PADSTOW.
The Bookworm discovered that Cornwall had somehow linked itself with great names in history, or, rather, that some great names had linked themselves with Cornwall, using her as a gallant for a season, and then passing out of her life. Camelford had three successful wooers in Lord Lansdowne, Lord Brougham, and "Ossian" Macpherson; Lostwithiel was wooed and won by Joseph Addison; then Horace Walpole, jilted at Callington, made up to East Looe, still attractive, when the great Lord Palmerston came along with a buttonhole in his coat and the blarney. Then John Hampden found a first love in Grampound, and Sir Francis Drake a soft place in the bosom of Bossiney, a mere village close to the angry roar of Tintagel's sea. But all these seats were mere lights o' love, and some were swept away on account of their dissoluteness before the great Reform Bill, and then the rest went, and none were remembered on account of their gallant political lovers. Guy said it didn't make a bit of difference what the constituency was, or where, so long as the man was right. He saw a great many advantages in the old pocket borough; and if he ever went into Parliament (which he might) as a stepping-stone to the Woolsack (like the veteran Lord Chancellor, who found comfortable quarters at Launceston), he'd like to have the fewest number of constituents, and those all of one mind. But the Bookworm would not have it that way, and stuck to his guns that it was the constituency which really had a seat in Parliament, and constituency and member were one and indivisible; and when not, there was failure somewhere in first principles. The Bookworm always takes these things so seriously, Guy says.
[Chapter VIII]
Most of the saints came into Cornwall, dropping little bits of fame and reputation as they travelled from parish to parish, and from holy well to holy well. Old Fuller says they were born under a travelling planet, "neither bred where born, nor beneficed where bred, nor buried where beneficed," but wandering ever. Cornwall is known as the "Land of Saints," and county teams are usually "Saints." "The Saints v. Week-enders. Six goals to three. Five to one on Saints." It sounds a bit curious, but you get used to it.