The Sun.
London, England, 1870-07-21 00:00:00

JULY 21, 1870.

LITERATUEE.

NEW BOOKS.

Foot-prints of Former Men in Far Cornwall. By R. S.

Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstowe.
This is a very charming book of tales and sketches of
Cornish life and people, written by one who knows them
as well as, perhaps better than, any man living. For just
a generation Mr. Hawker has lived in that romantic par-
sonage on the cliff which the sea laves gently in the soft
summer time, but against which it breaks with awful fury
in the season of storms, as the splinters of many a gallant
ship and the battered corpse of many a stalwart man cast
up upon these rocks can testify. The chapter headed,
" The Remembrances of a Cornish Vicar " are full of sad
tales of the sea, some of themwith romantic accompaniments.
It was a.troublesome people that Mr. Hawker had to do
with when he first went to Morwenstowe. They were
" A mixed multitude of smugglers, wreckers, and (the
climax is Mr. Hawker's) dissenters of various hue. A
few simple-hearted farmers had clung to the gray old
sanctuary of the church and the tower that looked along
the-sea ; but the bulk of the -people in the absence of! a
resident vicar, had become the followers of the great
preacher of the last century who came down into Corn-
wall and persuaded the people to alter their sins."

A little spiteful that last hit; butit-is the only spiteful
word in the book. The new vicar, like the Kenite of old,
" built its nest upon the rock." What Cornish tourist
does not know the vicarage, and has not had a hospitable
welcome from its master, the very type of an English
country clergyman, as his parish would seem to be the
very type of an English country living ? There its incum-
bent has graven in letters of stone upon the walls of his
house his own words

" A house, a glebe, and a pound a day ;
A pleasant place to watch and pray ;
Be true to the Church and kind to the poor,
0 Minister, for evermore."

It was thither that there came to him some short time
after he had built his house sad news ; "there are dead
men on Vicarage Rocks." The vicar rushed out in
dressing gown and slippers, and saw the bay tossing
and seething with a tangled mass of rigging, sails, and
broken fragments of a ship, while the billows rolled up yellow
with corn, and ever and anon there came up out of the
water, as though stretched out with life, a human hand
and arm. There was more than one corpse, and as the
vicar gazed on them, there was a faint cry. It came from
a sailor stretched out by the side of a stream of water, too
faint to drink. He opened his eyes at the sound of voices,
and seeing the cassock-shaped dressing gown of the vicar,
sobbed with a piteous cry, "Oh mon pere, mon pere."
He revived at length, and then came the sad task
of finding his mates. Days were spent in
discovering them ; all were found ; he alone had escaped
alive ; he alone was present at their funeral in the sea-side
churchyard ;he alone returned thanks in the venerable
old church that has stood from Saxon times. Twice has
he been wrecked since with loss of everything, but he
still pursues his calling.
The greater part of Mr. Hawker's sketches refer to
former times, That about Antony Payne is one of the
best. He was a giant in the days of Sir Beville Gran-
ville, and was Sir Beville's retainer. He stood 7 feet 2
inches without his shoes. Nowadays he would have been
carried around the country and shewn to gaping rustles.
In those times giants were turned to better account. An-
tony was the leader in sports and in the chase. He em-
bowelled and flayed the hunted deer and carried the
carcase on his own shoulders to the hall where he re-
ceived as his guerdon the horns and the hide. It was ;,he
who taught his master's sons to shoot, to fish, and
to handle arms. One winter's day his master's
wifo the Lady Grace was cold, for the people
who had gone to gather wood had not returned. Antony
went off and soon returned bringing on his shoulders the
ass and its burden of faggots. He fought with his master
against the Earl of Stamford and the Parliamentary army
at Stamford Hill, and shared the Royalist victory of that
day. He fought also with his master at Lansdowne, and
saw the B4ard of old Cornwall stricken down ; a sorrow-
ful sight, yet scarcely so sorrowful as the task which he
had before him—writing to the Lady Grace to tell her
of her loss. No more touching letter was ever-written by
servant to his mistress.

" I am coming down with the mournfullest load that
ever a poor servant did bear, to bring the great heart that
is cold to Kilkhampton vault. Oh !my lady, how shall I
ever brook your weeping face? But I will be truthful to
the living and to the dead. These, Madam, from thy
saddest, truest servant, ANTONY PAYNE."
Years later, when Mary and William were on the throne,
and the garrison at Plymouth were turning the anniver-
sary of the execution of Charles I. into ridicule by serving
a calf's head in a " William and Mary " dish of Dutch
ware, Payne took the dish and its contents and hurled
them out of window, and then, a challenge ensuing, he
fought his challenger, and ran him through the sword-arm
saying " There's sauce for thy calf's head."

"After his death neither the door nor the stairs would
afford egress for the large and coffined corpse. The joists
had to be sawn through, and the floor lowered with rope
and pulley to enable the giant to pass out towards his
mighty grave. 'Relays of strong bier-men carried him to
his rest, and the bells of the tower, by his own express
desire, chimed him home.'. He was buried outside the
southern wall of Stratton church. When the writer was a
boy, the sexton one day broke by accident through the side
wall of a vast, but empty, sepulchre. Many went to see the
sight, and there, marked by a stone in the wall, was a
vault like the tomb of the Anakimi large enough in these
days for the interment of three or four of our degenerate
dead. But it was empty, desolate, and bare. No mam-
moth bones, nor mysterious relics of the unknown dead.
A massive heap of silent dust ! "

The Queen has been pleased to nominate James
Robert Longden, Esq. (now Lieutenant-Governor of the
colony of British Honduras), to be appointed Governor
and Commander-in-Chief of the island of Trinidad.—
Gazette.

In the case of the recent collision at Sydenham,
a verdict of Manslaughter has been returned against
James Monk, the driver of the Croydon train, who disre-
Carded the signals, and put on steam so as to clear the
rystal Palace train.

A. correspondent writes :—" A. clergyman in a
suburban church said last Sunday evening in his sermon,
"I' am sorry to see that among those appointed to revise
the translation of the Bible there is a Socinian. I wonder
they did not ask Satan himself to join them."—Pall Mall
Gazette.

The Crocodile arrived at Portsmouth on Tuesday,
from Quebec, with Prince Arthur on board. His Royal
Highness immediately proceeded to Osborne on hoard her
Majesty's yacht Alberta, and was met at the Trinity
Pier, East Cowes, by the Queen and the Princesses Louise
and Beatrice.
At the Birmingham Public Office on Tuesday, a
man, who gave the name of Fernano du Bois, was charged
before the Stipendiary Magistrate with obtaining £54
from the Town and District Banking Company by means
of forged cheques. The prisoner, who alleged that he was
the dupe of some persons unknown, was committed for
trial at the assizes.

At the Southwark Police-court on Tuesday John
Chard, who joined in the disgraceful assault in a railway
carriage, was sentenced to a month's imprisonment
with hard labour. At the same Court a watchman in
the employment of Colonel Beresford, M.P., was fined
forty shillings for allowing a ferocious dog to be at
large.

The Home Secretary, under pressure of an appli-
cation from Mr. M`Carthy Downing, has directed that
the Fenian convicts undergoingimprisonment, and in view
of the inquiry now being. held by the Commissioners,
should be furnished with extracts of the reports and
copies of the record of punishment awarded against them.
For a long period these have been refused.
MR. CHARLES DICKENS' WILL.—The will of
Mr. Charles Dickens was proved yesterday in Doctors'-
commons by his executors. The perSonalty is sworn under
.EBO,OOO. The document is in his own handwriting, and
the penmanship is clear and distinct. The signature at the
end of the will is written with a firmness and decision few
men can assume when they put their name to the " last
deed of all." There is a codicil to the will, which bequeaths
to Mr. Dickens, jun., his son, his interest in "All the
Year Round," and other things in which the testator had
an interest, subject, of course, to the payment of what-
ever debts and caarges there may have been on the paper
in question and the stock.

Mit. DICKENS'S FAMILY.—Though so much has
been written and said about Charles Dickens, it may not
be generally known that he had ten children, two only of
whom are dead. Two were daughters—one of whim
is Mrs. C. A. Collins, and the other unmarried.
Of the six sons, the eldest conducts All the
Year Round, and has made a few efforts in various maga-
zines; one, the youngest, is still at College ; one is in the
navy two are sheep-farming in Australia, and one is in
India. Those who know Millais's picture of " The
" Black 'Brimswicker," may be interested to know that
the lady there depicted is a good likeness of Mrs. Charles
Collins.—London Figaro.