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MORWENSTOW 365 rate reflection which, in a diflrerent dress, is still dear to the average sober-minded individual. But Hervey is not at all bad, of his sort, and our great-grandfathers thought him profound. Pro- bably, however, he was dearer to their wives ; it is chiefly women who support this kind of moralising. To Hervey Kilkhampton Church was " an ancient Pile, reared by Hands that ages ago moulded into Dust — the Body spacious, the Structure lofty, the whole magnificently plain." He was at Bideford in 1740. Much more lively in its nature was the connection with this parish of the notorious Cruel Coppinger, smuggler, wrecker, and desperado. ' ' Will you hear of Cruel Coppinger ? He came from a foreign land ; He was brought to us by the salt water, He was carried away by the wind." Coppinger has become almost mythical, by reason of older traditions of pirate-smugglers being attributed to him. The Rev. S. Baring-Gould himself, in his book on the Vicar of Moriven- stow, has located Coppinger in the Kilkhampton district ; but his novel. In the Roar of the Sea, places its hero, somewhat humanised, at St. Enodoc. The truth is, there are similar traditions in several parts of the Cornish coast, and else- where. There was a floating mass of legend ready to be appropriated by any character that might seem to deserve it; and we may take Coppinger as a kind of generic title, the clustering of varying Cornish traditions of wrecking and piracy round one name. Such being the case, he may as well be placed at Kilkhampton as any-