Davies Gilbert

“ Thus Prince again, the author of the Antiquities of Oxford, is positive that this family of Carew was denominated from Castle Carew, in Pembrokeshire, and not otherwise. Thus God in his providence, to check our presumptious inquisitions and pretensions, hath wrapped all things in uncertainty, bars us from long antiquity, and bounds our search within the compass of some few ages, scarcely affording any true record of pedigrees or descents as far back as the Norman Conquest, whatsoever to the contrary is by some men and families pretended. ”

“ And happy it is that these endeavours, enforced by the seasonable and gracious assistance of his majesty, had the desired effect. To consider this affair in its full extent, it ought on the one hand to be looked upon as a strong proof that the King will make use of the extraordinary as well as the ordinary powers of his government, only for protection and security of his people; and on the other hand, that the gentlemen of England will unite in the support of the laws, and of legal, well established government, against all attempts of any kind whatsoever to introduce disorder and confusion. ”

“ They have left an only son, John Hearle Tremayne, married to Caroline, daughter of the late Sir William Lemon.
It is impossible to say too much in praise of the late Mr. Henry Hawkins Tremayne: possessed of good abilities, of a sound understanding, of practical knowledge of business, and of the utmost kindness of heart, he became the father of his neighbourhood, reconciling all disputes, adjusting all differences, and tempering the administration of justice with lenity and forbearance. ”

“ At the end of each parish I have added the common statistics:—the number of acres from the measurement of Mr. Hitchins; the value of the real property; the account of poor rate, and of the population at the four periods of numeration, from the Parliamentary Returns. And through the great kindness and liberality of Doctor Boase, I have been enabled to subjoin to these the geology of each parish, deduced from an actual survey in person of the whole county, by that very intelligent and experienced geologist, chemist, and physiologist. ”

“ But alas! still the lofty current of the river Val, in winter season, was such a malicious and invincible enemy to this noble project, that, as before, it continually undermined the walls of those sluices for about the space of twenty years, so that the very worthy gentlemen aforesaid, in order honestly to defray the charges of this work, hath spent the greatest part of this fine estate, and given over his undertaking as too difficult and unprofitable an enterprise. ”

“ King Arthur no sooner succeeded to his father's dominions but he applied himself with great piety and religion to administer law and justice to his people, the best expedients to establish a tottering sceptre. In the next place he took care to fortify and strengthen himself with soldiers and arms against his Saxon enemies, a mighty and warlike people, then possessed of the greatest part of this kingdom by the late misfortunes of his father and other princes, in battle with them, so that only Wiltshire, Devon, Dorset, Cornwall, and Wales, made up his dominion. ”

“ So that if you give your estate by will unequally among your children, as they may have behaved more or less dutiful to you, that which has the least may take the other's part from him; or another relation may possibly hire such another mob, to take away the whole from them. We shall not at such times see property determined by judge and jury, but by force of arms; and the richest and most powerful man will be able to swallow up all the estates of his lesser neighbours. ”

“ As the town of Callington is approached, the slate becomes of a darker blue, and passes into hornblend rock, which prevails in the other parts of the parish, and in several places so much abounds in quartz as to form barren downs. ”

“ King Uter understanding of Gothlouis' departure from Caer-Iske, soon marched after him with his army into Cornwall, and laid siege to the castle of Dameliock, that is to say, the house or place of skirmish, battle, or hazard of war, and no sooner approached the lines, but he sent an herald or trumpet to Gothlouis, demanding the surrender of himself and castle on mercy. Gothlouis, rewarding the trumpet, returned answer, "that he gave King Uter no just cause of war, or for breaking the league or invading his country, and wasting the same in such barbarous manner. ”

“ Allen fixed himself at Bath, and built the splendid mansion of Prior Park with the oolite of that district, or Bath stone, which he first quarried on an extensive scale and brought into general use. At Prior Park every man distinguished in any way was a welcome guest, and the proprietor has received most justly, deserved tributes of applause from many capable of erecting monuments to his memory more durable than those of brass or stone ”

“ It is excavated entirely in a white granite, somewhat similar to the disintegrating variety above alluded to; and when the sun shines, the reflection of light is so exceedingly dazzling as to be almost insupportable. The tin ore occurs here intermixed with shorl and quartz, in the form of short irregular veins, which traverse the granite in every direction, and so abundant, that the whole rock requires to be pounded and washed to complete an entire separation of the ore. ”

“ The house stands on an elevation near the union of two valleys, each rendered interesting, beautiful, and picturesque by streams of water flowing through uneven gronnd, and by native woods of beech and oak, rivalling the trees of our most favoured inland counties, although these vallies originate in wild tracts of land where not a stunted shrub is to be seen. ”

“ In describing the general features of Cornwall, we must not omit to mention the metalliferous veins the great source of its commercial prosperity and the channel through which much curious information has been obtained, concerning the structure of the earth. These veins traverse indifferently both the granite and the slate, but are most abundant in the latter rock, in the vicinity of the granite. ”

“ The latter is that chapel which stood on the summit of a hill north of Bodmin, called Berry, from some castle or fort upon it, I suppose, and giving name to the valley below it, Berrycoomb, or Bereum. The remains of this chapel are merely a tower, neat but slight, making a considerable object to the road from its elevation, yet small in its rise, or its pitch, and carrying a face of no great antiquity, being merely three hundred years old. The town, says tradition, stood formerly here, was burnt down, and then removed to its present site. ”

“ But, alas! maugre those contrivance, the said John Dynham, before the King's navy could be provided and got together, out of affection to the Duke of York, the Earl of March and his confederates, like a daring, valiant, courageous, and invincible hero, as he was, with a small company of armed men, boarded the Earl of Somerset's ships in the harbour of Sandwich, and therein took the Lord Rivers, designed for his admiral against Calais, and by a strong hand carried him and all his ships thither ”

“ But Rogers got several persons, ignorant and lawless as himself, to remain with him in the house, which had been barricaded and adapted for defence, and great numbers of people, partly from curiosity, but in part also to countenance his resistance, having assembled on the spot, the civil power was completely resisted, and two men killed by shots from the house; the Under Sheriff himself having narrowly escaped,—as he states in his evidence, rather ludicrously, that the discharge of a gun from the house burnt his wig and singed his face. ”

“ It consists of immense rocks piled one on the other, to the height of twenty or thirty feet, and it leans so much, that a perpendicular dropped from its top would, I may venture to say, reach the bottom fifteen or more feet from its base; and from where we stood on the ridge, its support at the base appeared so slight as if a man could shove the whole mass over the precipice. ”

“ It seems very improbable that King Athelstan, after founding and splendidly endowing a church to commemorate or to sanctify bis conquest of Cornwall, should bestow on it a name so very indiscriminate as The burial-ground; more especially at a time when missionaries from Ireland had recently converted the inhabitants to Christianity, and had left to posterity a reputation for piety so elevated as to invest them at once with the appellation of saints, and to procure for them, in after times, the dedication of almost all the churches throughout the County. ”

“ Boscawanrose, in this parish, gave name and habitation to the famous and honourable family of Boscawan, who, led away, as many other Cornish gentlemen have been, by the similarity of sound between words in the Kernawish tongue and others in French or in Latin, have mistaken rose a valley, for the flower a rose; and more anciently they are said to have borne in their arms, besides a rose, an ox, having mistaken the word bos, which signifies a house or dwelling, for the name of that animal. ”

“ Statesmen by profession, and many inclined to support the existing order of things by their situation in life, and by their connection, obtained admission also into Parliament in the same manner, and all these, united with the representatives of counties, and of large towns, formed an assembly, owing its existence, no doubt, to accidental causes, but, in the opinion of many wise and experienced men, better adapted to the government of a great country than any one that the world had seen, or than could be established by systematic arrangements. ”

“ It is impossible not be struck by a general resemblance between the two individuals who last possessed Boconnoc, of the families of Mohun and Pitt. Both seem to have been men of ability and of genius, of intrepid courage and of honour, fond of enterprise, and with vigour of body commensurate to their mental energies ”

“ Two or three hundred fathoms from the sea, and about eighty fathoms above it, under this sand, is to be seen for about five foot deep, nothing but such totty-stones as are usually washed on the sea-shore, and in many of them grains of tin. Under those stones the soil or matter of the earth, for five or six feet deep, is nothing to be seen but carne-tyer, id est, spar-stone land or earth, under which spar-stone earth appears the firm rock, through which tin-loads are wrought or pursued by the tinners fifty, sixty, and seventy fathoms deep. ”

“ Clare appears to have been the first female disciple of St. Francis, or at least the first raised by him to eminence and power, acquisitions far more captivating to the human mind, than wealth with all its passive luxuries and enjoyments. ”

“ With respect to the stones called the Hurlers being once men, I will say with Hals, 'Did but the ball which these Hurlers used when flesh and blood, appear directly over them immoveably pendant in the air, one might be apt to credit some little of the tale;' but as this is not the case, I must add my belief of their being erected by the Druids for some purpose or other, probably a court of justice; long subsequent to which erection, however, they may have served as the goal for hurl players. ”

“ For the etymology of the first compound word, it signifies the safe, secure, or impregnable fort or fortress; for the second, safe, secure, impregnable, or invincible man; or a man so fortified, magnified, or fenced, by art or nature, that he was not liable to hurt or danger, referring perhaps to the King or Earl of Cornwall, whose fort or castle it was; as also the manor of Dundagell, contiguous therewith, privileged with the jurisdiction of a court leet, and other marks of grandeur over the adjacent country, still pertaining to the Duke of Cornwall. ”

“ It is possible, however, that rain being held in a natural hollow of a rock, may decompose that part of the rock on which it rests, and being whirled about by the wind from time to time, may form these basons which we attribute to art; and if this is the case, they must continue increasing in size and depth. Have such basons ever been seen but on granite rocks? ”

“ Since it has pleased Almighty God so to constitute the world, that the human race should every where increase up to the very limit of subsistence, all countries must witness by far the greater portion of their inhabitants exposed to the dangers of privation, of poverty, and of distress, incapable of being mitigated in any way, except by the prudence, the care, and the general good conduct of the parties themselves ”

“ The cliffs all round this island and decayed castle are from the sea inaccessible, excepting in one place on the east, where is an indifferent landing place for boats; but the same is artificially barred with a long lofty and strong wall of lime and stone, through which was a gate, called in British, Porth Home, Anglice Iron Gate, leading to the hill. Under this island the sea runneth through a natural cave or arch of rocks, where boats may pass at full sea without danger, though scarcely without horror and amazement of the passengers ”

“ The borough of Bossiney, known in this county by the name of Tintagel, is a very small village, and contains scarcely twenty houses, and those not better than cottages. This place, with Trevenna, another little hamlet equally mean, lie in the parish of Tintagel, from which church they are at no great distance, and with it make up the one borough. It was privileged by Richard Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, who granted "Quod Burgus noster de Tyntaivil sit liber Burgus." It is governed by a mayor. The first return of Members to serve in Parliament is in the reign of Edward the Sixth. ”

“ As regards the soil, on the high grounds it is frequently very shallow and barren; but in the valleys it is very productive, and here and there is well wooded, more particularly on the southern coast. On the northern coast, in the vicinity of the sea, it is very sandy, owing to the light testaceous sand of the shore being carried inland by high winds; in this manner no inconsiderable tracts of fertile land have been devastated.
Let us now turn our attention to the internal or geological structure of Cornwall. ”