he remained in the West Indies one year, and used his eyes and ears,
for in 1779 he wrote an account of the religion of the Coromandel
negroes for Bryant Edwards' _History of the West Indies_, from
information he then and there gathered. For his services he received
from the Board of Customs the substantial sum of £1500. He returned to
his duties at S. Ives in 1774. In 1777 he became private secretary
to the Earl of Buckinghamshire, in Dublin, but he returned to S. Ives
after six months in Ireland. In 1779 he speculated in a bootless
search for treasure, which the notorious pirate, Captain John Avery,
was supposed, on his return from Madagascar, to have secreted near the
Lizard. But, as none of the Lives of that freebooter gave any hint of
his having done so, the attempt was not the least likely to lead to
satisfactory results. Davies Gilbert says that Knill equipped some
small vessels to act as privateers against smugglers, but if local
tradition may be relied on, these vessels were only nominally for this
purpose, and were actually engaged in running contraband goods; but
this is highly improbable.
[Illustration: GLASS INSCRIBED "SUCCESS TO THE EAGLE FRIGATE, JOHN
KNILL COMMANDER"
_From the Collection of Percy Bate, Esq. of Glasgow_]
In 1782 he was employed in the service of the customs as inspector of
some of the western ports, making occasional visits to London, where
he settled for the rest of his days. In 1784 he purchased chambers in
Gray's Inn Square, where he died on March 29th, 1811, at the age of
seventy-seven. He was painted by Opie in 1779, dressed in a plain suit
of blue, with frilled shirt and ruffles. He made his half-brother, the
Rev. John Jope, of S. Cleer, his sole executor.
It was in the year 1782 that John Knill erected his mausoleum on Worral
Hill, on land purchased from Henry, Lord Arundell, for five guineas. The
total cost of the monument was £226 1s. 6d. Sixpence a year is paid to
the owner of Tregenna for a right of way to the obelisk. By a deed dated
May 29th, 1797, Knill settled upon the mayor and capital burgesses of S.
Ives, and their successors for ever, an annuity of £10 as a rent-charge,
to be paid out of the manor of Glivian, in Mawgan, which sum is annually
to be put into a chest which is not to be opened except at the end of
every five years. Then, out of the accumulated sum, a dinner was to be
given to the mayor, collector of customs, and vicar of S. Ives, and two
friends to be invited by each of them, and £15 to be equally divided
among ten girls, natives of S. Ives, under ten years old, who should,
between 10 a.m. and noon on S. James the Apostle's Day, dance and sing
round the mausoleum, to the fiddling of a man who was to receive a pound
for so doing and for fiddling as the procession of girls went to the
obelisk and returned. One pound was to be laid out in white ribbons for
the damsels and a cockade for the fiddler. Some of the money was to go
to keep the mausoleum in repair, and there were certain benefactions
also recorded.
The first Knillian celebration took place in July, 1801, when,
according to the will of the founder, a band of little girls, all
dressed in white, with two widows and a company of musicians, marched
in procession to the top of the hill, where they danced about the
monument, then, as Knill desired, sang the Hundredth Psalm to its old
melody, and after that returned in the same order to S. Ives. The
ceremony still takes place every fifth year.
In dancing the children sing the following in chorus:--
Shun the bustle of the bay,
Hasten, virgins, come away;
Hasten to the mountain's brow,
Leave, O leave, S. Ives below.
Haste to breathe a purer air,
Virgins fair, and pure as fair;
Fly S. Ives and all her treasures,
Fly her soft voluptuous pleasures;
Fly her sons and all their wiles,
Lushing in their wanton smiles;
Fly the splendid midnight halls;
Fly the revels of her balls;
Fly, O fly the chosen seat,
Where vanity and fashion meet.
Hither hasten from the ring,
Round the tomb in chorus sing,
And on the lofty mountain's brow, aptly dight,
Just as we should be, all in white,
Leave all our troubles and our cares below.
THOMAS TREGOSS
A certain Roscadden going on a pilgrimage in the days before the
Reformation, and being absent some years, was surprised on his return to
find that his wife had borne one if not more children. Very much and
very naturally put out, he consulted with one John Tregoss, who advised
him to settle his estate upon some friend whom he could trust, for the
use and benefit of his children whom he would own, and for the wife not
to be left absolutely destitute in the event of his death. Mr. Roscadden
approved of this counsel, and constituted John Tregoss his heir
absolutely, but always with the understanding that the said Tregoss
should administer his estate according to the wishes and instructions of
Roscadden. But this gentleman dying soon after, John Tregoss entered on
possession of the estate, "turned the wife and children out of doors,
who for some time were fain to lye in an hog-stye, and every morning
went forth to the Dung-hill, and there upon their faces imprecated and
prayed that the vengeance of God might fall upon Tregoss and his
posterity for this so perfidious and merciless deed.
"And after this, God's severe but righteous judgments fell upon
Tregoss's family. For his son Walter, one day riding upon a Horse in a
fair way, the horse threw him, and broke his neck: and some of his
issue came to untimely ends, and it is observed that a curse hath
remained ever since: and this Mr. Tregoss of whom we write was so
sensible of it, that it cost him many fervent prayers to God for the
removal of that dreadful curse, as himself assured a bosom
friend"--but it does not seem to have occurred to him to give up the
heritage to the Roscaddens--that is, if he were the possessor.
The family of Tregose, or Tregosse, was one of the oldest in the
neighbourhood of S. Ives. The names of Clement and John Tregose of S.
Ives appear in the Subsidy Roll of 1327. In the list of _circa_ 1520,
Thomas Tregoos' lands in Towednack were assessed at the yearly value of
13s. 4d., and those of John Tregoz, in the parish of S. Ives, at 11s.;
but Thomas also had lands at S. Ives, valued the same as those of John.
In 1641, William Tregose, gent., had at S. Ives goods to the annual
value of £3.
Thomas Tregoss, the subject of this notice, was the son of William
Tregoss of S. Ives. His parents were strong Puritans and very austere,
and they hedged about their son with restrictions, not suffering him
to partake in games or any childish relaxations from the strain of
study or the contemplation of religious themes. At first he seemed to
be of poor capacity, but at the age of seven years he began to show
that he had a quick apprehension and a retentive memory. Cut off from
all worldly distractions, he was allowed but one direction in which
his faculties and his ambitions could stretch and expand. He had not
the force of character and strength of will to revolt against the
numbing restraints that bound him in. His only play as a boy was
standing on a chair and preaching to his fellow pupils.
He was sent to Oxford and admitted into Exeter College, and after a
few years spent there, returned to S. Ives; and as the Parliamentary
Commissioners had ejected the vicar, he was thrust in as Puritan
preacher in 1657, and he then married a Margaret Sparrow of the same
way of thinking.
The life of Thomas Tregoss, as given by Samuel Clark in his _Lives of
Some Eminent Persons_, 1683, is interspersed with Remarkable
Providences and Extraordinary Judgments, but for the most part they
are neither remarkable nor interesting.
The following is, perhaps, an exception:--
Shortly after his arrival at S. Ives, in the summer, the greater
portion of the fishing season had passed without the pilchards
appearing, and this to the great distress of the people. By the advice
of Tregoss a day was set apart for humiliation and prayer, and next
day a shoal of pilchards arrived.
In the ensuing summer the fishermen, having taken a great number of
fishes on the Saturday, wanted to spread and dry their nets on the
Sunday. Tregoss learning this, came forth and rebuked and denounced
God's judgment on them if they should profane the "Sabbath" in this
manner. They did not hearken to him, observing that their nets must be
dried or would rot. From that day no more pilchards visited the bay
during that season.
From S. Ives Tregoss was transferred to Mylor in October, 1659, but
was ejected from the living on August 24th, 1660, as not ordained, and
unwilling to receive ordination, and to subscribe to the articles and
confirm to the liturgy. However, he continued to preach to a privately
assembled number of puritanically minded people, and he was proceeded
against and committed to the custody of the marshal in Launceston
gaol, where he remained for three months, and was then released by
order of the Deputy Lieutenant.
In September, 1663, he removed to Kigilliath, near Penryn. On October
1st, 1664, whilst he and his wife were lying awake in bed, they
experienced an earthquake shock, and this he held to be "a symbolick
image of that trembling Heartquake which he shortly felt in his
conversion."
On January 1st ensuing, he fell into deep despondency and the spirit of
bondage--his liver being probably out of order--till he fancied himself
relieved by receiving the spirit of adoption. He had been converted half
a dozen times before, but never before preceded by an earthquake, so
that there could be no mistake about its reality this time.
Fired with new zeal, he broke into Mabe church at the head of a number
of his adherents, mounted the pulpit, and harangued his congregation.
For this he was arrested and imprisoned again in Launceston gaol, but
was shortly released, July 29th, 1665; and he had the pleasing
satisfaction of knowing that a bull had gored Justice Thomas Robinson,
who had sent him to prison.
Undeterred by what he had gone through, he again invaded Mabe church,
and was again committed to gaol on September 18th, but was once more
released, on December 14th.
On February 4th, 1666, he once more broke into the parish church of
Mabe at the head of a body of Puritans, and was again arrested and
sent to the marshal at Bodmin, but by the order of the King was at
once set free.
In 1669 he was at Great Torrington, where he preached, and was sent to
Exeter gaol, but was at once bailed out. He died at Penryn in January,
1672.
On September 4th, 1775, John Wesley preached at S. Ives "in the little
meadow above the town." He wrote in his diary that "the people in
general here (excepting the rich) seem almost persuaded to be
Christians. Perhaps the prayer of their old pastor, Mr. Tregoss, is
answered even to the fourth generation."
ANTHONY PAYNE
Anthony Payne, the "Falstaff of the West," was born in the manor
house, Stratton, the son of a tenant farmer, under the Grenvilles of
Stowe. The registers do not go back sufficiently far to record the
date of his birth. The Tree Inn is the ancient manor house in which
the giant first saw the light. He rapidly shot up to preternatural
size and strength. So vast were his proportions as a boy, that his
schoolmates were accustomed to work out their arithmetic lessons in
chalk on his back, and sometimes even thereon to delineate a map of
the world, so that he might return home, like Atlas, carrying the
world on his shoulders for his father with a stick to dust out.
It was his delight to tuck two urchins under his arms, one on each side,
and climb, so encumbered with "his kittens," as he called them, to a
height overhanging the sea, to their infinite terror, and this he would
call "showing them the world." A proverb still extant in Cornwall,
expressive of some unusual length, is "As long as Tony Payne's foot."
At the age of twenty-one he was taken into the establishment at Stowe.
He then measured seven feet two inches in height without his shoes,
and he afterwards grew two inches higher. He was not tall and lanky,
but stout and well proportioned in every way. The original mansion of
the Grenvilles at Stowe still in part remains as a farmhouse. The
splendid house of Stowe, built by the first Earl of Bath, was pulled
down shortly after 1711, and it was said that men lived who had seen
the stately palace raised and also levelled with the dust. This was at
a little distance further inland than the old Stowe that remains. The
Grenvilles had also a picturesque house at Broom Hill, near Bude, with
fine Elizabethan plaster-work ceilings, now converted into labourers'
cottages.
At Stowe Anthony Payne delighted in exhibiting his strength. In the
hurling-ground a rough block of stone is still pointed out as "Payne's
cast," lying full ten paces beyond the reach whereat the ordinary
player could "put the stone."
It is said that one Christmas Eve the fire languished in the hall. A
boy with an ass had been sent into the wood for faggots. Payne went to
hurry him back, and caught up the ass and his burden, flung them over
his shoulder, and brought both into the hall and cast them down by the
side of the fire.
On another occasion, being defied to perform the feat, he carried a
bacon-hog from Kilkhampton to Stowe. Then came the Civil War, when
Charles I and his Parliament sought to settle their differences on the
battlefield. Cornwall went for the King, and Anthony Payne had the
drilling and manœuvring of the recruits from Kilkhampton and Stratton.
At one time Sir Beville Grenville had his head-quarters at Truro, but
the great battle of Stamford Hill, May 16th, 1643, was fought but eight
miles from Stowe, and on the night preceding it Sir Beville Grenville
slept in his house at Broom Hill. The battle was desperate, the Royalist
soldiers being outnumbered, and attacked; amidst them was Anthony Payne,
mounted on his sturdy cob Samson, rallying his troopers and terrorizing
the enemy, who fled. At the next pitched battle at Lansdown, near
Bath, the forces of the King were defeated and Sir Beville was killed.
Anthony Payne, having mounted John Grenville, then a youth of sixteen,
on his father's horse, had led on the Grenville troops to the fight. The
Rev. R. S. Hawker gives a letter from the giant to Lady Grace Grenville,
conveying to her the news of the death of her husband; but it is more
than doubtful whether this be genuine. He says of it: "It still
survives. It breathes, in the quaint language of the day, a noble strain
of sympathy and homage." It does not exist except in Mr. Hawker's book,
and is almost certainly a fabrication by him.
[Illustration: ANTONY PAYNE
_From the picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller_]
At the Restoration, Sir John Grenville was created Earl of Bath, and
was made governor of the garrison of Plymouth, and he then appointed
Payne halberdier of the guns. The King, who held Payne in great
favour, made him a yeoman of his guards, and Sir Godfrey Kneller, the
Court artist, was employed to paint his portrait.
Whilst in Plymouth garrison an incident occurred that has been
recorded by Hawker. At the mess-table of the regiment, during the
reign of William and Mary, on the anniversary of the day when Charles
I had been beheaded, a sub-officer of Payne's own rank had ordered a
calf's head to be served up. This was a coarse and common annual
mockery of the beheaded king indulged in by the remnants of the old
fanatical Puritan party. When Payne entered the room his comrades
pointed out the dish to him. Anthony flared up, and flung the plate
and its contents out of the window. A quarrel and a challenge ensued,
and at break of day Payne and his antagonist fought with swords on the
ramparts, and Anthony ran the offender through the swordarm and
disabled him, as he shouted, "There's sauce for thy calf's head."
Hawker, who tells the story, supposed that the incident occurred
during the reign of George I. But Anthony died at an age little short
of eighty, and was buried at Stratton July 13th, 1691, and William of
Orange did not die till 1702.
After his death at Stratton, which took place in the house where he
was born, neither door nor stairs would afford egress for the large
coffined corpse. The joists had to be sawn through, and the floor
lowered with rope and pulley, to enable the giant to pass out to his
last resting-place, under the south wall of Stratton Church.[12]
The history of the vicissitudes through which went the painting by
Kneller is peculiarly interesting.
When Stowe was dismantled, on the death of the Earl of Bath, the
picture was removed to Penheale, another Cornish residence of the
Grenville family.
But here the portrait of him who had done so much for the house was
not valued, and was soon forgotten. Gilbert, the Cornish historian, in
one of his rambles, whilst staying at an old inn in Launceston, was
informed that this painting was still extant, and he went to Penheale,
where the farmer's wife occupying the house said that she did indeed
possess "a carpet with the effigy of a large man on it," that had been
given to her husband by the steward on the estate. It was rolled up,
and in a bad and dirty condition. She gladly sold it to C. S. Gilbert
for £8. On Gilbert's death his effects were sold at Devonport, and a
stranger bought it for £42. In London it was recognized as the work of
Kneller, and was resold for the sum of £800. It next appeared amongst
the effects of the late Admiral Tucker, at Trematon Castle; and when
the sale took place this picture was bought by a gentleman in Devon.
Finally Mr. (now Sir) Robert Harvey purchased it, and most generously
presented it to the Royal Institution of Cornwall.
The authorities for Anthony Payne are Hawker's _Footprints of Former
Men in Cornwall_; the _Journal of the R. Inst. of Cornwall_, Vol. X,
1890-1; Wood (E. J.), _Giants and Dwarfs_, 1868.
Next in size to Anthony Payne among big Cornishmen was Charles Chilcott,
of Tintagel, who measured 6 feet 4 inches high, and round the breast 6
feet 9 inches, and who weighed 460 pounds. He was almost constantly
occupied in smoking, three pounds of tobacco being his weekly allowance.
His pipe was two inches long. One of his stockings would contain six
gallons of wheat. He was much gratified when strangers came to visit
him, and to them his usual address was, "Come under my arm, little
fellow." He died in his sixtieth year, 5th April, 1815.
FOOTNOTE:
[12] The hole is still shown in the Tree Inn, Stratton.
NEVIL NORTHEY BURNARD
Was the son of George Burnard, a stonemason, who lived at Penpont,
Altarnon, in a house with mullioned windows and a newel staircase,
said to have been the old manor house of Penpont. He was born in 1818,
and was baptized on November 1st in that year.
The only education Nevil received was from his mother, who kept a
dame's school and made straw bonnets in her spare time.
He was mortar-boy to his father, and would often slip away and cut
figures of men and animals on an old oak door, getting many a "lacing"
for not minding his proper work. His earliest tools were nails, which
he sharpened on a grinding-stone, before he had any chisels.
There was at that time no machinery for facing slate slabs; so he used
an old French "burr"--i.e. part of a French millstone. Such millstones
were constructed in four parts, cemented together. This "burr" he put
into a rough frame of wood, and used it like a plane over the face of
the slate, which was laid on a bench, or "horse." The existing
examples of slabs worked in this way are most excellent, in flatness
and in smoothness.
The Delabole slate had been employed for many centuries for tombstones
and monuments, and lent itself surprisingly to being sculptured. In
the North Cornish churches are numerous examples of monuments
richly sculptured with heraldic figures of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, all on slate, and sharp to this day as when
they left the workshop.
[Illustration: NEVIL NORTHEY BURNARD
_From a bas-relief by the sculptor himself, in the possession of S.
Pearn, Esq., Altarnon_]
At the age of fourteen Nevil cut a tombstone to his grandfather; that
is now in Altarnon churchyard, and affords evidence of skill, artistic
sense, and fineness of detail. There are other stones of his in the
same churchyard; also one or two by his brother George. An old man is
still alive in Altarnon who used to sharpen the nails on a grindstone
for Burnard, with which he did his carving on slate.
At fifteen he left Altarnon. Wesley's head, over the porch of the old
Meeting-house, Penpont, was cut by him when he was sixteen.
From Altarnon he went to Fowey, and the late Sir Charles Lemon, of
Carclew, took him by the hand. At the age of sixteen he carved in
slate the group of Laocoon, sent in 1834 to the Exhibition of the
Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society at Falmouth. This carving in
bass-relief, executed by a boy from a wild moorland village, without
instruction, copied from a wood-cut in the _Penny Magazine_, and with
tools of his own making, was considered so very remarkable a
production that the Society awarded him a silver medal. Nevil was sent
to London, and through Sir Charles Lemon's influence was presented to
the Queen and Prince Consort, and he was allowed to cut a profile of
the Prince of Wales, then a boy, and this portrait was sent to
Osborne, and was approved by the Royal parents. Sir Charles Lemon
further introduced the lad to Chantrey, who secured for him employment
as a carver in one of the most celebrated ateliers in London.
Burnard reproduced his profile of the Prince of Wales in marble for
the Public Hall at Falmouth, and the general opinion expressed upon it
was that it amply sustained the early expectation which had been
formed of his talents.
Thus fairly launched in his profession as a carver in London, he found
employment in the studios of the best sculptors of the day, as Bailey,
Marshall, and Foley; and there was no lack of work, and no falling
short of pay.
Caroline Fox, in her _Memories of Old Friends_, says:--
"1847, October 4th.--Burnard, our Cornish sculptor, dined with us. He
is a great, powerful, pugilistic-looking fellow at twenty-nine; a
great deal of face, with all the features massed in the centre; mouth
open, and all sorts of simplicities flowing out of it. He liked
talking of himself and his early experiences. His father, a
stonemason, once allowed him to carve the letters on a little cousin's
tombstone which would be hidden in the grass; this was his first
attempt, and instead of digging in the letters he dug around them, and
made each stand out in relief. His stories of Chantrey very odd: on
his death Lady Chantrey came into the studio with a hammer and knocked
off the noses of many completed busts, so that they might not be too
common--a singular attention to her departed lord. Described his own
distress when waiting for Sir Charles Lemon to take him to Court: he
felt very warm, and went into a shop for some ginger-beer; the woman
pointed the bottle at him, and he was drenched. After wiping himself
as well as he could he went out to dry in the sun. He went first to
London without his parents knowing anything about it, because he
wished to spare them anxiety, and let them know nothing until he could
announce that he was regularly employed by Mr. Weekes. He showed us
his bust of the Prince of Wales--a beautiful thing, very intellectual,
with a strong likeness to the Queen--which he was exhibiting at the
Polytechnic, where it will remain."
[Illustration: WESLEY'S HEAD OVER THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE, PENPONT,
ALTARNON
_Cut by Burnard when_ 16 _years of age_]
[Illustration: TOMBSTONES CUT BY BURNARD
_That on the right is upon the grave of his grandfather in Altarnon
Churchyard, and was cut when the sculptor was only_ 14 _years old; the
one on the left is in Bodmin Churchyard_]
"1849, March 1st.--Found a kindly note from Thomas Carlyle. He has
seen 'my gigantic countryman,' Burnard, and conceives that there is
real faculty in him; he gave him advice, and says he is the sort of
person whom he will gladly help if he can. Burnard forwarded to me, in
great triumph, the following note he had received from Carlyle with
reference to a projected bust of Charles Buller: '_February_ 25th,
1849.... Nay, if the conditions _never_ mend, and you cannot get that
Bust to do at all, you may find yet (as often turns out in life) that
it was _better_ for you you did not. Courage! Persist in your career
with wise strength, with silent resolution, with manful, patient,
unconquerable endeavour; and if there lie a talent in you (as I think
there does), the gods will permit you to develop it yet.--Believe me,
yours very sincerely, T. Carlyle.'"