioned by Richard Jefferles In his
paper on ' Summer in Somerset.' He says :
' They almost startle modern thought. How
many years since the peasant woraen knelt at
their steps ! On the base of one which has a
sculptured shaft the wall-rue fern was growing.
A young starling was perched on the yew by it ;
he could but just fly, and fluttered across to the
sill of the church , window. Young birds called
pettishly for food frora the bushes. Upon the
banks hart's-tongue was coming up fresh and
green, and the early orchis was in flower. Fern
and flower and fledglings had come again as they
have corae every year since the oldest of these
ancient shafts was erected, for life is older, life Is
grayer, than the weather-beaten mouldings. But
life, too, is fresh and young ; the stern thought in
^ the stone becomes more cold and grim as the
centuries pass away. In the crevices at the foot
of another cross wallflowers blossomed, and plants
of evening primrose, not yet in flower, were
growing.' It was nature herself that ever spoke most
260

THE QUANTOCKS
powerfully to this dreaming yet keen-eyed ob
server. History, archasology, record of the past
— he had left them all in his thirsting quest after
a fuller draught of ' soul-life." His footsteps
among the Quantocks are another hallowing
touch ; when we trace the footprints of poets,
we must remember also that hither came one of
the most exquisite poets that ever poured the
treasures of his mind into rich and mellow English
prose. Another characteristic that links the Quantocks
with the farther West, Is the presence of pixies.
The pixy Is the special Celtic variant of the
ordinary fairy or elf, and it only lingers now in
the West of England. Its chief homes are on
Dartmoor and in Cornwall, but its presence on
Exmoor and among the Quantocks proves a
similar continuance of Celtic tradition. They are
not seen nowadays, for faith is decaying, and the
pixy-folk do not manifest themselves to the
incredulous ; but within living memory a farmer
is said to have seen some threshing his corn, in
a barn near Holford village. Unhappily, he
shouted his approval of their industry, which,
like true West Country pixies, they resented so
strongly that they vanished and have never been
seen since.
Another tradition which makes us think we are
261

LITERARY RAMBLES
on Dartmoor, is that of the wild hunt and the
black baying hounds, which closely resemble the
Devonian ' wish-hounds,' the ' dandy-dogs ' of
Cornwall. The countryfolk may have studied at
board-schools ; they may read the Daily Mail
and Tit- Bits ; they no longer talk much of the
superstitions that lurk in their hearts. But they
still have a terror of being pixy-led at nights, and
in dark hours of tempest they are not quite sure
that the sounds they hear may not be the yelling
of the demon huntsman and his howling pack.
But this phantom chase cannot be considered dis
tinctive of the district ; Teutonic in its immediate
origin, the conception Is to be met with through
out European folk-lore, and In most countries
where wind and storm have been personified.
But not every place has a smithy, like that near
Cannington, where the boast is made that in old
times the smith shod the ' black steed of the
wild huntsman himself There are rumours of
Wayland Smith at this spot, brought hither by
Saxons or Danes, for the Danes have also been
here, if tradition speaks truly.
Dousborough Hill is sometimes called Danes-
borough, besides which we have Danescombe and
other place-names, retaining a vivid memory.
We depend not siraply on Chatterton's poems,
but also on the Saxon Chronicle for the know-
262

THE QUANTOCKS
ledge that in the year 918 the Danes made two
descents on this coast, at Watchet and Porlock,
being repulsed on both occasions and driven to
seek poor refuge on the Steep Holm. But the
word dane in place-names is sometimes merely a
corruption of the Celtic dinas, meaning a hill-
castle or earthwork ; at other times it is the
Saxon dean or den, meaning a valley, and all this
is very confusing. Yet it is certain that the Danes
visited the Quantock coast, and most probably the
chieftain Hubba, whose traces we find in North
Devon, was here also. Though Wordsworth
wrote his fragment ' The Danish Boy ' after he
had left the Quantocks, it appears that he
gathered its subject from a local tradition of a
conflict in which every individual of an invading
body of Danes was killed, with the exception of
one little lad. The poet pictures the spirit of this
boy as still haunting ' A spot that seems to lie
Sacred to flowerets of the hills.
And sacred to the sky.'
It might have pleased Wordsworth to acknow
ledge that he was indebted to a Quantock legend
for his idea, but he never completed the poera,
and was either dissatisfied with the subject, or the
impulse failed him. He was never at his best
unless he broke entirely free from tradition or
263

LITERARY RAMBLES
narrative, into a region of pure reflection and
Imaginative thought. He did not deal quite
generously with Somerset ; in taking another local
Incident for his poem ' Simon Lee,' he needlessly
transferred the scene to Wales.
Some of the quaint lingering customs of the
Quantocks were noted by Jefferles when he came
here. His eye was chiefly taken by the natural
beauties, but he could not quite neglect anything
that touched his keen sympathy with humanity.
He found a perfect Sleepy Hollow in which to
wander and dream. ' From the Devon border I
drifted like a leaf detached from a tree across to a
deep coombe in the Quantock Hills. The vast
hollow is made for repose and lotus-eating.; its
very shape, like a hamraock, indicates idleness.
There the days go over noiselessly and without
effort, like white summer clouds. Ridges each
side rise high and heroically steep — it would be
proper to set out and climb them, but not to-day,
not now ; some time presently. To the left
massive Will's Neck stands out in black shadow
defined and distinct, like a fragment of night in
the bright light of the day. The wild red deer lie
there, but the mountain Is afar ; a sigh is all I can
give it.' To enjoy the fine view that Will's
Neck offers, to reach its highest barrow, an ascent
of 1,261 feet must be climbed, and it was not
264

THE QUANTOCKS
only a love for the lotus of the valley that pre
vented the poor ailing writer from accomplish
ing this.
The residence of Wordsworth and his sister
at Alfoxden closed in a somewhat unexpected
manner after they had been there about a year.
Their friendship with the revolutionary Thel
wall, who had undergone a trial for high treason,
had brought suspicion upon Wordsworth and
Coleridge, and the night-wandering habits of all
three, Dorothy being inseparable from her brother,
seemed a full proof either of madness or of
treasonable Intent, The nervous governraent set
a spy to watch them. This spy overheard little
beyond a good deal of conversation about Spinoza,
whose philosophy was attracting Coleridge at this
time, and it is said that the alarmed eavesdropper
imagined that they were referring to himself as
' Spy-nosy.' If this was the case, it proves that the poets
gave a wrong pronunciation to the name of the
great Jewish philosopher. In any case, the report
was sent to government that there could be no
harm in Coleridge — he talked too much ; but
much was to be feared from the silent Incompre
hensible Wordsworth. Nothing resulted so far
as government was concerned, but either the agent
or the owner of Alfoxden became so suspicious as
265

LITERARY RAMBLES
to refuse a renewal of Wordsworth's lease of the
house. The poems that Wordsworth wrote here, though
some of his most typical, cannot be claimed as his
best ; they include several of the very pieces that
drew most obloquy upon hira, such as ' The Idiot
Boy ' and ' The Thorn.' Only one piece that
literature could ill spare, the alraost apocalyptic
' Lines Written above Tintern Abbey,' was com
posed during this period ; and this had no con
nection with the Quantock district. The popular
' We are Seven,' though composed in the poet's
favourite grove at Alfoxden, was founded on an
incident that happened during his visit to the ruins
of Goodrich Castie, Monmouthshire. ' Peter Bell,'
not published till long afterwards, was written at
Alfoxden. Coleridge had already written his
' Lines to a Young Ass,' but such characteristic
pieces only gave occasion to the enemy to blas
pherae, and ' Peter Bell,' had it appeared in the
volurae of ' Lyrical Ballads,' would certainly have
been received with delighted derision by the
revllers. Especially would they have been raerry
over the poet's later note to this poem : ' In the
woods of Alfoxden 1 used to take great delight in
noticing the habits, tricks, and physiognomy of
asses.' It was a valuable feature in the scheme of
266

THE QUANTOCKS
poetry formulated by the two poets during their
walks among the Quantocks, that nothing was to
be too lowly for poetic treatment, and that their
aesthetic Ideas embraced a tender sympathy for all
sentient beings ; but in spite of Sterne, the public
was hardly ripe for the poetry of asses, and was
only too inclined to make rude jokes. Better
than anything else that Wordsworth wrote at this
time, except the ' Tintern Abbey,' was the episode
of the ruined cottage which appears in the first
book of the ' Excursion ' ; but this had been
chiefly written at Racedown, and was only finished
at Alfoxden. ' Ruth,' written in Germany, touches
the scenery of the Quantocks, and ' Goody Blake
and Harry Gill,' strong in its earnest simplicity
and syrapathy with the sufferings of the poor,
was composed at Alfoxden. The not very luminous
' Anecdote for Fathers ' was suggested by a childish
remark of the little boy, Basil Montagu, in front
of Alfoxden House, Wordsworth at the time
being the child's tutor. The poera condescends
to mention the seaside village of Kilve, but dis
guises Alfoxden under the name of ' Liswyn Farm,'
borrowed from a spot on the Wye. There was a
fourteenth-century chantry at Kilve, whose ruins
may still be traced. It is difficult to see the force
of Wordsworth's anecdote.
With the exception of the pilgrimage to the
267

LITERARY RAMBLES
Wye, the most memorable event of this Quantock
period was the tour made by Wordsworth and his
sister with Coleridge, along the coast to Lynton.
It was this walk that produced the 'Ancient
Mariner.' We have a record of the journey In
the words of the poet and his sister ; and Words
worth distinctly tells us that this ramble was the
direct cause of the publication of ' Lyrical Ballads.'
'In the autumn of 1797, Coleridge, my sister and
myself, started from Alfoxden pretty late in the
afternoon, with a view to visit Linton, and the
Valley of Stones near to it ; and as our united
funds were very sraall, we agreed to defi-ay the
expense of the tour by writing a poem. . . .
Accordingly we set off, and proceeded along the
Quantock Hills towards Watchet ; and in the
course of this walk was planned the poem of
the Ancient Mariner, founded on a dream, as
Mr. Coleridge said, of his friend Mr. Cruik
shank. . . . We returned after a few days from a
delightful tour, of which I have many pleasant,
and some of them droll enough, recollections.
We returned by Dulverton to Alfoxden. The
Ancient Mariner grew and grew till it became
too important for our first, object, which was
limited to our expectation of five pounds ; and
we began to think of a volume which was to
268

THE QUANTOCKS
consist, as Mr. Coleridge has told the world, of
poems chiefly on supernatural subjects, taken from
common life, but looked at, as much as might be,
through an imaginative medium. Accordingly I
wrote "The Idiot Boy," " Her Eyes are Wild,"
" We are Seven," " The Thorn," and some others.'
It is very clear that there was a great difference
between the two poets' conception of ' supernatural
subjects.' All literary associations being precious, it is
interesting to reraember that in the following year
William Hazlitt came to Stowey, and after hearing
Wordsworth read aloud his ' Peter Bell,' he and
Coleridge made this same tour to Lynton. This
fine essayist and critic gives us more local touches
than the poets condescended to. ' We passed
Dunster on our right, a small town between the
brow of a hill and the sea. I reraember eyeing it
wistfiilly as it lay below us : contrasted with the
woody scene around, it looked as clear, as pure,
as embrowned and ideal as any landscape I have
seen since, of Gaspar Poussin's or Domenlchino's.
We had a long day's march (our feet kept time
to the echoes of Coleridge's tongue) through
Minehead and by the Blue Anchor, and on to
Lynton, which we did not reach till near midnight,
and where we had some difficulty in making a
269

LITERARY RAMBLES
lodgment. We, however, knocked the people of
the house up at last, and we were repaid for our
apprehensions and fatigue by some excellent rashers
of fried bacon and eggs.
' The view in coming along had been splendid.
We walked for miles and miles on dark brown
heaths overlooking the Channel, with the Welsh
hills beyond, and at times descended into little
sheltered valleys close by the seaside, with a
smuggler's face scowling by us, and then had to
ascend conical hills with a path winding up
through a coppice to a barren top, like a monk's
shaven crown, from one of which I pointed out
to Coleridge's notice the bare masts of a vessel on
the very edge of the horizon, and within the red-
orbed disk ofthe setting sun, like his own spectre-
ship in the Ancient Mariner, At Lynton the
character of the coast becomes more marked and
rugged. There is a place called the Valley of
Rocks, bedded among precipices overhanging the
sea, with rocky caverns beneath, into which the
waves dash, and where the seagull for ever wheels
its screaming flight. ... A thunderstorm came
on while we were at the inn, and Coleridge was
running out bareheaded to enjoy the commotion
of the elements in the Valley of Rocks, but, as if
in spite, the clouds only muttered a few angry
270

THE QUANTOCKS
sounds, and let fall a few refreshing drops, Cole
ridge told me that he and Wordsworth were to
have made this place the scene of a prose-tale,
which was to have been in the manner of, but far
superior to, the "Death of Abel," but they had
relinquished the design. In the morning of the
second day we breakfasted luxuriantly in an old-
fashioned parlour on tea, toast, eggs, and honey,
in the very sight of the bee-hives from which it
had been taken, and a garden full of thyme and
wild flowers that had produced it. . , , It was In
this room that we found a little worn-out copy of
the " Seasons " lying in a window-seat, on which
Coleridge exclaimed, " That is true fame." '
It is delightful to read these refreshing notes,
with their frank appreciation of good meals and
their artistic sense of points of scenery, after the
rather pompous bareness of Wordsworth's prose.
The poet could write excellent prose enough, but
not on so casual a theme as a journey. One can
not help thinking that Hazlitt may have been a
pleasanter companion for such a tour than the
reserved Wordsworth or the ever-talking Cole
ridge, but in his essay on ' Going a Journey,'
Hazlitt frankly tells us that he preferred to go
alone. He does not tell us that he found
Coleridge a bore, but we can read between the
271

LITERARY RAMBLES
lines his opinion that there are times, out of doors,
when silence Is golden, and solitude best of all.
Hazlitt was at Nether-Stowey again in 1803, and
yet once more, many years later, he gazed with
emotion from a hill near Taunton at this spot
where, in the dawn of his youthful enthusiasm, he
had. met Wordsworth face to face, and listened to
the never-ceasing eloquence of Coleridge.
The poem intended to be modelled on Gessner's
' Death of Abel,' was to deal with the wanderings
of Cain after the murder, and the two poets were
to collaborate. Coleridge dashed off a prose
sketch of his portion, but Wordsworth did nothing,
and the scheme lapsed. It was indeed impossible
that the two, though deeply in sympathy on
literary matters, should ever successfully work
together ; the genius of each was far too dis
tinctive. Almost pantheistic as he was, Words
worth had no liking for folk-lore and country-side
superstitions, but the metaphysics of Coleridge
never prevented him from accepting such heartily,
with the full credence of his imagination though
not of his reason. His attitude was the more con
sistent with poetry, though Wordsworth's accom
plishment proved so far the greater,
Coleridge's stay among the Quantocks was
longer than that of Wordsworth, and he returned
272

THE QUANTOCKS
to his friend Poole in 1807, when he received the
visit from De Quincy, His connection with the
district was far more fruitful than Wordsworth's,
for it embraces his best poetry. Not only the
' Ancient Mariner,' but the first part of ' Christ
abel ' was written here, so captivating those who
could appreciate it, that Scott and Byron vainly
strove to catch its marvellous melody.
' Kubla Khan ' was the result of a dreara ' in a
lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton,'
the poet, who was in ill-health, having fallen
asleep In his chair. When he awaked, he rapidly
penned such lines as he could recollect, but un
happily he was interrupted by a visitor, and when
again free he found that the dream-poem had
slipped from his memory. At Stowey also
' Remorse ' was written, and here also his finest
blank-verse poems, ' The Nightingale ' and ' Frost
at Midnight.' This was the ' green and silent
spot araid the hills ' where he experienced his
' Fears in Solitude,' and here was born the
exquisite 'Love.' These are the things by
which Coleridge Is remembered as poet, and their
birthplace was the Quantock Hills,
There are nuraberless features of topographic
and historic interest among these Quantock
villages, fine churches, beautiful raanors, quaint
cottages and wayside crosses. Hestercombe and
273 s

LITERARY RAMBLES
Holford and Aisholt, the Stoweys, Stogursey
(more properly Stoke Courcy), St. Audries, Sto-
gumber, and Cleeve, are spots among which
happy days of lingering contentment might be
spent. Southey said that Devonshire itself falls
flat after the north of Somerset, Yet the spot is
neglected by the general tourist, and even the
literary pilgrim wends his way hither too seldom.
Seasons come and go, bringing ever changeful
loveliness to the hills and combes, wherls stays the
abiding glory of a great memory. It is not
difficult now to see that the greatest poet of the
nineteenth century, the greatest of all our poets
since Milton, was William Wordsworth — Keats
with fine critical taste thought that his message
was even greater than Milton's, though his en
dowment of genius might be less.
West of England folk should never allow the
public to forget that for a time Wordsworth dwelt
amongst them, and this, too, just at the period
when he was finding his message. The presence
of God in all manifestations of nature — the peace
that may pass from hill and meadow and brooding
sky into the soul of raan — the kinship of all
created things, the nobility of siraple duty, the
trail of glory that we may carry with us from
childhood to the grave — these were the truths
274

THE QUANTOCKS
that sank into the mind of Wordsworth as he
meditated among the Quantock hills. Here was
matured his lifelong friendship with Coleridge,
whose first-firuits were the ' Lyrical Ballads ' that
revolutionized our poetry. Surely the watchful
hills, the wakeful Severn Sea, have not forgotten.

275 s 2

RICHARD JEFFERIES
AN ATTEMPT AT APPRECIATION
As years pass on it is absolutely certain that the
name of Richard Jefferles will win more and more
of recognition. To-day, less than twenty years
after his death, his position is secure among critics
and true lovers of literature, though it is still easy
to meet with those whom we call general readers
who never heard of his narae. Time could bring
him no loss of popularity, for he had none to lose.
There could be none of that temporary and partial
eclipse that follows the living noonday repute of a
Tennyson, a Dickens, or a Longfellow ; time's
revenges were to be the reverse of this. There
could be no recoil, no reaction, but a steady flood-
tide towards a just and fitting appreciation.
When Jefferles died in 1887, before he had
completed his fortieth year, it was only a limited
circle that recognised the loss to our literature, or
the invaluable prize that survived in the work he
left behind him. One of that circle. Sir Walter
276

RICHARD JEFFERIES
Besant, wrote a * Eulogy ' that did something to
enlighten the public ; but even he, generous as
he was, hardly gauged the powers of Jefferles to
the full. The reviewers and critics, for the most
part, had understood him still less ; they had
ticketed him as a writer on natural history ; they
thought they had done enough when they com
pared him with White of Selborne. But Jefferles
was more than a naturalist. He was a great
writer apart altogether from natural history ; he
was a thinker, a poet in prose, an artist In words,
an impassioned philosopher whose creed was
beauty. He was an apostle of the soul-life. He
wrote prose-lyrics not of country life only, but of
the deepest inner life of man. White of Selborne,
Izaak Walton, never dreamed of the depths to
which he reached ; he was of a different age and a
different nature entirely. To dub Jefferles a
naturalist and say no more, is to declare our own
limitations. He was born on November 6, 1848, at Coate
Farm, about three miles from modern Swindon.
The house survives in a transformed condition ;
its sloping roof is slated now, no longer thatched ;
gardens, orchard, and farm-buildings still surround
it. The boy loved his home and Its neighbour
hood so passionately, that they may be said to
have coloured every page that he wrote in after-
277

LITERARY RAMBLES
life ; he could never forget the old family home
stead and the broad Wiltshire downs. Here, very
near the house. Is the Coate reservoir, the lake of
' Bevis,' and Bevis was of course Jefferles himself ;
the water is now the resort of holiday parties from
Swindon, who come here, it must be feared, from
no regard for the memory of Jefferles, but just
because the spot is pleasant for picnics and merry
makings. There were four children in the
Jefferles family — the eldest had died ; Richard
himself, two brothers and a sister. It is known
that Farmer Iden, In ' Amaryllis at the Fair,' Is a
picture of the writer's father, and the elder Iden
must be, in part, his grandfather.
The father was a patient, thoughtful, un
successful raan, not fitted to contend with the
agricultural difficulties of his day ; he had worked
hard the whole of his life with little result — there
was a continued depression of circumstances, just
a steering clear of ruin, but no progress. The
man lived a dual life ; perhaps this may have
been a cause of his failure ; he was never quite
the whole-hearted shrewd yeoman. He could
pour forth the Wiltshire dialect freely with his
labourers, and bring himself, in appearance, almost
to a level with themselves ; but he could also
speak the purest and most Intelligent English,
he was a gentleman at heart, he was a master
278

RICHARD JEFFERIES
of nature - lore ; the intellectual was his true
life. We must not take all Jefferles' word-paintings,
whether of character or of outdoor scenes, in their
bare literalness ; he borrowed something from
fancy, and iraagination necessarily coloured some
of his recollections ; but the fact remains, that
if we would follow him to his boyhood and to
his home, we have simply to read his books.
They are crammed full of autobiography. No
memoir can give so vivid an irapression ; Besant
fell back almost entirely on quotations when he
tried to tell us of these things. It Is best to go
to the books themselves. Jefferles was a lonely
and Isolated man ; we can never have a full
biography of him. Perhaps it Is as well ; we
are cast back upon his books, and anything that
drives us to these books Is good. It is better
to meet the man face to face than to read about
hira ; and reserved as his nature was, few If any
writers have given so many intimate heart-secrets
to his readers' keeping.
In his fourth year the boy went to spend some
years with an aunt at Sydenham, and thus laid
the foundation of his knowledge of London and
its surroundings. Jefferles was at heart no town-
lover, yet he could appreciate the beautiful in
city as well as In country, and some aspects of
279

LITERARY RAMBLES
London have never been so well recognised and
described as by himself. It was the same when
he came to know Brighton. One might have
anticipated that the gay watering-place would have
been a horror to him ; instead of which we find
the raost liberal recognition of Its glowing lights
and bracing airs, its bustling crowds and beautiful
women. The child Is described as reserved and
sensitive, truthful and quick-tempered — we may
gather his character plainly enough from the
man's writings. He returned home in his ninth
year, and went to a school at Swindon.
One who knew him In his ' Bevis ' days tells
us that ' Dick was of a masterful disposition, and
though less strong than several of us in a bodily
sense, his force of will was such that we had to
succumb to whatever plans he chose to dictate,
never choosing to be second even in the most
trivial thing. His temper was not amiable, but
there was always a gentleness about him which
saved him from the reproach of wishing to ride
rough-shod over the feelings of others. I do
not recollect his ever joining in the usual boy's
sports — cricket or football — he preferred less
athletic. If more adventurous, means of enjoyment.
He was a great reader. Close to his home was
the Reservoir, a prettily-situated lake surrounded
by trees. Here we often used to go explor-
280

RICHARD JEFFERIES
ing expeditions in quest of curiosities or Wild
Indians,' He might not play at the usual boy's
games, but he could do things quite beyond the
power of many boys, for instance, he made him
self a canoe from the trunk of a tree, and in
' After London ' he tells us exactly how it was
done. From this boyhood, seasoned by the reading
of numberless books — good books for the most
part, for the boy knew what was good literature
— the man Jefferles drew the stores that are to
enrich generations of readers. The same life
might have passed, as with so raany boys who
see the same sights and revel In similar adventures,
into a maturity of commonplace manhood ; but
a sensitive genius lay behind the boy's eye, to
take a permanent negative of all that was seen ;
a sensitive genius was in the boy's heart, to
receive a permanent Impression of every sight
and every sound and every fragrance — no note
of the birds, no wave of warm undulating sun
light, no whisper of the ' sweet-briar wind,' was
lost to hira : and the adventurous, moody, domi
nating boy grew up to an Impassioned hunger
for ' soul-life ' ; he was athirst for things of the
spirit, of which Nature in her manifold aspects
and transfigurations could only give him a glimmer,
and only satisfy him in part.
281

LITERARY RAMBLES
For the story of that soul-hunger we must go
to the raan's wonderful piece of autobiography,
the book that took him seventeen years to con
ceive and write, dating in its inception from his
eighteenth year — a book that hardly gives us a
material fact, it Is so concerned with matters that
are spiritual. That book he naraed ' The Story
of my Heart,' one of the most beautiful and most
singular among the confessions of great men.
We are told that Jefferles' parents were related
to some London publishers, who kept them
supplied with books. This was an advantage
of which doubtless future ages will reap the
benefit ; it may also have suggested literature
as a means of livelihood to the boy's mind. It
Is difficult to know exactly what he did as a
youth ; in the opinion of the country-folk he
seeras to have loafed about considerably, probably
he did some poaching. On one occasion he
persuaded a companion to start with him on
a walking tour that was to take them through
Europe ; they actually reached France, but the
inconvenience of not knowing the language dis
concerted them. They returned, made an abortive
atterapt to get to America, and finally arrived
back, somewhat Ingloriously, at Swindon.
We have scanty particulars of the escapade,
but it proves that Jefferles was ready to act,
282

RICHARD JEFFERIES
ready to pursue adventurous enterprises, and not
merely to dream about them. There was a spirit
of wandering in the lad's heart, home-loving as
he was ; with all his knowledge of farm-Hfe, he
could never have become a farmer. He does
not seem to have been educated with a view to
any profession : perhaps the absorbed and in
effective character of the father had something to
do with this. But a friendship with the editor
of the North Wiltshire aj'dvertiser opened the
way to attempts at journalism ; the man who
was born for literature learned shorthand, and
became a journalist. But he took many years
to master a good style, and It was not till he was
at least thirty that he really 'found himself
Even for journalism, which the veriest tyro
thinks he can manage, his education had been
quite insufficient ; he knew little and cared less
for commerce and politics, unless In their rural
aspects ; he cared nothing for clubs and parties
and social organizations; he was a lover of
solitude, and the journalist must be the most
sociable man under the sun. Even genius could
not help him here ; genius is not wanted in
reporting. Yet he so mastered the details of
his profession that in 1873 he published a small
book on ' Reporting, Editing, and Authorship,'
a most extraordinary work to head the list of
283

LITERARY RAMBLES
his writings. But before this he had written a
history of Swindon, that has been reprinted : it
originally appeared, apparently. In the pages of
a local journal. His great ambition seems to
have been to write fiction, an ambition that
stayed with hira to the end ; but he also had
a strong turn for antiquities, which in his last
years he discarded as entirely unconducive to the
' soul-life ' for which he longed. He had some
severe Illnesses, proving that even his healthy
open-air boyhood had not materially strengthened
a feeble constitution, and his illnesses always
affected his eyes, so that reading was forbidden.
From one such attack he recovered with a heart
full of Christian faith and charity ; ' too much
study is selfish,' he concluded, and he began to
write a tragedy about Borgia.
We cannot imagine that the earnings of
Jefferles as reporter for a small country paper
were anything considerable, but he tolled at It
perseveringly, and at the same time poured forth
a deal of worthless fiction, som.e of which saw the
light in the local journals. Cruelly enough, some
of these early abortions have been republished of
late years, but the wise lover of Jefferles does
not read them. He has been corapared with
Shelley ; certainly there was a reserablance in
this youthful faculty for producing fiction that
284

RICHARD JEFFERIES
showed no spark of genius. Like so many young
men, also, Jefferles fancied that influence could do
great things for him. He wrote verses and sent
them to the Prince Imperial, When a courteous
acknowledghient carae, he was enraptured, and
wrote to a friend that ' If I were seeking a place
in a London papery the production of that note
would be a wonderful recommendation.'
Similarly, when he asked the advice of Disraeli
on a work that he proposed publishing, and that
statesman cautiously replied that the subject was
of great interest, and that he would do well to
submit the MS. to a respectable publisher, the
sanguine young writer was raised to the seventh
heaven. ' What publisher would not grasp at a
work recoraraended by Disraeli.''' And when
a publisher really promised to give one of his
novels carefiil consideration, Jefferles thought
himself on the threshold of assured success. The
young raan's knowledge of the publishing world
must have been of the most elementary descrip
tion. He found that he had to print his books
at his own expense, with a result of failure and
disappointment. In 1872 he did. indeed meet with a stroke of
fortune, which might have led to positive security
of position. He contributed three letters to the
Times on the condition of the Wiltshire labourer,
285

LITERARY RAMBLES
and these immediately gave him a recognised
standing as an authority on agricultural matters.
Had he at once struck while this iron was hot, he
might have gained a firm position in London
as a journaHst ; and it is possible that the gain
to the newspapers might have been the loss of
literature. But Jefferles, clumsily steering his
way through many shoals and quicksands, was in
reality reaching towards a higher success than
one of mere journalism.
In 1873 he published, at his own cost, a
history of a Wiltshire family, and in the following
year appeared his first novel with the unattractive
title of ' The Scarlet Shawl.' In this year he also
accoraplished an achievement of genuine good
fortune — he was married to a lady who proved
the best of wives. In later days when ill-health
prevented him from holding a pen or reading
a line, it was the loving hand of this wife that
wrote at his dictation, and some of the most
exquisite things he ever produced went to the
press in her writing. There is no need to speak
of the tales that belong to this date, or of such a
distressing performance as his ' Suez-cide ' ; they
are merely melancholy proofs that a man of genius
can wilfully labour in a department for which he
is utterly unfitted.
The time came when Jefferles could write
286

RICHARD JEFFERIES
beautiful fictions, as In ' Bevis ' and ' The Dewy
Morn ' ; but even then the value is always in
the appeal to nature and to recollection, never
in the invention. But Jefferles was now con
tributing excellent papers on rural matters to
the periodicals — the letters in the Times had
made his writings acceptable, and he was feeling
his way towards such books as * The Gamekeeper
at Home ' ; he was beginning to find himself In
1877 the 'Gamekeeper' appeared, and now at
last he had found a role, though not his highest.
Publishers were willing to issue such books at
their own risk, and though their sale was never
large, they brought reputation and appreciation.
Four volumes of a similar nature succeeded — the
' Amateur Poacher,' ' Wild Life in a Southern
County,' ' Hodge and his Masters,' and ' Round
about a Great Estate ' ; the last two appearing In
1880, together with 'Greene Feme Farm,' the
first of his novels that we can contemplate with
genuine pleasure. As a romance or study of
character it is poor enough, but it contains some
delicious pictures of country life.
In 1 8 8 1 appeared ' Wood Magic,' a beautiful
picture of child-life among the fields and flowers,
the beasts and birds. This was followed by
' Bevis,' a further story of the same child ; Sir
Walter Besant made the mistake of thinking that
287

LITERARY RAMBLES
' Wood Magic ' was the sequel, and he also made
the mistake of thinking that 'Bevis' was too
long. The publishers later made the same mis
take, and published an abridged edition, but
happily a new and complete edition has now been
given to us, and we would not spare a word of
this most delightful picture of boyhood. It is a
tale of Jefferles' own boy-life, seen through the
glorifying haze of memory. ' Nature near
London ' followed, a collection of short papers of
varying charm but all of value. It was succeeded
by the very finest fruit of his genius.
In June, 1883, he wrote to Mr. C. J. Long
man : ' I have just finished writing a book about
which I have been meditating seventeen years. I
have called it " The Story of My Heart, an Auto
biography," and it Is really an autobiography, an
actual record of thought. After so much thinking
it only makes one small volume — there are no
words wasted in It.' Further, Jefferles wrote pf
his book that he ' claimed to have erased from his
mind the traditions and learning of the past ages,
and to stand face to face with Nature and with the
unknown. The general aim of the work is to
free thought from every trammel, with the view of
its entering upon another and larger series of ideas
than those which have occupied the brain of man
so many centuries.' The book does this. Though
288

RICHARD JEFFERIES
utterly unlike Carlyle, the author ruthlessly strips
off all mental ' clothes ' of every description ; it is
a presentation of naked soul-realities.
Jefferles thought that man had as yet scarcely
begun to think or to live ; he would have the
dead past bury its dead ; he reached forward with
the utmost passion and longing to the fullest
possible soul-life — something almost like the
Nirvana of the Buddhists, save that he desired it
to be a conscious absorption in the eternal and
spiritual. His prayer was 'That I might have
the deepest of soul-life, the deepest of all, deeper
far than all this greatness of the visible universe,
and even of the invisible ; that I might have
a fulness of soul till now unknown, and utterly
beyond ray own conception.' There are paradoxes
in the work that must be a stumbling-block to
persons of dim vision, but they are glorious
paradoxes, full of truth. ' I am in eternity now
and must there remain. Haste not, be at rest,
this now is eternity.'
' By prayer,' he says, ' I do not mean a request
for anything preferred to a deity ; I mean intense
soul-emotion, intense aspiration. , . . My soul
cannot reach to its full desire of prayer. I need
no earth or sea or sun to think my thought.
If my thought-part — the Psyche — were entirely
separated frora the body, and from the earth, I
289 T

LITERARY RAMBLES
should of rayself desire the same. In itself my
soul desires ; my existence, my soul-existence is in
itself my prayer, and so long as it exists so long
will it pray that I may have the fullest soul- life.'
There are things in the book that must pain
many, yet in reality it is filled with the highest
spiritual faith. Never was book written that was
farther removed from materialism, Jefferles
thought that he had given up the past — that
he was venturing forth on utterly new and un-
sailed seas of thought ; but it need not have
taken him much labour to discover that the very
keynote of his aspirations had been struck centuries
before by the Apostle, who directed us to worship
God ' in spirit and in truth.'
It is not surprising to find that the book had
the smallest of sales, but it is surprising to find
that the leading reviews were crassly at fault
in their reception of it. The Athenaum spoke
of it as ' a harmless unnecessary exercise,' while
the Academy said ' there is really little heart or
human interest in It,' To parallel such mons
trosities of abortive criticism we must go back to
the early days of Wordsworth, or to the critical
welcome awarded to Shelley and Keats. But it
was more pardonable to misunderstand the
' Endymion ' than it was to misread ' The Story
of My Heart ' ; in the poem of Keats there
290

RICHARD JEFFERIES
was indeed much that was formless and juvenile ;
in the work of Jefferles we have the most perfect
mastery of sensitive and lyrical prose, a gem of
literary expression. However one might pardon
ably differ from its conclusion, the medium at
least was of the rarest beauty. Yet one critic
preferred the ' Red Deer,' and another thought
the book a descent after the ' Gamekeepei- ' and
' Araateur Poacher.'
Three novels were to follow, the ' Dewy Morn,'
' After London,' and ' Amaryllis at the Fair.'
The first of these is full of delightful pictures of
country life, such as no one but Jefferles could
have given us, and Felise is a character of
genuine charm. There is more of a plot also
than in any other of the later novels ; the tale
really does end with a marriage. ' Amaryllis ' is
different ; it finishes nowhere, though certainly a
sequel is suggested. But its pages are filled with
pictures drawn from the life ; never was a more
faithful presentment of life in a small country
town. The characters, it is true, are mostly
drawn from the outside ; Jefferles had not the
dramatist's gift of making himself one with those
whom he places before us. But the portrait of his
father. Farmer Iden, and of the grandfather Iden,
are masterly, that of the father being particularly
vivid and pathetic, 291 T 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
' After London,' is an attempt in a different
direction, and more of a failure ; it does not grip,
Mr. Rider Haggard could do this sort of thing,
but not Jefferles. The things of greatest value
in the book are the pictures of the brothers,
supposed to be descriptive of Jefferles and his
own brother, and the sketches of natural life.
Far better are the two volumes, the ' Life of the
Fields,' and 'The Open Air,' published in 1884
and 1885, and consisting of contributions reprinted
from various periodicals. In the first of these
we have the marvellous ' Pageant of Summer,'
and the poignant ' Field-Play,' the ' Bits of Oak
Bark,' and the discerning papers on 'Country
Literature ' ; also some wonderful word-pictures
of London, In the second is the beautiful
' St. Guido,' akin to ' Wood Magic,' and a series
of nature-articles, almost every one of which is
athrill with loveliness and eraotion. But the
very best collection of essays is that entitled,
' Field and Hedgerow,' published after the writer's
death, many of them dictated while Jefferles was
suffering the lingering weakness and anguish that
killed him. In some of these, such as the ' Hours
of Spring,' he reached his lowest note of sadness
and pessimism ; they are exquisitely beautifiil
notwithstanding. Never, perhaps, did he write more discerningly
292

RICHARD JEFFERIES
of rustic folk than in his article on ' The Country
Sunday ' ; and the paper on ' My Old Village '
is a fine piece of emotional remembrance. He
had become more deeply humanitarian. It is
impossible even to name the essays in this and
kindred volumes that are masterpieces of observa
tion and literary expression; one, 'Nature In
the Louvre,' must be particularized as Illustrating
the anthor's firm touch whenever he had to deal
with sculpture or painting. To think of hira
before the Venus Accroupie is to remember
Heine at the foot of the Venus of Milo ; and to
reraember those last months when he lay in
weakness and pain, dictating for the hand of
his wife to transcribe, must ever remind us of
Heine once more, lying grimly ironical on his
' mattress-grave.' This is rather an attempt at appreciating his
genius than a narrative of events ; but a few
facts must be given. After living for some years
with his wife at Swindon, they removed in 1877
to Surbiton, for the convenience of being near
London. The removal had a definite influence
on his work. He discovered plenty of beauty,
not only in the neighbourhood of the great city,
but in the city itself — in Trafalgar Square, and
by the British Museum, and at the East-end
docks. In 1 88 1 he was attacked by a disease
293

LITERARY RAMBLES
that necessitated several operations. Perhaps the
surgeons blundered ; perhaps they diagnosed the
case wrongly. His illness continued, and after
a long period of intense suffering and fallacious
treatment, proved to be an ulceration of the
lesser intestine. He had been threatened with
consumption in his youth ; he must have Inherited
a weakness that even his constant love of the
open air could not remedy.
It is useless now to suggest that a wiser
medical treatment might have done better for
hira, or to regret that pressing financial worries
should have greatly enhanced the mental side of
his sufferings. In spite of the success of his
' Gamekeeper ' books — In spite of the wonderful
essays contributed to the leading magazines and
journals, he never won the popularity that brings
pecuniary reward. The public might tolerate an
occasional article in the periodicals, but it would
not buy his books ; and when the critical reviews
blundered so hopelessly, it Is little wonder that
the general reader remained in the dark. Jefferies
had deep pride also ; he stoutly resented the sug
gestion of an application to the Royal Literary
Fund. There has been an idea that he was
largely a victim of hysteria ; if so, it must be
remembered that hysteria itself is no imaginary
complaint, but often the most terrible of realities.
294

RICHARD JEFFERIES
It is a disease of the nerves, and the nerves are the
source of our most acute agonies.
Jefferies had the poet's, the artist's nature, most
keenly sensitive to joy or suffering ; he had the
highly-strung delicacy that seems almost insepar
able from genius. Different changes were tried ;
he went to Brighton and Eltham, Crowborough,
Bexhill, and finally to Goring. He also had a
stay in Somerset that produced good literary fruit.
There were raany fluctuations, but no real rallying ;
he died at Sea- view. Goring, August 14, 1887.
He lies in the graveyard of the fine old church of
Broadwater, close to Worthing, having himself
shrunk from the idea of being buried at Goring.
He had learned to love Sussex almost as fondly as
he loved Wiltshire, and if he was not to be buried
at home, it was as well that he should lie here, in
this county of swelling downs, not far from the
rolling of the sea. ' Give me life strong and full
as the brimming ocean ; give me thoughts wide as
its plain ; give me a soul beyond these. The sea
thinks for me as I listen and ponder : the sea
thinks, and every boom of the wave repeats my
prayer.' Little need be said on the disputed question
of his supposed death-bed conversion. It is
certain that Jefferies throughout his life had been
a lover of the Scripture, and it Is equally certain
295

LITERARY RAMBLES
that when he lay dying his wife read chapters
of St. Luke to him, while he listened gladly.
We need not inquire further, nor desecrate the
memory by an unseemly controversy. This man
had lived in the spirit, and his prayer to the
end was for a fuller life of the spirit. He
hungered and thirsted for the unseen and the
eternal. The obituary notices almost universally spoke
of hira as the author of the ' Gamekeeper at
Home.' One, Indeed, spoke ofthe ' Story of My
Heart ' as a delightful word-painting of rural life.
The point of view was entirely wrong, and to a
considerable extent it remains so. There is no
need to undervalue the ' Gamekeeper ' and its
companion books ; they are valuable permanently
for their pictures of nature, and historically for
their descriptions of rustic life. Agricultural con
ditions have changed since Jefferies' day ; we
must now go to Mr. Haggard, not to Jefferies, if
we want to realize the position of the country
labourer. These books have much wonderful
detail of observation, much shrewd sense, and not
a little beauty of language, but they do not present
Jefferies at his best. They have mainly to do
with externals ; he had not yet become a thinker
and a poet. As his body decayed, his mind and
the power of his style Intensified. He reached|his
296

RICHARD JEFFERIES
highest in the ' Story of My Heart,' in his later
essays, and in portions of his later novels.
The earlier works reveal his limitations rather
than his true range, and they rather painfully
betray the enduring defect in his attitude towards
the animal-world. In spite of his marvellous
sympathy with their ways and habits, his intimacy
and profound observation, he never regarded a
bird as other than a thing to be shot at, or a deer
as other than a creature to be chased to its death.
Here is a limitation that some of us must regret
most deeply ; it is only to be referred to with
pain. Had he lived longer, perhaps his mind
would have developed a wider sympathy on this
side also. His works are full of the most loving
descriptions of bird and beast and flower ; yet in
the last resort there is always the attitude of the
sportsman. But let us take leave of Jefferies with other
thoughts. Let us remember the almost exhaust-
less store of beauty to be found in his books.
Perhaps very few of us have read, everything that
he wrote — it is not desirable that we should do
so ; the earlier novels may well be forgotten, and
we shall not suffer an inestimable loss if we neglect
some of the pages about game-keeping and poach
ing and guns and red deer. These things can be
matched elsewhere. But when Jefferies writes of
297

LITERARY RAMBLES
the ' pageant of summer,' of the winds of heaven
and the soaring of birds, of colour and music and
fragrance and physical loveliness, where shall we
match him ? Where shall we match his keen eye
for every phase of sunlight, for every degree of
colour and scent and graceful motion, every
blossora in the hedges and in the grass, every
ripple of the running stream and of the swaying
cornfields ? The whole of Nature was to him a
vesture of the Infinite ; yet he never offered to us
that so-called Natural Religion which is often the
least satisfying of falsities.
Nor did he interpret a great underlying unity
between nature and man, such as was the soul of
Wordsworth's teaching. The soul-life that he
dreamed of was something almost more trans-
cendant, if one may dare to say so ; more aloof
from the processes and pageants of the external
earth, though these served supremely for its
figures and syrabolisra. He even wrote that
Nature has no care for us — that she is heedless
and cruel and utterly alien ; such words came
from him In his hours of despondency and
shattered health. If we take them in their
material sense, we know that they are true ; if
we take Nature and man as being both the
expression and outcorae of one absolute and
eternal soul, we feel that somehow this cry from
298

RICHARD JEFFERIES
the writer's despairing sadness was but a mood
that should pass. But he could always take the
material beauty that he saw as a type of unseen
spiritual truth, and in this sense he was ever
craving more and more of the outward loveliness,
as the food and sustenance of the beauty within.
Through all inconsistencies and incongruities.
this thirst of the soul was always the one piresslng
reality of his life ; we sweep away the morbid
mists of adversity and sickness, and find it pure
and bright. We do not meet it in some of his
books ; it grew with his growth. Much of his
writing was done literally for a livelihood ; he had
to deal with farmer and labourer, with game-
preserving and poaching ; there was a demand
for such things, though a small one ; at one
time he ' came very near writing a book about
shooting, a full treatise of guns and gunnery in
their connection with sport. Some of us must
feel profoundly grateful that he did not do this,
but he left fragments that prove how well he
could have done such sorry work. These were
the kind of books that publishers found themselves
able to sell. But that which he did from his full
heart had to be confined to an occasional essay, or
forced into the unfitting mould of fiction with
the hope that it might be made palatable to the
public. 299

LITERARY RAMBLES
Walter Besant stated that Jefferies entirely
lacked the dramatic faculty ; this is not so certain.
He might never have been a dramatist ; his
fictions as a whole are far from dramatic. But
there are dramatic touches none the less, especially
in ' The Dewy Morn,' and such sketches as the
' Field Play,' prove a raasterly power of vivid
presentation. It has also been alleged that he
lacked humour — the dreary procession of his early
novels Is adduced to prove it. He certainly was
not a witty man, and he never jested. Humour
is something other than a capacity for making
jokes ; the circumstances and heredity of the man
seem to have been altogether opposed to a
humorous development. But in ' Bevis ' there
are occasional rich glimpses even of humour — the
unconscious humour and qualntnesses of the
healthy boy -mind, represented with absolute
truth. We hardly know whether Jefferies him
self, in presenting these, is not as unconscious as
the boys themselves ; he never lingers over them
or colours and slightiy distorts them, as a Mark
Twain raight do.
Perhaps it is a lack of proportion that is more
evident than any deficiency of the humorous, as
where the writer coraes near to spoiling the closing
chapters of ' Bevis ' by dwelling on uninteresting
details of accurate shooting ; he was wont some-
300

RICHARD JEFFERIES
times to insist thus on the needless and the un
inspiring. So much raust be granted ; Jefferies
did not live to obtain absolute control over his
genius. He came near failure also In parts of
' Wood-Magic,' where the political matters of the
beasts and birds become rather wearisome — they
would be utterly so if not relieved by the delight
ful figure of the littie Bevis.
For the picture of the child and the boy
Jefferies, we raust go to these two books that deal
with Bevis ; but for the -true unveiling of the
mature man we raust study the essays - and the
spiritual autobiography. Here is the full flower
ing of his gifts. If we seek work that we can
liken to Gilbert White, we may be content with
those poorer yet still valuable books that chiefly
arrested contemporary criticism. In reality it is
, fiitile to compare Jefferies either with White or
with Walton ; almost as futile to compare him
with Thoreau. Thoreau was a great writer,
with a smack of Transatlantic acerbity that com
pletely differentiates him from Jefferies ; he was
a philosophic humourist — Jefferies was a poetic
thinker. Both raight be styled transcenden-
talists, but Jefferies, perhaps, in a higher sense.
Those who love both will best appreciate the
divergence. There is a resemblance again in
Borrow, but it only exists to emphasize a vital
301

LITERARY RAMBLES
difference. Borrow is a master of dramatic
dialogue and forceful narrative, he Is robustiy
virile, with some delightful cranks and prejudices ;
he has not the lyric quality and spiritual passion
of Jefferies. Why seek to compare contraries.''
The glory of literature is that all these different
characters and characteristics go to make its
wealth. The man with whom we have been
dealing was not a Gilbert White or a Thoreau, a
Borrow or a Hawthorne, though he may have had
flashes of resemblance to all of these ; he was com
pletely and intensely himself — Richard Jefferies.

302

LITERARY BRISTOL
The Avon of Bristol and Bath has been over
shadowed in literature by the Avon of Warwick
shire, on whose banks the boy Shakespeare was
nurtured ; but it has its own record of literary
distinction, and that by no means a poor one.
As it passes from Bristol to the Severn it becomes
the boundary between the counties of Gloucester
and Somerset ; and the beauty of its ravine, though
in some degree marred by the quarryings that have
long aroused public indignation, is hardly to be
matched throughout the kingdom — according to
both Southey and Landor, it is scarcely to be
equalled throughout Europe. The cleavage of
the rocks is sudden, not gradual, pointing rather
to a violent cataclysm than to the usual slow
working of water-action. There is no geologic
difference between the high lands on the Leigh
and Clifton sides of the gorge. The Leigh banks
and table-land, however, are thickly wooded ; but
though there is some luxuriant woodland on the
303

LITERARY RAMBLES
heights and slopes of Clifton Down, Durdham
Down, of far wider expanse, is an open level,
thickly scattered with hawthorns whose perfume
richly loads the air during May and early June.
This Durdham Down is being more and more
trimmed and levelled into a popular playground,
devoted to cricket, football and golf, its breezy
roads much favoured by cyclists and motorists ;
but formerly the surface was largely covered with
little hollows and undulations, clothed with
bramble-bush, gorse and wild thyme, the per
petual delight of children, who dearly loved to
race up and down the tiny vales and hillocks.
Only a few of these remain to revive the tender
memories of older visitors.
Perhaps the recreation of the larger number,
who prefer an expanse for definite games, must be
held to excuse this transformation of a free moor
land into a tamed and conventional public park.
There is still a sense of glorious breadth, and a
possibility of breathing deep draughts of stimulat
ing Channel air ; there are still, in part, patches
of golden gorse, clumps of bush and brake, avenues
of fine trees bordering the roadsides, a scent of
wild thyme, and the delicate drooping harebell of
later summer. There is a deep, dreamy haze of
distances, with rich splashes of colouring in
autumn ; a glimmer of silver where Avon meets
304

LITERARY BRISTOL
the Severn, and a suggestion, dependent on
atmospheric conditions, of the Welsh hills beyond.
The voice of happy children blends with the
chastened chiming of distant bells, and at high
tide the hoot of passing vessels joins with the
sudden and jarring booms of blasting, telling with
no uncertain sound of the devastation being
wrought for the sake of a few tons of road-metal.
Across the Down, past Stoke, went the old Roraan
road that led to Abona, apparently from Bitton ;
and it is generally concluded that Abona was the
present Sea Mills, a small cluster of houses stand
ing at the confluence of the Trym and Avon,
where traces of a miniature quay may still be seen.
There was once an establishment of mills here for
the manufacture of ' says ' or serges, hence the
narae of the hamlet, dating from a time when sea
and say were pronounced identically.
No poet's song of supreme beauty has conse
crated the Avon, and yet the great poets have
been here. Those who have never visited Bristol,
or have never paid a thought to the matter, will
be surprised to learn the wealth of literary associa
tion that attaches to Bristol and Clifton, Bristol
has often been named a city of churches ; it might
also be termed a city of authors. Yet the prevalent
tone of society here cannot be called distinctly
literary ; rather is it commercial. There are
305 u

LITERARY RAMBLES
towns in the North of England where beats a far
quicker pulse of Intellectual activity. It is usually
the occasional visitor who is most enraptured by
the beauties of the Avon valley, and who inquires
with keenest interest into the records of literary
Bristol, The resident takes so much for granted ;
in this, Bristol is like most other places. But
there is an awakening of attention to literary
memories, and Bristolians are beginning to mark
the footprints of eminent men that have lived
amongst them.
Most persons of average culture have a dim
notion that there was once an unhappy poet
named Chatterton, who was somehow connected
with Bristol, and whora Bristol treated badly, and
whom doubtless they themselves would have
treated with as scant courtesy ; they may further
faintly recall the fact that Southey and Coleridge
had some relations with the old city. Even such
recollection of Bristoi's claims is better than
nothing ; but it does not go far enough. We
must go back at least to the fifteenth century.
Bristol's earliest literary worthy of real note was
William Botoner, better known as William Wyr-
cestre, and sometimes erroneously naraed William
of Worcester, We are indebted to him for most
interesting notes about the cathedral and other
local churches ; he was a pioneer of topography,
306

LITERARY BRISTOL
Bristol also claims William Grocyn, the intimate
friend of Erasmus and the tutor of Sir Thomas
More, He had caught the full spirit of the
Renaissance while residing abroad, and is said to
have been the first public teacher of Greek in
England, Tyndale, reformer and martyr, though not
actually born here, belonged to the district, and
worked actively in the city. In this connection it
is well to remember that Wielif himself must
certainly have preached in Bristol, as he held the
prebend of Westbury-on-Trym, a village of quaint
beauty and interest that is being fast modernized,
Cranmer also preached once in the cathedral.
Among later visitors we have the delightful
Samuel Pepys, who came over here from Bath,
and found the town ' in every respect another
London,' Evelyn also came hither, and Defoe,
in relation with whom it is worth remembering
that a Bristol boat brought back Alexander Selkirk
frora his desert island, and thus laid the foundation
of ' Robinson Crusoe.' A more notable visit, if
it could be ascertained, would be the presence of
Shakespeare himself. It is proved that the Lord
Chamberlain's Company of Actors came to the
city at a time when Shakespeare was one of its
members ; and it would be eminently in keeping
with Bristol's rich dramatic associations of later
307 u 2

LITERARY RAMBLES
years if it could be made clear that the supreme
dramatist once acted here. The town is linked
to the medieval Venice by the presence of the
Cabots, The rise of the Hotwells to a fame that almost
rivalled Bath brought many visitors to the district
during the eighteenth century. Pope, who came
more than once, compared Bristol Bridge with
London Bridge ; but he rather unkindly said :
' The city Is very unpleasant, and no civilized
company in it,' What had Bristol done to offend
the little raan of Twickenham ? But he could
spare a word to the fine space of Queen Square,
one ofthe finest squares In Europe so far as size
is concerned. Addison also came here. The
poet Savage, who was imprisoned for debt in
Bristol, and lies buried in St. Peter's Church,
deserves remembrance rather for having prompted
Dr. Johnson to write a perfect piece of biography
than for his own merits either of character or
genius. His sufferings were almost entirely owing
to his own vices and dishonesty. Bristol had at
first received him kindly and hospitably — even in
gaol he was treated more like a guest than a
prisoner ; but he repaid the kindness by penning
a bitter satire entitled ' London and Bristol De
lineated.' It can hardly be denied that Savage
was a scoundrel ; yet the man who could excite
308 ^

LITERARY BRISTOL
the pity and even win the firiendship of Dr, John
son must have had some qualities that were not
contemptible, Johnson was here himself, with Boswell, in 1776,
and was triumphantly carried by Catcot to the
church of St. Mary Redcliffe, to see the very
chest in which Chatterton professed to have dis
covered the Rowley poems, 'Though troubled
with a shortness of breathing, he laboured up a
long flight of steps till we came to the place
where the wondrous chest stood. " There," said
Catcot, with a bouncing, confident credulity,
" there Is the very chest itself" After this ocular
demonstration, there was no more to be said.'
But Johnson's scepticism was not to be so easily
removed ; he was as incredulous with regard to
Rowley as he had been with regard to Ossian,
and with better cause. It Is remarkable that
many persons of literary discernment were de
ceived by this boy, the posthumous son of a lay-
clerk at Bristol Cathedral, born in 1752. The
true parent of Chatterton's genius was the lovely
Redcliffe church, under whose shadow he was
born and lived ; its spirit dominated his drearas
and moulded his utterance. A gift of deception
seems to have been twin-born with the child's
other wonderful faculties ; he hoaxed Bristol by
fictitious records of Bristol Bridge, and he was
309

LITERARY RAMBLES
ready to forge pedigrees for anyone who was
willing to pay a few shillings.
Horace Walpole was busy with his ' Anecdotes
of Painting in England,' and he speedily fell a
prey to ' The Rise of Peyncteynge, written by
T. Rowlie, 1469, for Mastre Canynge.' Charmed
with Walpole's abundant gratitude, Chatterton
sent him more MSS., and an account of his own
hampered career as attorney's 'prentice. Perhaps
the latter aroused suspicion ; in any case. Mason
and Gray, to whora the poems were shown, at
once decided that they were forgeries. To a
modern eye they are indeed forgeries of the
clumsiest description, a mere mass of mis-spelling
and spurious medievalism. Walpole immediately
dropped Chatterton with unseemly haste. Before
we condemn him too severely, let us reraember
that it is not pleasant to be hoaxed. The last sad
days of starvation and suicide In London have
sufficiently formed a theme for writers, poets and
painters ; they have been dramatized at home and
abroad, as in de VIgny's sensational success of
' Chatterton.' The church of Redcliffe has many
notable charms and distinctions ; perhaps the most
touching is the figure of the boy-poet in his school
garb that stands without Its porch. The remains
were laid in the graveyard of Shoe Lane work
house. 310

LITERARY BRISTOL
By reason of his romantic tragedy, deeply
impressed upon the iraagination of Europe,
Chatterton figures as the one great literary
memory of Bristol. In more senses than one,
this is not quite fair to Bristol, She does not
deserve the blame, and the glory has been mis
conceived. Wherever the English tongue is
spoken, and wherever literature is a power, men
have talked of the 'marvellous boy.' But the
name does not call up rich associations. Memories
and quotations do not spring from one's lips at
the sound ; we think of no pet line or phrase that
came from the boy's pen. The writings of the
lad who ought to have been still at school do not
move us ; though his story lives, his work Is dead.
Did not Lowell speak of the matter as the ' Chat
terton superstition ' ? Superstition or none, the
thing is now past ; the boy's poems have not
proved to be a joy for ever, but must be classed
with those publications that are familiar to none
but literary students. We may allow him the
title of an ' inheritor of unfulfilled renown ' that
Shelley bestowed upon him ; there can be no
doubt that the renown is unfulfilled.
A tragic story cannot base a claim to permanent
distinction. The name must live ; Wordsworth
and Shelley enshrined It in memorable verses, and
Keats dedicated his ' Endymion ' to the memory
311

LITERARY RAMBLES
of a poet even less happy than himself. But if
Chatterton figures in the hall of the immortals, it
Is merely as a ghost. His admirers have sadly
lacked discretion. Malone spoke of him as the
greatest genius that England had produced since
Shakespeare ; another said that his genius was
such as only appears In the world once in many
centuries. We can only smile grimly. Warton,
who wrote of the boy as a prodigy of genius, was
more within the mark ; a prodigy he certainly
was — a typical prodigy. We have proof that he
was a marvellous boy ; we want proof that he
would have been a marvellous man. Reputations
cannot be founded on guess ; there is a vast dif
ference between promise and fulfilment ; posterity
must ask what a writer did, not what he might
perhaps have done had he lived longer. Chatter
ton's claim rests upon his poems as they stand,
Campbell may justly remark that no English poet
ever equalled him at the same age ; perhaps even
that is disputable, but the qualification is of vital
Importance. It was the age when healthy child
hood should be careless and happy, not dreaming
of forged manuscripts.
The poems themselves are very unequal. Some
passages are of genuine beauty, others are but
commonplace ; some are absolutely worthless.
All are certainly strong work for a child to
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LITERARY BRISTOL
produce. It is worthy of note that the greatest
power is shown in the pieces ascribed to Rowley ;
in spite of their antique guise, these poems are
more modern in spirit than the avowedly original
ones. When he wrote under his own name
the young poet conformed to the tendencies of
his day ; when he affected archaism, he proved
himself sensitive to the fast-coming dawn of
Romanticism. He did something to hasten that
dayspririg ; his work tended in the same direction
as that of Percy and Macpherson. Wordsworth
indeed speaks of his pieces as being mere counter
parts to those of Macpherson's Ossian, from which
it might seem that the greater poet had read little
of either,
Chatterton draws more from Spenser and the
old ballads than from the son of Fingal, With
a lack of critical faculty, he tried to pour some
of his so-called Saxon pieces into the mould of
Macpherson's poetic prose, but In doing this he
was only doing what all literary Europe at that
moment was learning to do, and the resemblance
was only skin-deep, Chatterton was a follower of
his times rather than a leader — what else could we
expect from a lad of sixteen ? On the one side
he gave us coarse but forcible satires in the
manner of Churchill, exaggerated and inartistic
elegies, less elegant than those of Shenstone,
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LITERARY RAMBLES
foolish and tawdry love-songs, quite devoid of
real passion ; on the other side, we have simple
ballads of romantic tone, in rugged but often
strong diction, inspired by natural sentiment and
adorned with natural images. The 'Ballad of
Charity ' and ' JElla. ' are the two best things he
wrote, and after these perhaps the ' Bristowe
Tragedy.' Mr. Watts-Dunton has spoken of the
' Charity ' as probably the most artistic work of its
time, to say which was certainly a lapse of re
membrance. Its beginning is in true Chaucerian
style : 'In Virgin^ the sultry sun gan sheen.
And hot upon the meads did cast his ray ;'
and It proceeds to give a picture of a Good
Samaritan ; but it seems laboured, and the false
antiquity is very wearisome. ' iEUa ' is more
spirited, and has some powerful touches ; there
is effective word-painting in the songs of the
minstrels, and that touch of melancholy which
some critics regard as a special modern feature.
' The evening comes and brings the dew along ;
The ruddy welkin shineth to the eyne ;
Around the ale-stake minstrels sing the song.
Young ivy round the door-post doth entwine.
I lay me on the grass ; yet to my will.
Albeit all is fair, there lacketh something still.'
A similar note is struck in the corresponding
picture of Autumn, which is better still :
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LITERARY BRISTOL
' When Autumn, sad but sunlit, doth appear.
With his gold hand gilding the falling leaf.
Bringing up Winter to fulfil the year.
Bearing upon his back the ripened sheaf ;
When all the hills with woolly seed are white.
When lightning-fires and gleams do meet from far the
sight ;
' When the fair apple, flushed as even sky.
Doth bend the tree unto the fertile ground.
When juicy pears and berries of black dye
Do dance in air and call the eye around :
Then be the even foul or be it fair,
Methinks my heart's delight is stained with some care.'
We seera in these lines to be placed midway
between Spenser and Keats. We are rerainded
on the one side of that picture of ' Autumn all in
yellow clad,' which comes in the ' Faerie Queene,'
and on the other of that apostrophe to the ' season
of mists and raellow fruitfulness ' which is araong
the chief glories of modern poetry. It will be
noted that Chatterton's verse loses nothing by
being given in ordinary spelling ; but he certainly
suffers by comparison with the other two poets.
Yet the old excuse will recur — he was but a boy.
There is another minstrel-song in this poera
which raay be cited as a most unhappy imitation
of the old ballads :
' She said, and Lord Thomas came over the lea.
As he the fat deerkins was chasing ;
She put up her knitting, and to him went she.
And we leave them both kindly embracing.'
315

LITERARY RAMBLES
It is like a passage from a silly love story ; no
true balladist would think of concluding in such
a manner. But Chatterton could do better than
this : ' Like a red meteor shall my weapon shine,
Strong as a lion's whelp I'll be in fight ;
Like falling leaves the Dacians shall be slain,
Like a loud-sounding stream shall be my might.'
In this and similar passages is perhaps that
Osslanic ring which Wordsworth detected ; if
there at all, it lies in such phrases as ' like a red
meteor,' and ' a loud-sounding stream.' But the
form and prevalent spirit of the poems is far from
Osslanic. There is much force in the opinion
that Hazlitt expressed of Chatterton : ' He has
the same sort of posthumous fame that an actor
of the last age has — an abstracted reputation
which is independent of anything we know of his
works.' It was Hazlitt's judgment that the last
minstrel's song In ' JElla ' is the poet's b "t bit of
writing ; certainly it has the truest lyricai note,
and is most like the Elizabethans ; yet there are
not raany verses even of this that can be read with
real pleasure. ' See, the white moon shines on high ;
Whiter is my true love's shroud ;
Whiter than the morning sky.
Whiter than the evening cloud.
My love is dead.
Gone to his death-bed.
All under the willow tree.'
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LITERARY BRISTOL
Undoubtedly there are occasional glimpses of
genuine gold among the dross of Chatterton's
verses — symptoms of a genius that, had it reached
its full development, might have placed him high
among British poets. But there is no certainty.
His practical achievement was small in value.
He is seldom read and never quoted ; nothing
that he wrote became a living part of our
literature. It is, the usual fate of prodigies to
be forgotten ; he can hardly be an exception.
When the poor boy was found lying dead amid
his torn papers, the arsenic cup at his side, was
his genius still in its dawn, or was this its lurid
sunset ? Such questions have been asked again
and again, and they will be asked. A few hours'
patience would have brought him rescue and relief.
He died in the hope of exchanging misery for joy,
or at least for rest ; his last words were a touching
prayer :
' Have mercy, heaven, when here I cease to live,
And this last act of wretchedness forgive.'
We can conceive no moral Ruler of the universe
who would not respond pityingly to the prayer.
The lad had a stubborn courage and boldness —
not quite the grit that finds it nobler to live
defying dark days than to die beneath them. As
; ^reat geniuses have survived days of equal want
"iand penury and ignominy ; it is not for us to
317

LITERARY RAMBLES
judge him because he succumbed to his childish
pride and his despair. We may forget the lad's
poems— it cannot be expected that we shall read
them often ; but his story must survive as a type
of much that is sad and ruthless In literature.
The world is hardly to blame that such spirits
live In gloom and die in madness. The tale of
Chatterton 'has been taken as a text for much
abuse of the commonplace worldly mind, recog
nising no toils and aims beyond its own ; it has
been made a text for abusing the citizens of
Bristol and of London, because they did not see
that this 'prentice-boy was a heaven-sent genius.
But society is ruled by averages, not by the
exceptional. The plain man of his day must have regarded
Chatterton as a forward boy, given to deceit and
fabrication, who should have kept close to his
office-desk before he dreamed of setting the
Tharaes afire. It was an age of struggling
geniuses — Dr, Johnson had well-nigh fallen,
Oliver Goldsmith never got quite upon his feet ;
if they trusted to literature, they had to accept its
risks, to stand or fall as they might. Chatterton
was in too great a hurry. He might have done
better had he lived to-day, when journalism offers
a ready field for the aspiring writer ; but even
to-day there may be Chattertons, kicking hard
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LITERARY BRISTOL
against the pricks of adverse circumstance, living
unrecognised, dying unknown. We may deplore
them, our hearts may ache for them ; we cannot
blame the world that seems so deaf and blind. If
a man works for eternity he may lose the reward
of time ; it almost seems as though he may lose
the other reward also. But the world has its own
gifts, and they are all given to that which it sees
and approves. Till every possible poet has his
attendant pension, he who would triumph must
live a double life. He must serve two masters,
but he need only give his heart to one.
Redcliffe Church holds other memories, one
being the fact that Coleridge and Southey were
married within its walls — two married lives
destined to run very different courses. The
muniment room, with the old chest In which
Chatterton discovered his parchments, may still
be seen by those who will clamber up the winding
staircase once climbed by Dr. Johnson,
There are memorable associations also con
nected with the cathedral. We have here the
remains of Bishop Butler, who was buried at
the foot ofthe bishop's throne, in 1752 ; on his
monument is an inscription by Southey. For
twelve years he held the bishopric of Bristol,
during which period he was offered and declined
the Primacy, On the north wall is the tablet
319

LITERARY RAMBLES
to the memory of Mrs, Mason, wife of the poet
William Mason, Gray's friend and biographer.
We do not think a great deal of Mason's poems
now, or his attempts to revive the classical form of
drama ; but the lines that he inscribed above his
wife's tomb have the beauty of directness and
sincerity — the first line indeed has a solemn force
not to be surpassed in this species of writing :
' Take, holy earth, all that my soul holds dear.
Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave.
To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care
Her faded form ; she bowed to taste the wave
And died. Does youth, does beauty read the line ?
Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm ?
Speak, dead Maria ; breathe a strain divine :
E'en from the grave thou shalt have power to charm
Bid them be chaste, be innocent like thee.
Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move ;
And if so fair, from vanity as free,
As firm in friendship and as fond on love.
Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die,
('Twas e'en to thee), yet the dread path once trod.
Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high.
And bids the pure in heart behold their God.'
Near is the bust of Robert Southey, who was
born in Wine Street, Bristol, in August, 1774.
His father was a Somerset man, from the neigh
bourhood of the Quantocks. Part of the boy's
childhood was spent with an aunt at Bath, and he
went to school at the village of Corston, In his
twelfth year he wrote his first epic, and, perhaps
unhappily, the arabition to write epics stuck to
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UTERARY BRISTOL
him. From, the Corston School he passed to
Westminster and Oxford. In his twentieth year
he met Coleridge. Lovell, a young Quaker poet
of Bristol, had married a Miss Fricker ; her sister
Edith became the wife of Southey ; her sister
Sara became the wife of Coleridge,
The poets' chief period of Utopian hopes and
drearas was spent in Bristol ; they borrowed
nuraberless books from the Bristol Library in King
Street ; they rambled, both talking profusely,
among the neighbouring meadows and along the
Avon gorge. But Southey was fated to become a
Laker, and Coleridge's most productive season,
poetically, was connected with Nether Stowey,
not with Clevedon or Bristol. Yet during the
few last years that closed the eighteenth century,
it cannot be denied that Bristol was the literary
centre of the kingdom — we see it now, though
- contemporaries would never have acknowledged It
As a German critic has put it, the English Muse
took up her quarters in this city. To the group
formed by Lovell, Southey and Coleridge, was
soon added Wordsworth, greatest of them all.
It is true that Wordsworth's connection with
the West of England chiefly concerns the Quan
tocks, but Bristol has one supreme memory ; it is
associated with the book-shop at the corner of
High and Wine Streets, once the shop of Joseph
321 X

LITERARY RAMBLES
Cottle. Cottle himself was not quite despicable
as a poet, though his work is dead to-day ; we
remember him gratefully as the friend and
publisher of those who were greater than him
self Coleridge and Southey were familiar visitors
in the little sitting-room behind the shop, and
here came Wordsworth with his sister in 1798.
' We were at Cottle's for a week, and thence we
went toward the banks of the Wye. We crossed
the Severn ferry, and walked ten miles further to
Tintern Abbey, a very beautiful ruin on the Wye.
The next morning we walked along the river
through Monmouth to Goderich Castle, there
slept, and returned the next day to Tintern, thence
to Chepstow, and from Chepstow back again In a
boat to Tintern, where we slept, anci thence back
in a small vessel to Bristol.'
Here we see the birth of a poem that was to
exercise a profound influence on the nineteenth
century — a poem whose Influence can never be
effete ; something like a new gospel of the poetic
and spiritual life. Speaking of his ' Lines written
above Tintern Abbey,' Wordsworth himself says :
' No poem of mine was composed under circum
stances more pleasant for me to remember than
this. I began it upon leaving Tintern, after
crossing the Wye, and concluded It just as I was
entering Bristol in the evening, after a ramble of
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LITERARY BRISTOL
four or five days with my sister. Not a line of it
was altered, and not any part of it written down
till I reached Bristol.'
In Bristol the poet remained for some weeks,
to watch the publication of the epoch-making
' Lyrical Ballads ' which Cottle was bravely under
taking — certainly the most memorable poetic
work issued in England during the past hundred-
and-twenty years ; it appeared in the early autumn
of 1798, Bristol may indeed be proud of having
fostered such a publication. The book opened
with Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner' and closed
with the Tintern lines of Wordsworth ; it included
twenty-three poems, most of which are household
words in the records ot modern literature. Five
hundred copies were printed ; but, according to
Cottle, ' the sale was so slow, and the severity of
most of the reviews so great, that its progress to
oblivion seemed to be certain, I parted with the
largest proportion of the five hundred, at a loss,
to Mr. Arch, a London bookseller,' Before long,
when Cottle transferred his copyrights to the
Longmans firm, the copyright of ' Lyrical Ballads '
was estimated at nil ; the publisher therefore asked
that It might be returned to him, and he gave it
to Wordsworth and Coleridge.
It may be conceded that Wordsworth did better
work than some of the pieces included in this
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LITERARY RAMBLES
collection — it contained his most daring innova
tions, poems that were certain to be hailed with
astonishment and derision ; but he never soared
higher than in portions of the Tintern Abbey
poem — we name it such conveniently, though the
abbey is not mentioned. If anyone seeks for the
purest testament of his spiritual doctrine, it is
here enshrined ; something absolutely new in the
literature of the world, a revelation of the Beatific
Vision that may be attained through a justly
balanced communion with Nature, from which we
win ' A sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused.
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.'
There had been glimpses of this in old prophets
and psalmists ; Wordsworth first gave it a definite
and fully articulate utterance.
Bristol has other literary glories of this same
memorable date. Dr. Beddoes, of Clifton, had
started what he called a pneumatic institution,
and hither came the young Humphrey Davy from
Penzance, to practise curing diseases by the in
halation of gas. Davy himself was something of
a poet, though a greater scientist ; but a son of
the doctor, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, was destined
to achieve something very near greatness in litera-
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LITERARY BRISTOL
ture. He was born at Clifton in 1803, and his
young imagination came under the spell of Shelley.
But Beddoes, in a literary sense, had other relation
ships ; , he was akin to the Webster, Marlowe and
Tourneur of weird, if not morbid, drama ; he had
close sympathies with the Tieck, Schlegel, Hof
mann, of German romanticism ; there was further
a touch of Keats in his genius, and a similarity to
Chatterton in his death. He was both an Eliza
bethan and an early English romantic — the two
spirits indeed flowed together at more than one
point. Though he attempted the drama, he was
essentially a lyrist, and he loved to sing of death
in all its forms. ' Wilt thou cure thy heart
Of love and all its smart.
Then, die, dear, die :
'Tis deeper, sweeter.
Than on a rose bank to lie dreaming.
With folded eye.'
There can be no question of his rich poetic gift ;
of his mental health there may be. He died by
his own hand, of poison, in 1 849. It is interest
ing to remember that he was a nephew of Maria
Edgeworth, whose father also belonged to this
neighbourhood. But there are quite a number of other memories
that cannot be forgotten in Bristol. Burke was
the town's member for some years, and delivered
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LITERARY RAMBLES
some of his finest speeches here ; he was rather
above the heads of the local merchants and shop
keepers, but a statue now commemorates him.
It was something of a distinction to be invited to
stand for Bristol In those days. As Mr. Morley
tells us, ' Bristol was the capital of the West, and
it was still in wealth, population, and mercantile
activity, the second city of the kingdom. To be
Invited to stand for so great a constituency, without
any request of his own and free of personal ex
pense, was a distinction which no politician could
hold lightly. Burke rose from the table where
he was dining with some of his supporters, stepped
into a post-chaise at six on a Tuesday evening,
and travelled without a break until he reached
Bristol on Thursday afternoon, having got over
two hundred and seventy miles in forty-four
hours. , . , The poll was kept open for a month,
and the contest was the most tedious that had
ever been known in the city. New freemen were
admitted down to the very last day of the election.
At the end of it Burke was second on the poll,
and was declared to be duly chosen (November 3,
1774). There was a petition against his return,
but the election was confirmed, and he continued
to sit for Bristol for six years.'
Electioneering must have been utterly distasteful
to the great man ; and it is certain that, he was
326

LITERARY BRISTOL
too independent to be the mere spokesman of a
selfish trading centre. He offended his con
stituents by advocating a raore generous treatment
of Ireland ; he offended thera again by urging
toleration of Catholics, His view of the taxation
of America and the consequent war was not the
popular view, Bristol merchants were /further
indignant when he tried to amend the law for
imprisonment of debtors. In 1780 the cup of
the narrow-minded electors was full ; it became
clear that Burke would stand no chance at the
poll ; he declined the hopeless conflict, and ceased
to shed a glory on a constituency that was un
worthy of hira. ' My dear Burke,' wrote Fox to
him, ' it requires all your candour and reverse of
selfishness to be in patience with that rascally city.'
Perhaps no other commercial town in England
would haye done much better than Bristol at this
time of ungenerous faction and bitter self-seeking ;
but there may be a world of meaning in the fact
that Bristol waited more than a century before it
erected the statue of its great representative.
It is in the cathedral that we find the monument
of Lady Hesketh, Cowper's friend. Among other
ladies who were either born in Bristol or connected
by residence, we raay notice the mild and in
nocuous reputation of Hannah More, who was
born at Stapleton, lived at Wrington, and died at
327

LITERARY RAMBLES
Clifton. A past age thought her a considerable
poetess ; we do not think so now. But she was
certainly a worthy woman, and it is interesting to
recollect her share in Influencing the boyhood of
Macaulay, whose parents had been married in
Bristol ; and she has given us a vivid glimpse of
the historian's precocious boyhood. Macaulay
returned to the district in later life, in 1852,
when his health needed care ; he tells us how he
went out, with a book as usual in his hands, at
Clifton, and got wet In a storm. While at Clifton
he went to Christ Church ; ' I got a place among
the free seats, and heard not a bad serraon on the
word Therefore^ He visited Cheddar and Wring-
ton, reviving his old memories of Hannah More.
' I saw my dear old friend's grave, with a foolish,
canting Inscription, We then walked to Barley
Wood. They very kindly asked me to go up
stairs. We saw Mrs, Hannah More's room.
The old bookcases, some of them at least, remain,
I could point out the very place where the "Don
Quixote," In four volumes, stood, and the very
place from which I took down, at ten years old,
the "Lyrical Ballads." With what delight and
horror I read the " Ancient Mariner " !'
Writing from Caledonia Place, Clifton, to urge
a friend to visit him, he says : ' You will find a
good bedroom, a great tub, a tolerably furnished
328

LITERARY BRISTOL
bookcase, lovely walks, fine churches, a dozen of
special sherry, half a dozen of special hock, and a
tureen of turtle soup.' Walking to Leigh Court,
he met a party of merry children in a donkey-
cart, and he emphasizes the fact that ' I should not
like to have an execrably bad poem on the subject,
such as Wordsworth would have written.' Pos
terity will think no worse of Wordsworth for this
little utterance of Macaulay's spleen.
The boyhood of Charles Kingsley was also
linked with Bristol. He was at a Clifton school
during the great riots, and the incidents made a
lasting impression on his mind. The boy's eyes
saw the destructiveness, the drunkenness of the
crowd, the hideous orgy of maddened brutality^
the raiserable inefficiency of the magistrates, and
the persecutions of the less guilty when law and
order had regained their self-possessioo. 'That
sight,' he said, ' made me a Radical.' The town
can further boast its memories of another great
man — the lion-hearted, deep-mouthed Landor —
who was more intimately connected with Bath.
Henry Hallam was the son of a Dean of Bristol,
and resided at times in Clifton ; and another
occasional visitor was De Quincey, that master
of unequal but often exquisite prose,
A study of Clifton streets will reveal houses
in which Harriet Martineau and Sydney Sraith
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LITERARY RAMBLES
once abode for a time ; and the beautiful buildings
of Clifton College recall the fact that the poet
T. E. Brown was not very long since a master
there. Brown's work was inclined to be rambling
and somewhat shapeless, but it had true flashes.
A longer reputation is probably secure for John
Addington Symonds, the son of a Clifton doctor ;
his work on the Italian Renaissance is the standard
authority on a period of absorbing interest and
vital importance. Symonds was one of the most
discerning critics of his day, and among the most
learned. His monograph on the poet Shelley
is a delightful piece of luminous portraiture.
There was not only a scholarly finish of detail
about everything that he did, but his prose style
was lucid and often beautiful. Himself a poet,
he was a student of the Greeks, of Dante, and
the Elizabethans, as well as of the Renaissance,
But there are so many names that might be
mentioned, it is easy to become tedious. Recol
lections of eighteen century novelists come upon
us at Hotwells, where a modern Spa does some
thing to revive the glories of a past fashion. We
think of the ' Evelina,' so greatly admired by Dr,
Johnson, and not yet forgotten. We remember
how Smollett also brought his hero to the Hot
wells in 'Humphry Clinker.' We follow Mr.
Pickwick and Mr. Winkle to Clifton, and watch
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LITERARY BRISTOL
Sara Weller ' struggling across the Downs against
a high wind, and wondering whether it was always
necessary to hold your hat on with both hands in
that part of the country.' Very often, certainly,
it is necessary. Turning over the pages of for
gotten poets, such as Penrose and Scott of Anwell,
we find timid references to the beauties of Clifton
and St. Vincent's Rocks, in the cautious style of that
day ; these men clearly better appreciated the pump-
room than th« swelling Downs and winding river.
William Whitehead, indeed, has a hymn 'to the
Nymph of Bristol Spring,' in which he gives us
the false classicisms of Avonia, Bristoduna, Vin-
centia, and Leya ; but he speaks truly when he
says that ' Clifton stands
Courted by every breeze, and every sun
There sheds a kinder ray.'
More living than this is Landor's reference to
Clifton— ' The mossy bank, dim glade and dizzy height.
The sheep that, starting from the tufted thyme.
Untune the distant church's mellow chime.'
But though the scene roused the enthusiasm of
Ruskin, and has enchanted every painter that has
lingered here, no poet has really sung it in a poem
that lives. Shelley carae here, and perhaps a touch
of his impressions may survive in his verse. The
artists, Danby, MtiUer, Lawrence, and Turner have
331

LITERARY RAMBLES
been here, to name only a few. Not one failed
in love for the views of river and wooded cliff and
undulating down ; yet with It all the Bristol Avon
remains almost voiceless In literature.
It Is not easy to tear oneself away from reminis
cences, when dealing with an old city like Bristol,
Perhaps Bristol has been too modest In publishing
its attractions, either of association or of scenery,
though it seems a trifle incongruous to accuse the
average Bristolian of excessive modesty. Certainly
Bath, whose beauty no one will deny, has made
far more of her history and natural charm ; yet,
as an American writer, William Winter, has
pointed out, the literary distinction of Bath is
small compared with that of the larger city, which
she regards with something of condescension. It
still requires courage, in some quarters, to speak
of Bristol as anything but dirty and uninteresting ;
yet those who condemn it as such, are only expos
ing their utter ignorance of the locality.
There are still a few ghosts to be disposed
of before quitting the Dutch -like quays and
narrow streets, where the figure of Chatterton
revisits the glimpses of the moon. Bristoljseems
specially rich in literary ladies. The two Porters,
whose brother was a doctor in the city, died
here; both were very tolerable novelists at a
period when the novel was in a rather dull state of
332

LITERARY BRISTOL
transition. Jane Porter, whose ' Scottish Chiefs '
is not yet quite forgotten, used to claim that she
was in sorae sort a predecessor of Scott. But
it is difficult to trace a gerra of the 'Waverley
Novels' in the sentimental stiffness, impossible
manners, and spurious history of the tale that
preceded them. ' Thaddeus of Warsaw ' may
have been a little better. Both books are
clever and animated, but they look pale enough
now by the side of the novels that Jane Austen
was writing about this time. Jane Porter wrote
another book, better than either of the more
popular works, entitled ' Sir Edward Seaward's
Shipwreck ' ; but there is a strong suspicion
that this was really penned by her brother,
the Bristol doctor. Similar things have been
asserted before — at one time there was an absurd
whisper that the Bronte books were written
by the good-for-nothing brother Branwell ; but
in this case of Miss Porter it seems more than a
mere suspicion, Anna Maria Porter, the sister,
produced about fifty volumes, perhaps the best of
which is her ' Don Sebastian ' ; she began to pro
duce published tales as early as her thirteenth
year, and it must be conceded that her genius was
greater than her sister's. But both are dead now,
just as so many present-day writers of successful
fiction willl surely die ; none the less, a perusal of
333

LITERARY RAMBLES
their works Is desirable if one would study the
evolution of the English novel.
Oblivion has also overtaken another Bristolian,
F. J. Fargus, whose ' Called Back,' under his
pseudonym of ' Hugh Conway,' was the vogue of
a season. Fargus was a writer of distinct clever
ness ; it may be that his death, before reaching his
fortieth year, robbed English literature of really
great achievement. A tablet to his memory
stands on the walls of the cathedral, and while
lingering around that storied building, another
pale pathetic ghost confronts us. This is the
memory of Mary Robinson, who was born in the
Minster House, on the immediate site of the
present nave.
To use her own words, ' The nursery in which
I passed my hours of infancy was so near the
great aisle of the minster that the organ, which
re-echoed its deep tones, accompanied by the
chanting of the choristers, was distinctiy heard
both at morning and evening service, I remember
with what pleasure I used to listen, and how much
delighted I was whenever I was permitted to sit
on the winding steps which led from the aisle to
the cloisters,' Marrying a man named Robinson,
who deserted her, she was encouraged by Sheridan
and Garrick to become an actress. It was while
playing ' Perdita ' at Drury Lane that she gained
334

LITERARY BRISTOL
the attention of ' the first gentleman in Europe ' —
may we not say the first scoundrel .?
The year 1779 saw her his mistress. The
result was another blot added to the infamy that
attaches to the Prince Regent, who neglected and
renounced the poor girl as soon as her charms
began to pall, and who never honoured the bond
for j^ 2 0,000 which he gave her, A few years
later she lost the use of her limbs, and died in
1800 a helpless cripple, after having published
some poems, novels and plays. Referring to her
collection of poems, John Wilson, the robust and
somewhat domineering ' Christopher North,' made
the extraordinary pronouncement that ' no English
woman who has strayed from virtue ever wrote
poetry worthy of being read twice.' Did Wilson
apply the same standard to male writers ? Did
he ever give a second perusal to the poems of
Burns or Byron ? Did he not know that things
that are learnt in suffering may be taught
in song — even the things that are learnt from
the worst suffering ot all, that which springs from
wrong-doing and its remorse ? He may have
been right as regards the poor writings of the Ill-
fated Perdita ; in a wider sense he was talking
nonsense. Her memory, and her connection with
Bristol Cathedral, recalls the rumour that Nell
Gwynn presented two windows to the cathedral
335

LITERARY RAMBLES
choir. Does It beseem us to be too ready in-
casting stones at these frail Magdalens who were
the sport of kings .''
Very much, might be written about the charities
and benevolences of Bristol, its annual banquets
and political speech-makings. The town is fond
of eating and drinking, and of talking, but it con
trives to combine these with a good deal of active
charity, and Its many old alms-houses and asylums
prove that bygone Bristolians were as generous as
their present-day successors. There is a touch of
Puritanism about the city, not altogether to be
deplored ; the British Sunday thrives better here
than in any other large social centre ; .churches
and chapels flourish happily. In this direction
also there are famous traditions to be retained.
On the whole it may be conceded that when
Bristolians stand up to sing their own praises,
they need not fail for lack of substantial material.
And if they are reminded that such laudation
should be left to others, they may justly retort
that others have conspicuously neglected to give
it. The town has been sneered at and given a bad
name often enough ; a little self-assertiveness is a
natural and perhaps commendable result.

336

INDEX

Agnes, St., 204
Alfoxden, 251-3
Alfred, 206
Alternon, 202
Anne, St., 204-6
Arthur, King, 212 et seq,, 259
Artists, Devonshire, 87
Ashe, 27
Austen, Jane, 8, 333
Avon, 303, 331
Baldwin Prudence, ii;-6
Barnstaple, 72, 80
Beddoes, T. L., 324-5
Bideford, 82
Bishops, Celtic, 208
Bodmin, 193
Bolster, giant, 204-6
Borrow, George, 30 ^^ seq.
Borrow, Thomas, 35-7
Boscastle, 161, 225
Boswell, 8
Botoner, W., 306
Bray, E. A., 64
Bray, Mrs., 63-5
, Breage, St., 199
•» Brictric, 83
Brighton, 280
Bristol, 238, 258, 303 et seq,
Brooke, Stopford, 232

Brookfield, Mrs., 245
Brown, T. E., 330
Browne, William, 52 ^/ seq.
Brunei, 9
Buckfast, 119
Bude, 150
Budleigh Salterton, 14
Burke, Edmund, 325-7
Buryan, St., 194
Butler, Bishop, 319
Cadoc, St., 200
Camelot, 219
Camlan, 220
Carantoc, St., 259
Castlereagh, Lord, 92
Castlewood, 246
Cats, Jacob, 96
Champernownes, 128
Charles, Mrs., 66
Chatterton, 309 et seq.
Chepstow, 322
Chudleigh, Miss, 99
Churchill, Duke of Marl
borough, 28
Cleer, St., 32, 41
Clether, St., 32
Clevedon, 228 ^/ seq'.
Clifton, 330-1
Clovelly, 82-6, 123

337

INDEX

Coleridges, 19, 23
Coleridge, S. T., 20-23, 228,
233-9, 248 et seq., 321
Congresbury, 191, 258
Cottle, J., 235, 322-3
Courtenays, 12-13
Crowcombe, 260
Cubert, 184, 192
Culbone, 258
Daffodils, 116
Dameliock, 215
Danby, 6
Danes in Somerset, 262
Dartington, 126, 128
David, St., 202-3
Davidstow, 203
Davy, Sir H., 324
Dawlish, 7, 143
Dean, Prior, iii, 113, 118
Defoe, 307
De Quincey, 273, 329
Devonport, 98, 105
Disraeli, 285
Dissenters, 173
Durdham Down, 304
Durdy (or Dandy) Dogs, 46
Eadtilf, 210
Edgcumbe, Lord, 98
Elton family, 239-41
' Endymion,' 141
Evans, Rachel, 66
Exe, I
Exeter, 3
Exmouth, 7
Fargus, F. J., 334
Ford, John, 124-6
Forrabury, 226
French landing at Teignmouth,
134

Fricker, the Misses, 321
Froude, J. A., 127
Gandy, William, 98
Gay, John, 72 et seq.
Geraint, 191
Gildas, 209
Giles, Sir E., 116, 118
Glastonbury, 219, 243
Goldsmith, Oliver, 108
Goldsworthy, 73
Gorlois, 214-5
Grocyn, W., 307
Gunwalloe, 191
Haldon Hills, 138
Hallam, A. H., 239, 241-3
Hallam, Henry, 239, 329
Hawker, R. S., 83, 149 et seq.
Haydon, 139, 141
Hazlitt, W., 269 et seq.
Heie, Elize, 93
Heie, Sir J., 92
Herrick, Robert, iio^; seq.
Holne, 122-4
Hotwells, Bristol, 308
Hudson, Thomas, 97
Hugenots, 80
la, St., 201
Ilsington, 124
Ives, St., 201
Jefferies, Richard, 121,^260,
264, 276 ^/ seq.
Jeffreys, the, 134, 145-7
Joanna and St. Levan, 198
Johnson, Dr., 95, 102, 308-9
Keats, John, 130 et seq.
Kelly Rounds, 219
Kenton, 9
Keppel, Admiral, 100

33^

INDEX

Keverne, St., 196-7
Kieran, St., 194
Kingsley, Charles, 82, 84, 122,
329
Kingston, Duchess of, 99
Landor, W. S., 329, 331
Leland, 27, 91, 137
Levan, St., 197-9
Lloyd, Charles, 257
Louvre, 293
Lydford Law, 58
'Lyrical Ballads,' 323
Macaulay, Sir T. B., 328
Macpherson, J., 313
Mamhead, 8
Marlborough, Duke of, 28
Mason, W., 320
Milton, 142
Monks in the West of Eng
land, 120-2
More, Hannah, 327
Morwenna, St., 152, 201-2
Morwenstow, 149, 152
Mousehole, 44
Mudge, Dr., 104
Nectan, St., 204
Neot, St., 206
Nather Stowey, 250, 254
Non, St., 202
Noncomformity in the West of
England, 184
Northcote, 'James, 106
Ossian, 313
Otter, 15, 22
Ottery, St. Mary, 18^/ seq, ¦
Padstow, 193
Palk, Sir R., 10

Palmer, Mrs., loi
Paul, St., 183
Pentreath, Dolly, 44
Pepys, Mrs., 81
Pepys, Samuel, 307
Perranzabuloe, 195
Petrock, St., 192
Piran, St., 194-6
Pixies, 261
Plymouth, 87, 102
Plympton, 88 ^f seq.
Polwhele, 9
Poole, Thomas, 250 et seq.
Pope, Alexander, 29, 75, 79,
308
Porter, the Misses, 332-3
Powderham, 1 1
Prince Regent, 335
Pusey, Dr., 154
Quantocks, the, 248 et seq.
Racedown, 350-1
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 15,18
Redcliffe, St. Mary's, 235, 309,
319
Redvers, de, 90
Reynolds, Sir J., 87 et seq.
Robinson, Mary, 334
Romans ih West of England,
190
Rome, Church of, 177-9
Rowe, Nicholas, 68-9
Rundle, Miss, 66
Saints, West-Country, 182 et
seq.
Samson, St., 204
' Sangraal,' Hawker's, 163,
166-8
Savage, Richard, 308

339

INDEX

Saxons in the West of England,
187-8
Sea Mills, 305
Seaton, 27
Senan, St., 199
Severn, 228-9
Shakespeare, 307
Shelley, P. B., 331
Shipwrecked sailors, 170
Sidmouth, 26
Sidwell, St., 203
Smuggling, 151
' Song of the Western Men,'
159
Southey, Robert, 320
Spinoza, 265
Starcross, 8
Stowey, 256
Symonds, J. A., 330
Tavistock, 5 1 et seq.
Tavy, 54
Teignmouth, 133
Tennyson, Alfred, 66, 163-5,
212, 216, 239 et seq.
Thackeray, W. M., 24-6, 245
Tintagel, 211 ^/ seq.
Tintern Abbey, 322

Torquay, 144
Tourville, Admiral, 135
Tredinnock, 32
Trevethy stone, 41
Tyndale, 307
Uther, 214-5
Venus Accroupie, 293
Walpole, Horace, 310
Warelwast, Bishop, 5, 89
Warren, Exmouth, 2, 3
Watchet, 258, 263
Wesley, John, 156, 174, 185
Westbury-on-Trym, 307
Wielif, 307
William I., 4
Will's Neck, 264
Wilson, John, 335
Winnoc, St., 191
Winwalioe, St., 191
Witchcraft, 1 1
Withycombe Raleigh, 6
Wordsworth, William, 248,
263, 265 et seq., 298, 321
Wrecking, 151
Wrestling, 35
Wye, 322

THE END

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