The Cornwall Coast

by Arthur L. Salmon

"Will you hear of Cruel Coppinger?
He came from a foreign land;
He was brought to us by the salt water,
He was carried away by the wind."

Coppinger has become almost mythical, by reason of older traditions of pirate-smugglers being attributed to him. The Rev. S. Baring-Gould himself, in his book on the Vicar of Morwenstow, has located Coppinger in the Kilkhampton district; but his novel, In the Roar of the Sea, places its hero, somewhat humanised, at St. Enodoc. The truth is, there are similar traditions in several parts of the Cornish coast, and elsewhere. There was a floating mass of legend ready to be appropriated by any character that might seem to deserve it; and we may take Coppinger as a kind of generic title, the clustering of varying Cornish traditions of wrecking and piracy round one name. Such being the case, he may as well be placed at Kilkhampton as anywhere else. He is reported sometimes as a Dane, sometimes as an Irishman, who was thrown on the coast in a tempest, who leaped upon her horse's back behind a girl who had come to witness the wreck, and who ultimately married her. He proved to be one of the blackest villains Cornwall had ever known, but as he had a powerful gang of followers who aided him in all his misdoings, there must have been plenty as bad as he, though they might lack his gift of leadership and initiative. He is said to have chopped off a gauger's hand on the gunwale of a boat—rumour reported even worse things than this; and he once soundly horsewhipped the parson of Kilkhampton, who had offended him. There is also a story of his carrying a terrified tailor to "mend the devil's breeches." He departed as mysteriously as he came, after many years of vile outrage; he "who came with the water went with the wind." It is clear that a great deal of old-time folk-lore has gathered round this name, and probably no single man must be held answerable for all the wild doings related of Cruel Coppinger. In all such traditions Hawker is a most unsafe guide; he did not consciously "falsify the books," but he had misled many who came after, particularly the popular guide-books, by his looseness and his play of fancy. But he came to this district at a period when smuggling, if not actual wrecking and piracy, was at its height—not only in Cornwall, be it remembered, but in many other parts of the coast, such as Sussex and Kent. It was a time when the Cornish used to thank God for wrecks; and if they did not actually lure vessels to destruction on their cruel coasts, which it may be feared they did sometimes, they at least did nothing to avert the disasters which, to their mind, were sent by a merciful providence. There was even a proverb that it was unlucky to rescue a drowning man—widespread, for Scott mentions it in the "Pirate"; the bad luck which these coast-folk had in view being the fact that a rescued personage could claim his property that the sea had cast up.

Photo by][Gibson & Sons.

Hawker was born in Norley Street, Plymouth, December 29, 1803; his grandfather and uncle were both clergy in Plymouth at the time. Thus, though he has won a world-wide fame as the Cornish poet, Hawker was really Devonian; in this borderland of the two counties there is practically no difference. In the same manner the Grenvilles were of Devonshire, yet Cornwall treasures their memories with justifiable pride. In after years Hawker used to say that, could his mother have foreseen how sorrowful his life would be, she would have given a gentle pressure to his throat in his first hour, and so have averted all his earthly trials. He grew to be a mischievous and daring lad. One of his pranks was to swim out to the crags at the mouth of Bude haven, and there pose as a mermaid; which he did to the prolonged bewilderment of the countryfolk. He was educated at Liskeard, Cheltenham, and Oxford; coming to Morwenstow in 1834 after having held the curacy of North Tamerton. He had already married a lady who was twenty years older than himself—a marriage of the deepest lasting affection. His second marriage, in his old age, was to a lady forty years his junior; but by this time the poet's spirit had been broken by solitude, grief, failure to win literary success, and by the terrible scenes of shipwreck and death that often distracted him. He died in 1875, having been received into the Romish Church a few hours before his death; and the remains were laid in Plymouth Cemetery. On his tombstone is a line from his own beautiful poem, "The Quest of the Sangraal"—

"I would not be forgotten in this land."

There is now an elaborate memorial window in Morwenstow Church, unveiled in 1904. The poet has not been forgotten in this land, nor is he likely to be. He has impressed himself so vividly on the district that was long his home, that we may now as justly speak of the Hawker country as we do of the Scott or the Wordsworth country. The work was accomplished even more by the man's personality than by his writings. If only these writings had been preserved he would not pass to posterity quite as fully as he merited; only a portion of the man would survive. But there was the tradition of the man himself, assisted by some inadequate memoirs; and now we have one of the most charming biographies of recent times to bring him before us. He was not only poet and essayist; he was cleric and mystic, preacher, prophet, symbolist, philanthropist—some may add reactionary. His life was permeated with Catholic doctrine and colour. When he passed, in his closing hours, to a sister communion, the step was a natural and easy one, however unnecessary some of us may think it to have been. He loved the Church of England devotedly and unfailingly; but he always looked upon her as the Old Church, rather than as a reformed body; and to his unquestioning mind a few extra dogmas would never have presented any difficulty. It was disbelief, doubt, that he abhorred. Like Sir Thomas Browne, he was greedy for more mysteries, more marvels, more sublimities for unhesitating acceptance. He was always in sympathy both with the Roman and the early Greek Churches, and sometimes in his own ritual he borrowed from both; yet he could fulminate hotly enough at times against the excesses of either. He loved deeply and hated strongly; but the love was permanent and real, the hatred transient and superficial.

He had a lifelong bitterness against Dissenters, and lived on the tenderest terms with many. His bark was very much worse than his bite. "I understand, Mr. Hawker," once said a Nonconformist lady to him, "that you have an objection to burying Dissenters?" "Madam," he replied, "I should be only too delighted to bury you all." But there was no real sting behind the words, and some of his dearest and kindest parishioners were not Churchmen. He spent his days in doing good deeds to man and beast, saving strangers from the devouring sea, or giving their bodies Christian burial; tutoring the rugged hearts of his people; and living himself, in spite of much sorrow, disappointment, loss, in a world of holy dream and vision, conversing in spirit with saints and angels. Hawker believed that his dear country was given over to doubt and laxity; and every affliction of war, misfortune, bad weather, he interpreted as the chastening hand of God. He would have had his world coloured entirely by faith and religious observance; stained as it were, like the glass of church windows, by sacred image and story. But practicalities pressed heavily upon him and almost broke his heart; his poetic impulse failed under sore discouragement; he did not proceed with his finest poem; those of his poems that became popular did so without the attachment of his name. Very much of this was due to his own procedure; yet the man had much hardship, neglect, and suffering, for which he could in no sense be held responsible. He was a true descendant of the early Cornish saints, born perhaps several centuries too late, and thrust upon a world where he had to turn to sea and wind and woodland for the mystic symbolism which was his life-breath, finding too little of it in the ways and words of Victorian England.

The present vicarage at Morwenstow was built by Hawker himself, there having been no vicar in residence for long years before his coming. It was here, in 1848, that Tennyson visited him, coming over from Bude, where he was staying at the Falcon Hotel. In stepping hastily from the garden to reach the sea, when he first arrived, the poet had fallen; there was no protecting rail there at that time. The injury proved so serious that he had to see a surgeon; and this surgeon happened to be Mr. John Dinham, Hawker's brother-in-law. Two days after the accident Tennyson drove over to Morwenstow with Dinham to see Hawker. His own note on the visit is brief and unsatisfying: "In a gig to Rev. S. Hawker, at Morwenstow, passing Comb Valley, fine view over sea, coldest manner of vicar till I told my name, then all heartiness. Walk on cliff with him; told of shipwreck." This is very meagre. Happily Hawker himself wrote down a more detailed account, and this was discovered among his brother's papers. It was headed with a cross, signifying that it recorded what Hawker deemed a mark of divine favour. "It was in the month of June, 1848, that my brother-in-law, John Dinham, arrived at Morwenstow with a very fine-looking man whom he had been called in to attend professionally at Bude for an injury in the knee from a fall.... I found my guest at his entrance a tall, swarthy, Spanish-looking man, with an eye like a sword. He sate down, and we conversed. I at once found myself with no common mind. All poetry in particular he seemed to use like household words.... Before we left the room he said, 'Do you know my name?' I said, 'No, I have not even a guess.' 'Do you wish to know it?' 'I don't much care—that which we call a rose, &c.' 'Well then,' said he, 'my name is Tennyson!' 'What!' said I, 'the Tennyson?' 'What do you mean by the Tennyson? I am Alfred Tennyson who wrote Locksley Hall, which you seem to know by heart.' So we grasped hands, and the Shepherd's heart was glad.... Then, seated on the brow of the cliff, with Dundagel full in view, he revealed to me the purpose of his journey to the West. He is about to conceive a poem—the hero King Arthur—the scenery in part the vanished Land of Lyonesse, between the mainland and the Scilly Isles.... Then evening fell. He arose to go; and I agreed to drive him on his way. He demanded a pipe, and produced a package of very common shag. By great good luck my sexton had about him his own short black dudheen, which accordingly the Minstrel filled and fired. Wild language occupied the way, until we shook farewell at Combe. 'This,' said Tennyson, 'has indeed been a day to be remembered.'" Hawker had a presentiment that they would never meet again, and they never did, though Tennyson visited Cornwall in later years. There was some slight correspondence, and an interchange of books; but the two drifted apart in spirit—perhaps they had never been very near. Tennyson's theology was that of Maurice, whom Hawker came to regard as an arch-enemy of Catholic truth. On one ground they both met in later life—when they chose the subject of the Holy Grail for poetic treatment; and on this ground the lesser poet beat the greater, as Tennyson himself frankly acknowledged. Yet both in their different ways lived near to the spirit that is typified by the Grail; but the one abode in solitude on his wild Cornish cliffs and the other lived in the blaze of popular fame, visited and loved by the greatest in the land. Who shall say that Hawker's life, after all, was not the nearest to his best ideals? Morwenstow vicarage is curious for its chimneys, which Hawker himself designed from church-towers in his neighbourhood and at Oxford. The church and vicarage stand in loneliness; there is no central village at Morwenstow, but the residences are scattered about the swelling downs and high-banked lanes. At the entrance to the graveyard is the lich-gate and mortuary, where many wrecked seamen were taken for burial. Such burials recall the unforgettable incident that occurred during the conveyance of one poor mangled body from the shore. "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 arose 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 to greet the fulfilment of duty to a brother mariner's remains." Morwenstow is really Morwenna-stow, Morwenna being a grand-daughter of Brychan, and thus belonging to a famous Welsh family of saints. The church is therefore a Celtic foundation, not Saxon as Hawker believed; he was always a little shaky in such details. In some maps and old local signposts the name is still written Moorwinstow, and was anciently Morestowe. Probably the earliest relic in the church itself is the font, which appears to belong to the tenth century; three typical Norman pillars support the northern arcade of the roof, and there is a very fine Norman door at the south porch. The Vicar loved to interpret the zigzag moulding as the "ripple of the lake of Gennesareth, the spirit breathing upon the waters of baptism"; he was doubtless more correct in reading a symbolic meaning into the carved vine that creeps from the chancel down the church. On the furze and bracken-clad slope above the cliffs, not far distant, is the hut that Hawker himself constructed, building it of wreckage; this was the sanctuary to which he loved to retreat for contemplation and literary work. It was here that he wrote his Sangraal poem, and the strong picture of its close might apply to this scene as forcibly as it does to its original.