Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/246

 igo Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries. of St. Columb, who married at St. Kew i8th April, 1615, Mary, daughter and co-heiress of William Cavill. My information is from a corrected copy of the Vivian pedigree, published by Lt.-Col. J. L. Vivian, 1893. Mabel Colborne. 158. Stoke Gabriel Sextons. — Several correspondents have called our attention to the following extract from the Exeter Express and Echo of February 8th : — '• By the appointment of a son of the late sexton at Stoke Gabriel., near Totnes, the ofifice is continued in the Narracott family, in which it has been since 1440." A similar statement appeared a few years ago in the London and local papers, and apparently escaped un- challenged. We are unable to answer our correspondents' questions as to what authority there is for the statement, but have every reason for doubting its accuracy. Parish Registers, which might be expected to yield such informa- tion, do not go back further than 1538, and Churchwardens' Accounts, another possible source, generally commence much later. We have communicated with the Rev. H. L. Pigot, who recently vacated the living of Stoke Gabriel, and he says he certainly has his doubts about the statement, but as far as he knows there is no means of proving or con- tradicting the claim. Can any reader supply evidence for or against ? ^^ p. 1 J^ Eds. 159. Drake's Epitaph. — Perhaps no verse is more generally associated with Drake than the so-called epitaph given in Prince's Worthies of Devon : — The waves became his winding-sheet ; the waters were his tomb ; But, for his fame, the ocean sea was not sufficient room. Prince himself avowedly quotes from Risdon, but neither gives the name of the author, and, unfortunately, both were mistaken in applying the lines to Drake. They were really written by an Elizabethan poet, Richard Barnfield, and were by him applied to Hawkins. They occur in the Preface of The Encomion of Lady Pecunia : or The Praise of Money, 1598. I quote from Arber's edition (1882), p. 83: — "I have given Pecunia the title of a Woman, Both for the termination of the Word, and because (as Women are) shee is lov'd of men. The brauest Voyages in the World, haue been made