Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/328

 322 THE CORNWALL COAST later became Dean of Norwich. He wrote a Life of Mahomet, and also a work in which he attempted to bridge over the interval between the Old and New Testaments — rather a ticklish job, one might imagine. There are a good many- excellent pictures at the house — a Vandyck and many Opies ; but the visitor, unless specially introduced, will have to be content with the out- side of the beautiful manor-house. Padstow has been associated from immemorial times with a special celebration of the May-Day festival, immediately deriving from the old folk- plays and mummings that were once universal. The special survival here is of the Hobby Horse, that once played so prominent a part in these boisterous masquerades, but such life as it still enjoys at Padstow is somewhat a galvanised existence, just as children still occasionally dress in poor tinsel and gaiety in order to collect a few coppers. Such exhibitions are melancholy rather than interesting — "For who would keep an ancient form Thro' which the spirit breathes no more ? " The horse is a wooden circle, with a dress of blackened sailcloth, a horse's head, and a pro- minent tail. Readers of Scott's Abbot will, of course, remember that the Hobby Horse was equally popular in Scotland. The Hobby Horse song, as rendered at Padstow, was probably only a variant of versos common elsewhere, but local and topical allusions were freely introduced, and stanzas were addressed to special personages. The performance is in a moribund condition, and it is certainly not worth while for a stranger to travel to Padstow on May Day to see it. Very likely he