BODMIN

(The Preacher's Town) was once distinguished by a priory of Austin canons, founded in 1125. The site passed at the Reformation to Sternhold, the first versifier of the Psalms, who imagined, like Tate and Brady afterwards, that he could improve upon David. The borough returns two members. The town-hall is part of the refectory of the Grey Friars monastery. The priory church of St. Mary and St. Petrock was built in 1470 near a spring, of which St. Guron, the Cornish hermit, drank before he resigned his cell to St. Petrock. Its dimensions are 151 ft. by 63 ft., it has a Norman font 3 feet 7 inches high, standing on five shafts, and an octagonal piscina, with an altar tomb and effigy of the last prior, Vivian Bishop of Megara, who died June 1, 1533. The organ is dated 1775. The spire was destroyed by lightning December 9, 1699. The prior's house of Rialton is still standing at St. Columb Minor. Jasper Wood, the vicar, who died in 1716, firmly believed in witches. On a hill one mile north-west of the town is Berrytower, the last relic of the chapel of Holy Cross, built in 1501. Of St. Lawrence's Lazar House there are a few remains. Near the vicarage is St. Thomas' chantry, 44 ft. 9 in. by 19 ft., built over a crypt, and now used as a schoolhouse. In 1496, Perkin Warbeck gathered his troops at Bodmin for his march upon Exeter. In 1495 the Cornish men rose in rebellion, led by Lord Audley and Michael Joseph, a smith of the town, to resist a tax levied for the war with Scotland. In 1549 the Cornish rebels compelled Boyer the chief magistrate to furnish them with rations; shortly after, the king's provost-marshal, Sir A. Kingston, entered the town, and invited himself to dine with the mayor. In the midst of the entertainment he desired that a gallows should be built with all speed, as on that night a certain criminal must die. The dinner over, arm-in-arm came

forth the host and his guest to see the horrible preparations. Sir Anthony then asked the mayor if he thought the gallows were sufficiently strong; on his replying "Yes"-"Master Boyer," coolly said the cruel official, "be pleased to mount, it is for you." "What!" cried the wretched man," you mean not what you say." "There is no remedy, thou wert a busy rebel,-mount," was Sir Anthony's brutal answer. On Halgaver, near Lostwithiel, was formerly held, in July, a court of carnival before a mock mayor; the culprit was charged with some fault of dress or manner, and the neighbouring quagmire or a ducking - pond afforded the instant means of condign punishment. This custom has been referred to the time of the Saxons.

Here are found lichen plicatus, lichen fuliginosus, and sphæria nitida. Three miles on the Truro road are the remains of St. Benet's monastery, Lanivet (under a wood), an ivied tower, and a two-storied range of buildings with broad stone-mullioned windows and low oak-ribbed ceilings; in the churchyard are two stone crosses about eleven feet in height. Tregross moor, once King Arthur's hunting-ground, was Tregeagle's deer-park.

Near the village of Roche, the church of which, rebuilt 1822, contains a Norman font, is a wishing well, where the village-girls still, on Ascension Day, divine their fortunes by dropping pins. It was used for the immersion of poor lunatics-the last traces of a savage credulity and deadly ignorance, which tinged the philosophy even of Bacon; but which, with all its fanciful terrors, omens, and spectres, it is to be hoped will shortly disappear. At a short distance are the Roche rocks, of white sparry quartz, and schorl, which appears in crystals. The rocks are 100 feet high, crowned with a ruined chapel of St. Michael, and a deserted hermitage. The peasantry believe that hither flies from his fiendish pursuer across Bodmin moor, the hapless giant Tregeagle, the murderer of his nephew, whose quoits may be seen near Penare Head, and his staff on St. Austell Down. He is the modern Danaid, who is doomed to the hopeless task of baling Dozmare (tidal)

Pool empty with a single limpet shell, which is bored through. In some places the giant is known as Tregeagle the wrecker, whose punishment is to spin endless ropes of sand. The family of this Cornish Orestes was established at Trevorder in St. Breock's parish: the reason of their unpopularity is lost; the actual giant lived in the reign of Charles II.

Hensbarrow, about a mile to the south, is 1034 feet high. There are several large camps near Bodmin ;- -Castle Kynock (King's castle), with a double vallum, and measuring 950 ft. by 800 ft.; Dummeer Wood, an oval with a single trench 450 ft. by 375 ft.; and Pencarrow (the Head of the Brooks), likewise oval, but with a double vallum 250 ft. by 200 ft. Ligusticum Cornubiense is found at St. Margaret's near Bodmin.

The West-Cornish railway runs from Liskeard 18 miles through Lostwithiel 30 miles, Par 34 miles, to St. Austell 39 miles, by Grampound 46 miles, from which Probus is 2 miles, to Truro 53 miles. The great tin mine of Polgooth (Old Pool) has been the source of the eminence of the town of ST. AUSTELL, which lies on the side of a hill and slopes down to a little stream which waters a narrow valley. At the west end of the town are three blowing-houses for smelting copper ore, which for years were the only furnaces of the kind in the county. The stream tinworks of Happy Union, opened in 1780, and Wheal Virgin in Pentuan Vale, have an excavation of 18,200 square fathoms, each of which has produced on an average 186 lbs. of black tin. The china works are worthy of a visit. King Charles I. occupied the town in 1644. In the market place is the Menegew (grey rock) stone where stray cattle were sold. The church of St. Austin is remarkable for a curious font elaborately carved with grotesques, three cradle roofs, and a tower of the 15th century richly ornamented with sculptures. The church contains eighteen effigies standing in niches; over the south porch, is written in Cornish, given to God. The chancel is of the 13th century. About two miles north distant, in a wild moor, is Carclaze tin mine, which has been yielding the ore from its lodes of

quartz and schorl for nearly four centuries. The mine is an open quarry hewn in the soft growan (decomposed granite), a mile in circuit, and 130 feet in depth. The decomposing granite, a soft growan of the neighbourhood, is exported as china clay. The far-off figures of the miners will remind the visitor of the wild legend of the elfs of the Hartz, and the mannikins toiling with tiny spade and axe. The peasants believe that here at midnight, with the blare of horns wound loud and clear, the ringing of horses' hoofs in full chase, the baying of hounds and the wild cry of huntsmen, sweeps by a goblin train, pursuing a phantom beast-all black as the starless sky. A poor wanderer crossing these, dismal moors heard the cry of the demon-hunt behind him, and at once took to flight; at length his strength was spent, and he fell upon his knees and prayed; scarcely did he dare to raise his eyes, but when he did, the weird leader shook his hand with a menacing gesture, and exclaimed, "Bo shrove," (the lad prays); in a moment all were gone, "the fiend and his dandy-dogs," and the last sound of the dark array was lost in the distance.

The shafts of the deserted mines, with which the moors are burrowed like a warren, are far more dangerous than the vast quarry, forming terrible trapfalls, which are concealed by bundles of gorse and broken pieces of timber. In this neighbourhood are "stream works," diluvial beds of tin ore, where the rivulets are used to separate the metal from common pebbles. Above the tin ground at Pentewan is a black stratum, with stumps of trees and roots thrust into gravel, 48 feet above high-water mark. Silt succeeds, with deer horns and other remains of land animals; above this is deep siliceous sand with marine relics; the uppermost silt is defended from the sea by a sandy beach.

On the Down is the Longstone, 12 feet high, known also as the giant's staff, planted here by Tregeagle when he ran after the broad bonnet which the tempest had swept away from his head, and he could not find.

The town of GRAMPOUND, which can only boast of a

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granite cross and an ancient chapel, and was once represented by Hampden, is seated in the midst of six old entrenchments, each within a walk of a mile. The borough was disfranchised for bribery in 1821. From this town the road to St. Mawes runs through Tregony, near which is RUAN LANGHORNE, where John Whitaker, author of the 'History of Manchester," and of the "Cornish Cathedral," &c., was rector, and St. Just in Roseland (church valley). The road commands a fine view over Gerran's (King Gerenius') Bay. At Golden, a gateway and chapel, Perpendicular, remains. Probus church possesses the most beautiful church tower in the county; one which bears a distant resemblance to that of Magdalen College, Oxford. It is of granite and 108 feet high: in the lower story are three canopied niches; over these is in each face a single window, and below the embattled parapet a pair of windows, Perpendicular. There is a brass to I. J. Wolverdon, 1515. The dreary squalor of the cottages offers a remarkable contrast to this beautiful structure. The road now passes Tresilian bridge, where the royal cause was lost in Cornwall by the surrender of the Cavaliers to Fairfax 1646; and Tregothnan (built by Wilkins), the seat of Viscount Falmouth it contains some pictures by Opie.

TRURO

(Population in 1851, 10,733) was the birthplace of Polwhele, of Lord Vivian, Samuel Foote (at the Red Lion Inn), R. and J. Lander, who first explored the Niger (a column was erected here to their memory in 1835); of Sir John Arundel, who captured the noted Scottish pirate Duncan Campbell; of Bode the painter; and Martyn the author of the Persian translation of the Holy Bible. Here Opie was encouraged by Wolcot to proceed to London as a painter. The town stands in the midst of the most beautiful scenery, in a hollow among the hills, through which run little valleys, each watered by a lively brook. Truro was the head-quarters of Sir R. Hopton in 1642 and