From morn to evening, all the hot fair day.
He spoke of them to Charles Lamb, his schoolfellow; for though Charles Lamb never came to Ottery St. Mary and never heard the bells, he makes his characters allude to them thus:—
Marg.:
John:
Hark the bells, John!
Those are the Church bells of St. Mary Ottery—
St. Mary Ottery, my native village,
In the sweet shire of Devon,
Those are the bells.
A. W. Kinglake, the author of Eothen and the History of the Crimean War, was educated here at Rock House, now Sandrock, under the Rev. Edward Coleridge, who kept a successful private school. In the year 1849, Thackeray published the novel Pendennis. He lived as a youth at Larkbeare House, and the scene of many of his incidents is laid in the neighbourhood. We read of the little river running off noisily westward, of the fair background of sunshiny hills that stretch towards the sea, of the pattens clacking through the empty streets, of the schoolboys making a good, cheerful noise, scuffling with their feet as they march into church and up the organ-loft stair, and blowing their noses a good deal during the sermon; of the factory, of the single pair of old posters that earned their scanty livelihood by transporting the gentry round to the county dinners; of the hollow tree in Escot Park (then a noble house built by Inigo Jones, since burnt down, and now replaced by a modern building, the seat of the Right Hon. Sir J. H. Kennaway), in which the young lovers deposited their letters; and above all of the great grey towers rising up in purple splendour, of which the sun illuminates the delicate carving, deepening the shadows of the huge buttresses and gilding the glittering windows.
The town contributed its share to science. Here, in 1806, in Ralegh House, was born Edward Davy. In 1836 he sketched out a plan of telegraphic communication, and in 1837 he laid down a copper wire round the inner circle at Regent’s Park, and made wonderful experiments in electricity with it. In March, 1837, he took the first step to patent his invention by “entering a caveat,” and deposited with Mr. Aikin, Secretary of the Society of Arts, a sealed description of his invention, anticipating Cook and Wheatstone by two months. His invention and that of Cook and Wheatstone were held not to be quite identical. In 1839 he emigrated to Australia, leaving the field to his rivals.
The inhabitants are remarkable for the love which they bear towards their birthplace. In London a society of over one hundred members of townsfolk who have left to seek their fortunes in other scenes meet at regular intervals to talk over the present local gossip and call up past associations, and to renew or form a community of feeling based on common love of home. And when the members take a holiday, the first object of their pilgrimage, the shrine towards which their footsteps are directed, is the dear old town of Ottery St. Mary.
Coleridge.
“PETER PINDAR”: THE THERSITES
OF KINGSBRIDGE.
By the Rev. W. T. Adey.
Thersites only clamoured in the throng,