The life and letters of R.S. Hawker (sometime Vicar of Morwenstowe);

Front matter

QforncU MniuErstty Htbrati}

3tljaca. Hem fork

Cornell University Library

Preface

The materials for this book have been collected from a great many sources, and consist chiefly of letters and manuscripts of Hawker's, preserved by the various friends to whom they were addressed. He spent a great deal of his time in correspondence, which, indeed, took the place of social intercourse in a remote and solitary life. It is very remarkable to find with what care and affection these records of his many friendships, some of them dating as far back as 1832, have been treasured up so many years after his death.

An intimate friend of his, the late Mr. William Maskell, writing in 1876, says :—

" Mr Hawker was an admirable correspondent : his letters were full of curious illustrations of the subject he was writing about, often filled with anecdote and graphic in description. Nor was there any want of satire about most people whom he had lately seen or come in contact with. To publish his correspondence after he became Vicar of Morwenstow, could it be collected from the different quarters where possibly portions still exist, would, even at the present time, set the whole neighbourhood in a blaze. Many and many a Scandal — supposed to have perished long ago by being buried — is there (shall we say ?) embalmed. Few, again, to whom he was accustomed to write, can have forgotten the warm tone of his thick, yellow-tinted paper, and the thin red lines (all prepared for his own use), and the bold, firm handwriting, and his peculiar seals — the one, the mystic fish ; the other, the pentacle of Solomon."

vii viii PREFACE

It will be seen, therefore, that the task of editing these letters has been somewhat delicate.

In addition to letter-writing, he always kept at hand on his desk sheets of paper stitched together into little books for memoranda. In these he jotted down continually ideas as they occurred to him in the course of his daily reading. Hundreds of these little stitched brochures are in existence, forming a mine of odd notions and recondite information. It is not always possible to determine what is his own and what is quoted, particularly as his method of quotation was not to transcribe exactly, but to put the " pith " (as he termed it) of an author's sentence into his own words. Hawker cherished the idea that these memoranda might some day be published as ' Fragments of a Broken Mind.'

His ' Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall ' (hereafter referred to as ' Footprints ') contains a good deal of autobiography, but the necessity of compression has made it impossible to quote all these passages.

The various works dealing with Hawker must also be mentioned. Chief among these are the two memoirs, ' The Vicar of Morwenstow,' by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, and ' Memorials of the late Robert Stephen Hawker,' by the late Dr. F. G. Lee,^ each published in 1876, a few months after Hawker's death. Both, if I may say so, were con-

^ Dr Lee was, like Hawker, a man of original stamp and strong personality. Born in 1832, he won the Newdigate at Oxford in 1854. From 1859 to 1864 he lived at Aberdeen, where he founded the Church ot St. Mary the Virgin. In 1867 he became Vicar of All Saints, Lambeth, and worked there for thirty-two years. He died in 1902. He was a man of many-sided interests, poet, antiquary, controversialist, in politics a High Tory, and a prolific writer on ecclesiastical subjects. He was one of the founders of the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom, the English Church Union, and the Order of Corporate Re-Union, and was said to have been one of the three Bishops mysteriously consecrated at sea in connection with the last-named body. About a month before his death he was received into the Roman Catholic Church.

PREFACE ix ceived in a partisan spirit ; in fact, it appears that there was a kkid of race for priority of publication. Mr. Baring- Gould came in first, and has succeeded in maintaining that advantage. A new and revised edition of his book was called for in 1876, and another new and revised edition in 1899. Dr. Lee's volume has never been republished.

Mr. Baring-Gould's book has long held the field as the standard biography of Hawker. As a character-sketch and a jest-book, it is clever and amusing, but as a biography it is not altogether satisfactory. In the first place, the author did not think it necessary to ask or obtain the consent of Mrs. Hawker to its publication, and he thus cut himself off from the main source of his materials. In a letter which appeared in the AthencEum, of 8 April 1876, she said of the book : " It is full of mis-statements, and written by one whose personal knowledge of Mr. Hawker was scarcely that of a mere acquaintance. I may say also that he wrote the memoir without the least reference to myself, or the slightest regard for any feeling or wish I might have, or how much additional sorrow it might cause me." Having thus totally ignored her, Mr. Baring-Gould had some ground for writing in his first edition, " not one ungenerous or unkind word would I speak to wound a widow's sacred feelings ! "

Presumably he thought that Mrs. Hawker could tell him nothing to his purpose. But it is not for me to explain his motives, nor do I wish to discuss his account of her action in regard to Hawker's death-bed change of creed. On such a vexed question he was, I suppose, entitled to his opinion, and I should be the last to provoke controversy on that subject. The only question I raise is this. Is it a practice to be generally recommended, that, within six months of a man's death, a comparative stranger should rush in with an incomplete memoir without consulting those nearest and dearest to the dead ?

PREFACE

While disregarding Mrs. Hawker, however, Mr. Baring- Gould did not hesitate to borrow largely from Hawker's published works, the copyright in which formed no inconsiderable part of her worldly possessions. In 'Some cases, too, these literary debts are accorded very scanty acknowledgment. For instance, his account of the smuggler ' Cruel Coppinger,' is, with some abbreviation, an almost word-for-word transcript from Hawker's ' Footprints,' without any inverted commas, or change of type, a footnote at the end of several pages being the only indication of borrowing. Readers unacquainted with ' Footprints ' might reasonably suppose that Mr. Baring-Gould has told the story in his own words.

The book was severely criticised by some of Hawker's most intimate friends ; e.g., by the late Mr. William Maskell,'' in the Athenccuin, and the late Mr. Christopher Harris,'' of Hayne, in Jolin Bull. A still more unprejudiced critic, a Wesleyan farmer in Morwenstow, Mr. W. G. Harris, who had known the Vicar for forty years, wrote in a local paper in 1876 : " I am really surprised to see such a book offered to the public as being in any way an authentic record of the life of the late Rev. R. S. Hawker." One inaccuracy, though not of any importance in itself, illustrates Mr. Baring-Gould's peculiar methods. " There were no seven black men," writes the farmer, " buried from the Avonmore [a vessel wrecked at Morwenstow], in 1S69."

^ Mr. Maskell, whose name will appear often in these pages, is perhaps best remembered by the collection of ancient Liturgies in the British Museum that bears his name. His ' Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesis Anglicans ' was published in 1846. He was examining chaplain to Bishop PhiUpotts, and in that capacity examined the famous Mr. Gorham. In 1850 he joined the Church of Rome. In 1856 he bought and rebuilt the Castle at Bude, where he continued to reside, becoming a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant for Cornwall. He died at Penzance in 1890, aged 76.

= Mr. Christopher Harris was the descendant of an ancient Cornish family. An ancestor of his is mentioned in Hawker's poem ' Sir Beville.'

PREFACE xi

Turning this up in Mr. Baring-Gould's book, I found the fact so stated, however, in one of Hawker's own letters, thus — " The other seven (blacks) were drowned among my rocks .... Seven corpses came ashore for burial one by one. Graves already dug, and shrouds prepared : but more yet." This puzzled me, until, in collecting materials for the present volume, I was supplied with a copy of Hawker's letter, and therewith a solution of the mystery. The words he wrote were these : — " The other 7 (Blacks) were drowned among my rocks .... 7 corpses to come ashore for burial as they come one by one for burial. Graves already dug and shrouds prepared, but none yet."

The AthencEum, in noticing recently the new edition of ' Footprints,' warned me to " beware of Mr. Baring-Gould's biography." I have followed this advice by not regarding it as an authority, without corroboration. Though necessarily, in many matters, covering the same ground, I have always sought the information from independent sources, except in the case of a few of Hawker's letters, the right of using which belongs in the first instance to his family. It is only fair to add that the book has done a great deal to extend Hawker's popularity. To overlook that fact would be ungrateful.

Dr. Lee's book is almost entirely confined to religious controversy. It is partly a defence of Hawker's position, and partly an attack on Liberalism in the Church of England. Naturally, it was never popular, for theological argument is " caviare to the general." As a memoir it is sympathetic and sincere, and reliable as far as it goes. But it is devoid of humour ; a fatal defect in any estimate of Hawker. Dr. Lee's controversial style is very pugnacious. " He always makes me think," writes Mrs. Hawker, " of an expression once applied to my husband, that he made use of ' such tremendous epithets.' "

xii PREFACE

In addition to these memoirs, Mr. William Maskell issued privately in pamphlet form some reminiscences of Hawker, amplified from his two reviews of Mr. Baring-Gould's book in the Athenceum.

Hawker has also been the subject of numerous essays, articles, reviews, and obituary notices, containing amongst them some biographical grain along with a vast amount of chaff. The best article upon him, as a compendium of facts, is that by Mr. W. P. Courtney in the ' Dictionary of National Biography.' To that and to the ' Bibliotheca Cornubiensis ' (Boase and Courtney), and to Mr. Courtney's personal kindness, I am considerably indebted.

The task of collecting these materials has been shared by many fellow-labourers. To record a life which covered three-fourths of the nineteenth century, and ended twentyeight years ago, has involved a large amount of correspondence, and on all sides applications for letters and reminiscences have met with a kind and willing response. The result has been that nearly a thousand of Hawker's letters have been recovered. Only a part of the material available has been used : in fact, the book as originally compiled would have filled several volumes. Its present form is in the nature of a residuum, after several processes of elimination.

In arranging the letters I have preferred to adhere in the main to chronological order, rather than to make extracts according to subject, and work them up into chapters all through the book. There is something to be said for both methods. It is true that Hawker's life was uneventful, and does not lend itself to continuous narrative, consequently letter often follows letter without any connecting links. Yet if we depart from the order of date, we lose the sequence of his mental development. The interest lies in his personality. It is a story of ideas rather than events,

PREFACE xiii and can therefore best be told in his own words. If we disintegrate the letters, placing one sentence under one head and the next under another, we miss the variableness of his mood, the sudden changes " from grave to gay, from lively to severe," from mystic legend and vision to humourous details of his daily life. The whole charm of his letters lies in this versatility of temper. Rightly or wrongly, I have acted on the principle that letters are the best possible form of biography, and that, where these are plentiful, the main duty of a biographer is to disappear. Those who wish to connect references to any particular subject will find the means of doing so in the index. A word as to punctuation. Hawker uses hardly any stops in his letters, and to preserve their character of spontaneity I have inserted as few as possible.

It would be impossible to enumerate all those who have helped me, either by the loan of MSS., or in other ways. But in particular I must thank the following: — Mrs. Waddon Martyn and Mr. N. H. Lawrence Martyn, of Tonacombe Manor, Morwenstow ; the present Vicar of Morwenstow, the Rev. John Tagert, and Miss Tagert ; Miss Rowe ; Mrs. J. G. Godwin; Miss Louisa Twining; Miss Mohun Harris ; Sir Thomas Acland ; the late Colonel VV. S. Hawker ; the Rev. Robert Hawker Kingdon ; Mr. J. Somers James ; Mr. C. Hawker Dinham ; the Rev. Canon Thynne ; Dr. Amos Beardsley ; Mr. Humphrey Baskerville; Mr. G. H. Gurney ; Dr. T. N. Brushfield ; Mr. Wood, Librarian of Pembroke College, Oxford ; Mr. Alfred Maskell ; Mr. R. A. Mountjoy ; Mr. John Cann ; Mr. J. C. Valentine ; the Rev. Preby. Granville ; the Rev. Canon Bone ; the Rev. W. lago ; the Rev. N. Vickers ; the Rev. LI. W. Bevan ; the Rev. Maitland Kelly; Major Dudley Mills; Mr. John D. Enys ; Mr. Herbert Cowie ; Mr. R. Hawker Preston ; Alderman xiv PREFACE

J. W. Narraway; Dr. Owen Pritchard ; the Rev. W. G. Harris ; the Rev. R. A. Morris ; Mrs. J. Tarratt ; Mr. T. Waddington ; Mr. Richard Allin ; the Rev. J. A. Rawlins; the Rev. J. F. Chanter; the Rev. W. H. Thornton ; Mr. John Shelly.

I must also acknowledge courteous letters from Miss Alice Longfellow, Lord Tennyson, the Rev. Stephen Gladstone, and Sir Francis Jeune, in reference to Hawker's relations with their fathers ; from Mrs. J. H. Shorthouse, regarding her late husband's connection with the Hawkers of Somerset ; from Cardinal Newman's executor, the Rev. William P. Neville, and the Rev. W. J. B. Richards, one of the executors of Cardinal Manning, with permission to make use of letters.

The frontispiece and the portrait facing p. 142 are from sketches made in July 1S63 by the Earl of Carlisle (then Mr. George Howard), who, at the request of Canon Thynne, has kindly lent the originals for reproduction. The coloured sketch is of unique interest, as it enables us to see the Vicar " in his habit as he lived." A copy of the pencil sketch, by another hand, formed the frontispiece to the 1899 edition of Hawker's poems. An account of the sketching of these portraits will be found in Hawker's letters, on pp. 423 and 428. The portrait of Sir Thomas Acland, facing p. 396, has been included by kind permission of the Rt. Hon. A. H. Dyke Acland.

I should like to say a word here of the kindness shown by the inhabitants of Morwenstow and Welcombe. To knock at the door af a cottage or farmhouse, and mention the name of their former Vicar, " Passon Hawker," as they call him, is a sure passport to their true Cornish courtesy and hospitality. It is in the hearts of his old, his " mossy " parishioners, as he used to call thein, that his best title to honour must be sought ; and their memories and traditions

PREFACE are not the least valuable records of his life. ' It is significant, too, that those Dissenters, against whom he raged continually, have ever been among the foremost in paying respect to his memory. " His bark," they will tell you with a smile, " was considerably worse than his bite."

Mr. Frederic Chapman, Mr. R. Pearse Chope, and Mr. Richard Upton have kindly read my manuscript, and made valuable suggestions.

Nor must I omit to mention Mr. John Lane, who is a native of North Devon and spent his youth in the adjoining parish of Hartland. Mr. Hawker's preaching, personal appearance, charm of manner and voice, are among Mr. Lane's earliest recollections. This, and the fact that his grandmother (Mary Isabella Hobbs, of Whalesborough, near Bude) and the first Mrs. Hawker had been schoolfellows, gave Mr. Lane an early interest in the Vicar of Morwenstow, and he has taken an enthusiastic part in collecting materials for the book and supervising its preparation. If any readers of this book possess further letters or manuscripts of Hawker's, or can otherwise throw fresh light upon his life, I should be much obliged if they would kindly communicate with me, through the publisher.

C. E. BYLES.

CnismcK. I Jan. 1905.

F.S. — At the last moment, when too late to correct the passage, I find that I have made a mistake in stating (on page 10) that Hawker was at Cheltenham College. I

^ Just before sending my book to press, I have received an example of such lingering memories from an unlikely quarter, an American insurance paper t The late Mr. J. Harman Ashley, editor of The Insurance Advocate (Philadelphia and New York), in the literary column of his issue for Oct. 1901 says : — " The writer was a very small boy when ' Parson Hawker ' first gave him permission to look through the wonderful old books in the parsonage library. None

PREFACE should have said Cheltenham Grammar School, a much older institution. This error, which occurred also in an article of mine in Tlie Bookman, was kindly pointed out by Mr. H. D. Woostor, of Cheltenham, who writes : — " As an old Grammar School boy it is unnecessary to say that I take quite an interest in the works and life of one who is perhaps the best known member of the old school."

C. E. B.

knew so ^vell, nor could relate so delightfully as he, the exquisite legends of the ' Morte D'Arthur.' Tristram and Isolde, Guinevere and Lancelot, Merlin and Vivien, Sir Kay the Seneschal, Sir Galahad and the Sangraal — how full of life each of these became under the magic of hi.s vivid story-telling! The dear old boy I — ' All things he seemed to understand of old or new, on sea or land,' and certainly none could realize the unreal as he could, nor get so much solid comfort out of \vhat exists solely in the imagination."

Chapter I Page

CHAPTER H 1823-1825 — Oxford and Marriage - - - - 13

CHAPTER HI The Trelawny Ballad - - - - - 23

CHAPTER IV

1825-1S34 — ' Pompeii ' — Ordination — North Tamerton — Morwenstow - - - - - - - 32

CHAPTER V 1834 — The Parish of Morwenstow - - - - 41

CHAPTER VI The Parishioners of Morwenstow - - - - 56

CHAPTER VII

1835-1837 — The Making of Morwenstow — The Vicarage — The School — Coombe Bridge - - 75 b xvii

CHAPTER VIII

PAGE

The Vicar — I. — Dress — Stationery — Seals — Hospitality— "Wit — Superstition — Opiuji - - - 83

II. — Love of Birds and Animals — Farming — Charity 102

CHAPTER IX

Hawker as a Churchman — Views on Science and Religion — His Preaching — Ideas of Baptism — Epitaphs — Church Services — Relations with Dissenters - - - - - - - - 121

CHAPTER X

1842-3 — Wrecks — The 'Caledonia' — The ' Phcenix '

CHAPTER XI

1843-1848 — Lawsuit with Sir John Buller — Harvest Thanksgivings — Rural Synods — Offertory — Controversial Letters — ' The Field of Rephidim ' — The Priest of Baldhu - - - - - 168

CHAPTER XII

1848 — Tennyson at Morwenstow - - - - 189

CHAPTER XIII

1848-1852 — A Characteristic Advertisement — The Sellon Controversy — Gretser — The Letters Begin — The Gorham Judgment — Hawker becomes Curate of Welcombe — Letters to his Brother Claud and Rev. W D. Anderson — The Roman Hierarchy — The Pope and Wesley — Religious Riots in Cornwall - mS

CONTENTS xix

CHAPTER XIV

1852-1855 — Wreck of the 'Primrose' — Letters to Richard Twining and Miss Louisa Twining — "The Arisen Dead" — Letters to Sir Thomas Acland, Rev. W. Waddon Martyn, Rev. W. West, Dr. Lee, AND Rev. W. D. Anderson — "A Vile Rebellion" — A Vision — The Immaculate Conception — St. Thomas Aquinas — " John Milton : That Puritan Thief" — "A Blaspheming Smithery" — Discovery OF Piscina — " L. S. D." — The Postman Poet — A Very Rural Dean — A Village Cobden — " A Precious Piece of Popery -------

CHAPTER XV

Literary Work. 1852-1S62 — Contributions to 'Household Words' — (Dickens does pay) — 'Notes and Queries' — 'Willis's Current Notes' — 'Arscott of Tetcott' — " Numyne" — 'Baal-Zephon ' — " Rudis Indigestaque Moles" — Chattertonian Methods — Letter to Blackwoods' — Blight's 'Ancient Crosses,' etc. — "A Blundering Failure"

— Musical Young Ladies — ' Sir Beville ' — An Audacious Plagiarism — Tre, Pol and Pen — Tabooed by ' The Times '----- 249

CHAPTER XVI

Letters to Mrs. Watson, 1855-1862 — Crimean War

— Napoleon III. — A Son of Dr. Arnold at Morwenstow — An Epitaph — Florence Nightingale — Lord Clinton — A Fatal Accident — A Murder — Rival Coroners — A Comet — Plymouth Brethren — Spurgeon — The Indian Mutiny — A Wreck — Death of a Wrecker — Lord Harrowby at MorwENSTOw — ' The Great Eastern ' — Visit of Dean LiDDELL — The Vera Effigies — Sir Bevill Granville's Coffin — The Comet of i86i — American Civil War — Death of Prince Albert — The Exhibition -...--.- 278

CHAPTER XVII

1856-1862 — Letters to J. G. Godwin — Dean Cowie — Rev. W. D. Anderson — Rev. W. West — Buddhism — " Fragments of a Broken Mind " — The Evil Eye — A Case of Passive Resistance — "The Poet of Cornwall" — The Demon's Autograph — Prince Albert and Swedenborg — St. Thomas Aquinas — The Spasm of the Ganglions — ' Essays and Reviews ' — A Repugnant Nose — " The House that Jack Built" -------- 364

CHAPTER XVIII

Wreck and Desolation — Loss of the 'Bencoolen' — ' A Croon on Hennacliff ' — Death of Mrs. Hawker --------

CHAPTER XIX

1863 — 'The Quest of the Sangraal' — Hawker's Masterpiece — Compared with Tennyson's ' Holy Grail' — Opinions of Longfellow and Tennyson — The Earl of Carlisle at Morwenstow — Sketches the Vicar on Clovelly Quay — Fire at the Vicarage — Horatio Walpole Calls — A New Parishioner — "A Blessing Or — ?" — Miss " Lebjinckski " — "Slightly Cracked" — A Lucky Speculation of Sir Galahad — The Demon-Bird — Letter to the Queen — "An Utter Donkey" — Letter from Cardinal Wiseman — "Ichabod" - 410

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XX

PAGE

1863-4 — Wreck of the 'Margaret Quayle' — Brain

Fever — Visit to Boscastle — Johnny Valentine - 459

CHAPTER XXI

1S63-4 — The Vicar's Loneliness — Death of Thackeray — The Vicar has Brain Fever — Garibaldi — Newman and Kingsley — " A very Unpretending Old-fashioned Young Lady " — Jeune made a Bishop — His Blue Swallowtail — The Vicar Photographed — Even the Warts — Darwin and Lyell — 'Blue Eyes Melt: Dark Eyes Burn' — Love Poems — Little Johnny Valentine — "Do You Think I Ought or Not?" 469

CHAPTER XXII Second Marriage — 1864 ------ 49y

CHAPTER XXIII

1864-1868 COLENSO AND THE ChURCH POLITICS

Mr. Gladstone's Speeches — Assassination of President Lincoln — Contributions to Magazines — Births of his Children — Cattle Plague — Demons — Visitation Sermon — " Ecce Homo " — A Whale at Morwenstow — Wreck of the 'Jeune Joseph' — Abyssinian War — Irish Disestablishment 509

CHAPTER XXIV

1868-1870 — 'Cornish Ballads' — Letters from Froude — Wreck of the ' Avonmore ' — Bishop Temple — Archbishop Tait — ' Footprints ' — Money Troubles — The Vicar Photographed - - - 572 xxii LIFE OF R. S. FIAWKER

CHAPTER XXV

PAGE

1S70-1874 — Occasional Verses — 'Aurora' — Austin DoBSON — The Franco-Prussian War — Mr. Spender's Reiiiniscences — The Bishop of London

AT MORWENSTOW LETTERS OF CONDOLENCE PrAVER

for the Dead —Prayer for the Prince of ^VALES — Church Restoration — A Great Storm — Letter to H. Sewell Stokes — Illness — Rev. John Rawlins — Anecdotes - - 590

CHAPTER XXVI

1874 — Visit to London — Hawker at the Opening of Parliament — At the Zoo — At the Pro-Cathedral — At Westminster Abbey — Letters to Dr. Lee — Preaches at All Saints, Lambeth — Preaches at St. j\Latthias, Brojipton — Letter from Longfellow — The Public Worship Regulation Bill — "A very Inferior Lot ! " , 608

CHAPTER XXVII

1874-5 — Rev. J. F. Chanter's Reminiscences — Matthew Arnold's Brother at Morwenstow — Ecclesiastical Questions — Tait's Baptism — Epigrams— Another Wreck — ' A Canticle for Christmas ' — Letters from Manning and Newman — ' Psalmus Cantici ' — The New Cur.ate — " My Mind! It is Gone " - - 617

CHAPTER XXVIII

1875 — The Last Journey - - - - - - 632

CONTENTS xxiii

CHAPTER XXIX

PAGE

Secessional -------- 640

CHAPTER XXX

Conclusion - - - 650

Appendix I. — The Hawker Memorial - - - 657

Appendix II. — Bibliography - - - 660

Appendix III. — Hawker Literature - - - - 666

FACING PAGE

MoRWENSTOw Church and Lych-gate ... 44

From photographs by the Rev. R. A. Jllorris

Mural Painting in Morwenstow Church . . 46

Interior of Tonacombe Manor .... 48

Draii'n in lithography by J . Ley Pethybridge

The Waddon Lantern, Hawker's Stick and Holy

Water Stoups ....... 50

Draivn in lithograpjnj by J. Ley Pethybridge

Marsland House, Morwenstow .... 62

Lraivn in lithography by J. Ley Pethybridge

Morwenstow Vicarage ...... 78

Draii'n in lithography by J, Ley Pethybridge

Tablet over the Vicarage Door and Norman Porch

OF THE Church ...... 80

From photographs by the Rev. R. A, ALorris

The Vicar's Welcojie. Portrait of Hawker standing at his door ...... 84

Draivn in lithography by T. P. Way from a phtotograph by S. Thorn

Hawker's .Seals, the Mystic Fish, the Pentacle of Solomon, etc. ......

Mr W. G. Harris and Mr Thomas Cann, the two Churchwardens ......

From photographs by T. Bennett, JVorcester, and H. Fhorn, Bade, respectively

Hawker's Hut in the Cliffs . . . . .166

Frofn a photoi^raph by S. Thorn

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxvii

FACING PAGE

Facsimiles of Letters from Tennyson and his Wife

The Old Cornish Cross in Morwenstow Churchyard ......... 204

Dra'wn in lithography by J . Ley Peihybridge

Welcombe Church ....... 206

Draivn in lithography by J. Ley Pethybridge

Bishop Phillpotts (in 1851) ..... 214

Aftsr a mezzotint engraved by William Walker Jrom a painting by T. A, Woolnoth. Private plate from the collection of Ozven Pritchard, M.D.

Medal of the Immaculate Conception worn by

Edward Capern, the Devonshire Postman Poet . 244

From a picture in the possession of Alderman J. W. JSfarra%uay at Bideford

Norman Arches and the " Carvure " of the Trinity

in Morwenstow Church .... 266

Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart. (Grandfather of

THE present Baronet) ..... 396

From a drawing by Richmond.

Profile Sketch of the Rev. R. S. Hawker . . 428

From a draining by the Earl of Carlisle made in 1863

Waes-hael Bowl ....... 450

Formerly belonging to Haivhr, and noiv in the possession of JMrs, H. J. Bailey, Roivden Abbey, Bromyard

The Rev. R. S. Hawker 482

From a photograph by the late Dr. Richard Budd, taken at Barnstaple in May 1864 xxviii LIFE OF R. S. HAWKER

FACING PAGE

The Rev. R. S. Hawker and his Second Wife . 506

From ph'-Aograp}ls by S. Thorn^ Budi:, and H. M^ebster ^ BaT/sivater

The Rev. Robert Hawker, D.D. (Grandfather of

The Rev. R. S. Hawker 5S8

From a phrAograph by S. Thorn ^ Bude, taldii in June, I 8 70

WiLLIAlM MaSKELL .......

From a painting by Richmond, in the possession of IVlr . Alfred Maskell

Hawker's Grave in Plymouth CEiiETERV . . . 638

The Vicar of Morwenstow (in surplice, stole, and

From a photograph bij HaivU, Plymouth, taken on "Jth August I 875

The Memorial Window in IMorwenstow Church . 65S

Un-veiled on Zth September 1904

THE LIFE & LETTERS OF R. S. HAWKER

CHAPTER I

1803-I 822 Boyhood

" I love the ocean ! from a very child

It has been to me as a nursing breast. Cherishing wild fancies."

R. S. Hawker (i 821).

Robert Stephen Hawker was born at Plymouth on the third of December, 1803. He was the eldest child of Jacob Stephen Hawker, then a doctor, who had married Jane Elizabeth, daughter of Stephen Drewitt, of Winchester. The father of Jacob Stephen Hawker was the Rev. Robert Hawker, D.D., the well-known Calvinistic divine, for forty-three years Vicar of Charles Church, Plymouth. To trace the genealogy one step further back. Dr. Robert Hawker was the son of Jacob Hawker, surgeon, and Mayor of Exeter in 1744.