WILLIAM ROBERT HICKS, OF BODMIN. 
71 
to Mr. Burnard, and says I to the 7-talian, this is rather crips 
material. Why don't you take a slab of alabaster and cut his 
Honour out? And there you be, fixed upon the pinacles (he 
meant pedestal) in the Council Hall above, for ever and ever, and 
ever and ever, till you and me mit together in the land of marrer 
and fatness." 
Another speech he used to give was made by a farmer, who 
had had notice to quit, at a rent dinner, with the landlord in 
the chair. The farmer said : 
" I rise to propose the health of the honourable chairman. The 
honourable chairman hath a zaid what he 'th a din for the varmer ; 
but a hathen'd a zaid what the varmer 'th a din for he. The true 
varmer's vriend was maister Coke, the late Earl of Leicester that 
was, and if the honourable chairman wid do what maister Coke 
did do, he wid do a good deal better than a do do." 
He heard a man say in a speech, "An Englishman's house is 
his castle ; the storms may assail it, and the winds whistle round 
it, but the king cannot do so." A ludicrous perversion of a 
well-known quotation. 
Another said : " Those was troublous times ; and when a man 
laid hisself down at night, he did not know that he should get 
up in the same position in the morning." 
He heard a well-knoAvn magistrate say to a jury, who had 
applied to adjourn for luncheon, "All I can say to you, gentlemen, 
is, that the longer you sit there, the sooner you will get away." 
It was of course a slip of the tongue, but no absurdity escaped 
Hicks. 
Among Hicks's own speeches may be mentioned one he delivered 
in returning thanks for the ladies at a flower show. He referred 
to a number of flowers by their long Latin botanical names, and 
then said he thought the good old English names better adapted 
to ladies, such as " Forget-me-not," " Boy's Love," " Meadow 
Sweet," " Bachelor's Buttons," " Look-up-and-kiss-me," " Love- 
lies-bleeding," and " Sweet William," taking care that the last 
should be applicable to himself. He told the Looe people, in 
a speech on the occasion of opening the new bridge, that they 
might now play the game of unlimited loo. 
He was a man of taste, and had many friends amongst artists, 
as well as musicians, who valued his criticisms on their art. One 
