The Rev. J. Jane, son of the gentleman who kept the school at Truro, became a student and tutor at Christ Church, from whenee he retired to the college living of Iron Acton in Gloucestershire.
Truro has produced its fair proportion of men distinguished by their proficiencies in literature, arts, sciences, and arms. Of persons living, I would select the Rev. Richard Polwhele, as an eminent historian, poet, and divine; and the Right Honourable General Sir Hussey Vivian, companion in arms of the Duke of Wellington, an active partaker in the glories of Waterloo, since commander-in-chief of Ireland, and now (1836) occupying, perhaps, the highest office of the government not included in the cabinet.
An individual, little if at all remembered, emanated from Truro in the sixteenth century, if he was not born there. Wood says, in the Athenæ Oxonienses:
“Thomas Farnabie, the most noted schoolmaster of his time, son of Thomas Farnabie, of London, carpenter, son of —— Farnabie, sometime Mayor of Truro in Cornwall, was born in London about 1575, and became a Student of Merton College in 1590; but being wild he made no long stay there, but left the college very abruptly, and went into Spain, and was for some time educated in a college belonging to the Jesuits. He left them, however, and being minded to take a ramble, went with Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkyns in their last voyage; afterwards, it is said, he was a soldier in the Low Countries. Having suffered great distress after his return, he at last succeeded in establishing a school in Goldsmiths’ Rents, near Red Cross Street in London, where at one time he made up a number exceeding three hundred generous
youths. At length, upon occasion of some sickness, he removed about 1636 to Sevenoaks in Kent, in the neighbourhood of which place (at Oxford) he had purchased an estate, and taught there the sons of several neighbouring gentlemen, by which he acquired considerable wealth, and purchased another estate near Horsham in Sussex. He suffered some loss and imprisonment in the Civil War on account of his taking the Royalty side, and died at Sevenoaks, where he is buried, in the chancel of the church, with the following inscription:
“P. M. Viri ornatissimi Thomæ Farnabii Armigeri, causæ olim Regiæ, reique publicæ, sed literariæ vindicis acerrimi, obiit 12 Junii 1647.
“Vatibus hic sacris qui lux Farnabius olim,
Vate carens saxo nunc sine luce jacet.”
His principal works are,
Notes on the Satyrs of Juvenal and Persius.