DAVIES GILBERT, (continued 2)

Mr. Borlase received the early part of his education at Penzance, but in 1709 removed to Plymouth. In March 1712-13 he became a member of Exeter College; and in June 1719, took his degree of Master of Arts. In 1720 he was ordained priest, and in 1722 he received institution to the rectory of Ludgvan in Cornwall. In 1732 the Lord Chancellor King presented him to the vicarage of St. Just, his native parish, the only preferments he ever obtained.

In the parishes of Ludgvan and St. Just were at that time rich mines of copper and of tin, abounding with a great variety of curious minerals. These he collected, and 52 from that pursuit was led to study at large the natural history of this most interesting county.

The numerous monuments of remote antiquity scattered over the hills and promontories of Cornwall, made also deep impressions on his mind, and he availed himself of every resource placed within his reach, by previous learning and erudition, to acquire a knowledge of the Druidical learning, and of the manners and customs of the ancient Britons previously to their becoming Christians. In 1750 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1753 published in a folio volume, at Oxford, “The Antiquities of Cornwall.” A second edition in the same form came out at London in the year 1769, with considerable additions, under the following title: “Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall, consisting of several Essays on the ancient Inhabitants, Druid Superstition, Customs, and Remains of the most remote Antiquity in Britain and the British Isles; exemplified and proved by Monuments now extant in Cornwall and the Scilly Islands: with a Vocabulary of the Cornu-British language. Revised, with several additions, by the Author.”

His next publication had for its title, “Observations on the ancient and present state of the Islands of Scilly, and their importance to the Trade of Great Britain,” Oxford, 1756, 4to. This work was an extension of a paper, read before the Royal Society in 1753.

In 1758 came out his “Natural History of Cornwall, with Engravings of all the specimens, both animate and mineral, deemed to be of curiosity or of importance,” printed also at Oxford, in one volume folio, the original specimens and many antiquities being deposited in the Ashmolean Museum.

All these works, executed with great ability, patient diligence, and skill, raised the reputation of the author so high throughout the learned world, that in March 1766, the University of Oxford conferred on him their highest honour, the degree of Doctor by diploma, which he lived to 53 enjoy somewhat more than six years, having departed this life on the 31st of August, 1772.

Besides his literary correspondence with various learned men, he carried on one of peculiar frequency with the great poet of his age, Mr. Alexander Pope, and a large collection of Mr. Pope’s letters to him is still extant, with a variety of other papers, obviously intended for publication.

Dr. Borlase furnished Mr. Pope with many Cornish fossils to decorate his celebrated grotto at Twickenham, where the donor’s name was scored in capitals of the most splendid materials; and in a letter written on the occasion, Mr. Pope says, “I am much obliged to you for your valuable collection of Cornish diamonds. I have placed them where they may best represent yourself, in a shade, but shining.”

The Royal Society is indebted to Dr. Borlase for about twenty different communications, and in addition to all these labours, he for several years undertook the care of some private pupils, and had together under his roof the heirs of the principal families in the neighbourhood, Hawkins, St. Aubyn, and Vyvyan.

A plain stone has been laid over his remains in Ludgven Church, with an inscription rendered almost illegible in the short period of sixty years.

The monument of some distinguished person bears an inscription ending with these words:

Commemorat hæc tabula brevi et ipsa interitura.

But we may console ourselves with a better reflection,—

Ανδρων γαρ επιφανων πασα Γη Ταφος, και ου Στηλων μονον εν τῃ οικειᾳ σημαινει επιγραφη, αλλα και εν τῃ μη προσηκουσῃ αγραφος μνημη παρ’ εκαστῳ της γνωμης μαλλον η του εργου ενδιαιταται.

Dr. William Borlase left two sons, one a Fellow of All Souls College, and subsequently presented to the University 54 living of South Tetherwin near Launceston. He married Miss Alice Dewen of Marazion, but died without a family.

The other son was rector of St. Mewan, and his grandson is now in possession of the family estates, not one of the numerous sons of Dr. Walter Borlase having left a male heir.

Since the decease of Dr. William Borlase, two permanent rectors have alone held the church up to the last year 1834, Mr. Herbert Praed, second son of Mr. Humphry Mackworth Praed of Trevethow, and Mr. John Stephens of Tregenna; but their relative situations, in regard to the individuals possessing the right of presentation, have induced many to conjecture that this power may have been exercised from considerations not strictly conformable to those in contemplation when advowsons were entrusted to private hands. Mr. Stephens is succeeded by the Rev. Henry Elliot Graham; a relation or connection of the gentleman now representing the Powlet family.

The chief proprietor of land in this parish is the Rev. John Rogers of Penrose, canon residentiary of Exeter. Mr. Gregar of Trewarthenick has also some farms; and as leasehold proprietors, the family of Curnow have been ancient residents.

The parish feast is kept on the nearest Sunday to St. Paul’s Day, January 25.

This parish measures 3941 statute acres.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 5755 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 561 3 0

Population,—

in 1801, 1324 in 1811, 1491 in 1821, 1839 in 1831, 2322

giving an increase of 75 per cent. in 30 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The northern corner of this parish is situated on granite, resembling that of Gulval in every respect, except as 55 to one variety abounding in mica. Much of this stone may be seen in the more ancient houses at Penzance. The spot, however, from whence this stone was procured, is no longer known. A difference of opinion is indeed entertained as to whether it was gotten from blocks near the surface, or from a bed that has been exhausted; but all are agreed as to the district from whence it came; and it is universally known by the name of Ludgvan stone. The property of cleaving evenly into regular blocks, eminently possessed by this species of granite, makes it valuable for building purposes; and this property is clearly derived from the even arrangement of the scale of mica in which it abounds.

Between the granite and the sea-shore a considerable portion of the schistose rocks is covered by a marsh, and by banks of sand. These rocks are made up of compact felspar, sometimes nearly pure, at others intimately united with hornblend or actynolite; they are traversed by courses or dykes of felspar porphyry, as may be seen on the sea-shore.

LUXILIAN, or LUXULIAN.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Luxilian is in the hundred of Powder, and hath to the west St. Roche and St. Anstell, to the north Lanivet, to the east Lanlivery, to the south St. Blasey and Tywardreth.

The right name of this parish is Lan Julian, the church of Saint Julian; but although the church was originally dedicated to him, it has since changed its patron, and belongs to St. Ayre.

56 It is a vicarage, valued in the King’s books at 10l. The patronage in Sir Nicholas Trevanion and Mrs. Carverth, now married to Mr. Cole, the present incumbent, whose father was incumbent before him. This church was valued, if at all in the taxation of Pope Nicholas, together with that of Lanlivery, both being then appropriated to the priory of Tywardreth.

I shall begin with the principal as well as the most westerly estate in it,

THE MANOR OF PRIDEAUX.

This some would derive from a French original, as being pres d’eaux, near the waters; for that the sea formerly flowed up as high as this place, till the stream works choaked up its entrance, any one that views the high cliffs under this place, and those on the opposite side of the valley in Tywardreath, must needs be convinced of. And this leads me to another etymology for it, and as suitable to its situation, from Pir or Prid, clay, and Aus, the same with Als, the cliff or sea-shore.

But be this how it will, Prideaux Castle herein was for several ages (probably before the Norman Conquest) the seat of, and gave name to a family which hath been very eminent both in this county and in Devonshire, and still flourisheth in both. Thomas de Prideaux represented this county in the Parliament 26 Edward I. and Roger de Prideaux was Sheriff of Cornwall 15 Edward III. His father Dominus Thomas Prideaux de Prideaux, was one of those who had in the 25th of Edward I. 20l. per annum or more, in lands or rents in this county, which he held by knight’s service. This family gave for their arms, Party per pale Azure and Gules, three castles Counterchanged; which arms are now quartered by Mr. Prideaux of Padstow, who is descended, as well as all of the name, from younger branches of the family residing here.

THE EDITOR. 57

There does not seem to be any thing connected with the remaining property of this parish that is important or curious. The chief landholders are the Rashleigh family, and Mrs. Agar, representative of the Robertses.

Mr. Coleman Rashleigh, son of Mr. John Rashleigh of Penquite, a younger brother from Menabilly, has purchased Prideaux, built there an excellent modern house, and restored the place, although in a different style, to its ancient splendour. This gentleman has distinguished himself as one of the most active, most able, and most energetic among those who have supported in Cornwall the theories leading to recent organic change in the system of our representation, and he has been created a Baronet by the Reform administration.

The church is situated on very lofty ground, amidst granite rocks, so universally scattered over the surface, that many houses are built in such a manner as to make one or more of these rocks available in the walls. Yet the soil is good; and Mr. Grylls, the present vicar, has proved that taste and perseverance may create an elegant assemblage of whatever is useful or ornamental in a situation apparently the most unpromising. The tower as well as the church far exceed the average in size and beauty. The tower has a singular addition of a small room at the top; and in this room various records relating to the Stannaries and to the Duchy of Cornwall are said to have been preserved, while the armies on both sides, in the civil war, were ravaging the country, and destroying the towns.

Mr. Tonkin has remarked on the romantic and beautiful vale which descends from Luxilian Church by Prideaux to St. Blazey Bridge, and in explaining the phenomena of lofty and precipitous inland cliffs, he has anticipated the most recent theories of modern geology. See Principles of Geology, by Charles Lyell.

This parish measures 5,041 statute acres. 58

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 3,768 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 554 16 0

Population,—

in 1801, 875 in 1811, 1047 in 1821, 1276 in 1831, 1288

giving an increase of 47 per cent. in thirty years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This parish stretches north and south across the large patch of granite, which is situated between Bodmin and St. Austell, and also extends over the slate at its northern and southern extremities. The extent of surface covered by the northern slate is more than a square mile; but the southern slate forms only a small triangle north and north-east of St. Blazey Bridge. The northern half of this parish corresponds with the parish of St. Dennis in the nature of its rocks; the southern half with St. Austell and St. Blazey. The most interesting feature of this parish, in a geological point of view, consists of its numerous and extensive stream-works. This part of Cornwall, including the adjoining parishes, has long been celebrated for the fine quality of its stream-tin, which is, as to the greater part, either crystalline, or of the kind denominated wood-tin, on account of its fibrous texture. The gravel containing this stream-tin rests on the rock, or on its untransported debris; above this occurs a regular stratum of decayed trees and plants; in the deepest stream-works these are covered by another bed of gravel containing tin, having also a superincumbent layer of decayed trees and plants: but this second stratum of tin, always less in quantity than the first, is seldom of sufficient value to pay for the labour of separation. Over all occurs a layer of uncertain thickness, composed of the debris of adjacent rocks, and sustaining on its surface a coating of recent vegetable, and forming marshy, arable, or meadow land, according to the accidental situation of the spot.

THE EDITOR. 59

The greater part of the valleys in Cornwall having been long since streamed, exhibit little else than heaps of unsightly rubbish; instead of displaying, as in other districts, the most pleasing features of a country. The late Mr. Humphrey Mackworth Praed has, however, proved in the case of a valley at Lelant, that such deformities may be removed, and the meadows restored to their natural beauty, accompanied even by pecuniary advantage to the proprietor. But such improvements are greatly obstructed by an anomalous property called the right of bounds.

MABE.

HALS.

Mabe, a vicarage, is situated in the hundred of Kerryer, and hath upon the north Stithians, and west Constantine; east, part of Gluvias and Bradock.

For the name, it is plain Cornish Mab or Mabe, being a son, and in this place either to be construed in reference to Milorus (son of Melianus, King or Duke of Cornwall), who lies buried in Milor church-yard, and who was lord of this place, or had some jurisdiction over it, as Milor church at this day hath in spirituals over Mabe, to which it is considered as annexed.

Or perhaps the name of this church, Mab or Mabe, refers to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whose honour it may have been erected by our ancestors as a pledge of their orthodox faith, in opposition to the Ebiorite and Arian heresies.

At the time of the Norman conquest the district was 60 taxed under the jurisdiction of Tremiloret, i. e. Milor’s Town. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, into the value of Cornish benefices, Ecclesia de Sancto Milore in decanatu de Kerryer cum Sacello (that is to say, with this church or chapel), was rated £6. 13s. 4d. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, Milor la Vabe, or Mabe, is valued £16. 15s. The patronage in the Bishop of Exon, the incumbent. Now Milor-la-Vabe is either Milor’s son’s place, or a corruption of Milor-ha-Vabe, i. e. Milor and mabe, or Milor and son; this parish was rated to the 4s. per pound land-tax 1694, £56. 17s.

In this place, at Tremough, is the dwelling of John Worth, Esq. sheriff of Cornwall 10th of Queen Ann, who married Trefusis, his father Penularick; originally descended from the Worths of Worth, in Devon or Somerset; who giveth for his arms, in a field Ermine, an imperial eagle with two necks Sable, armed Gules.

Tre-mayne in this parish, i. e. the town of stone, or the stone town, transnominated the gentle family of Peares or Perys, i. e. Pearce in English, to that of Tremayne, tempore Edward III. at which time Peres de Tremayne was lord and possessor thereof, who married Dame Opre, or Obre de Treskewis, and by her had issue John, that died without issue; 2ndly, Peros, that married Onera Trevartea, by whom he had issue Richard, who had issue Thomas, that married Isabella, daughter and heir of Trenchard of Collacomb in Devon, and removed thither, by whom he had issue Nicholas, Canon of St. Peter’s Church, Exeter; which Isabella, surviving her husband Tremayne, married Sir John Damerell, Knight, sheriff of Devon 1 Richard II. 1377, by whom she had no issue: nevertheless so prevailed with him, having no issue of his own, to settle divers land upon her issue by Tremayne, which was a great advancement of the estate of the Tremaynes. In 1392, Nicholas her son aforesaid married Jane, and had issue Thomas that married Carew, who had issue John, who by Joan Warr had issue John, who had issue Thomas, 61 who by Grenville had issue Roger, Edmund, and Degory; Degory had issue Arthur, that married Grenville, by whom he had issue Edmund and Richard, from which Richard the Tremaynes of St. Ewe are descended. This tenement of Tremayne is long since gone out of that name, and is now the land of persons to me unknown. Tremayne tenements are also in St. Martyn’s in Kerrier, also in St. Colomb Major, et al. Tremayne parish in the hundred of East.

The arms of Damorell were, Party per fess Gules and Azure, three crescents, 2 and 1, Argent.

TONKIN.

The name of this parish in the king’s book is La Vabe, that is, St. Vabe, or Mabe’s Place.

The chief estate in this parish, and which I shall therefore begin with, is the manor of Carnsew, alias, says Mr. Carew, Carndew, the black rock, or rather a heap of black rocks, this parish and estate abounding in great rocks of moorstone. This place gave name to a very eminent family, which removed afterwards to Bokelby in St. Kew. One of the Carnsews of Bokelby granted a lease of the barton of Carnsew, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, to William Thomas, which William Thomas from thenceforth took the name of Carnsew; and I have in my possession a grant of arms from Sir Richard St. George, Clarenceux King-at-Arms, to Henry Carnsew, of Trewone, junior, dated the 2d of December 1633, recognising this assumption of a new name from his place of residence.

This family has since removed to a better settlement at Trewoon in Budock.

Carverth, which signifies the green town, is also within and held from this manor. This place gave name to, and was the seat of an ancient race of gentlemen, from whom it passed to the Penalunas, till, in the reign of King Charles the First, it was sold to Thomas Melhuish of Penryn, merchant, 62 descended from the Melhuishes of Northan in Devonshire.

Tremogh, that is, the dwelling or town of hogs, is also held from this manor, and was likewise formerly the seat of a family of the same name, from whom it came to the family of Blois of Penryn, in which name it continued till the year 1703, when Roger and John Blois, two brothers, sold this barton, which is of considerable value, to John Worth, Esq. of Penryn, who had for some time before a considerable mortgage on it.

Mr. Worth hath built on Tremogh a very large house of moorstone (granite), and hath inclosed a small park for deer. He hath been a justice of the peace during all the reign of Queen Anne, King George the First, and King George the Second; and was sheriff of the county in the tenth year of Queen Anne. His father, Mr. William Worth, of Penryn, merchant, married Jane, one of the daughters and coheiresses of Pennalerick, by whom he had, among others, a second son, William Worth, D.D. now Archdeacon of Worcester.

Mr. John Worth hath been some time a widower by the death of his wife Bridget, daughter of Francis Trefusis, of Trefusis, Esq. who has left him only one son, of the same name.

Hantertavas is likewise held of this manor, which signifieth the half tongue, but why I know not.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Hals has been singularly unfortunate in his etymology of Tremogh, which has therefore been omitted. Without all doubt, it means, as Mr. Tonkin has interpreted, the hog or pig’s town; and the street leading to Tremogh from Penryn is now called Pig’s Street. The heiress of the Worth family married an adventurer of the name of Hamilton, who ruined all his affairs by contested elections and extravagances. Tremogh was sold about the year 1775; and 63 having passed into the hands of persons of a nearly similar description, the house remained shut up till the wood decayed, and the place was disfigured by the sale and removal of all the trees. The property has, however, at last been secured by a respectable gentleman, who resides on the spot, has renovated the house, and commenced planting and other decorations.

The most discriminating feature of this parish and of the immediate neighbourhood, is the great abundance of granite, not merely in large blocks, the proper moorstone, but in regular and extensive quarries; and so great has been the exportation of this most valuable material, that almost the whole of Waterloo Bridge, and much of the interior of London Bridge, are constructed of stone carried to the Thames from Falmouth harbour.

Districts abounding in crystalline rocks are usually uneven, and in this parish the main road, leading from Helston and all the west to Penryn and Falmouth, had to descend Mabe-hill; but in this year (1835) the line has been turned from the south of Tremogh to a vale on the northern side, which reduces the upper level, and converts a precipitous descent into one sufficiently sloped for carriages of every description. The old road has, however, still an attraction for botanists, as the antirrhinum monspessulanum, a plant very rarely found in other situations, grows there abundantly on the banks and hedges.

Mr. Tonkin is mistaken in tracing the family of Tremayne, long settled at Heligan, in St. Ewe, from the barton in this parish. That family is unquestionably derived from Tremayne in St. Martin’s, on the Helford river.

Mabe measures 2029 statute acres.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 2383 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 317 8 0

Population,—

in 1801, 387 in 1811, 396 in 1821, 457 in 1831, 512

giving an increase of 32 per cent. in 30 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.64

One corner of this parish, immediately north of Penryn, extends on the slate in the form of a very narrow and short stripe; but all the remainder rests entirely on granite, which is for the most part coarse-grained and crystalline, abounding in porphyritic crystals and felspar. It, however, also contains numerous beds of a finer quality, which being well adapted for building is extensively quarried.

ST. MABEN, or ST. MABIN.

HALS.

Is situate in the hundred of Trigg, and hath upon the north St. Kewe, east St. Udye, south Helland, west Egleshayle. For the modern name of this church, it signifies, in the holy or sacred son, or a church dedicated and consecrated in honour of God the Son, in opposition to Arianism, as aforesaid under Mabe. In the Domesday Book 1087, 20 Will. I. this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Treu-es-coit, i. e. the wood-town, or town of wood; still the voke lands of a manor, the lords whereof first endowed this church, whose names were ——, together with the Duke or Earl of Cornwall.

In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, into the value of Cornish benefices, Ecclesia de Maben in decanatu de Trig Minorshire, is rated at £8. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, it is rated at £36. The patronage formerly in the lords of the manor aforesaid, and the Duke of Cornwall, that endowed it; afterwards in the Duke and Louis alternately, the which Louis sold it to Boscawen, now in possession thereof; the incumbent 65 Hill; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound land-tax 1696, at £158. 19s. by the name of St. Mabyn or Mabin aforesaid.

Nevertheless the inhabitants of this parish, through ignorance of the Cornish tongue, as not understanding the etymology or import of this compound word Mab-in, have substituted St. Mabiana, as the tutelar guardian or patroness of this church, instead of Jesus Christ the Son of God, the true patron and defender thereof.

Coll-quite, Coll-coit, alias Killyquite, in this parish, tempore Edward III. was the lands of Sir Richard Sergeaulx, sheriff of Cornwall 12 Richard II. who held this place by tenure of knight’s service, two knight’s fees and a half, Morton (see Talland and Crowan); whose issue male failing, his three daughters and heirs were married to Beere, Marney of Essex, and Seyntaubyn of Clowans (whose widow Alice after his death was married to Richard de Vere, the eleventh Earl of Oxford).

From Segreaulx’s heirs this barton and manor by descent or purchase came to Henry Marney, sheriff of Essex, the 2d and 8th of king Henry VII. executor of the last will and testament of Margaret Plantagenet, alias Beaufort, daughter and heir of John Duke of Somerset (grandchild to John of Gaunt by his son John), widow of Edmund of Hadham, Earl of Britain and Richmond, father and mother of King Henry VII. who died 1509, and was by her executors honourably buried in the abbey of Westminster. The arms of Marney were Gules, a lion rampant guardant Argent.

Tre-blith-ike, alias Tre-bletike, in this parish, is now in part, or the whole, the possession of … Hamley, Gent. that married Dingle, and giveth for his arms, in a field Argent, three talbots passant Azure, taloned, clawed, and langued Gules, two in chief and one in base.

Haligan, alias Hel-ligon in this parish. The first name as a monosyllable, signifies, after the Belgick Cornish, the 66 holy or sacred; the second the legal nuncio or ambassador’s hall, perhaps the spiritual legate or ambassador, viz. the minister or priest of this parish. Otherwise, if Heligan be a Greek monosyllable, it signifies willows or osiers, ἑλικὴ, helike, salix.

This barton and manor is the dwelling of Joseph Silly, Esq. one of his Majesty’s Commissioners for the peace, that married Cloberry, his father Elford, originally descended from the Sillys of St. Wenn and Minver. In this place Robert de Haligan, 3 Henry IV. held, by the tenure of knight service, two knight’s fees. Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, p. 42.

Pen-wyne in this parish, that is, the head or chief wyne, was the dwelling of Porter, Gent, that married Spry; and giveth for his arms, in a field Sable, three bells Argent, and a canton Ermine. This place is now sold to Cole. Pen-wyn is the beloved head or promontory of land; but properly pen gwynsa is head or chief wine.

Baldwyn, alias Bawdwyn, of Colquite, gave for his arms Gules, within a plain bordure two bendlets Argent. Prout, id est, Proud, gave for his arms Sable, a stag rampant Argent, depressed with a fess indented in chief Or; the stag tripped and armed of the Same.

TONKIN.

Mr. Tonkin has not anything but what was abridged from Hals.

THE EDITOR.

Tredeathy, pleasantly situated in this parish, has been made a handsome gentleman’s seat by the present possessor, the Rev. Francis John Hext.

The church has several monuments; one to the memory of Grace, the wife of Sir Richard Carnsew; and another to Mrs. Elizabeth Silly; and there remain some slight memorials 67 of a branch from the Godolphins, formerly seated here. It is large, and occupies a commanding situation, with a lofty tower, visible to a great extent in all directions. But nothing has in modern times so much distinguished this parish as the residence of its learned rector, the Rev. Charles Peters.

Mr. Peters’ reputation for a most profound acquaintance with oriental literature, is sufficiently established by a controversy with the mighty man of his time, Doctor William Warburton; but there is also a traditional history of his benevolence, of his piety, and of his genuine simplicity, so interesting that the Editor has most gladly availed himself of a communication from persons nearly connected with this great and good man, to insert it here.

“The Rev. Charles Peters, of St. Mabyn, was descended from a merchant of Antwerp, who fled to England from the persecution of the Protestants in Germany. His grandson was a Turkey merchant of Fowey in the time of Queen Elizabeth: this gentleman was father of the famous Hugh Peters, and his mother was a Treffry, of Place-house.

“The ancestor of Mr. Peters of St. Mabyn was a royalist. The Rev. Charles Peters was born on the 1st of December 1690. In Tregony, at the German school there, he was taught Latin and Greek, and the first rudiments of Hebrew. He was afterwards of Exeter College, Oxford. When first ordained he served the curacy of St. Justin Roseland; then was presented with the living of Boconnock. In 1723 the living of Bralton Clovelly was given to him, and three years afterwards St. Mabyn, where from that time he chiefly resided, but spent a part of each year at Bralton, keeping a curate at each. Every Sunday he entertained a great number of the poorest of his parishioners; and on Monday the remaining meat was distributed to them, with bread for each; and thus in succession he entertained all the poor of the parish; and there was scarcely any poor rate in St. Mabyn during his life.

“He spent a large portion of his income in relieving the 68 temporal wants of his fellow-creatures, and much of his time in their spiritual instruction. Besides morning and evening prayers, he read the Bible daily to his family, and also daily studied it himself in the original languages.

“When he published his Dissertation on the Book of Job, and drew on himself the insolence of Warburton, he bore it with the most perfect Christian charity.

“He had written a vindication of Homer in answer to Warburton. Before it was published Warburton had become a Bishop, when, fearing that the faults of the man might reflect on the sacred order, he abstained from publishing it, saying, ‘Thou shalt not speak evil of the rulers of thy people.’ Mr. Peters was of abstemious habits, regular both in his studies and his exercise, which the natural delicacy of his constitution required. He never married, but educated the two eldest sons of his elder brother, Dr. Joseph Peters, M.D. of Truro, and the Rev. Jonathan Peters, of St. Clement’s. The latter was bred to the church at his desire, and continued with him as his curate, till the living of St. Clement called the nephew to the cure of his own church.

“Mr. Peters lived to the age of eighty-four, retaining the full possession of his faculties to the last.”

Extracts from his Meditations in manuscript:—

When speaking of Warburton, he says,

“Let me then go on with this work which I have begun. Let me beg the assistance of God, that I may do it in a proper manner, so as not to return evil for evil, or railing for railing, but to preserve my temper, and to consider what the Dean has said, in a cool dispassionate way if possible; or at least to check my pen so as to say nothing that may misbecome me either as a Christian or a clergyman.

“As to what relates to Dean Warburton, he has freed me, I think, from all manner of obligation to say anything in complaisance; for this, considering the usage he has given me, would look like stooping to him, and distrusting the cause I have to plead for. I must keep up my spirits 69 then, but beware of transgressing the rules of charity, of prudence, or of good manners.

“If it be necessary that I should publish the remainder of the Reply to the author of the Divine Legation, grant, oh Lord! that I may conduct it with all that decency and prudence, that strict regard to charity as well as truth, which may become a Christian and a minister of Christ; that I may have a constant check upon myself with regard to every thing that may be either light and ludicrous, or bitter and sarcastic: if my antagonist has given but too much into this way of writing, the greater shame to him; and the greater shame to me if I should not endeavour to avoid so palpable a fault.”

Under the influence of an opinion, or rather of a prejudice similar to those of plenary inspiration, and an immaculate preservation of the text, and unmindful that the Gospels themselves convey a large portion of their instruction under the form of allegory or parable, Mr. Peters maintained the historical authenticity of the book of Job against Dr. Warburton, who argued in favour of the opposite and manifestly the correct hypothesis. Yet so accurate and so extensive were the Hebrew learning and the general erudition of this profound scholar, that he completely worsted the most celebrated critic of his age, and drove him from a sober investigation of facts, of ancient opinions, or of the peculiar form and nature of moral instruction used by eastern nations at various and remote periods, into virulent and personal abuse.

It is curious to observe that the Book of Job has not the most remote allusion to anything connected with the Jews, neither to their laws or their ritual, nor to their patriarchs, or to their leader and legislator.

And it is more curious that in all the writings transmitted to our time by this extraordinary people, from the Book of Genesis to the last prophecy antecedent to its Babylonish captivity, not the slightest reference is made to a state of future existence; unless the strange narrative 70 respecting the Witch of Endor should be deemed an exception, suspected as it is of interpolation; and at all events utterly unfitted for announcing, and that too incidentally, the most important of revealed truths. Previously, moreover, to the captivity, no personification is ever mentioned of the Principle of Evil.—“Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made; and he said unto the woman,” &c. No allusion is here made to any supernatural being; nor did the serpent lose the disgraceful credit till three thousand five hundred years after the fact, of having by his own unassisted subtilty, malevolence, and craft, led our first parents into the fatal snare predestined to work the utter and eternal destruction of countless millions of the human race, but for the stupendous mystery of their subsequent redemption.

In the Book of Job reference is made to a future life; and the Principle of Evil not only appears as a distinct personage, but is placed in collision and in debate with the Principle of all Good, driving the Divinity itself to the clumsy expedient, suited only to the imperfections of a finite intellect, of ascertaining by an actual experiment, whether a man were capable of sustaining certain degrees of bodily pain and of mental affliction, without murmuring against his Creator, the Lord and Giver of life, in whom we live, and move, and have our being.

It seems plain, therefore, from the doctrine of a future state first noticed in this work, from the first introduction of a being hostile to the happiness of all others and delighting in their misery, and from the absence of any allusion to a single fact connected with the Mosaic dispensation, or to the history embodied in the Sacred Records; and, lastly, from the dramatic form of the whole; that the Book of Job must be a parable, a moral tale, a poem wholly unconnected with the Jewish faith. It seems not to be improbable that such a composition, teaching the important duties of resignation and submission to the Divine will,

71

may have been translated from the Chaldean into the Hebrew language during the Captivity, retaining the Chaldean character, for no copy is said to exist in the ancient or Samaritan alphabet. And a work so excellent, so abounding in the most sublime and elevated flights of eastern poetry, soaring towards such topics as even that poetry is unable fully to reach, may well have been added by Ezra to the Book of the Law which he brought before the congregation, and read before them in the street, when they bowed their heads, and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

The Editor has also been desirous of obtaining information respecting another member of this family, whom, at the distance of almost two centuries from those times of violence and of civil commotion in which he lived, we may now consider as one persecuted in his death and in his fame, far beyond the degree which any demerit on his part, either as a fanatic in religion or as a partizan in politics, could have justly merited.

He was probably selected as a victim by his opponents to gratify the base passions of an ignorant multitude, now anxious to destroy those whom they had previously adored; and ridicule was cast on his memory by the triumphant party, as an expedient for beating down religious opinions hostile to the system of ecclesiastical government then reestablished: perhaps also, the possession of Lambeth Palace, like that of the house adjoining the capitol by Manlius, may have excited similar feelings; and possibly he was considered in some degree as an equivalent for Laud.

Extract from a History written in 1781:—

“William, Thomas, and Hugh Peters were brothers, and born at Fowey in Cornwall. Their father was a merchant of large property, and their mother was Elizabeth 72 Treffry, daughter of John Treffry, Esq. of a very ancient and opulent family in that town.

“William received his education at Leyden, Thomas at Oxford, and Hugh at Cambridge. Between the years 1610 and 1620 Thomas and Hugh became clergymen in London. William continued a private gentleman. About the year 1628 Thomas and Hugh having rendered themselves obnoxious by their popularity and puritanic preaching, were silenced by the Bishop. They then went to Holland and remained till 1633, when they returned to London. The three brothers then sold their landed property, and in the following year embarked for America. Hugh settled at Salem, and soon became so popular as to excite the jealousy of those who had previously swayed the fanatical opinions of that place. Mr. Hugh Peters was in a short time appointed a trustee of the college at New Cambridge. He built a grand house, and purchased a large tract of land. The yard before his house he paved with flint-stones from England; and having dug a well he paved that also with flint-stones, for the accommodation of every inhabitant in want of water. It bears the name of Peter’s Spring up to the present time.

“He here married a second time, and had one daughter named Elizabeth. His renown as a zealot increasing, he received an invitation to remove from Salem to Boston, with which he complied, and there laid the foundation-stone of the great meeting-house, of which the Reverend Doctor Samuel Cooper, one of the most learned literati in America, is the pastor. Those whose envy he had excited at Salem, ill brooked being thus outrivalled by Mr. Peters. Yet finding him an orthodox fanatic, and more powerful than themselves, they seemingly bowed to his superiority, at the same time that they were contriving a plan which ended in his destruction.

“In 1641 they conspired with the civil authorities of Boston to convert their leading priest into a politician, by appointing him agent to Great Britain. The plot succeeded, 73 and Mr. Hugh Peters assumed his agency under colour of petitioning for some abatement of customs and excise; but his real commission was to foment the civil discontents, wars, and jars then prevailing between the King and the Parliament. He did not see into the motives of these people; and he felt a strong inclination to chastise the Court and the Bishop of London, who had turned him out of the church for his fanatical conduct.

“On Mr. Peters’s arrival in London, the Parliament took him into their service. The Earls of Warwick and of Essex were also his patrons. In 1644 the Parliament gave him Archbishop Laud’s library, and soon afterwards made him head of the Archbishop’s court, and gave him the estate and palace at Lambeth; all which he kept till the Restoration.

“The people of Boston conducted themselves with ingratitude and neglect towards Mr. Peters; they never paid him any part of the stipend attached to his office, although he discharged the duties of it during twenty years, and obtained from the Protector a charter for the Society for propagating the Gospel in New England, which, by contributions raised in Great Britain, has supported all the missionaries among the Indians to the present time.

“An occurrence at the melancholy close of Mr. Peters’s life evinces his firmness of mind and self-possession.

“The sentences of our law, now barbarous in words alone, were in those days executed with horrors so savage, as to forbid description. The scenes of cruelty were repeated one after the other; and in his own case Mr. Peters, either from design or accident, remained to witness on others the inflictions which awaited himself. At that moment an officer whose heart must have been more obdurate than the hardest flint, or than Marperian rock, inquired of him how he liked the proceeding, and received for answer, ‘Friend, thou doest ill to distress a dying man!’”

St. Mabyn measures 3,846 statute acres. 74

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 6051 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 383 1 0

Population,—

in 1801, 475 in 1811, 560 in 1821, 715 in 1831, 793

giving an increase of 67 per cent. in 30 years.

Present Rector, the Rev. Granville Leveson Gower, presented by the Earl of Falmouth, in 1818.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This parish is entirely situated within the calcareous series. Its rocks are similar to those of the adjoining parishes of Egleshayle, Helland, and St. Kew.

MAWNAN.

HALS.

It is situate in the hundred of Kerryer, and hath upon the north Constantine, east Budock, and is elsewhere surrounded with the waters of the British ocean and Hayleford Haven.

However, the reader may take notice that long before the Norman Conquest, even in King Alfred’s days, this district was not known but by the name of Penwarne; viz. the voke lands of the bailywick of the hundred of Kerryer; and its court baron hath its prison and sub-bailiff still extant in Budock, which lands and court baron claims the respective suits and services of the several tithings or freeholders within its precincts, as of ancient right accustomed. And this barton of Penwarne hath also still extant upon it an old unendowed free chapel and burying-place of public use, before the church of Mawnan was erected, for under the name and jurisdiction of Penwarne this parish was taxed in the Domesday Book, 20 William I. 1087.

75 Though, at the time of the inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, into the value of Cornish benefices, this parish church was rated then by the name of Ecclesia de Mawnan, in decanatu de Kerryer, 4l. 3s. 8d. In Wolsey’s inquisition, 1521, 14l. 16s. 1d. The patronage formerly in Killygrew, afterwards Rogers, now Kempe. The incumbent Trewinard; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, by the name of Mawnan, 72l.

From Pen-gwarne alias Pen-warne, synonymous words, was denominated an old English family of gentlemen now in possession thereof, surnamed De-Penwarne (who by possession of those lands is bailiff or lord of the bailiwick of the hundred of Kerryer by inheritance), whose ancestors have been seised and possessed thereof, beyond the records of time, and have been possessed in former ages of divers other lands of considerable value in those parts.

Particularly Richard Penwarne, Esq. that married one of the coheirs of Tencreeke, Member of Parliament for Penryn, temp. James I.; whose son Robert married the daughter of Robinson of London, who had issue the present possessor, Robert Penwarne, Esq. that married Sprye of Tregony, and hath issue; that giveth for his arms, in a field Sable a chevron between three fleur-de-lis Argent.

TONKIN.

The manor of Trevose, that is, the town in the valley, from its principal mansion so called, where are the ruins of a very large house, as having been formerly a seat of the Killigrews, and particularly in J. Norden’s time of Sir William Killigrew, to which family, together with other lands adjoining, I suppose it came by their marriage with the daughter and heir of Arwinick. This property was sold to Sir Nicholas Slanning of Marystow in Devonshire, who I believe made this place his residence, while he was Governor of Pendinas Castle. This was the famous Sir 76 Nicholas Slanning, so much cried up for his valour, who had a chief command in the King’s army, and was killed before Bristol in July 1643. He left a son of the same name, then an infant, who was made a Baronet by King Charles II. in 1662, as he had been before that one of the Knights of the Bath at his Majesty’s Coronation; which Sir Nicholas Slanning gave for his arms, Argent, two pales ingrailed Gules, over all a bend Azure, charged with three griffin’s heads erased Or.

This gentleman sold Trerose to Brian Rogers of Falmouth, merchant, who left by his wife, the daughter of John Tregeagle of Trevorden, Esq. one only son, Peter Rogers, Esq. who dying under age, the estate was sold to pay his father’s debts, under the authority of an Act of Parliament, to James Kempe of Penryn, Esq. who settled it on his second son James Kempe; but he died in his father’s lifetime; and, therefore, on his father’s death, in 1711, it fell to his son John Kempe, who marrying Mary the daughter of Joshua Ratcliff of Francklyn in Devonshire, Esq. died in May 1714, leaving an only daughter, who died soon afterwards. The manor ultimately devolved to Nicholas Kempe of Rosteage, Esq. who is the present lord thereof. Mr. Rogers gave for his arms, as deriving himself from the Rogerses of Cannington in Somersetshire, Argent, a chevron between three bucks courant Sable, attired Or.

The advowson of the parish was appendant to this manor, but has been severed therefrom, and now belongs to John Peters, Esq. of Harlyn.

In this parish is also Penwarne. This has been for many generations the seat of an ancient family of the same name, where they have flourished, being Justices of the Peace, and Members of Parliament; they began, however, to decline about the middle of Queen Elizabeth’s time, till Peter Penwarne, Esq. parted with almost the whole of his landed property, except the barton. The present gentleman married Joan, the daughter of Thomas Taylder of St. 77 Mabe, gent.; his father Robert the daughter and heir of Peter Spry of Tregony, merchant.

Mr. Peter Penwarne died this present year (1732), leaving two sons, Thomas and John. The arms of Penwarne are, Sable, a chevron between three fleurs-de-lis Or.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Lysons gives a detailed account of the various manors.

Tresore belongs at present to the Rev. Robert Hoblyn. The manor of Boskenso and also Penwarne, were purchased by Mr. Michael Nowell, a merchant of Falmouth, who was knighted on presenting an address to the King. They now belong to his nephew, the Rev. Mr. Usticke.

Mr. John Penwarne, the representative of this ancient family, practised the law at Penryn, and married Miss Ann Kivell. He now resides in London, and has a son and one daughter.

The Rev. John Rogers, Canon Residentiary of Exeter, is the patron and incumbent of the living.

This parish measures 1,702 statute acres.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 2,591 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 247 11 0

Population,—

in 1801, 427 in 1811, 497 in 1821, 536 in 1831, 578

giving an increase of 35 per cent. in 30 years.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The northern part of this parish consists of felspathic hornblend rocks, belonging to the porphyritic series, which nearly touches the granite of Constantine and Budock. The southern part of Mawnan is situated on the calcareous series, and some of its rocks are very interesting, particularly those in the cliffs near the church and Rosemullion Head.

78

MADDERN.

HALS.

St. Mad-darne, or Mad-ran, a Vicarage, is situate in the hundred of Penwith, and hath upon the north Sennor or Zeynar, west Sancret, east Gulval, south Paul and the Mount’s Bay.

At the time of the Norman Conquest this district was taxed in the Domesday Book, under the jurisdiction of Alverton, of which more under. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, Ecclesia de Sancti Maddarne is rated £5. 6s. 8d. in decanatu de Penwith; prior Hospitalis Johannis percepit in eadem £6. 13s. 4d. The meaning of which is this: Henry de la Pomeraye, tempore Richard I. (or his ancestors) built or endowed this church, and gave it to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, for the health and salvation of his own soul, that of his Lord the King, and the souls of his father, mother, brothers, sisters, progenitors and successors, as it is set down in that charter. See Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. ii. page 792. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, it is valued to first fruits £21. 5s. 10d. by the name of Madran as aforesaid, without the appellation or pronoun Saint. The patronage formerly in the Knights Hospitallers of Jerusalem at Sythney, subject to St John’s Hospital of Jerusalem at London, after their dissolution in the Crown, now in Flemen; the incumbent Bellot, and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound land-tax, 1696, temp. William III. £163. 14s. Penzance town £139. 11s. 6d. in all £303. 5s. 6d.

Who the supposed tutelar guardian of this church, St. Maddarne, was, is past my ability of finding out, either in 79 the legends or martyrologies, therefore refer him to the scrutiny of the inhabitants; only by the way let it be remembered that Galfridus Monmouthensis tells us in his Chronicle that one Madan was a British king in these parts before Julius Cæsar landed in Britain, and probably that he lived or died here, in memory of whom this parish is called Madran, now Maddarne. Here also is Maddarne Well of water, greatly famous for its healing virtues, of which thus writes Bishop Hall of Exeter, in his book called the Great Mystery of Godliness, p. 169, where, speaking of what good offices angels do God’s servants.

“Of which kind was that noe less then miraculous cure, which at St. Maddarn’s Well in Cornwall was wrought upon a poore criple; wherof, besides the attestation of many hundreds of the neighbours, I tooke a strict and impartial examination in my last triennial Visitation there. This man for sixteen years was forced to walke upon his hands, by reason of the sinews of his leggs were soe contracted that he cold not goe or walk on his feet, who upon monition in a dreame, to wash in that well, which accordingly he did, was suddainly restored to the use of his limbs, and I sawe him both able to walk and gett his owne maintenance. I found here was neither art or collusion, the cure done, the author our invisible God, &c.”

However, notwithstanding this instance of that Reverend Bishop’s, I know no medicinal waters in Cornwall that are constantly and universally sovereign for any disease, but only to some particular persons, at times and seasons.

Alvorton, alias Alverton, in this parish, was the Voke lands of a considerable manor heretofore pertaining to the Kings and Earls of Cornwall, and under that jurisdiction and name this district of Maddern was taxed, 20 William I. 1087, as also Paul Parish; it consisted, temp. Edward III. of eighty-four Cornish acres of land. Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 46, that is to say 3600 statute acres. (Page 131 of Lord Dunstanville’s Edition; the Cornish Acres 64).

Within the confines of this parish, or the said manor, 80 stands Mayne Screffes, that is to say, the written or inscribed stone, being a monument set up of a rough perpendicular stone, in memory of a famous Cornish-British Prince or King, that probably lived and died here, and was interred near the same, in which stone are yet extant these British and Latin words: “RIALOBRAN CUNOWALL FIL:” [id est, Rialobran the son of Cunowall] which contracted Latin word fil. for filius, shows that it was made and erected there since first the Romans came into this land, for the Britains before had no knowledge of the Latin tongue; which words, if not monosyllables, are compounded either of those particles Rial-o-Bren-Cunowall fil: Extraordinary Royal or Imperial Prince King of Wales son; or rather it ought to be thus read, Rial-o-Bren-Cornowall filius, viz. the extraordinary Royal Prince or King of Cornwall’s Son. For as Rial in British answers to Regalis, Regius, Augustus, Regificus, Basilicus, in Latin, so -o- by itself to nimius, id est, much, excessive, overmuch; and Bren, Brene, to Princeps, a Prince, Ruler, or Chief Governor. However, let it be remembered, in favour of the second etymology, that one Bletius (son to Roderick King of Wales and Cornwall, anno Dom. 700,) was Prince of Wales and also King or Prince of Cornwall. But this funeral monument stone must have been erected before that time; for afterwards it became lawful to bury dead human creatures in towns and cities, lastly in churches and churchyards, though not before. [See Dr. Borlase’s Antiquities, 2d edit. p. 391, and the plate in Lysons’s Cornwall, p. ccxxi. Editor.]

Landithy. Landegey, Landigey, in this parish, contiguous with the church, which signifies the temple church, was formerly the lands of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, now —— Flemen, gent.

In this parish, at —— liveth Francis Seynt Aubyn, esq. sometime Commissioner for the Peace, who married —— Arundel, of this place, whose lands it was, and Crocker of St. Agnes, and hath issue. He is a younger 81 son of John Seyntaubyn, of Clowens, esq. by Godolphin of Treveneage.

Upon the south part of this parish, at the head of St. Michael’s Mount’s Bay, on a little promontory of land shooting into the sea, is situate the market and coinage town of Pensance, or Penzance, which stands now rated in the Exchequer as a noun substantive, or distinct jurisdiction from Maddarne; whereas the borough of Camelford is taxed under Lenteglos, Mitchell under Newlan, and St. Enedor-Bosithney under Dundagell.

The old chapel, and the whole town of Penzance, the 20th July 1595, was burnt to ashes by five Spanish galleys, that then came into St. Michael’s Mount’s Bay for that purpose, of which fact there is a large history to be seen in Mr. Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 156, (page 381, Lord Dunstanville’s edition); since which time the new chapel hath been founded and beautified as it now stands, and the old town comparatively all new built of brick and stone, and augmented with a greater number of houses than before.

It was incorporated by charter from King James the First, with the jurisdiction of a court leet, by the name of the Mayor, Aldermen, or Magistrates, before whose tribunal all pleas of debt and damage, within the precincts of that borough, are judged and determined by the said charter; it is also made the fifth town for coinage of tin, at the usual times of the year, by the Duke of Cornwall’s officers, as also with a weekly market on Thursdays, and fairs yearly, on Thursday before Advent Sunday, and also on Trinity Thursday.

This town of Penzance, anno Dom. 1646, in the time of the wars between King Charles I. and his Parliament, for the kindness and charity the inhabitants showed to the Lord Goring’s and Lord Hopton’s troops of horse, driven into those parts by Sir Thomas Fairfax, the Parliament General, was made a prey to his soldiers or troops, who for two days had the plunder of the town and its inhabitants’ goods, to the one’s great loss and the other’s great 82 enriching; for one of those troopers, viz. Edward Best, of St. Wenn, had to his share five gallons of English coin, silver and gold, and pieces of eight, as I was told by one of his servants, that was the measurer and spectator thereof; though long since all riotously spent, as also the shares of his fellow-troopers Littlecot, Keen, and Lockyer of Roach.

In this port his Majesty and the Duke have their coinage hall for coining tin, custom-house, collector, surveyor, comptroller, and wayters for sea and land service. The chief inhabitants of this town are John Carveth, gent. attorney-at-law, Mr. Gross, of the same profession, Mr. Tremenheer, Mr. Williams, Mr. Veale, Mr. Rawlinge.

The arms of this town, through ignorance of the true etymology of the name thereof, is St. John Baptist’s head in a charger.

To remove an action at law depending in the leet of Penzance to a superior court, the writ must be thus directed: “Majori et Burgisensibus Burgi sui de Pensance, alias Penzance, in com: Cornu: salutem:” otherwise, “Majori, Aldermanis, et Senescallo Burgi sui de Penzance alias Pensance, in comitatu Cornubiæ, salutem.”

On the east side of this town, on the sea shore, at the top of St. Michael’s Mount’s Bay, stands that notable treble intrenchment of earth, after the British manner, built as a rampart or fortress for defence of the country against foreign invaders, called Les-cad-dock Castle; otherwise Les-caddock, as two monosyllables, refer to Cadock, Earl of Cornwall, whose broad camp or castle of war it was, as tradition saith.

TONKIN.

This is a vicarage; the patronage in John Harris, esq.; the incumbent Doctor Walter Borlase, LL.D. But note, that the patronage of this parish is at present in the Corporation of Penzance, carrying with it the town, and the little parish of Morvah.

83 Penzance.—This town is a parish of itself, but the church is a daughter church to St. Maddarne, and passeth in the same presentation.

The village of Penzance was incorporated by King James I. on the 9th day of May, in the 12th year of his Highness’s reign, by the name of Mayor, Aldermen, and commonalty of the village of Penzance, and by that name to be one body, both in name and deed, and to have perpetual succession, and to be persons in the law, capable to purchase and possess lands, to consist of a Mayor, annually chosen, of eight other Aldermen, and twelve Assistants.

And at the time of the Heralds’ Visitation, the 9th day of October 1620, William Noseworthy was mayor; John St. Aubin, esq. recorder; John Maddern, John Clyse, Robert Dunkin, John Games, Roger Polkinhorne, William Madderne, Robert Luke, and Pasco Ellis, aldermen; Nicholas Hext was town clerk of the said Corporation.

THE EDITOR.

The church of Maddern stands on a commanding elevation, and retains indications of its former connexion with the Knights Templars, who are believed to have had a preceptory or provincial establishment at Landithy, immediately adjoining.

In the church and churchyard are monuments to various distinguished families resident within the parish: Borlase, Nicholls, Arundell, Harris, Pearce, Jenkin, Heckens, Clies, Pascoe, &c.; and some in memory of strangers, who too long delayed availing themselves of the mild climate and salubrious air of the Mount’s Bay. One of the more ancient monuments has these lines:

Castle Horneck is thought to be the site of a castle denominated 84 Hornec, or iron, from its supposed strength, and built by the Tyers, who were lords of this district early in the times of the Plantagenets.

This place was the residence during a long life, of the Rev. Walter Borlase, Doctor of Civil Law, Vice-Warden of the Stannaries, and Vicar of Maddern for more than fifty-five years, who died April 26, 1776, aged 81 years and six months.

Doctor Borlase appears to have been universally respected, as a man of ability and learning, and for firmness and decision of character. He was the eldest son of Mr. John Borlase, of Pendeen in St. Just, sometime Member of Parliament for St. Ives, and brother of the Rev. William Borlase, also Doctor of Civil Law, and Rector of Ludgvan, our justly celebrated historian.

Doctor Walter Borlase married Margaret, daughter of the Rev. Henry Pendarves, vicar of the adjoining parish of Paul; and he is said in consequence of this marriage to have quitted the law, in which profession he could scarcely have failed of attaining some considerable distinction. They had a very numerous family of sons and daughters; but, none of the sons having left a son, the family estate has passed, under an entail, to the descendants of Doctor William Borlase, and now belongs to his great-grandson.

Doctor Walter Borlase built the house at Castle Horneck. The family arms are, Ermine, on a bend Sable, two hands issuing at the elbows from as many clouds Proper, and rending a horseshoe Or.

Trereife has been long the residence of the Nicholls’s, of whom the most distinguished person was Frank Nicholls, M.D. Physician to King George the Second, and son-in-law of the celebrated Dr. Mead. His life has been written in Latin by Dr. Lawrence, sometime President of the College of Physicians, with his portrait. It appears from this work that Dr. Nicholls was born in 1699, that he became a member of Exeter College, Oxford, in March 1714, took his degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1729, and was 85 chosen a Fellow of the College of Physicians in the following year, being previously a Fellow of the Royal Society. Nine different communications from Doctor Nicholls are printed in the Philosophical Transactions, and he published a separate work: “De Anima Medica,” to which is added a treatise, “De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Homine Nato et non Nato.”

His reputation stands deservedly very high as an Anatomist. Several dissections of the viper’s head and poisonous fangs, engraved for Dr. Mead’s work, are believed to be his; and to him is attributed the invention of what are termed corroded preparations. He died in January 1778, having completed his 79th year.

This gentleman’s elder brother married in London, but finally settled at Trereife, with one son and two daughters. The two daughters married, the eldest Mr. Love of Penzance, the second William Harris, of Kenegie, Esq. but neither left any family. The son, William Nicholls, married Miss Ustick, of Penzance, and died leaving one son. Mrs. Nicholls subsequently married the Rev. Charles Valentine Le Grice, of Bury St. Edmunds, then Lecturer of Penzance, and bore him a son, who, together with Mr. Le Grice, now hold the estate as tenants in remainder, and by the courtesy, under the will of Mr. Nicholls, Jun. who lived to the age of twenty-three or twenty-four years.

Trengwainton appears to have been inhabited by branches of the Arundell family, for a long series of years, and finally the last Mr. Arundell, of Menadarva, removed there, having in a great measure rebuilt the house. Soon after his decease it was sold, and Mr. Praed, of Trevethow, became the purchaser. Trengwainton was thus chiefly used as a farm-house till the late Sir Rose Price, wishing to form a seat in that neighbourhood, obtained it as an accommodation from the late Mr. Praed, and under his hands it has become a splendid residence.

It appears that a gentleman of the name of Price accompanied Venables and Penn in their successful expedition 86 against Jamaica, during the Protectorate, and obtained an extensive grant of land, which his descendants lived on and improved, till early in the last century one of the sons was sent to England for education and health. It is understood that Doctor Nicholls was consulted as a physician, and that he recommended the climate of Penzance; perhaps Mr. John Price may have been the first invalid ever sent from a distance to breathe the soft air of this all but island in the Atlantic. At that time Mr. Henry Badcock, from the parish of Whilstone, in the north-eastern extremity of Cornwall, held the office of Collector at Penzance, where he had married Parthenia Keigwin, daughter of Mr. John Keigwin, of Mousehole. The young patient was received into their house by Mr. and Mrs. Badcock, who had several daughters. Mr. Price married in the year 1736 Margery, one of their daughters; but having gone back to Jamaica he died there three years afterwards, leaving her with an only son, also John Price.

This gentleman, having gone through the usual stages of education, ending with Trinity College, Oxford, went also to Jamaica, and there married Elizabeth Williams Bramer, daughter of John Bramer, a physician. They had only one son, who lived to a mature age, and succeeded his father in January 1797.

Mr. Rose Price, in the subsequent year, married Miss Elizabeth Lambert, a young lady from the county of Meath, born on the 12th of April 1782, by a singular coincidence on the very day that Admiral Rodney’s victory saved Jamaica from being captured by the French, and therefore about sixteen at the time of her marriage. Mr. Price served the office of Sheriff for Cornwall in the year 1814, as his father had done forty years before, in the year 1774. In this year also he was made a Baronet, in consequence of a promise from King George the Fourth, then Regent.

Lady Price died early in life, leaving a large family; and 87 Sir Rose Price died on the 29th September 1834, having nearly completed his 65th year.

And here I would add a few lines to commemorate a gentleman whose progress through life was mainly guided by his connexion with this family, and whose conduct reflects credit on them for their choice.

In compliance with a custom evidently derived from the Catholic times of our forefathers, when every thing relating to the church was transacted in the language of ancient Rome, all boys whose parents were raised above the lowest state in society, went for six or twelve months to a Latin school. Mr. John Vinicombe was among the number, but his progress exhibited so great a superiority above other scholars of his age, that Mr. Perkin, the Lecturer and schoolmaster, prevailed on his father to allow of his staying an additional year. Just at that moment Mr. John Price placed his son at the same school; and, at the suggestion probably of Mr. Perkin, Mr. Price was induced to purchase at some small premium a further continuance of Mr. Vinicombe at the school, that he might assist, instruct, and be in some degree the companion of Mr. Rose Price.

A connexion thus formed naturally went on; Mr. Vinicombe became a member of Pembroke College, Oxford, where he obtained a Fellowship; attended Mr. Rose Price to the school at Harrow, and acted as his private tutor when he became a gentleman commoner of Magdalen; made with him the tour of Europe; and finally, attended his friend and former pupil to Jamaica, where, by a residence of about two years, they nearly doubled the value of the estate. Soon after their return to England Mr. Vinicombe went to his Fellowship, and became not only a college tutor but one of the Public Examiners, under the then recent statute, and he had confident expectations of preferment in the church; but a premature death terminated his useful and honourable career, occasioned (or hastened at least) by a fall from his horse. An excellent 88 picture of Mr. Vinicombe, by Mr. Opie, has gone to Pembroke College, under the will of Sir Rose Price.

Rosecadgwell has been for a considerable time in the family of Borlase. Mr. John Borlase, father of the two Doctor Borlases, removed there from Pendeen in the latter portion of his life; and Samuel Borlase, Esq. representative of this ancient and respectable family, resides there at present.

Nanceolvern almost adjoins Rosecadgwell. This was the residence of Mr. Carverth. After building there an excellent house, Mr. Carverth died in very embarrassed circumstances, which gave rise to an unusual extent of litigation. This place, however, was purchased by one of the Mr. Urlicks, and it now belongs to Mr. Scobell, who married the heiress of that branch of the family.

Poltare has a large and decorated house, built by the late Mr. Richard Heckens, of St. Ives, who married one of the daughters and coheiresses of Mr. George Veale. That place has passed by purchase also to the Scobell family.

Trenear was formerly a seat of the Olivers. The last of this family, Doctor William Oliver, a physician, died at Bath in 1764; and another William Oliver, M.D. had the honour of accompanying King William in the expedition which placed him on the throne, to preserve the civil and religious liberties of England. Trenear was sold soon after the younger Dr. Oliver’s decease, and purchased by Mr. Robyns, who built there a good house, and made it a gentleman’s seat. It afterwards became the property and residence of the Rev. Anthony Williams, sometime Vicar of St. Kevern, and it has passed with one of his daughters and coheiresses to Henry Pendarves Tremenheere, Esq. late Captain of one among the first-rate ships in the East India Company’s Service, where he merited and obtained the approbation, esteem, and respect of every individual with whom he had the slightest connexion, and the same effects of honour, ability, and kindness of heart, have followed him into retirement.

89 Rose Hill has a good house, built about the commencement of this century by Richard Oxnam, Esq. who served the office of Sheriff in the year 1810. It has since become the property and residence of the Rev. Uriah Tonkin, recently appointed Vicar of Lelant.

Lariggan is remarkable for the beauty of its situation; having been selected, and a neat house built there, by Mr. Thomas Pascoe, a worthy and respectable magistrate. And just above the town of Penzance stands a house having almost the appearance of a palace, built some years since by an individual of the name of Pope.

Mr. Pope was originally from Camelford; he conducted business for some time at Bristol, and then emigrated to the United States, where he accumulated a large fortune, unknown and forgotten by his family; till on a sudden he appeared at Penzance, recognised some relations, and, having purchased a few acres of ground, he built this magnificent house, which instantly became known by general acclamation as the Vatican, a name suited at once to its splendour, to its elevated situation, and to its founder’s name. Mr. Pope scarcely lived to inhabit this mansion; but left it to his nephew Mr. Vibert, to whose patriotism, skill, and perseverance, as a member of the corporation, Penzance is mainly indebted for several of its improvements, and especially for its new church. The house is now inhabited by Mrs. Rogers, widow of the late Mr. John Rogers, of Penrose, near Helston, and her daughters.

Lanyon was in former times the residence of one branch of the ancient and respectable family bearing that name. It now belongs to Mr. Rashleigh, of Menabelly; the farm, however, possesses one of those monuments in comparison with which all family records are modern.

In a croft near the side of the road leading from Penzance towards Morva, stands the Cromleigh or Coit described by Doctor Borlase, in pp. 230, 231, of his Antiquities, 2d edition. It fell down and has been replaced, (see the Logging Rock under St. Levan). Dr. Borlase mentions 90 another Cromleigh at Malfra, in this parish, and two others in the adjoining parishes of Morva and Zennor, all within a few miles of each other. These monuments, scattered over a large portion of Europe, bear all the marks of great antiquity. Their construction is rude as well as simple, a flat but unhewn stone, laid on three columnar stones, also in their natural slate, and all of Cyclopean dimensions. The flat stone at Lanyon has been estimated at twenty ton.

Their use is much less certain. They are generally supposed to be sepulchral monuments; but the flat surface of the upper stone always inclined at a small angle from the horizon, would seem to countenance the opinion of their being meant for religious observances, probably for sacrifices, which is further countenanced by the etymology of the name, if it means in Celtic the Holy Hearth.

Landithy, the college or preceptory of the Knights Templars, belonged for several generations to the Flemings, a family now quite extinct, and their property alienated.

The great tithes of this parish belonged to the Knights Templars, under a gift from Henry de Pomeroy, one of the great family of the Pomeroys, Lords of Bury Pomeroy Castle. They were given by Henry the Eighth to some private person, and have belonged for a considerable time to the family of Nicholls, now Le Grice.

The Vicarage has passed through other hands. It is related by Hals and Tonkin to have belonged to Fleming and to Harris, and then by purchase to the corporation of Penzance, from which body it passed by sale to the family of Borlase, and is now vested in the heir-at-law, or in the devisee of the late Samuel Borlase, Esq.

But at a remote period the baronial residence of an extensive lordship was at Alverton, held by the Pomeroys; and Mr. Lysons says that it passed successively through the Tyes, Lisles, and Berkeleys, till reverting to the Crown it was granted to Whitmore and others, and has been divided and subdivided. Scarcely a trace can be seen at Alverton 91 of its former magnificence. The portion still claiming the nominal distinction of Manor of Alverton, Penzance, and Mousehole, was bought of the Keigwins by the late Mr. George Veale, second son of Mr. Veale, of Trevaila, who acquired a considerable fortune at Penzance by the practice of the law; afterwards divided between his three daughters,—one married to Mr. Hickens, of Poltair; another to Mr. Baines, a Captain in the Navy; and the third to Mr. Jenkin, an officer in the army. These ladies, or their families, have since disposed of Alverton, and the whole is now vested in James Halse, Esq. M. P. for St. Ives.

Maddern Well is one of the numerous springs of water almost revered in former times on account of imputed supernatural virtues; and it has in reality, from time out of mind, diffused health and comfort over the thousands of persons inhabiting Penzance, the stream having been conducted there by a winding channel of some miles in extent, and arriving at the highest part of the town, it is enabled to flow down to the sea through every street.

Penzance, the most western market town in Cornwall, is one of the most flourishing. It appears to have been in former times no more than a small village, occupying the promontory now distinguished as the Quay, where stood a chapel, dedicated to St. Anthony, the Patron of fishermen, which in all probability gave it the name of Pen-sance, or the holy head (land), and it seems further probable that the new church or chapel yard may have been an ancient fortress for the protection of the place. Houses however gradually extended beyond this narrow limit; and the place had acquired some magnitude, when, in the year 1595, on the 23d of July, a predatory squadron of ships from Spain, stood into the bay, and landing about two hundred men, destroyed Mousehole, burnt Paul Church, and did much injury to Penzance; see Carew, Lord Dunstanville’s edition, p. 381. But, as appears from history to be very usual in such cases, the town arose with increased 92 splendour from its ashes, and a charter of incorporation having been soon after, in 1614, granted by King James the First, measures were taken by this new body of trustees for insuring the increase and prosperity of the district committed to their charge. The most material of these were purchasing the seignorage of the harbour, and of the market, and of fairs, which according to the rude policy of former times had been vested in private persons, for individual benefit; the first of whom was Alice de Lisle, lady of the manor of Alverton, about the year 1332.

The Corporation also acquired a piece of ground called the three-cornered spot, on which a spacious market house was constructed, and buildings proper for shops and for merchandize, were raised on the three faces of the triangle. Penzance acquired also the privilege of being a coinage town. From this period it continued gradually to increase in size, in wealth, and in consideration, notwithstanding some adverse events in the Civil War, till the progress received an almost unlooked-for acceleration by another effort of the faithful trustees for the place, the body corporate. They, by a series of judicious efforts, continued for many years, at last completed a Pier, so extensive and well placed as to afford shelter for perhaps a hundred vessels, to admit several of the largest size used for traders, and to afford every accommodation and facility for the shipping or unshipping of merchandize. From the completion of this great work in 1813, up to the present period, Penzance has flourished beyond example; and though much may be imputed to the general prosperity of the times, and to the diffusion of knowledge, yet by far the greater part must be ascribed to the management of an unappropriated fund, by a body of honest and disinterested trustees, for the public benefit; and the Editor is especially disposed to bear this testimony to one Corporation, at a period (1835) when all municipal bodies are about to be remodelled, on the alleged ground of their insufficiency for useful purposes.

Penzance, for all ecclesiastical matters forming a part of 93 the parish of Maddern, has long had a chapel of ease, with a lecturer appointed for life by the corporation, on an endowment made in 1680 by Mr. John Tremenheere, at that time a merchant residing in the town, and either the direct or collateral ancestor of the very respectable family of that name still remaining in the town and neighbourhood.

It has since been augmented by Queen Anne’s Bounty; but, the chapel having become wholly inadequate to the population, a church has been built in its place, accompanied by a lofty tower, and all constructed of granite, so as to add, in a most extraordinary degree, to the beauty of the town, and at the same time to afford every convenience that the space could possibly admit; and it is pleasing to add, that the work has been conducted and executed by all the parties concerned, in a manner highly creditable to their taste, to their judgment, and to their care in the expenditure of public money. But among the gentlemen who have exerted themselves in different ways, it would be unfair not particularly to mention Mr. Vibert, whose general skill, ability, and accurate knowledge of details have been most conspicuous throughout the whole undertaking; and the Editor hopes that the ties of consanguinity will not be thought of a nature to preclude him from referring here to the late Mr. Edward Giddy, who, in the situation of chief magistrate, conferred on him, over and over again, in every other situation, on all occasions, and especially in regard to this splendid and useful building, proved himself the active, zealous, and intelligent friend of the town and of all its inhabitants; and it is further gratifying to state, that the existing members of the family of Tremenheere, in emulation of their ancestor, to whom the chapel is indebted for its original endowment, have added the splendid decoration of painted glass over the whole east window of the chancel. The new church will be opened for divine service in the present year; and in this year also, as perhaps the last act of a select corporate body, which, in the 94 administration of an income little short in its gross amount of two thousand pounds a year, may challenge the most minute investigation, the town and neighbourhood will receive the benefit of a new, commodious, and extended market-house, with the usual appendages, fully adequate to the still increasing opulence and commerce of the place.

Penzance may justly be proud of the many distinguished families and individuals connected with it: Clive, Fleming, Borlase, Tremenheere, Tonkin, Veale, John, Pellew, Batten, Carne, Davy, Boase, Colston, Giddy. It would require a volume to give even a slight history of each family, and of its individual members.

The Tonkins were long represented by Mr. Uriah Tonkin, who, through a life extended far beyond the period usually assigned to human nature, obtained universal regard and esteem. This gentleman had several sons; from one of whom is descended the Reverend Uriah Tonkin, now Vicar of Lelant. Another son, Mr. John Tonkin, pursued the practice of medicine till he succeeded to the family estate. He was distinguished for ability, good nature, and for quaintness of expressions in the form of apophthegms; but the most remarkable incident in Mr. John Tonkin’s life was his adoption of Humphry Davy, with the intention of educating him to the medical profession, and making him his successor. Davy, having succeeded to a small fortune on the decease of his father, soared above the narrow limits of a country practitioner, and was preparing himself for Edinburgh, when the Editor most fortunately directed his course to Clifton, where Dr. Beddoes was then engaged in applying pneumatic chemistry in aid of the Bristol waters for the cure or alleviation of incipient consumption; from thence he fought his way to the pinnacle of honour attached to experimental science.

Everything of importance in the life of this extraordinary man has been given with accuracy and ability by Doctor 95 Paris, in a Life of Davy, 1 vol 4to. or 2 vols. 8vo. Colburn and Bentley. 1831.

The family of Batten have been for some time the leading merchants of Penzance. They have recently lost Mr. John Batten, distinguished by the intelligence and liberality incident to gentlemen in that profession; but he has left a family more than promising to support his reputation and the credit of his ample fortune; and this family has the honour of possessing the Reverend Joseph Hallett Batten, D.D. Principal of the East India College.

This gentleman having been placed at Trinity College, Cambridge, by the Editor’s recommendation, immediately distinguished himself in the public examinations and by obtaining college prizes; and on taking his degree Mr. Batten became Third Wrangler. These honours led at once to a Fellowship, and to the most desirable private tuitions; and, having married, he was placed at the head of an institution destined to prepare the minds and the habits of young men for the government of a vast empire.

Mr. William Carne came to Penzance about sixty years ago, where, by active and intelligent industry, he has acquired an ample fortune. Of his son, Mr. Joseph Carne, it would not be an easy task to speak in terms sufficiently laudatory: I therefore refer to his communications in the Transactions of the Geological Society of Cornwall, to his most ample and valuable collection of natural history, and to his patronage of every institution established for the diffusion of knowledge.

The late Mr. Boase left Cornwall at an early age, and became the active partner in a London bank, from whence he returned to Penzance, and conferred important benefits on the town as a magistrate and member of the corporation, and by the judicious employment of his capital. His eldest son Dr. Henry S. Boase supports, as Secretary, the Geological Society, instituted by Doctor Paris in the year 1814. Besides papers in these Transactions, Dr. Boase has published, “Primary Geology,” a 96 separate work, in 1 vol. 8vo. Longman and Co. 1834, which has attracted the attention of natural philosophers throughout Europe; and although this is not the place to express my individual gratitude, yet I may say, that the most valuable additions to Mr. Hals’s and Mr. Tonkin’s parochial histories will be found in Doctor Boase’s geological description of each separate parish.

I cannot omit here to notice, among the inhabitants who have done credit to Penzance, my late respected relation Mr. Thomas Giddy, as a gentleman, a scholar, and a man of unblemished reputation. He came to Penzance in the year 1774, was chosen Mayor ten different times, and in his last mayoralty mainly assisted in carrying into execution a great improvement of the town, by removing the Coinage Hall from a place adjoining the Market House, to a proper situation near the quay, permission for which the Editor had the good fortune to obtain from the Lord Warden and the Duchy Officers. Mr. Giddy died July the 26th, 1825, having nearly completed his eighty-fourth year, and having somewhat more than completed the sixtieth year of his marriage. His widow survived him about five years.

Dr. Stephen Luke was also from Penzance. He practised with much success and reputation at Falmouth, Exeter, and London, where he died on the 30th of March 1829.

Finally, I may state that the intrepid and successful Admiral Pellew, although not a native of Penzance, received his nautical education in this town.

A grammar school has long been endowed by the Corporation; and the master used formerly to hold in addition the lecturership of the chapel.

The Reverend James Parkin, afterwards Rector of Okeford in Devonshire, held both offices for a considerable time; and under his care, for about eighteen months, the Editor received the only instruction for which he is indebted to a stranger.

97 The school is now presided over by the Reverend Mr. Morris, M.A. from Balliol College, Oxford; and Mr. Le-Grice having resigned the lecturership, after holding it above twenty years, has been succeeded by the Reverend Mr. Vyvyan, of Trelowarren.

Penzance has become, in the last half century, a considerable resort of invalids; and much benefit has been received in pulmonary cases from the mildness and comparatively even temperature of the climate, which has been most satisfactorily established by the observations of Mr. Edward Giddy, printed in the Journal of Philosophy. For a detailed account of Penzance and of the Mount’s Bay, in a medical point of view, the reader is referred to the works of Dr. Paris, who resided some years in the town, till he left it to acquire one of the most extensive fields of practice in London.

An event occurred at Penzance in the year 1760, of a nature so curious as to be well worthy of remembrance. This country was then deeply engaged in what has since been termed the seven years’ war; and, notwithstanding the splendid successes of 1759, the nation still felt alarm from the always threatened invasion by France, and from the fear of predatory excursions, when in the night following the 29th of September the town was roused by the firing of guns, and soon after by the intelligence of a large ship of a strange appearance having run on shore on the beach towards Newlyn. Great numbers of persons crowded to the spot, where they were still more astonished and shocked by the sight of men still stranger than their vessel, each armed with a scymetar and with pistols. It was now obvious that they were Moslems; and a vague fear of Turkish ferocity, of massacre and plunder, seised the unarmed inhabitants, just awakened from their sleep in the middle of the night. A volunteer company obeyed, however, with alacrity the beat to arms, and 172 men were conducted or driven into a spacious building which then stood on the Western Green, and for some reason or other 98 was called the Folly. Eight men were found to be drowned. Before morning it was ascertained from themselves, by some who understood the lingua Franca, that the ship was an Algerine corsair, carrying 24 guns, from nine to six pounders, and that the Captain had steered his vessel into the Mount’s Bay, and run it against the shore under a full conviction that he was safe in the Atlantic Ocean, at about the latitude of Cadiz, thus committing an error of thirteen degrees in latitude. The instant it was known that the sailors were Algerines, a fear seized the town and neighbourhood scarcely less formidable than the other of massacre and plunder—namely, of the plague. The volunteers, however, kept watch and ward to prevent all intercourse. Intelligence was conveyed to the government, and orders are said to have been issued for troops to march from Plymouth for surrounding the whole district; but most fortunately the local authorities ascertained that no cause whatever existed for such a precaution, and the orders were countermanded.

When it was found safe to visit the strangers, curiosity attracted the whole neighbourhood. Their Asiatic dress, long beards and mustachios, with turbans, the absence of all covering from their feet and legs, the dark complexion and harsh features of a piratical band, made them objects of terror and of surprise.

They were on the whole treated kindly; their vessel had totally disappeared, and consequently after some delay a ship of war took all the men on board, and conveyed them to Algiers.

The tower of Penzance Church is situated in latitude 50° 6′ 48″; longitude 5° 31′ 0″; in time 22m. 4s. west of Greenwich, as deduced from the Trigonometrical Survey.

The establishment of the port, or the time of high water at the new and full of the moon, is 4h. 30m. very nearly. London Bridge being 2h. 7m.

The establishment of the Lizard is about 5h.; Portbend 6h.; Beechey Head 10h.; Dover 11h; Margate 99 12h.; mouth of the Thames 1h.; so that the tidal wave occupies about 9h. 30m. in flowing from the Land’s End to London Bridge.

The parish of Maddern measures 5450 statute acres.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815: £. s. d.

Parish 8,454 0 0

Penzance 10,401 0 0

£18,055 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831:

Parish 593 7 0

Penzance 811 11 0

£1,404 18 0

Population,—

in 1801, in 1811, in 1821, in 1831,

Parish, 1564 1817 2011 2058

Penzance 3382 4022 5224 6563

4940 5839 7235 8621

giving an increase on the parish of 31½ per cent.; on the town of 94 per cent.; on both of 74 per cent. in 30 years.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

A large portion of this parish is situated on granite, the boundary line of which extends from near the church, in a semicircular form, to Buryas Bridge. South of this line the parish consists of felspar, hornblend, and actynolite rocks, all of which occur both in massive and in schistose forms. A fine instance of the latter may be seen at the back of the quay at Penzance, and may be traced for some distance in a westerly direction on the sea shore below high-water mark. About half way to Newlyn another bed of porphyry, or an irregular continuation of the former, was a few years since explored for tin, and became the celebrated Wherry Mine, yielding not only a large quantity of tin, so as to afford profit after paying the expenses of a 100 steam-engine, but also beautiful specimens of rare metallic minerals. For an account of this curious submarine mine, Mr. Hawkins’ Paper in the Transactions of the Cornwall Geological Society, vol. 1, p. 127, may be consulted; and in the third volume of the same work, p. 166, will be found an account of the sand bank and submarine forest existing near the same spot (by Dr. Boase. Ed.). Every part of this parish appears to be intersected with metalliferous veins; some copper and small quantities of lead have been raised, but tin is the only metal that has yet proved of importance.

To the above the Editor must add, that Penzance has the good fortune to possess a geological and mineralogical treasure peculiarly its own.

In the year 1814 Doctor Paris and Mr. Ashurst Majendie began to institute the Geological Society, and to form a museum. The Society has flourished far beyond any expectation that could have been originally formed; and the collection has been enriched by the liberality of Mr. Carne, Dr. Barham, Mr. Henwood, and others; but, above all, by Doctor Boase, who has deposited specimens from all parts of Cornwall, collected on an actual survey extended to each individual parish. All these specimens are arranged, labelled, and numbered, with reference to their localities and to his admirable work.

For the general arrangement of the cabinet, with indexes, &c. the Society and the public are indebted to the ingenuity and industry of the late Mr. Edward Giddy; and the room of the Cornwall Geological Society at Penzance may justly be pointed out to scientific strangers as the object most worthy of their attention throughout the whole extent of the country.

101

MAKER.

HALS.

Maker Vicarage is situate in the hundred of East, and hath upon the east Plymouth Harbour and St. Nicholas Island, north Millbrook and East Anthony, south and west Rame and St. John’s.

In the Domesday Book 20 William I. 1087, this district was taxed in Cornwall by the name of Macret-tone.

In the Inquisition into the value of Cornish Benefices 20 Edward I. 1294, made by the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, Ecclesia de Macre, in decanatu de Estwellshire 100s. Vicar ejusdem 53s. 4d. In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, it is rated by the name of Meker 23l. 11s. The patronage in Edgcumbe, the incumbent Mitchell, and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax 1696, 143l. 11s.

Part of Maker, and those lands called Mount Edgcumbe, were formerly the lands of Durneford of Devon, of which family, Stephen Durneford was Sheriff of Devon 6 Henry V. 1413, and of Cornwall 7 Henry V. 1419, whose great granddaughter, (the issue male failing) the sole heir of the family, was married to Sir Piers Edgcumbe, Knight, Lord of Cotehele in Cornwall by long inheritance, and of East Stonehouse in Devon, whose ancestor Peter Edgcumbe, Esq. 12 Henry VI. 1443, was certified by the Commissioners to be one of the gentry of the county of Devon. He was the father of Richard Edgcumbe, afterwards knighted, Sheriff of Devon 2d Henry VII. 1487, when John Tremayne was Sheriff of Cornwall; the which Mr. Edgcumbe was a gentleman that hazarded his life and fortune in espousing the Earl of Richmond’s case and title to the Crown in opposition to King Richard III. He then lived at Cotehele aforesaid in Calstock parish; and being 102 discovered to be one of that faction or party, he was forced to abscond and retire into the thick woods that then were and still are about Cotehele; nevertheless, King Richard, having notice of his absconding, ordered his officers to make diligent search for him, and in all probability had taken him, had he not rescued himself from their pursuit by an unparalleled accident, as Mr. Carew in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 114, (page 270, Lord Dunstanville’s edition), informs us, viz. “at such tymes as those searchers were in his woods, and himself hid in a secret hole of the sea cliffe, the tide being full up, he put a small stone into his wearinge cap and threw it into the sea, which swimming in the water the winds and waves tossed it to and fro that it soone came to those seekers’ sight and observation.”