head-foremost off the rock, and then tumbled herself topsy-turvy about in the waters, and cast a look at my poor father, and grinned like a seal!” FOOTNOTES: [138] Welcombe, to which Mr. Hawker became curate in 1850, and which he continued to serve until his death. There is an allusion to Welcombe church on p. 21. [139] Hawker writes in one of his letters: “And now enough of myself. Solitude makes men self-praisers, and a Bemööster Herr--as the Germans call lonely readers--a mossy vicar likes to talk about his own importance.” [140] Compare p. 196. [141] A similar sacrilege occurs in Hawker’s poem, “A Legend of the Hive.” [142] See Appendix A_b_. [143] An echo from Shakespeare-- “... the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.” [144] Compare p. 194. [145] Horace, “Ars Poetica,” 185-- “Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet.” [146] _Charity_ is the full name. [147] There is a chapter on charms in Hunt’s “Popular Romances of the West of England.” [148] Compare Hawker’s poem, “Modryb Marya”-- “Now the holly with her drops of blood for me: For that is our dear Aunt Mary’s tree.” [149] Compare the poem, “A Croon on Hennacliff.” [150] Hawker was no doubt reminded of his own impersonation of a mermaid at Bude. For many quaint legends about mermaids and mermen, see Hunt’s “Popular Romances of the West of England.” HUMPHREY VIVIAN Among the changes that have passed over the face of our land with such torrent-like rapidity in this wondrous nineteenth century of marvel and miracle, none are more striking and complete than that which has transformed the torpid clergy of past periods into the active and energetic ministers of our own Church and time. The country incumbent of Macaulay’s “History,” the guests at the second table of the patron and the squire--the Trullibers and the Parson Adams of Fielding and Smollett--would find no deuterotype in the present day. But in the transition period of our ecclesiastical history there are here and there fossil memorials of the former men that would enable a thoughtful mind to construct singular specimens of character which, while embodying the past, would also indicate the future lineaments of gradual change and improvement. Among these is one, a personal friend of the writer when he first entered the ministry, whose kindliness of heart and originality of character may supply sundry graphic and interesting reminiscences. As old Johnson would have said, had he written his life, so let me say of Humphrey Vivian, that he was at once the stately priest, the genial companion, and the faithful, facetious friend. Let me indulge some of these recollections, and gather up some materials of personal history, which are by no means wanting. For it was his great delight, when a guest at my table, after he had done more than justice to the viands set before him, when his gold snuff-box had been produced and ceremoniously offered to all around, and his glass