From London to Land's End

More Books

More by this Author

The cathedral church of this city is an ancient beauty, or, as it may be said, it is beautiful for its antiquity; but it has been so fully and often described that it would look like a mere copying from others to mention it. There is a good library kept in it, in which are some manuscripts, and particularly an old missal or mass-book, the leaves of vellum, and famous for its most exquisite writing.

This county, and this part of it in particular, has been famous for the birth of several eminent men as well for learning as for arts and for war, as particularly:-

1. Sir William Petre, who the learned Dr. Wake (now Archbishop of Canterbury, and author of the Additions to Mr. Camden) says was Secretary of State and Privy Councillor to King Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, and seven times sent ambassador into foreign countries.

2. Sir Thomas Bodley, famous and of grateful memory to all learned men and lovers of letters for his collecting and establishing the best library in Britain, which is now at Oxford, and is called, after his name, the Bodleian Library to this day.

3. Also Sir Francis Drake, born at Plymouth.

4. Sir Walter Raleigh. Of both those I need say nothing; fame publishes their merit upon every mention of their names.

5. That great patron of learning, Richard Hooker, author of the "Ecclesiastical Polity," and of several other valuable pieces.

6. Of Dr. Arthur Duck, a famed civilian, and well known by his works among the learned advocates of Doctors' Commons.

7. Dr. John Moreman, of Southold, famous for being the first clergyman in England who ventured to teach his parishioners the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments in the English tongue, and reading them so publicly in the parish church of Mayenhennet in this county, of which he was vicar.

8. Dr. John de Brampton, a man of great learning who flourished in the reign of Henry VI., was famous for being the first that read Aristotle publicly in the University of Cambridge, and for several learned books of his writing, which are now lost.

9. Peter Blundel, a clothier, who built the free school at Tiverton, and endowed it very handsomely; of which in its place.

10. Sir John Glanvill, a noted lawyer, and one of the Judges of the Common Pleas.

11. Sergeant Glanvill, his son; as great a lawyer as his father.

12. Sir John Maynard, an eminent lawyer of later years; one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal under King William III. All these three were born at Tavistock.

13. Sir Peter King, the present Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. And many others.

I shall take the north part of this county in my return from Cornwall; so I must now lean to the south--that is to say, to the South Coast--for in going on indeed we go south-west.