WILLIAM ROBERT HICKS, OF BODMIN. 
61 
countenance. Hicks could put any variety of expression into his 
very changeable face ; and the alteration of all his features, from 
a frown to a smile, in telling a story, was both astonishing and 
ludicrous. He was witty, could make a w T itty speech, a witty 
remark, or a witty retort ; but his chief fame lay in his telling a 
story. He w T as about the best story-teller of his day, w T as well 
known as such in the two Western Counties, and established his 
reputation in London. He had an excellent memory, of great 
accuracy, and could remember every small detail of what might 
be said to him by an old woman ; for example, the exact quaint 
mode of expression, the dialect, and the tone of voice, which he 
would mimic to perfection. There is the Devonshire dialect and 
the Cornish dialect, both of which he knew well. Dialects vary 
even from parish to parish, town to town ; but I do not think 
there is a very marked difference between the Devonshire and the 
Cornish dialects until you get west of Bodmin, or even Truro. 
The miners have a dialect of their own, which is manly and 
striking, and at the same time very Cornish. 
Hicks used to be fond of telling of an old woman who said to 
him, "I mind you, Maister Hicks, when you was a babby. You 
was a very pretty babby !" looking up into his face; "and I sim 
you baint much changed neither." Considering his round, chubby 
face, and his time of life, this remark of the old woman was most 
absurd. 
The last time I met Hicks was at the Saltash Eailway Station. 
We were both going to a country house to stay a day or two, 
where he was as usual very amusing. We had hardly shaken 
hands, when he said to me, " I have just met a woman in Bodmin, 
with a child in her arms, who I knew lived twelve miles away, 
and must have walked that distance. I asked her what she was 
doing so far from home with her child. She said, " He 's a got 
the thrish, and I've a brought un in for a boy to blaw in the 
mouth of un, that never knawed his vather." A posthumous 
child was to cure the thrush by blowing in her boy's mouth, and 
she had carried her boy all that way for that purpose. 
Hicks's stories were far-famed, were wont to set the table in a 
roar, and amuse a large party the whole evening. He had the 
great merit of being good company in any society in wdiich he 
found himself, of whatever rank in life it might be ; and he 
picked up many of his best stories by being on intimate terms 
