Widmouth promises to become some day a great
watering-place.
To see this coast it is in vain to take the coach road to Bideford or to Boscastle. The road runs on the ridge of high land from which the streams descend and spill into the sea. The only way in which to appreciate its wildness and beauty is to take the coast road that climbs and descends a succession of rocky waves. By that means scenes of the greatest picturesqueness and of the utmost variety are revealed. One excursion must on no account be omitted, that to Morwenstow, for many years the home of a fine poet, an eccentric man, the Rev. Robert S. Hawker.
He was born at Stoke Damerel on December 3rd, 1804, and was the son of Mr. Jacob Stephen Hawker, at one time a medical man, but afterwards ordained and vicar of Stratton. Mr. J. S. Hawker was the son of the famous Dr. Hawker, incumbent of Charles Church, Plymouth, author of Morning and Evening Portions, a book of devotional reading at one time in great request.
Young Robert was committed to his grandfather to be educated. He was sent to Oxford, but his father, then a poor curate, was unable to maintain him there, and told him so. The difficulty was, however, happily surmounted. He proposed to a lady rather older than his mother, but who had about £200 per annum. She accepted him; he was then aged twenty and she was forty-one, and had taught him his letters. By this means he was enabled to continue his studies at Oxford. He was
