Cornish Characters and Strange Events. Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ of the aphis, that tiny green pest that infests the roses, has been unrolled by this enthusiastic student, and is full of surprises. The ichneumon fly as well has been watched, and all its wicked acts recorded.

      Caterpillars, so fat and fleshy, form a delightful feeding ground for the deposit of eggs, and serve as luscious food for the young to pasture upon. We human beings, in common with all mammals, have the obligation imposed on us of nourishing our own young, and with some of us we go on sustaining them till we are exhausted in the process, but the ichneumonidæ are more clever than we. They make others, notably the caterpillars, maintain their young, and the frivolous mothers, after having once deposited their eggs, gad about and enjoy themselves as having no concern for their future well-being. It is a comfort to reflect that the insects thus preyed upon do not seem to suffer much, if at all, and it may almost be said that they exhibit a maternal regard for the young bred out of their bodies.

      With his wonderful microscopes Mr. Bignell can explore far down the ladder of life, but whether to its lowest rung may well be doubted. There is always some living being to be found preying on the last of the minutest creature last seen.

      After a visit to Mr. Bignell's house in Saltash with a friend, I turned to him and said: "I came here believing myself to be an Individual. I leave knowing myself to be a Community."

      SIR JOHN CALL, BART

      The Dictionary of National Biography says of Sir John Call that he was "descended from an old family which, it is said, once owned considerable property in Devon and Cornwall." That proviso "it is said" is conveniently inserted. Anything may be said, as that the cow jumped over the moon, but that a saying may be believed we must know who uttered it. Now the originator of this saying was probably William Playfair, in his British Family Antiquity, 1809. In that the following interesting statement occurs: "From papers in the possession of the family, partly fabulous, though partly true, it appears that the family of the Calls, consisting of three brothers, came into England from Saxony towards the end of the eighth century. One of these brothers settled in Scotland, from whom is descended the clan of the McColls; the second in Norfolk, where the family continued until the beginning of the last (eighteenth) century; and the third settled in Cornwall, from whence the present family derives its origin. This very ancient, but latterly not very opulent family, was formerly possessed of considerable landed property both in Devonshire and Cornwall, which was first reduced by the civil wars in the time of Henry VII, and afterwards nearly annihilated, in consequence of the loyal attachment of some of its individuals to the royal cause during the civil wars in the reign of Charles I."

      Why was the eighth century fixed on for the advent of the Calls upon the scene? Presumably because the first Norsemen arrived in 787. Conceive the Calls coming over in a dragon ship, filled with berserker rage, to ravage England and glut themselves with our blood.

      But we shall look for Calls in vain among the records of the past. As it happens, Saxons and Northmen had no family, only personal names. The story is as absurd as that also put forth that Callington derived its name from the Calls, who only settled near it in 1770.

      But these "family papers" are not so ancient as Sir John Call, who would have been above such a pretence. As a matter of fact, the account supplied to Playfair shows a surprising ignorance in the writer as to the existence of Heralds' Visitations, Inquisitiones post mortem, Wills, Royalist Composition Papers, Parish Registers, and all the material at hand to confirm or disprove reckless genealogical assertions. Playfair does admit that the story contained in the "family papers" is "partly fabulous." He might have said that it was fabulous from beginning to end.

      The Calls had no right whatever to bear arms, till a grant was made to them – after reading the above flourish not inappropriate – of three trumpets.

      The MS. "Names of Gentlemen in Devonshire and Cornwall with their Arms," drawn up by John Hooker, alias Vowell, in 1599, is the only armoury of the West that gives the name of Call with arms: Party per pale or and gules; upon a chief az. 3 geese sable. But he gives no indication of place where such a gentleman possessed land – and that, before this "opulent family" had been ruined by the civil wars. Hooker probably included the name, because, at the time, there was some gentleman Call from another part of England living in Exeter. That the Calls of Whiteford had no claim to his arms, nor could exhibit descent from him, is shown by their not adopting his coat. In a MS. armoury of all England dating from 1632, that belonged to C. Pole, the name and arms of Call do not occur.

      According to Foster's Baronetage, the Calls hailed from Prestacott, in Launcells.

      Actually the great-grandfather of Sir John was of Grove, in Stratton, a tenant farmer. A good many Calls appear in the register of the parish, never with gent. appended to the name, or even with Mr. preceding it, a title generally accorded to a yeoman or a well-to-do tradesman; and one in 1735 is buried as a pauper. Their marriages also show to what class they belonged, with the Uglows, Tanners, and the Jewells, in a humble walk of life.

      John Call, described as of Prestacott, in Launcells, was born in 1680, and in 1702 married Sarah Jewell, and died in 1730.

      Prestacott consisted of three very small farms on the right-hand side of the old road from Stratton to Holsworthy. Of late years the ramshackle buildings have been pulled down and the lands thrown together and constituted one farm, and a new house has been built. It belonged at the time that John Call rented one of these little holdings to the Orchards of Hartland Abbey. John Call had two sons, John and Richard. John was born 1st March, 1704-5, and married Jane, daughter of John Mill, of Launcells, "the descendant of a respectable family, which had considerable possessions there, as well as in Middlesex," says Playfair. He might have added with equal truth that they possessed castles in the air. As it happens, the Visitations of Cornwall and Lysons knew nothing of the family of Mill. The Mills were of Shernick, a farm in Launcells, which they rented of the Arundels of Trerice. Their ledger-stones are in the parish church, but they are never described as gents. Mrs. Judith Mill was buried on October 14th, 1723, and Mr. John Mill on December 1st in the same year, and Mr. Richard Mill on July 11th, 1766.

      Sarah Call, widow of John Call (without even Mr. and Mrs. prefixed), was buried on February 1st, 1747-8. Shernick is now the property of Sir C. T. Acland, Bart., inherited through an heiress in the nineteenth century of the Arundels.

      John Call, who married Jane Mill, had a son, the subject of this memoir. Afterwards, when this son was rich, he set up a tablet to the memory of his father in Launcells Church, on which he gives him the title of "gent."

      In Memory of John Call gent of Shernick in this parish, and of Whiteford in Stoke Climsland. He was interred in this church 3 Jan. 1767, aged 63. Also of Jane Call his widow, who was interred 9 Nov. 1781, aged 70. Also of Jane Jones their daughter, wife of the Revd Cadwalader Jones, minister of this parish, who was here interred 2 April, 1790, aged 50, and of their two children, etc.

      Concerning Mrs. Cadwalader Jones, more hereafter. The old gentleman, John Call, had died on December 31st, 1766, going out with the old year.

      John, the younger, was born June 30th, 1732, at Fenny Park, near Tiverton, and was educated at a private school. For some reason or other, not known, his mother disliked him, and when aged seventeen, and he had been recommended to the notice of Benjamin Robbins, who was going out to India, she refused to furnish him with the money required for his outfit and passage to India, so that his more distant relatives, probably the Mill family of Shernick, supplied the money.

      Benjamin Robbins had composed a treatise on the principles of gunnery and the price of gunpowder, that was not as yet published, and also an account of Lord Anson's voyages. He was a mathematician, and had been appointed chief engineer and captain-general in the East India Company's service, and he was looking about for commercial clerks who would serve on a small pay, when Call was recommended to him as a shrewd lad. John Call was glad of the chance of seeing something СКАЧАТЬ