And shall they scorn Tre, Pol and Pen,
And shall Trelawny die?
Here’s twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!
These verses have so much of the antique flavour, that Sir Walter Scott, in one of his prefaces to a later edition of the Border Minstrelsy, refers to them as a “remarkable example of the lingering of the true ballad spirit in a remote district”; and Mr. Hawker possessed a letter from Lord Macaulay in which he admitted that, until undeceived by the writer, he had always supposed the whole song to be of the time of the Bishops’ trial.
At Ivy Cottage he had formed for himself a perch on the edge of the cliff, where he could be alone with his books, his thoughts, and, as he would say with solemnity, “with God.”
Perhaps few thought then how deep were the religious impressions in the joyous heart, full of exuberant spirits, of the young Oxford student. All people knew of him was, that he was remarkable for his beauty, for his brightness of manner, his overflowing merriment, and love of playing tricks. But there was a deep undercurrent of religious feeling setting steadily in one direction, which was the main governing stream of his life. Gradually this emerges into sight, and becomes recognised. Then it was known to few except his wife and her sisters.
Of this period of his life, it is chiefly his many jests which have lingered on in the recollection of his friends and relations.
One absurd hoax that he played on the superstitious people of Bude must not be omitted.
At full moon in the July of 1825 or 1826, he swam or rowed out to a rock at some little distance from the shore, plaited seaweed into a wig, which he threw over his head, so that it hung in lank streamers half-way down his back, enveloped his legs in an oilskin wrap, and, otherwise naked, sat on the rock, flashing the moonbeams about from a hand-mirror, and sang and screamed till attention was arrested. Some people passing along the cliff heard and saw him, and ran into Bude, saying that a mermaid with a fish’s tail was sitting on a rock, combing her hair, and singing.