Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall

by Robert Stephen Hawker

WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

PREFACE

Hawker’s prose sketches appeared originally as contributions to various periodicals, and in 1870 they were published for him in book form by Mr. John Russell Smith, as “Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall.” In 1893, eighteen years after his death, a new edition was issued by Messrs. Blackwood, entitled “The Prose Works of Rev. R. S. Hawker,” containing two essays previously unpublished, “Humphrey Vivian” and “Old Trevarten.” The late Mr. J. G. Godwin, who was Hawker’s friend and adviser in literary matters, edited the volume, and added the bibliographical footnotes to the several papers. In the present edition it has been thought appropriate to revert to Hawker’s own more picturesque title, and this is to be done also in the case of his poetical works, which will shortly be re-issued as “Cornish Ballads and other Poems.” The two books will thus form companion volumes. It is interesting to read them concurrently, and to compare his treatment of the same themes in prose and verse. An attempt has been made in the notes to assist such a comparison by indicating some of the more obvious parallels. In the prose, as in the poems, there is the same deep and peculiar love of symbol and miracle and superstition, but the prose further reveals, what might not be suspected from the poems alone, that Hawker was a humourist as much as a mystic.

Hawker won his literary reputation as a ballad-writer, but his prose also deserves a share in his fame. He has the gift of style. Like his handwriting, which makes a manuscript of his a thing of beauty in itself, it is bold and clear, free from prettiness or affectation, but with the massive grace of his native rocks, and made distinctive by a characteristic touch of archaism. The rugged scenery of his abode had its influence upon his work. He was a hewer of words, as Daniel Gumb was a hewer of stone, and his language has the strength of rough masonry wrought in a broad and homely manner out of solid granite. The sea, and the great spaces of lonely moorland that surrounded him, gave to his work a sense of breadth and freedom. He is always at his best in describing his own dearly loved Cornwall, and in particular the wild coast by which all his years were spent. Perhaps the finest passage of this kind is that which concludes the legend of Daniel Gumb, and which forms a prose counterpart to that grand ending of “The Quest of the Sangraal:”

“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.”

There is an element of fiction in Hawker’s biographical studies. He never let facts, or the absence of them, stand in the way of his imagination, and he had a Chattertonian habit of passing off compositions of his own as ancient manuscripts.

His letters are full of complaints that legends “invented” by himself have been regarded by others as common property. But this is not surprising when the said inventions wear the solemn garb of history. Hawker had many of the qualities necessary to historical romance. His rich native humour, and his rare gift for telling a story; his vivid presentment of scene, character, and situation, make it a matter of regret that he did not apply his powers more fully in this direction, just as it is a matter of regret that his fine poem, “The Quest of the Sangraal,” is only a fragment, though a fragment worthy to rank beside “Hyperion.”

Both in his prose and his poetry there is a disappointing lack of sustained effort. His literary manner and antiquarian tastes bear many points of resemblance to those of Scott, whose novels it was his custom to re-read every year as Christmas-time came round. In his local and scanty degree Hawker has done for the legends and worthies of old Cornwall what Sir Walter did for those of Scotland.