Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/108

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io th s. i. JAN. so, 1904.

-anonymously and attracted the notice of Sir Walter Scott. In 1838 Mr. Gilbert reprintec it in his 'Parochial History of Cornwall, from which an extract containing the verser was given in Chambers's 'Book of Days, 1864, vol. i. p. 747.

In 1832 Mr. Hawker, who had been ordainec in 1829, published a small volume of poem: called 'Records of the Western Shore,' in which he inserted the ballad under the title of ' The Song of the Western Men,' and pub- licly avowed himself to be the author. Mr, Hawker's explanation was as follows :

" With the exception of the chorus contained in the last two lines, this song was written by me in

the year 1825 1 publish it here merely to state

that it was an early composition of my own. The two lines above mentioned formed, I believe, the burthen of the old song, and are all that I can recover."

The song was subsequently published in ' Ecclesia,' and other collections of Mr. Hawker's poems. In ' Cornish Ballads,' 1869, the explanation was considerably amplified, and ran as follows : "Note. With the exception of the choral lines :

And shall Trelawny die ?

Here 's twenty thousand Cornishmen

Will know the reason why !

which have been, ever since the imprisonment by James the Second of the seven Bishops (one of them Sir Jonathan Trelawny), a popular proverb through- out Cornwall, the whole of this song was composed by me in the year 1825. I wrote it under a stag- horned oak in Sir Bevile's walk in Stowe Wood. It was sent by me anonymously to a Plymouth paper, and there it attracted the notice of Mr. Davies Gilbert, who reprinted it at his private press at East Bourne, under the avowed impression that it was the original ballad. It had the good fortune to win the eulogy of Sir Walter Scott, who also deemed it to be the ancient song. It was praised under the same persuasion by Lord Macaulay and by Mr. Dickens, who inserted it at first as of genuine antiquity in his Household Words, but who after- wards acknowledged its actual paternity in the same publication."

It will be seen that Mr. Hawker's memory failed him in one or two unimportant par- ticulars, but the main fact, namely, that the ballad was his own composition, with the exception of the refrain, was, one would have thought, established beyond further dispute. There were, however, " doubting Thomases " who still called for the production of the ancient refrain. But the honesty and veracity of Hawker were conclusively proved by Mr. John Latimer,* who, in a letter to the Athenaeum of 21 Novem- ber, 1891, quoted a contribution to the Bristol

to lament the loss of Mr. Latimer, who died on 4 January.
 * Since this note was written literature has had

Journal of 21 July, 1772, entitled " Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman at Savanna la Mar to his friend at Kingston, Monday, April 27," describing the reception of the Governor, Sir William Trelawny, when on tour through Jamaica. The relevant passage is as follows :

"About a century and a half ago, upon some particular State commotions, one of Sir William's ancestors was, on wrong suspicious of the Govern- ment, sent to the Tower of London, and it was declared in Cornwall that he was to suffer death. The great attachment of the people in general of that county was then, as now, so affectionately strong to the ancient family of Trelawny Castle [near West Looe] that the population of the county got the following lines published in several places at London ; viz. :

And must Trelawny die ?

And shall Trelawny die?

We've thirty thousand Cornish Boys

Will know the reason why !

West Looe, &c.

This and some other circumstances so intimidated at that time some of the greatest personages then at the helm of our national affairs that Sir William Trelawny's ancestor was soon set at liberty, and soon after arrived at Trelawny Castle amidst the joyous acclamations of thousands."

Mr. Latimer gave good reasons for think- ing that the lines referred to John Trelawny, who was ordered by the House of Commons to be imprisoned in the Tower on 13 May, 1627, and was released about six weeks later. Granting this to be the case, we may suppose the lines lingered in the memory of the peasantry, and were revived when the Bishop of Bristol was sent to the Tower sixty years afterwards. John Trelawny, who was created a baronet in 1628, was the grandfather of the bishop, Sir Jonathan Trelawny, who in his turn was the great-uncle of Sir William Trelawny, the Governor of Jamaica. The lines probably survived as a family tradi- tion, and in this manner came to the ears of the writer in the Bristol Journal. The main point, of course, is that the existence of a traditional refrain, which was still popular in 1772, is fully established, and that no reason whatever remains for casting any doubt upon the truth of the statements prefixed by Hawker to the current versions of the ballad. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

IRISH-PRINTED PLAYS. In the Joly collec- tion in the National Library here I find a copy of a ballad opera called ' Calista,' by 'Mr. Gay," printed in Dublin in 1731, as

ntended for the theatres in London, but seemingly not acted. According to the

Dictionary of National Biography,' Gay, towards the close of 1731, had "a sort of