CORNISH WORTHIES:

SKETCHES OF SOME EMINENT CORNISH MEN AND FAMILIES.

WALTER H. TREGELLAS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. I.

'Cornubia fulsit

Tot fœcunda viris.'

Joseph of Exeter (XIIIth century).

LONDON:

ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

1884.

I Dedicate

THESE SKETCHES OF SOME OF

MY NATIVE COUNTY'S WORTHIES

TO THE WORTHIEST OF WOMEN,—

MY WIFE.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

	PAGE
Preludes	[vii]
Introduction	[xi]
————
RALPH ALLEN; the Man of Business and
Philanthropist	[1]
JOHN ANSTIS; the Herald	[27]
THE ARUNDELLS OF LANHERNE, TRERICE AND
TOLVERNE; Ecclesiastics and Warriors	[35]
THE BASSETS OF TEHIDY	[107]
ADMIRAL WILLIAM BLIGH, F.R.S.	[137]
THOMASINE BONAVENTURA (Dame Thomasine
Percival), Lady Mayoress of London	[149]
HENRY BONE, R.A.; The Enamelist	[159]
Rev. Dr. WILLIAM BORLASE, F.R.S.; the
Antiquary	[167]
THE BOSCAWENS	[189]
DAVY; the Man of Science	[245]
ADMIRAL VISCOUNT EXMOUTH	[289]
SAMUEL FOOTE; Wit and Dramatist	[309]
THE GODOLPHINS OF GODOLPHIN; Statesmen,
Jurists, and Divines	[337]
————
INDEX	[Vol ii. 365]

[PRELUDES.]

For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers: (for we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:) shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart?'—Job viii. 8-10.

'Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us. The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through His great power from the beginning. Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring prophecies: leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their knowledge of learning meet for the people: wise and eloquent in their instructions: such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing: rich men furnished with ability, living peaceably in their habitations: all these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times. There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them. But these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not been forgotten.'—Ecclesiasticus xliv. 1-10.

'Hic manus, ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi:
Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat:
Quique pii vates et Phœbo digna locuti:
Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes:
Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo:
Omnibus his nivea cinguntur tempora vitta.'

Æneid, vi.

'Patriots who perished for their country's right,
Or nobly triumphed in the field of fight:
There holy priests and sacred poets stood,
Who sung with all the raptures of a god:
Worthies, who life by useful arts refined,
With those who leave a deathless name behind,
Friends of the world, and fathers of mankind.'

Pitt's Translation.

'* * yf I have sayed a misse, I am content that any man amende it, or if I have sayd to lytle, any man that wyl to adde what hym pleaseth to it. My mind is, in profitynge and pleasynge every man, to hurte or displease no man.'

Introduction to Roger Ascham's 'Toxophilus.'

''Tis opportune to look back upon old times, and contemplate our forefathers. Great examples grow thin, and to be fetched from the passed world.'

Sir Thomas Browne to Thomas Le Gros,
in the Epistle Dedicatory to the 'Hydriotaphia.'

'It is a reverend thing to see an ancient castle or building not in decay; or to see a fair timber-tree sound and perfect;—how much more to behold an ancient noble family, which hath stood against the waves and weathers of time?'

Bacon.

'The Lord Bacon's Judgment of a Work of this Nature.'

* * * * *

'I do much admire that these times have so little esteemed the vertues of the times, as that the writing of Lives should be no more frequent. For although there be not many soveraign princes, or absolute commanders, and that states are most collected into monarchies; yet are there many worthy personages that deserve better than dispersed report, or barren elogies; for herein the invention of one of the late poets is proper, and doth well inrich the ancient fiction. For he faineth, that at the end of the thread or web of every man's life, there was a little medal containing the person's name; and that Time waiteth upon the Sheers, and as soon as the thread was cut, caught the medals, and carried them to the river Lethe; and about the bank there were many birds flying up and down, and would get the medals, and carry them in their beak a little while, and then let them fall into the river. Onely there were a few Swans, which if they got a name, would carry it to a temple where it was consecrate.'

In Lloyd's State Worthies, vol. i.

'It is a melancholy reflection to look back on so many great families as have formerly adorned the county of Cornwall, and are now no more: the Grenvilles, the Arundells, Carminows, Champernons, Bodrugans, Mohuns, Killegrews, Bevilles, Trevarions, which had great sway and possessions in these parts. The most lasting families have only their seasons, more or less, of a certain constitutional strength. They have their spring and summer sunshine glare, their wane, decline, and death: they flourish and shine perhaps for ages;—at last they sicken; their light grows pale, and, at a crisis when the off-sets are withered and the old stock is blasted, the whole tribe disappears, and leave the world as they have done Cornwall. There are limits ordained to everything under the sun: man will not abide in honour.'

Dr. Borlase (as quoted by Lysons in 'Magna Britannia,'
vol. iii.—Cornwall, p. clxxiv.).

'Every man in the degree in which he has wit and culture finds his curiosity inflamed concerning the modes of living and thinking of other men.'

Emerson's 'Essay on Intellect.'

'"The biographical part of literature," said Dr. Johnson, "is what I love the best"; and his remark is echoed daily in the hearts, if not in the words, of hundreds of readers: * * * and though for the last half-century pure fiction has been in the ascendant, the popularity of biography, if not relatively, yet absolutely, seems to be continually increasing.'

Quarterly Review, No. 313, January, 1884.

[INTRODUCTION.]

The question has often been asked, 'Why is there for Cornwall no companion-book to Prince's "Worthies of Devon"?' Fuller, it is true, in his 'Worthies,' allots a section to Cornwall; but the notices, though pregnant with shrewd humour, are slight and incomplete; and Fuller, of course, is now out of date: indeed, most of the Cornishmen whose names will be found in the following pages lived since his time. The Rev. R. Polwhele, of Polwhele, one of the historians of his native county, has certainly left us some amusing notices in his 'Biographical Sketches;' but out of the sixty names that he enumerates, 'all-eating Time hath left us but a little morsel (for manners) of their memories;' and some half-dozen only seem to be sufficiently distinguished to require any further perpetuation of their fame than has been already conferred upon them by Polwhele's now scarce little work. Besides which, Polwhele, of course, had not access to the great Libraries and Collections which are now available in London, nor to the Transactions of many metropolitan and local Archæological Societies; he was, moreover, apt to be dazzled by the nearness of the effulgence of some of his characters:—and he, too, is now sixty or seventy years behind the time. Lastly, neither Fuller nor Polwhele had the advantage of the labours of those indefatigable pioneers in Cornish literature—the authors of the 'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis.'[1] Another recent work, invaluable to the would-be biographer of Cornwall's Worthies is the admirable history of Exeter College, Oxford, contained in the Register of the Rectors, Fellows, etc., by my old schoolfellow, the Rev. C. W. Boase, Fellow and Tutor of that College (Oxford, 1879). If it should be said that copious and complete biographies of one or two of my characters have already been written, I would venture to observe in reply, that these are monograph accounts only; in some cases consisting of two or three volumes, and now either out of print, or, from their bulk and cost, not generally accessible. May I allege another and a chief reason for writing this work? It is, that I thought those persons were right who considered the celebrities of my native county had not received the notice which they deserved. And yet, 'class for class,' says a writer in the Times, 28th March, 1882, 'they will beat all England.' Indeed (and I confess it with no little shame) some of those whose lives I have endeavoured to describe in the following pages, I did not myself, at one time, know to have been Cornishmen! And this although, as a Cornishman, I ought not to be altogether without the genius loci of our southernmost and westernmost county: yet—

'Semper honos, nomenque horum, laudesque manebunt.'

As regards the principle on which the lives have been selected of those who, amongst others, have been worthiest 'in arms, in arts, in song,' I may say that I have endeavoured to find such names as would be, in the first place, of sufficient importance to warrant their claims to notice being brought before the public; secondly, to make the selection as varied in character as possible; and, thirdly, to choose such as were likely to prove interesting to the general reader: for even biography itself—said by Librarians to be one of the most popular branches of the belles lettres—must prove uninteresting if dull subjects are dully treated. I earnestly trust that I have not fallen into this fatal error.

It might have been interesting to have said something of many mighty names of the past; even though numbers of them are scarcely more than legendary. Amongst others, of St. Ursula in the fourth century, 'daughter of the Cornish King Dionutus,' and Directress of the celebrated expedition of the 'eleven thousand virgins' to Cologne; of King Arthur himself; of Walter de Constantiis, Chancellor of England, and Chief Justice, in the twelfth century; of Thomas, and St. George, and Richard, and Godfrey, of Cornwall; of Odo de Tregarrick in Roche; of Simon de Thurway; of John de Trevisa,[2] the fourteenth-century scholar and divine, who was supposed to have translated part of the Bible into English; ('a daring work,' as Fuller says, 'for a private person in that age without particular command from Pope or Public Council'); and of that Syr Roger Wallyoborow, of Buryan, who, in the time of Henry VIII., 'miraculously brought home from the Holy Land a piece of the true Cross.' There are, besides, many others of later date, whose names I should have liked, but for the reasons already given, to include; such as the Bonythons;[3] the Carews; Sir John Eliot, the Patriot; Dean Miller; the Molesworths; the Edgcumbes of Mount Edgcumbe; Noy, Charles I.'s Attorney-General; Dean Prideaux; the Rashleighs; the Robarteses; the Trelawnys; the Tremaynes; and the Trevanions;—beside those whose loss to Cornwall Dr. Borlase lamented; and many others.

But there were few reliable materials for the first-named group: authentic accounts of the deeds of the legendary ancients have faded away into the 'dark backward and abysm of time;' and mere legends it was hardly worth while to perpetuate. Nor did it seem desirable to include a bare list of names, or repetitions of lives of a generally similar character; in which case the actors' names would often have been the chief variations in what was intended to be a readable, fireside book. In short, I have aimed at making my list representative rather than exhaustive.

With the object of not wearying the general reader, I have refrained from clouding my pages with minute references to authorities,—except when some special reason seemed to occur for doing so. I trust this will not be considered a defect, when I state that, for some of the lives which follow, the lists of authorities consulted would have occupied nearly one fourth of the space allotted to the lives themselves. As an instance, the number of entries given in the 'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis' for the Killigrews is 450; and one of these entries alone comprises nearly fifty items.

A most pleasing task remains to be discharged; namely, to record my heartfelt obligations to my friends, the Rev. F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, M.A., and Mr. H. Michell Whitley, C.E., for their very valuable assistance in seeing the following pages through the press.

I will only add, in the words of that delightful biographer, Izaak Walton, in his 'Life of George Herbert':

'I have used very great diligence to inform myself, that I might inform my reader of the truth of what follows; and, though I cannot adorn it with eloquence, yet I will do it with sincerity.'

W. H. T.

Morlah Lodge,
16, Tregunter Road,
London, S. W.