Boscastle

“ Its activity is maintained by the daily arrival and departure of cars from Camelford, Bude, Otterham, and Tintagel, bringing many visitors in the summer season. Some come to stay, but most make only a fleeting call; Nature has placed grave obstacles in the way of Boscastle's ever becoming a fashionable watering-place. Its charm is unique and undeniable; but it appeals to the artist, the sturdy pedestrian and climber, the lover of solitude that at times is absolute desolation, rather than to the parent of a family. ”

“ Thus in due time, steered by Paul Poindester, a famous pilot from the Scilly Isles, the Koithgath, with the bells on board, arrived in the offing and in sight of Boscastle, with all its furzy hollows, above which rose the castle of Bottreaux, with the standard of its owner flying—a great banner, bearing three toads and a griffin. ”

“ Hammond that there are all sorts of ruins for her to choose from, with all sorts of architecture, and all sorts of legends attached. For example, there's Egremont Priory."
"That's Boscastle's place, isn't it?" said Lord Dollamore, from the other end of the table; "who made the legend about that? one of the family probably; for there never was a Boscastle yet who was known to speak truth, even by accident."
"First-rate place for wild-ducks," said Major Winton: "don't send any confounded picnic people there, Maxse; they'll scare the birds." ”

“ Boscastle, taking its name from the old Norman family of Bottreaux (though there are many other place-names in Cornwall beginning with bos, which means abode or dwelling-place) , is certainly the most romantic and picturesque haven in the Duchy, though there may be others that surpass it in actual beauty. The coast has a wild grandeur rather than loveliness, and in dismal or stormy weather there is a weird, solemn gloom. The little town lies sheltered at the head of a gorge in which two rivulets meet and form the haven. ”

“ Boscastle Harbour.
[185]
Strange, striking, and utterly unique is the first aspect of this village by the sea. The gorge or valley lies between two vast and precipitous hills, that yawn asunder as though they had been cleft by the spells of some giant warlock [130] of the West, like the Eildon Hill by Michael Scott. [131] As you descend the hill from the north you discover on the opposite side clusters of quaint old-fashioned houses, grotesque and gabled, that appear as though they clung together for mutual support on the slope of that perilous cliff. ”

“ After the High Cliff the shore gradually assumes a less terrific aspect, until Boscastle, with its tiny firth and its blow-holes, is reached. This little straggling place took its name from Botreaux Castle (or Castel-boterel) , which was built here in the twelfth century. The last Lord Botreaux died in 1462, and of the castle only a grassy mount, called Jordans, from a neighbouring stream, remains. This mount is on the hill, that steep and wooded hill which leads down into Boscastle, and on the sides of which the houses are hung like birds' nests on a cliff. ”

“ The place lies some fourteen or fifteen miles from Boscastle, a dangerous little harbour on the North Cornish coast, and about a mile off the main road from London, by Exeter and Launceston, to Falmouth. The coach travellers in old days consumed a good deal of spirits, and here in a tangle of lanes lay a little emporium always kept well supplied with a stock of spirits which had not paid duty, and whence the taverners along the road could derive the contraband liquor, with which they supplied the travellers. ”

“ To the south-west of Boscastle is Willapark Head, and beyond it are some caves which until recently were haunted, as was all this north-western coast, by mild-eyed seals. "A man with a gun" and the English instinct to "go out and kill something," an instinct useful in the days of the mammoth and the cave-tiger, but more than a little tiresome in our present state of civilisation, is responsible for their disappearance. ”

“ The hilly part of the common being unfit for cultivation is stocked in common all the year round.
Boscastle has two churches, that of Forrabury, which has been too zealously restored, deal having been substituted for the sixteenth-century oak benches and for the old pulpit that was covered with arabesques, and Minster. Near Minster, on Waterpit Downs, is a fine specimen of Celtic interlaced work on a cross shaft. It is now rescued, but for many years it served to bear the pivot of a threshing-machine. The church itself stands on the chancel site of an old minster. ”

“ Bottreaux is the parish church of Boscastle, a corruption of Bottreaux castle, and its tower is, and always has been, silent. When it was built the inhabitants, who had long been jealous of the beautiful peal at Tintagel, a neighbouring village, aided by the Lord of Bottreaux, raised enough money to buy a set for themselves, cast by a famous London founder. But when the ship that brought them was nearly in port the sound of Tintagel bells was in the calm evening borne across the water. ”

“ We endeavoured to sound the local mind of our informant as to the history of the place and origin of the grave; but all we could drag out of her, after questions again and again, was “great warriors, supposing, in old times.” Such was the dirge of the mighty dead, and their requiem, at Warbstow Barrow. But the sun had begun to lean, and we were bound for Boscastle, the breviate of Bottreau [128] Castle, and the abode of the earls [129] of that name. ”

“ A man cannot know modes of life as well in Minorca as in London; but he may study mathematicks as well in Minorca.' BOSWELL. 'I don't know, Sir: if you had remained ten years in the Isle of Col, you would not have been the man that you now are.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, if I had been there from fifteen to twenty-five; but not if from twenty-five to thirty-five.' BOSWELL. 'I own, Sir, the spirits which I have in London make me do every thing with more readiness and vigour. ”

“ For all his love of a post-chaise, Johnson was happiest in London. "You yourself, Sir," said Boswell when they were in the Hebrides "have never seen, till now, any thing but your native island." "Johnson. 'But, Sir, by seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can shew.' Boswell. 'You have not seen Pekin.' Johnson. 'What is Pekin? Ten thousand Londoners would drive all the people of Pekin: they would drive them like deer.'"
The town, he said, was his element. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is to be hoped that the day will at length come when those in whose veins Boswell's blood still flows will take that just and reasonable view of their famous forefather which will lead them, from time to time, to throw open "the rocks and woods," and even "the stately house" of Auchinleck to strangers from afar. It was he who "Johnsonised the land," and they therefore should have some indulgence for the enthusiasm which he created. "The sullen dignity of the castle with which Johnson was delighted" they should not keep altogether to themselves. ”

“ The true highlander never wears more than a riband on her head, till she is married.
On the third day Boswell went out, with old Malcolm, to see a ruined castle, which he found less entire than was promised, but he saw the country. I did not go, for the castle was, perhaps, ten miles off, and there is no riding at Raarsa, the whole island being rock or mountain, from which the cattle often fall, and are destroyed. It is very barren, and maintains, as near as I could collect, about seven hundred inhabitants, perhaps ten to a square mile. ”

“ He was speared in seven places in New Ireland—the same time his mate was killed—the famous “outrage on the brig Jolly Roger”; but the treacherous savages made little by their wickedness, and Bostock, in spite of their teeth, got seventy-five head of volunteer labour on board, of whom not more than a dozen died of injuries. He had a hand, besides, in the amiable pleasantry which cost the life of Patteson; and when the sham bishop landed, prayed, and gave his benediction to the natives, Bostock, arrayed in a female chemise out of the traderoom, had stood at his right hand and boomed amens. ”

“ Two of Boswell’s tenants were James and William Murdoch. They and their forefathers had possessed their farms for many generations. [814] Perhaps not only the Life of Boswell, but illumination by gas takes its rise from Auchinleck.
The village consists mainly of one long street of solidly-built stone houses; the older ones thatched and often white-washed, the modern ones slated. At the back are good gardens well stocked with fruit trees. Bare feet are far more common here than in the Highlands or Hebrides. All the children, with scarcely an exception, and many of the women, go bare-footed. ”

“ Sir James Macdonald, “the Marcellus of Scotland,” as Boswell called him, had intended to build a village there, but by his untimely death the design had come to nothing. There seems to have been little more than the public-house at which the travellers dined. “It was,” Johnson believed, “the only one of the island.” He forgot, however, as Boswell pointed out to him when he read his narrative, another at Sconser, and a third at Dunvegan. “These,” Boswell adds, “are the only inns properly so called. There are many huts where whisky is sold.” ”

“ By a miracle almost the noble fugitive got out of the town, which was filled with Parliamentary soldiers, and shaped his course towards the south. I was proceeding slowly in the same direction, when Providence—for I like not to call it chance—brought us together near Newport. At the house of a Royalist gentleman named Watson, we met another true man, Mr. Snead, who volunteered to conduct us to a lonely house called Boscobel, standing on the borders of two counties—Shropshire and Staffordshire—where we could remain safely hidden till our wounds were healed. ”

“ Our means of knowledge of James Boswell are derived mainly from himself; he is his own incriminator. In addition to the life there is the Corsican tour, the Hebrides tour, the letters to Erskine and to Temple, and a few insignificant occasional publications in the shape of letters to the people of Scotland, etc. With these before him it is impossible for any biographer to approach Bozzy in a devotional attitude; he was all Carlyle calls him. ”

“ Whatever nature could do, the force of art could no farther go last century than make a place neat. Boswell, before they left next morning, in vain tried to move{292} Johnson to visit the Palace of Hamilton, as the Duke’s castle is called. “He had not come to Scotland to see fine places of which there were enough in England.” He would do nothing more than view the outside. ”

“ But Boscawen, perceiving that our ships would thereby be disabled before their guns could be brought to bear upon the French line, and his ship being a very superior sailer to any of the rest, and being, besides, the leading ship of the van, pressed forward with a crowd of sail, received himself the greatest part of the enemy's fire, and singly maintained the conflict until the remainder of the fleet came up to his support; by which daring but judicious manœuvre he principally contributed to the success with which on that day the British arms were crowned. ”

“ After the death of George Fitz-Roy, in the year 1722, Hugh Boscawen, of Tregothnan, Esq. Lord Warden of the Stannaries, was created by King George, Lord Boscawen of Tregothnan, Baron Boscawen of Boscawen Ros, in Burian, and Viscount Falmouth.
In this parish, on the lands of the manor of Arwynick (the Icta and Island of Diodorus Siculus aforesaid) , upon 12 a lofty peninsula or promontory of land, stands the famous and impregnable Castle of Pendennis, for which the Crown pays annually to the lord of the manor aforesaid, out of the Exchequer, about 13l. 6s. 8d. rent, as I take it. ”

“ So I read and laugh over my Boswell in the library when the lamps are lit, buried in cushions and surrounded by every sign of civilisation, with the drawn curtains shutting out the garden and the country solitude so much disliked by both sage and disciple. Indeed, it is Bozzy who asserts that in the country the only things that make one happy are meals. "I was happy," he says, when stranded at a place called Corrichatachin in the Island of Skye, and unable to get out of it because of the rain,—"I was happy when tea came. Such I take it is the state of those who live in the country. ”

“ No wonder Bozzy’s relatives got tired of his last hobby, his very subject himself got tired. “Sir,” said the sage, “you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.” Yet Bozzy knew what he was about when he stuck to his one topic. After his idol was gone, what was there for him but the bottle? It was one of the earliest recollections of Lord Jeffrey that he had assisted as a boy in putting the biographer to bed in a state of absolute unconsciousness. Next morning Boswell was told of the service rendered: he clapped the lad on the head, and complacently congratulated him. ”

“ He related to me the following minute anecdote of this period: 'In the last age, when my mother lived in London, there were two sets of people, those who gave the wall, and those who took it; the peaceable and the quarrelsome. When I returned to Lichfield, after having been in London, my mother asked me, whether I was one of those who gave the wall, or those who took it. Now it is fixed that every man keeps to the right; or, if one is taking the wall, another yields it; and it is never a dispute [162] .'
He now removed to London with Mrs. Johnson ”