THE EDITOR.
Mr. Hals has given the history of St. Gordian at very great length, to whom, without the slighest authority, he assumes this church and parish to have been dedicated. I have omitted the whole, as entirely unconnected with Cornwall, and because the very existence of such a saint is at the least doubtful. The writers of legends now content themselves with stating that some one of that name was beheaded at Rome in the year 362, as appears from the ancient Martyrologies; that his body lay many centuries in a cave, together with the remains of St. Epimachus, brought there from Alexandria, and that both relics are preserved in the Benedictine Abbey of Kempton, in the diocese of Ansbury.
The tradition of St. Germoe having been a king in his native country, is cherished by the inhabitants up to the present time, and they point to his tomb or shrine in the churchyard, with an evident feeling of their being elevated by his dignity.
But, on whatever grounds the ancient claims of this parish may rest to a canonized or to a royal patron, the village of Bojil has in modern times bestowed more real honour on the whole district, than could be derived from regal missionaries or from legendary saints.
In the parish register of Breage may be seen the following entry: “William, the son of William Lemon, of Germo, was baptized the 15th day of November, 1696.”
I have endeavoured, but without much success, to collect
information respecting this very extraordinary man. It appears that his father and mother, whose maiden name was Rodda, were in a situation of life raised above the common level, and that they bestowed on their son the best education easily attainable, who on his part became eminently distinguished among his companions. If young Lemon ever, therefore, employed himself in executing the inferior labours usually performed by mining boys, as some have alleged with the view of increasing the wonder of his subsequent progress, and others impelled by less laudable motives, it is clear that they must have been undertaken from a desire of making himself practically acquainted with all the details of perhaps the most delicate operations in metallurgy.
His bodily strength and firmness of mind seem to have been commensurate with those abilities, which displayed themselves most conspicuously in after life. Within my recollection, the people of Breage and Germoe were fond of relating that Squire Lemon in his youth made the foremost link of a living chain, which, connected only by the grasp of their hands, extended itself into a tremendous surf, and rescued various human beings from a watery grave.
At a very early age, Mr. Lemon became one of the managers of a tin-smelting house at Chiandower, near Penzance; and the career which he pursued with so much ability and success, was traced for him at this place.
The ancient mining of Cornwall, like that of Banka in the present day, had been confined for a long succession of ages to merely collecting diluvial deposits of tin ore, which, from its great specific gravity, is always found beneath every other debrit, and immediately incumbent on the solid rock, or unmoved strata, provincially called “the Fast.” As the first operation invariably consists in washing away the lighter ingredients, by agitating the whole in streams, which never fail of gliding through the vallies where alone these deposits are found, the name “stream-work” has