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decipherable). this life Nov

QUAINT EPITAPHS

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Also of Jane his daughter who departed 30, 1807" (piece of stone here broken off)

"in the first year of her age

Our life is but a Winter's Day,
Some only Breakfast and away,

Others to Dinner stay and are full fed,
The oldest only sups and goes to bed.
Largest his Debt who Lingers out the Day,
Who goes the soonest has the least to Pay.'

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On the same side of the churchyard are several tombstones to a family called Permewan-now extinct in this parish-who always had the custom of christening a daughter by the curious name of Pee. I counted no less than three headstones recording the deaths of persons so named.

On another, just beside the allegorical winter's day effect, is mentioned the death of "Onesiphorus their son who died in 1905 aged 79 years." These rather unusual names are only equalled by some in the churchyard of St. Kea, near Truro, where you may read, "In Memory of Mezelley, daughter of Plato and Betsy Bucklan," etc., and "To the Memory of Tamsen, wife of," etc. In the same neighbourhood of these monuments is one to the Rev. John Croker, who had quite a far-reaching reputation all over the county for laying "difficult" ghosts.

On the east, outer, wall of the porch, on a thick slate slab, is a monument to "Thomas Williams, May 30th, 1795 Sleep here a While

Thou Dearest part of Me

In Little Time

I'll Come and Sleep With Thee."

Then below on the same slab appears :

"Likewise of Mary His

Wife who died Nov. 6
1796 AGED 75."

A quaint inscription I also noticed was to:

"Thomas Hutchins

Who died Feb: 18, 1813

Aged 81 years

45 of which he work'd as an

Artificer in H M Dock-yard of

Plym: this parish was his

Native home.

He was-but words are wanting to express

What he was-think what an upright man ought to be: that was he. His mourning children caused this to be erected as a tribute of their affection to the best of fathers."

Near the west end of the churchyard is a tomb recording the death, on July 31st, 1872, of "Augustus Smith, Esq., Aged 68, Lord Proprietor of the Isles of Scilly." He was the Provincial Grand Master for Cornwall, and was buried here at six in the morning with full masonic honours.

Buryan was the birthplace of one notorious character, at any rate. William Noye, or Noy, was born here in 1577, and became an eminent lawyer, and eventually AttorneyGeneral to Charles I. He went to Exeter College, Oxford, in 1593, when sixteen years of age, and was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn in 1594, and was called to the Bar in 1602, becoming a bencher in 1632. He worked hard and assiduously at his profession, adopting as his anagram "I moyle in law." By this steady moiling he advanced slowly, and at last attracted the attention of Bacon, by whom he was recommended, in 1614, for the post of official law reporter, as one "not overwrought with practice and yet learned, and diligent, and conversant in reports and records." He represented Helston, Fowey, St. Ives in Parliament at various times, at first taking the popular side and attacking monopolies with considerable power. King Charles I must have noticed the rising young lawyer, imbued with more than average ability and acumen, and was advised by his council to win Noye over to his side. On being offered the post, he is said to have bluntly asked what his honorarium was to be. He accepted the office, and then, as is usual with converts, became a bitter opponent of his late associates. In the Star Chamber it fell to his lot to prosecute two of his own Inn, Henry Sherfield and William Prynne. Noye went to great extremes. He urged on the king, it is said, to exact the ship-money, with disastrous results, as we know. He unearthed old statutes to employ them for his own ends, and planned new exactions. He stretched the royal prerogative to the utmost. Whether in all this he was sincere is a question. It may be that he was all the time secretly working for his old party, for making things as desperate as they could be, in order to precipitate matters. We know he enriched himself, at any rate. He became a first favourite with King Charles, who relied much upon him. Once when dining with the

A GREAT LAWYER

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king, Ben Jonson watched them from the opposite house, and sent across the epigram :—

"When the world was drowned

No deer was found

Because there was no park :

And here I sitt

Without ere a bitt

Cause Noyah hath all in his Arke."

King Charles took the hint, and sent the poet across some venison with this reply :

"When the world was drowned

There deer was found

Although there was no park :
I send thee a bitt

To quicken thy witt

Which comes from Noyah's Arke.”

He died at New Brentford in 1634, and was buried in the chancel in the parish church.

He thus did not live to see the great catastrophe which he had done so much by his violence to bring about. Archbishop Laud said of him, "I have lost a dear friend," and "the Church the Greatest she had of his condition since she needed any such."

Though he prostituted his great learning, wit, and vast ingenuity to the service of tyranny, and therefore has handed down an ignominious reputation, he was evidently the first lawyer of his day, and must have been a lucid and effective speaker. He was the greatest man undoubtedly St. Buryan has produced.

The parish feast day of St. Buryan is the nearest Sunday to May 13th. These feasts are a very common feature of Cornish life to-day. In many cases they commemorate the birthday of the patron saint of the parish, and were originally days quite set apart for religious exercises, as well as merry-making and high jinks. Such feasts are not unknown in other faiths. I have no doubt these Cornish festivals are direct lineal descendants of the very ancient feasts or festivals; for when Christianity was introduced the missionaries simply christianised as many of the innocent habits and customs of the people as they could. To have attempted to destroy them would have been impolitic, and even if it had been attempted-we do not know that it was not-would have failed.

Mr. Warner, who is enthusiastic in his praise of the lower working-classes of Cornish women, particularly notices their softness and roundness of external form, their beauty and freshness, and peculiar smoothness, delicacy, and healthy colour in the texture of their skin, which he was at a loss to account for until he understood from a friend that they arose from their feeding chiefly on pilchards, a fish diet at other places having been noticed to give rise to a similar plumpness of form and delicacy of manner. "The inhabitants of St. Burian, both men and women, he says, exhibit the finest specimens of Cornish strength and beauty. The broad and muscular outline of the male, the luxuriant contour of the female form, here evince that the climate, food or employment of the people (or perhaps all together) are highly conducive to the maturation and perfection of the human figure."

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The parish of St. Buryan now comprises 6964 acres, and has a population of 1236,1 and they are

"Simple folk, of simple ways,
Living by earth's tillage;
Spending all their quiet days
In the same old village.'

1 In 1801 the population was 1164.

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NOTE.-In Hals MSS, at the British Museum (f. 18), I came across this reference to St. Buryan :- In Domesday tax this Districk was rated by the name of Beri-and, for Beri-an, or Bury-an; synonymous words, signifying a Cemetery, or burying place for Human creatures.

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