han the
church, in a glorious situation; it is a finely designed Elizabethan
mansion--Elizabethan in style if not exactly in date--erected by Sir
Nicholas Prideaux about the year 1600. Its old staircase was brought
thither when Stowe House, once the seat of the Grenvilles, was broken
up. The Prideaux are a Cornish family of ancient note, whose names we
often meet with in the Duchy's annals; but the most widely known was
Humphrey Prideaux, born here in 1648, who at one time was Rector of
St. Clement's, Oxford, and 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 outside 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 prominent 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 verses 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 would not see it; it is a thing
that may be discontinued at any time. If we were devoting our
attention to Cornwall as it used to be, much would come into this book
which is now utterly obsolete, and would cause as great surprise to
Cornish folk as to others.

[Illustration: A ROUGH CORNISH SEA.

_Photo by Alex. Old._]

If th