part in determining the advantages of Watt's engines; and in
conjunction with Captain W. Jenkin, of Treworgie, he made a survey of
all the steam-engines then working in Cornwall.
One of the most laborious and practically useful works of Giddy was a
treatise on the properties of the Catenary Curve. This fine example of
mathematical investigation was published whilst Telford was preparing
materials for the Menai Straits Bridge; and Telford was so convinced
by Mr. Giddy's tract, that he altered the construction of the bridge
in accordance with what Giddy had laid down, causing the suspension
chains, which had already been completed, to be again taken in hand
and lengthened by about thirty-six feet.
In 1804 Giddy was elected into Parliament as representative of that
rotten borough Helston, but at the next election, in 1806, he was
returned for Bodmin, and continued its member till the Reform Bill
abolished these nests of corruption. In Parliament he was rarely heard
to speak, but his judgment was always valued there, and had great
influence on questions of a practical nature.
In 1811, when the high price of gold produced an ominous effect on the
currency of the realm, and when the public mind became greatly
agitated by the depreciation of bank notes, Davies Giddy published _A
Plain Statement of the Bullion Question_, with the object of allaying
the public ferment. Against great opposition he carried an extra
twelve feet in width to the design for rebuilding London Bridge.
In 1808 he married Mary Ann Gilbert, an heiress, of Eastbourne, in
Sussex, whose family name he afterwards assumed, on account of the
hereditary estates to which he became entitled through this marriage.
This lady was of a strong, determined character. On one occasion when
riding she was thrown, and dislocated her shoulder. Laying hold of
her hunting-crop with both hands, she threw herself back and so
brought the joint back into its place.
Once she had a dispute with some farmers, who would not continue their
farms without a great reduction of rent. "Very well," said she; "then I
will farm them myself." And she did so, and made them pay. She was the
first in England to introduce the allotment system on a farm of hers at
Eastbourne, Sussex. The marriage was due to Mr. Giddy meeting her when
she was staying with her mother on a visit to Mr. Fry at Penzance.
She was a handsome woman, with a determined face, and she suited her
husband admirably, for she was interested in many of the subjects that
he took up. She was an authoress, moreover--she wrote upon "Tanks,"
"On an Improved Mode of Forming Water Tanks," "On the Construction of
Tanks," in 1836, 1838, and 1840. Also "On the Self-supporting Reading,
Writing, and Agricultural School at Willingdon, in Sussex," 1842.
On the death of Sir Joseph Banks the unanimous voice of the Royal
Society called Sir Humphry Davy to the chair, and at the same time
Davies Gilbert--as he now was--was nominated Treasurer under the man
whom he had first helped to start in his career. Ill-health having
obliged Sir Humphry Davy to quit England in the early part of 1827,
Mr. Gilbert occupied the chair as Vice-President, and when finally Sir
Humphry retired in the same year he was chosen President.
At that time a President was elected for life, but Davies Gilbert
considered this to be unadvisable, and urged that the election should be
for a term only; and his recommendation was accepted after a few years,
when the presidency was required for the Duke of Sussex; thereupon it
was hinted to him that he should act upon his expressed opinion and
leave the chair for His Royal Highness. This he did without reluctance.
On his wife's estate in Sussex he introduced the Cornish stiles, of
gridiron fashion--strips of stone laid down with an interval between
each--and this prevents horses, donkeys, and cattle from adventuring to
cross them. But the Sussex people on the Eastbourne estate revolted, and
declared that they would not break their legs to please any Cornish
Giddy or Sussex Gilbert, and he was constrained to remove them all.
He was a man of a versatile mind. He published, with a translation by
J. Keigwin and W. Jordan, the early Cornish mystery plays of _Mount
Calvary_ and the _Creation of the World_.
He also undertook a Parochial History of Cornwall, giving first Hals'
account from his MS., now in the British Museum, with additions from
Tonkin, and a geological account of each parish by Dr. Boase, of no
great value, and his own additions. This was published in five volumes
in 1838.
He wrote also on steam-engines, on the employment of sea salt as a
manure, on the improvement of wheels and springs for carriages, on the
_Eikon Basilike_. He translated the Liturgy into Greek. Chambers in
his _Journal_, Vol. II, 1844, has an account of the improvements
effected on his wife's estate at Eastbourne.
When Lieutenant Goldsmith upset the Logan Rock he got the use of
timber and ropes granted for the work of replacing the stone, and had
the loan of the same also to replace the coverstone of Lanyon Quoit.
Lord Sidmouth offered him the position of Under-Secretary of State,
but he declined the offer.
About a year before his death Davies Gilbert entered in his notebook:
"Slept in a house for the first time on my own property." This was a
house in East Looe bequeathed to him by Thomas Bond, who had written the
_History of Looe_, and who died unmarried and without near relatives.
Davies Gilbert died at Eastbourne on Christmas Eve, 1839, as the
carollers, for whom he had done so much, were going round in the dark
under the stars singing--
Noël, Noël, the angel did say,
Unto these poor shepherds in the fields as they lay.
JAMES HOSKIN, FARMER
Castell-an-Dinas was the most complete and perfect relic of
prehistoric times existing in Cornwall, till a Mr. Rogers, of Penrose,
took it into his head to erect a tower on the summit, that was neither
useful nor beautiful, and to obtain material the walls of the fort
were pulled about and pillaged. It is still an interesting specimen of
a hill fortress, notwithstanding the mischief wrought by the builder
of the tower.
On the side of the swelling hill crowned by the old fortress is a small
walled enclosure, like a donkey-pound, and in this is the tomb of James
Hoskin, a farmer, who desired that he might not be laid in consecrated
ground. He was buried in 1823 at the age of 63. He was baptized at
Ludgvan on March 8th, 1760, and was the son of James Hoskin.
There are, in fact, three headstones within the enclosure: that which is
central is to James Hoskin; on the left is one to his eldest son, who
died in 1812, aged 20, and above it is the inscription, "Custom is the
idol of Fools"; on the right is one to a married daughter and her child,
also in 1812, the mother aged 22 and the daughter 7, probably months,
not years, in this latter case. Above this headstone is the inscription:
"Virtue only consecrates the ground." But although there be these three
memorial stones, only James Hoskin, the father, aged 63, lies here.
What caused James Hoskin to desire to be interred on the moor away
from consecrated ground? Tradition in Ludgvan says that he kissed the
parson's wife, and the rector, furious at the insult--his name was J.
Stephens--vowed that if he survived Hoskin he would bury him in the
most obscure corner of the graveyard on the north side of the church.
So in order to defeat the parson's intentions, he made provision for
his body to be buried at Castell-an-Dinas. Whether this be true or not
I cannot say, but certain it is that there was a lasting difference
between J. Hoskin and the Rev. J. Stephens.
The Hoskin family lived in a farm, Treassow, Castell-an-Dinas, the
original seat of the Rogers Family from before 1633. Sold by Captain
J. P. Rogers recently.
His was a small yeoman family in very fair circumstances. James Hoskin
had two sons who lived, besides John, the eldest, who died young.
These were John William and Richard Vinnicombe. This last went as a
clerk to Jamaica to Sir Rose Price. His grandsons are now living in
Ludgvan. According to some poor inflated verses, written by a Miss
Lean, of Ludgvan, in 1803, addressed to James Hoskin, he made the farm
on the slope of Castell-an-Dinas, from which height, she says--
... Barren places are thence descryed,
But none more barren than its own rough side,
Till Hoskin rose, a man of birth obscure,
Heir to no wealth, and forced by fate to endure
The toils of humble life, till innate worth
And active fancy drew his talents forth.
On Castle Downs his fertile mind he cast,
And soon by industry did improve its waste.
The starving poor who knew not where to gain
The scanty pittance that should life sustain,
Employed by him, and by his bounty fed,
They had the honest means to earn their bread;
Nor stayed the hireling's wages in his hand,
But weekly each his stipend might command.
Some pick the stones, some cut the turf, and some
Dig from the pit the builders' useful loam.
The straw-thatched cottage rises from the ground,
And the strong stone enclosure spreadeth round.
And now where moss-grown rocks and heath did rise,
Green meads and beauteous cornfields greet the eyes.
The lowing herds and fleecy bleating flocks
That crop'd the scanty herbage round the rocks,
Now ruminating stand and seem to say,
May Heaven's best gift our benefactor pay.
The Master sees, well pleased, and smiles to see
The honest fruits of live industry.
The "poem" concludes with invocations of blessings on the head of Mr.
Hoskin--
Long, very long may he survive to see
The distant fruits of his industry;
And may Almighty power to him dispense
Earth's greatest bliss--Health, Peace, and Competence.
Having heard of the prosperity of those who had settled in America, he
resolved on going thither and seeing the condition of the farmers in
the States and the quality of the land, so that he might be able to
advise others whether to leave the mother country and settle there,
and with half a mind himself to cast in his lot with those who were
farming there. On his return he printed, but did not publish, his
experience and his observations. He printed for his own use, and kept
a very few copies for distribution among his relations and friends.
Through the kindness of the Rev. A. C. Boscawen, Rector of Ludgvan, I
have been afforded a sight of his Narrative. It is interesting as
affording a picture of the condition of the States and the farming
there a century ago. The "Narrative" was printed by Vigurs, of
Penzance, "for the Author" in 1813. In his preface, he says:--
"I am well aware that in the composition there may be much room for
criticism; to this I answer, I have neither the wish nor
qualification to become an AUTHOR, I need only say I am a FARMER. This
carries its apology with it, for the book contains plain facts on
agricultural subjects, which I affirm are nearly, if not perfectly,
correct. [I have written nothing designedly false.] The passage within
brackets he cancelled with his own hand after the book was printed.
"I sailed from Penzance on the 28th of December, 1810, on board an
American schooner called the _Packet of Boston_, bound for New York with
a cargo of iron, boxes of tin-plate, etc. On leaving the quay the seamen
of a brig gave us three cheers, which we returned. Soon a number of
people on the quay gave us three more. I asked the men, was it customary
on sailing? They said they had been on the pier two months, but never
saw it done before. So much for cordiality towards the Americans."
Blood is thicker than water. This is interesting. It shows that even
then, after the States had declared their independence, and only two
years before war was declared between England and the States, the
feeling, at all events in Cornwall, was one of affection and regard
for the gallant people who had been driven by stupidity into revolt
against the Crown.
After a very rough passage, on the 14th February, 1811, in the depth of
winter, the little vessel reached Vineyard Island. "We soon landed, and
put up at Dr. Spalding's tavern, a handsome house, with good
entertainment and accommodation. Our host was a doctor, a justice of the
peace, a tavern keeper, but quite the gentleman. The family at meal
times sat down with us--this is the American fashion. With our tea we
had plenty of beefsteaks, boiled eggs, preserved fruit, hot cakes, etc.
This is customary all over America. We paid a dollar per day (bed
included), but all through America we saw nothing of those pests of
beggars, waiters, chambermaids, coachmen, postboys, etc., which
constantly harass and frequently insult the traveller in England."
On reaching New York he got into trouble with his captain, who was
"slim," and tried to take advantage of him. "I was detained three
weeks by the captain I came over with from England. I bought at
Penzance some earthenware to carry out. On the passage I sold the
whole to the captain, and had a written agreement from him to pay me
on arriving at New York. At first he put off the payment for want of
money, so on one pretence or another until he began to unload the
vessel, and then he told me that he had given me no bill of lading to
show the goods were mine, and that I could not prove them mine. Indeed
he did everything in his power to plunder me of the whole. I then went
to the merchant to whom the cargo was consigned. He was much hurt at
the captain's conduct in attempting to defraud me, and wrote him a
letter immediately. The next day the merchant called on me, and told
me if the captain did not pay me in half an hour to acquaint him, but
before the half-hour was expired the captain was come with the money."
From New York Hoskin sailed in the _William Eaton_ schooner for
Alexandria and Washington.
"The captain (being intoxicated) would have the cook to kill and pick
a fowl and dress it in an instant (the cook was an old man, a negro).
The poor man set about it with all speed, but in the boiling the
captain found fault, caught up the hot fowl and beat it in the cook's
face. The captain confessed that he had sprung six feet high, and
thought he should have fallen overboard. The captain scalded his three
fingers, etc. Two days after he was full of spite and vengeance
towards the poor old black man. 'D---- the negroes,' said he, 'I hate
them,' and going on deck beat the poor man dreadfully with pieces of
trees cut to burn, some time after with a rope, and after that with a
fire-shovel. The poor man was very bad all night. I expected he would
have died before morning. Next morning in that condition he would make
him work. I said, 'Captain, I will attend breakfast; I can do it
better than he.' So I kept him out of the way. In the afternoon the
captain would make the poor creature come on deck. 'Shall I pay him
wages for nothing?' says he. I told him that the cook could do
nothing, but that I could do much better, and that I would work for
him. In three hours after word was brought to him that the cook was
dying. After he was dead, the captain came to me and asked what I
thought was the cause of his death, which I turned off."
James Hoskin excuses himself for not trying to bring the captain to
justice. His reasons are not very satisfactory. First, "it might
destroy the happiness of a dear woman, his wife." In the next place,
the mate would have sworn in the captain's favour; and, finally, by
accusing the captain he would have done no good to the dead cook.
On ascending the Potomac he was put ashore for a while.
"I asked at the hut of a white woman for some water. I shall, while I
live, never forget this hut. The outside was like a stable, built of
logs, having no glass windows. She brought me a bowl of milk, a china
pint to mix water with it. The water stood on a stool without doors,
covered nicely. The hut and everything within were in such neat order.
This milk and water was as a cordial of wine. I contemplated the
happiness of the farmers in this place, flowing in abundance of the
first necessaries of life; their wants few and easily supplied; no
cares about raising money for other people, all being peace, plenty,
and happiness around them."
He ascended the Delaware "in the steem [_sic_] boat." The boat was
worked by a steam-engine "which turns round a wheel each side of the
boat in the water. It has wide boards to the end of each spoke, like a
water under-shut wheel. The boat is 100 feet long, wide and roomy, and
a tavern kept on board. The passage comes very cheap, only 3 dollars
for 100 miles, baggage included."
He tells a story of William Cobbett when in America. Cobbett conducted
a newspaper entitled the _Pesca Post_ at Philadelphia, and kept a
stationer's shop. He was very outspoken against the French Revolution,
and that did not please the Yankees. One day some one entered the
stationer's shop and asked for some quills. Cobbett sold them. "Ah,
ha!" said the purchaser. "These be porcupine quills, I guess."
"Porcupine quills they were till I sold them to you," was Cobbett's
ready answer. "Now they are goose quills."
"As I was at breakfast one day on Long Island," says Hoskin, "there
came in a young woman. 'The English,' said she, 'have pressed my
brother in the Downs; I wish I could guillotine the English, I wish
the English were guillotined.' 'But,' says one in the room, 'the
Christian English will hang a man for stealing a horse, or stealing a
sheep; but for stealing a man they shall have money.'" Hoskin was too
discreet to bring up the case of the negro slaves and of the captain
and the cook. He saw the first attempt at a torpedo. A Mr. Fulton had
invented one "for the purpose of sinking it under vessels at anchor
and blowing them up. Likewise to anchor under water and blow up ships
coming in a harbour. The Congress has voted him 6000 dollars to defray
the expenses for making trials, etc. Some time back a day was fixed
for trial at New York, the _President_ a frigate of 44 guns, and the
_Argus_ brig of war lay there; Mr. Fulton chose to attack the brig,
the captain of which prepared for defence by casting a net round the
brig to prevent the torpedo diving under, and by hanging shot and
heavy weights to the yards and studding sail-booms, to destroy the
torpedo if it came near; but Mr. Fulton could not succeed at that
time; he says he has made vast improvements since, and shall succeed.
This Fulton has a patent for the steamboats on the Delaware and Hudson
Rivers. They go five miles an hour against wind and tide."
On his return to England he had a better passage than on going out.
"Then chiefly three or four days in a week it blew what the sailors
call a gale. In the gale of last week we sailed before the wind, and
the ship rolled much more then than if it was a side wind. We laughed
at supper, though tossed about. We had cords and bars spread over the
table, which was bound fast to keep the things on it; one held the
teapot, and the mate was desired to bind the tea-kettle with a string
to the side of the cabin. This put me in mind of last winter's
passage. The cook would be called an hour or two before day to light
his fire, and get his kettle under way, as the phrase is on board; by
and by we should hear the cook on deck crying and swearing, the sea
breaking over having upset the tea-kettle--the fire is again lit, and
the tea-kettle set on again. Soon we hear the cook in the like
distress, and swearing he would rather go before the mast than be
cook, and so on. Three times of a morning, one day, one of the
tea-kettles went overboard; and some days we could only light fire in
the cabin stove, and were obliged to boil beef in the tea-kettle."
In London, in January, 1803, he had fallen ill, and thought he had not
long to live. This was seven years before he visited the States, and
he then addressed the following letter to his children:--
"London, _January 13th, 1803_.
"My dear Children all and each,
"For the last three days I have found my illness so to increase,
and I am so exceedingly ill at this time, that I believe it is the
Lord's good pleasure that I shall never see your dear faces again.
The God of heaven take you under His precious, His most special
protection and care. Fear it not my dear sweet loves, but that
good and holy Lord of life and glory will be to you what He has
always been to me--a father. When I was about six years old, His
good pleasure was to take my mother. With her I lost I may say my
father, mother and all. But I had a Father in heaven, Who blessed,
watched, and protected me. If you would be wise, seek true
happiness. If you would be happy, rich and wise, be truly virtuous
in word, action, and, as much as possible, in thought.
Seek virtue, and of that possessed
Leave to Providence the rest.
"If you will tell a lie, you will tell another; if you tell two,
you will go on further and tell ten, and so on, to lying on any
occasion. If you lie, you will cheat, when occasion offers you,
and so on to other vices. With the loss of a virtuous disposition
of mind, you will lose your peace, troubles will come upon you,
one after another; you will endeavour to shun them, but they will
overtake you. Let the words of an affectionate and perhaps dying
father, sink deep into your hearts every time you read them.
"If you should fall in love with those true Christians, called
Quakers, how much, I think, would it, by God's blessing (of which
you need not fear) and their friendly aid to you, advance you in
piety and virtue. But beware of Methodists' Class Meetings. Not
but that there are many among them who are patterns of religion;
but the human heart being, as it has been truly said, 'the devil's
tinder-box,' the heart falls by degrees into some favourite sin,
and falsehood and deceit at these meetings are sent in the place
of piety, and of all states this is the most dangerous and
destructive to the soul. May the Lord of His goodness bless you,
protect you, be your guide through life, and in death receive you
to Himself is the prayer of
"Your father, JAMES HOSKIN."
Happily he recovered and lived on for many years.
JOHN HARRIS, THE MINER POET
"On the quiet evening of October 14th, 1820, in a straw-thatched,
boulder-built cottage, with bare rafters and clay floor, locally known
as the 'six chimneys,' on the top of Bolennowe Hill, Camborne,
Cornwall, as the leaves are falling from the trees, and the robin
mourns in the thicket, a gentle mother gives birth to a babe; and that
baby-boy is a poet."
So John Harris begins his account of his own life. It is not always
safe for a composer of verses to be too sure that he is a poet, and
that his lines will live. Horace did it,[40] so doubtless has many
another man who has hammered out verses; but only Horace was justified
in his prophecy.
[Illustration: JOHN HARRIS, THE MINER POET]
A plum-pudding without plums may be a good suet dumpling, and without
suet also a respectable batter pudding, but neither is a plum-pudding;
and a set of verses without ideas may be pleasant verses, but is not
poetry; and without ideas and without imagination is very poor stuff
indeed. John Harris could write smooth lines, he had a tender
appreciation of the beauties of nature, but he went no further. His
verses bear the same relation to poetry that Tupper's _Proverbial
Philosophy_ bears to the Philosophy of Plato. But to return to his
life. He tells us that "from first to last the majority of my poems
have been written in the open air, in lanes and leas, by old stiles
and farm gates, by rocks and rivers and mossy moors."
He was put to a miserable school where the hedge-school master was
hard-hearted and cruel, and "verily hoots the lessons in his ears. He
beats his pupils without mercy, with a polished piece of flat wood
studded with small, sharp nails, until the blood runs down, and soon
scares the little learner from his straw-roofed academy."
From this school he was removed to another after a few days. "On the
edge of a brown common, in a little thatched school-house by the side
of the highway, very near the famous Nine Maidens, he finds another
master, who wore a wooden leg, with more of the milk of human kindness
in his soul, a thorough Christian, and a man of prayer." He says
further: "You might have seen him on a summer evening, when his merry
schoolmates are chattering in the hollow--you might have seen him
walking by the stream, or stretched on the moss listening to the wind
tuning its organ among the rocks, or gazing up at the purple heavens.
He roams among the flowers, kissing them for very joy, calling them
his fragrant sisters. Born on the crest of the hill, amid the crags
and storms, he grows up in love with Nature, and she becomes his chief
teacher. And now come the promptings of early genius, which develop
themselves in snatches of unpolished song, pencilled on the leaves of
his copybook for the amusement of his wondering schoolmates. He often
writes his rhymes on the clean side of cast-off labelled tea-papers
which his mother brings from the shop, and then reads them to his
astonished compeers with rapt delight."
At the age of nine he was taken from school and put to work in the
fields. At the age of ten he was employed by an old tin-streamer to
throw up the sand from the river, earning threepence a day. At twelve
he was working on the surface "nearly three miles from his favourite
home. As he travels to and fro from his labour through long lanes
bramble covered, and over meadows snowy with daisies, or by hedges
blue with hyacinths, or over whispering cairns redolent with the hum
of bees--" he means thyme on which the bees hover gathering
honey--"the beautiful world around him teems with syllables of song.
Even then he pencils his strange ditties, reciting them at intervals
of leisure to the dwellers of his own district, and older heads than
his tell of his future fame."
One thing is evident, that at this early age he was inordinately
conceited. He had a true appreciation of the beauties of Nature. He
had a receptive soul, but it was that which might have made of him a
painter, not necessarily a poet.
At the age of thirteen, or as he styles it, "When thirteen summers
have filled his lap with roses, and fanned his forehead with the
breeze of health, we find him sweating in the hot air of the interior
of a mine (Dolcoath), working with his father nearly two hundred
fathoms below the green fields."
So time passes, and he grows to manhood. Then in his stilted style he
says: "Love meets him on his flowery pathway, and he weaves a chaplet
of the choicest roses to adorn her head. He worships at the shrine of
beauty till they stand before the sacred altar, and the two are made
one." In plain English, he fell in love and got married to Jane Rule.
One of his earliest pieces of verse, "The First Primrose," got into a
magazine, and attracted some little notice, amongst others that of Dr.
George Smith, of Camborne, who gave him encouragement and induced him
to publish. His first book appeared in 1853; soon after he was
appointed Scripture Reader at Falmouth.
He says in his _Autobiography_: "Soon after my marriage, the Rev. G.
B. Bull, of Treslothian, lent me a volume of Shakespere. The first
play I read was _Romeo and Juliet_, which I greedily devoured,
travelling over a wide down near my father's house. The delight I
experienced is beyond words to describe, as the sun sank behind the
western waters, and the purple clouds of evening primed the horizon,
the bitters of life changed to sweetness in my cup, and the wilderness
around me was a region of fairies. Sometimes I cried, sometimes I
shouted for joy, and over the genii-peopled heights a new world burst
upon my view." Next he read _Childe Harold_, or portions of it. "My
younger brother James possessed an eighteenpenny copy of Burns' poems,
to which I had access. One day, I was reading Burns in our Troon-Moor
home. No one can tell the ecstasy of my spirit, or the deep joy of my
heart. Not only was I tired with my mine-work, but also crippled in
the quarry raising stone for the garden-wall. I believe I was in my
shirtsleeves, when a middle-aged matron entered my home. Seeing a
small book before me, she asked what it was. I told her, and her
answer surely displayed her prejudice and her narrowness of mind.
Looking at me with severity in her features, she exclaimed, 'You ought
to be ashamed of yourself! You, a local preacher, and reading Burns!'
This strange sin put me quite beyond the reach of her favours, and I
do not remember her ever speaking to me afterwards."
It is an infinite pity that John Harris did not inspire his muse from
Burns; had he done so, his "poems" might possibly have lived, but
_poëta nascitur, non fit_.
"For more than twenty years I was an underground miner, toiling in
the depths of Dolcoath. Here I laboured from morning till night, and
often from night till morning, frequently in sulphur and dust almost
to suffocation. Sometimes I stood in slime and water above my knees,
and then in levels so badly ventilated that the very stones were hot,
and the rarified air caused the perspiration to stream into my boots
in rills, though I doffed my flannel shirt and worked naked to the
waist. Sometimes I stood on a stage hung in ropes in the middle of a
wide working, when my life depended on a single nail driven into a
plank. Had the nail slipped, I should have been pitched headlong on
the broken rocks more than twenty feet below. Sometimes I stood on a
narrow board high up in some dark working, holding the drill, or
smiting it with the mallet, smeared all over with mineral, so that my
nearest friends would hardly know me, until my hands ached with the
severity of my task, and the blood dropped off my elbows. Sometimes I
had to dig through the ground where it was impossible to stand
upright, and sometimes to work all day as if standing to the face of a
cliff. Sometimes I have been so exhausted as to lie down and sleep on
the sharp flints." (There are no flints in Cornish mines.) "And
sometimes so thirsty that I have drunk stale water from the keg,
closing my teeth to keep back the worms. Sometimes I had wages to
receive at the end of the month, and sometimes I had none. But I
despaired not, nor turned the nymph of song from my side. She murmured
among the tinctured slabs," etc. etc. That the water brought down from
the spring for the use of the miners was ever full of worms is not to
be believed, nor that he did not receive his regular monthly wages.
John Harris was evidently vastly sorry for himself, thinking he was
born for better things. I have known many a man who has worked
underground as a common miner, without whining and breaking into
extravagance such as this.
"We were at supper one evening in Troon-Moor house, our two daughters
in a window, I at the end of the kitchen table, and Jane sitting on a
chair beside it. We had fried onions, and the flavour was very
agreeable. I was hungry, having just returned from a long day's labour
in the mine. Suddenly we heard a step in the garden, and then a knock
at the door. My wife opened it, and I heard a gruff voice say, 'Does
the young Milton live here?' My wife asked the possessor of the gruff
voice to walk in; and we soon discovered that it was the Rev. G.
Collins. We invited him to partake of our meal, to which he at once
assented, eating the onions with a spoon, exclaiming at almost every
mouthful, 'I like fried leeks.' He asked for my latest production, and
I gave him 'The Child's First Prayer,' in MS. He quietly read it, and
before he had finished I could see the tears streaming down his face.
Besides the two daughters, Jane and Lucretia, already named, we were
afterwards blest with two sons, Howard and Alfred."
I have given this passage from the _Autobiography_ of John Harris with
pleasure, as it exhibits the author at his best. Whether the tears may
not have been an adjunct of his fancy, I do not pretend to say. When
he writes simple English, concerning his own life and experiences, he
is always interesting, but when he steps up into his florid car, as a
chauffeur at the Battle of Roses at Nice, he is intolerable.
"Throughout my mining life I have had several narrow escapes from
sudden death. Once when at the bottom of the mine, the bucket-chains
suddenly severed and came roaring down the shaft with rocks and
rubbish. I and my comrade had scarcely time to escape; and one of the
smaller fragments of stone cut open my forehead, leaving a visible
scar to this day. Then the man-engine accidentally broke, hurling
twenty men headlong into the pit, and I amongst them. A few scars and
bruises were my only injuries. Standing before a tin-stepe on the
smallest foothold, a thin piece of flint (?), air-impelled, struck me
on the face, cutting my lips and breaking some of my front teeth. Had
I fallen backwards among the huge slabs" (the rock does not form
slabs) "death must have been instantaneous. Passing over a narrow
plank, a hole exploded at my feet, throwing a shower of stones around
me, but not a hair of my head was injured."
"A more wonderful interposition of Divine Providence may be traced,
perhaps, in the following record. Our party consisted of five men
working in a sink. Two of them were my younger brothers. Over our
heads the ground was expended, and there was a huge cavern higher and
further than the light of the candle would reveal. Here hung huge
rocks as if by hairs (!) and we knew it not. We were all teachers in a
Sunday-school, and on the tea-and-cake anniversary remained out of our
working to attend the festival. Some men who laboured near us, at the
time when we were in the green field singing hymns, heard a fearful
crash in our working, and on hastening to see what it was found the
place full of flinty (?) rocks. They had suddenly fallen from above,
exactly in the place where we should have been, and would have crushed
us to powder were it not for the Sunday-school treat."
Moving in his little circle, surrounded by the ignorant, it is no wonder
that John Harris was puffed up with vanity, and thought himself a poet.
He was very urgent in the promotion of the cause of peace and
arbitration between nations, and wrote a series of tracts entitled
_Peace Pages_, of which some hundreds of thousands were distributed,
and produced as much effect on the policy of nations as waste paper.
In the year 1864 a prize was offered for the best poem on the
tercentenary of the birth of Shakespeare. It was competed for by over
a hundred persons in Great Britain and America. Mr. Harris gained the
prize, and was presented with a gold watch. It is not possible to
estimate its value, poetically, without a knowledge of the "poems"
that failed, and the discrimination of the judges.[41] From first to
last John Harris published no less than sixteen volumes of verse. He
died in 1884, and was buried in Treslothian Churchyard, near Camborne.
He had received a grant of £50 per annum from the Royal Literary Fund,
1872-75, and £200 from the Royal Bounty Fund in 1877.
He had a son, John Alfred Harris, born at Falmouth in 1860, who became
a wood engraver, working in a recumbent position owing to a spinal
affliction. He illustrated some of his father's works. Another son,
James Howard Harris, born in 1857, became master of the Board School,
Porthleven, and wrote a memoir of his father.
John Harris had the faculty of receiving impressions from the objects
of nature, as does a mirror, but had no power to give forth flashes of
genius, for of genius he had none. His verses read smoothly and
pleasantly, but will not live, as there is no vital spark in them. He
stands, however, on a higher level than Edward Capern, the Devonshire
postman "poet," but immeasurably below Burns and Waugh.
He published, moreover, a series of addresses, but all marked with
the same paucity of idea, lack of original thought. A good but very
self-satisfied man, he reaped far higher applause in his day as he
deserved, and in another generation will be clean forgotten. He called
himself the miner poet, but he is not even a minor poet. There is
something pathetic in the contemplation of a man of this sort. I have
come across several instances--men who have a love of nature, an
appreciation of the beautiful and the good and the true, but have no
genius, no originality, who can imitate but create nothing. It is the
same with musicians. There are a thousand who can write songs, but
only one in a thousand who can produce a pure melody. The mirror
reflects objects, but the burning-glass focusses the sun's rays in a
pencil of fire that kindles whatever it falls on. Such is the
difference between the versifier and the poet.
Nulla placere diu, nec vivere carmina possunt
Quæ scribuntur aquæ portoribus.
Hor. _Ep._ I. 19.
FOOTNOTES:
[40] _Od._ I, 1; II, 20.
[41] These were Lord Lyttleton, G. Dawson, and C. Bray.
EDWARD CHAPMAN
Hals tells the following story of Mr. Edward Chapman, of Constantine.
But before giving it, it will be well to say a few words of the
Chapman family. The name suffices to show that it was not Cornish by
origin, and indeed in the _Heralds' Visitation_ it is recorded to have
come from the North. Why they came down one cannot say, but they
married well. One John Chapman, of Harpford, in Devon, had to wife a
daughter of Chichester, of Hall, and his son Edward married a
Prideaux, and settled at Resprin in S. Winnow, and as that was a manor
that belonged to the Prideaux family it is probable that his wife was
an heiress. Edward, the grandson, baptized at S. Winnow May 12th,
1647, was probably the person mentioned by Hals, to whom the adventure
is attributed. He was married to a daughter of Bligh, of Botathen.
"This gentleman received from God's holy angels a wonderful preservation
in the beginning of the reign of William III when returning from Redruth
towards his own house about seven miles distant, with his servant, late
at night, and both much intoxicated with liquor (as himself told me);
nevertheless having so much sense left as to consider that they were to
pass through several tin mines or shafts near the highway, on the
south-east side of Redruth town, alighted both from their horses, and
led them in their hands after them. The servant went somewhat before his
master, the better to keep the right road in those places, which
occasioned Mr. Chapman's turning aside somewhat out of the way, whereby
in the dark he suddenly fell into a tin mine above twenty fathoms deep,
at whose fall into this precipice his horse started back and escaped; in
this pit or hole Mr. Chapman fell directly down fifteen fathoms without
let or intermission, where meeting with a cross drift (above six fathoms
of water under it), he in his campaign coat, sword, and boots, was
miraculously stopped, when, coming to himself, he was not much sensible
of any hurt or bruises he had received, through the terror and horror of
his fall; when, considering in what condition he was, he resolved to
make the best expedient he could to prevent his falling further down
(where, by the dropping of stones and earth moved by his fall, he
understood there was much water under), so he rested his back against
one side of the ruin, and his feet against the other, athwart the hole,
and in order to fix his hands on some solid thing, drew his sword out of
its sheath, and thrust the blade thereof as far as he could into the
opposite part of the shaft, and so in great pain and terror rested
himself.
"The suddenness of this accident, and the horse's escaping in the dark
as aforesaid, was the reason why Mr. Chapman's servant, who went before
him, did not so soon find him wanting as otherwise he might, which as
soon as he did, he went back the roadway in quest of him, calling him
aloud by his name; but receiving no answer, nor being able to find his
horse, he concluded his master had rode home some other way, whereupon,
giving up all further search after him, he hastened home to Constantine,
expecting to have met him there; but contrary to his expectations, found
he was not returned. Whereupon his servants, early next morning, went
forth to inquire after him, and suspecting (as it happened) he might be
fallen into some tin-shafts about Redruth, hastened thither, where,
before they arrived, some tinners had taken custody of his horse (with
bridle and saddle on), which they found grazing in the Wastsell Downs.
Whereupon, consulting together about this tragical mishap, it was
resolved forthwith that some of these tinners, for reward, should search
the most dangerous shafts in order to find his body, either living or
dead; accordingly they employed themselves that day till about four
o'clock in the afternoon without any discovery of him. Finally, one
person returned to his company, and told them that at a considerable
distance he heard a kind of human voice underground; to which place they
repaired, and making loud cries to the hole of the shaft, he forthwith
answered them that he was there alive, and prayed their assistance in
order to deliver him from that tremendous place; whereupon, immediately
they set on tackle ropes and windlass on the old shaft, so that a tinner
descended to the place where he rested, and having candle-light with
him, bound him fast in a rope, and so drew him safely to land, where, to
their great admiration and joy, it appeared he had neither broke any
bone, or was much bruised by the fall; verifying that old English
proverb, that drunkards seldom take hurt; for, as the tinners said, if
he had fallen but two or three feet lower, he must inevitably have been
drowned in the water. But maugre all these adverse accidents, after
about seventeen hours' stay in the pit aforesaid, he miraculously
escaped death, and lived many years after, and would recount this story
with as much pleasure as men do the ballads of 'Chevy Chase' or
'Rosamond Clifford.'"
JOHN COKE, OF TRERICE
There is no thriving on ill-gotten goods, says the proverb, and this
was exemplified in the case of the Cook or Coke family of Trerice, in
S. Allen.
According to Hals, John Coke, attorney-at-law, came into these parts
of Cornwall in the reign of Queen Elizabeth from Ottery S. Mary, in
Devon, "without money or goods, and placed himself a servant or
steward under Sir Francis Godolphin, Knight, where he began from, and
with, his ink-horn and pen, to turn all things that he touched into
gold, and that by indirect art and practices as tradition saith." This
Cook or Coke derived from a Henry Cooke, a citizen of Exeter, who
married the sister and heiress of Roger Thorne, in Ottery S. Mary; and
the eldest branch of the family remained at Thorne till the end of the
seventeenth century, when it became extinct.
Sir Francis Godolphin, finding John Coke a clever business man, left
in his hands the management of his estate and his tin mines.
Coke took care that all the tin of his master's mines should be run into
blocks and stamped with the dolphin, to show whence they came and whose
they were. But after a while, as he saw that he was not specially
overlooked, and that opportunity was afforded him for peculation, he had
a considerable share of the block tin produced at the blowing-houses of
Sir Francis for himself, and to distinguish it from that of his
master's had it stamped with the figure of a cat, as cats are on the
Coke arms; and this he disposed of to his own advantage, and eventually
it was found that from the Godolphin mines more tin was produced and
sold marked with the cat than was with the dolphin.
Hals says: "Sir Francis's lady being informed of his ill practices,
and resolving by the next coinage to be better instructed in this
mystery, at such time as Godolphin blowing-house was at work,
privately, with one of her maids, in a morning, on foot went to that
place, where according, as common fame reported, she found many more
blocks or slabs of tin marked with the cat than there were with the
dolphin; the one part pertaining to Sir Francis, the other to Mr.
Coke. Whereupon, abundantly satisfied, she returned to Godolphin
House, but could not be there timely enough against dinner; whereat
Sir Francis was greatly distasted, having at that time several
strangers to dine with him. At length the lady being arrived, she
asked all their pardons for her absence, and told them it did not
proceed from any neglect or want of respect, but from an absolute
necessity of seeing a strange and unheard-of piece of curiosity, which
could not be seen at any other time; viz. to see a cat eat the
dolphin. And then gave an account of the premises, to their great
wonder and admiration; whereupon, soon after, Sir Francis dismissed
him from his service. But by that time he had gotten so much riches
that forthwith he purchased the little barton and manor of Trerice, in
S. Allen, and made that place his habitation till he purchased the
barton and manor of Tregasa, and seated himself there, where, by
parsimony and the inferior practice of the law, he accumulated a very
considerable estate in those parts. But maugre all his thrift and
conduct in providing wealth for himself and posterity, his grandson,
Thomas Coke, succeeding to his estate, upon the issueless decease of
his elder brother, Christopher Coke, and buying in his widow's
jointure at a dear rate, and also undertaking the building of the
present new and finely contrived house at Tregasa, though never
finished, yet the said fabric was so costly and chargeable to him,
together with the vain extravagance of his wife Lance, that he was
necessitated to sell divers parcels of lands in order to raise money
for his necessary occasions, and finally to mortgage the manor and
barton of Tregasa and all his other lands that were before unsold, for
about fourteen thousand pounds, to Hugh Boscawen, of Tregothnan, Esq.;
and lastly, for that consideration and others, did, by lease and
release, fine and proclamation, convey the same to the said Hugh
Boscawen, his heirs and assigns, for ever. Soon after this fact Mr.
Coke fell into great want and distress, together with his wife and
children, and died suddenly by a slip of his foot into a shallow pit,
wherein he was searching for tin, out of a conceited opinion he had
that he should at last raise his fortune by tin, as his grandfather
before him had done."
What Hals has omitted to state is that John Coke married a Godolphin,
Prudence, daughter of William Godolphin, of Trewarveneth, by whom he
had three sons--John, Edward, and Francis. Thomas Coke, who came to
such grief, the sins of the grandfather visited on the grandchild, was
Sheriff of Cornwall in the year 1651 under the Commonwealth.
THOMAS PELLOW, OF PENRYN
Thomas Pellow was born at Penryn, in all probability in 1704, and was
educated in the Latin school of that place. But loving adventure
better than books, and impatient to escape _propria quæ maribus_, he
implored his uncle John Pellow to allow him to embark with him in the
good ship _Francis_, owned by Valentine Enys, merchant, of Penryn,
that was bound with a cargo of pilchards for Genoa. He soon began to
regret having left the school bench, for his uncle not only made him
work as a common seaman, but when not so employed held him to those
hated books, and if he shirked, gave him the cat-o'-nine-tails. "So
that by the time we got to Genoa I thought I had enough of the sea,
being every day, during our voyage out, obliged (over and above my