Through the mountains and morasses,
To the home of Hakon old.
"Then his cruisings o'er the seas,
Westward to the Hebrides,
And to Scilly's rocky shore,
And the hermit's cavern dismal,
Christ's great name and rites baptismal,
In the ocean's rush and roar."
S. Mary's is the largest of the islands, and it has a population of over 1600 people; Tresco is the second; then S. Agnes, pronounced S. Anne's; then S. Martin's; next Bryher; after this comes S. Sampson, no longer inhabited; and the remainder are very small. The original population was doubtless Silurian or Ivernian; the traces, however, of this early race are few. The population now is less pure than on the mainland. Not only were there Irish colonists, but it is said that in the Civil Wars a Bedfordshire regiment was sent there--and forgotten; so the soldiers looked about for comely Scilly maids, married, and were content to be no more remembered in the adjacent island of Great Britain. In 1649 Sir John Grenville employed Scilly as a great nursery for privateers, and so swept the seas that the Channel trade was seriously injured. Parliament at length fitted out and despatched an expedition under Blake, and in June, 1651, compelled Sir John Grenville to surrender.
The islands belong to the Duchy of Cornwall, and thereby leased to the late Mr. Augustus Smith, who, firmly imbued with the notion that men must be manufactured by education rather than allowed to bring themselves up in independence, transported the population from the smaller islands and planted them about the schools. No doubt that the native originality, freshness, and force will be drilled out of the new generation, and they will all spell and think, and write and act alike. It is, however, sad to notice on islands now deserted the ruins of ancient farms.