Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/548

458 had been well for Benjamin had he retained it and acted on it to the end.

The authentic pedigree of the Haydons goes back to the reign of Henry III. They were, originally, of Ebford, in Woodbury parish, and did not acquire Cadhay till the beginning of the seventeenth century; but in the eighteenth century they got into difficulties through expensive lawsuits, and lost both Cadhay and Ebford, and disappeared as water that sinks into the sand. The last of whom we know anything was Gideon Haydon, of Cadhay, who died in 1707, and left two sons, Gideon and John.

Benjamin Robert Haydon in his Autobiography says: "My father was the lineal descendant of one of the oldest families in Devon, the Haydons of Cadhay. The family was ruined by a chancery suit, and the children were bound out to various trades. Among them was my grandfather, who was bound out to Mr. Savery, of Slade, near Plymouth. He conducted him- self well, and gained the esteem of his master, who in time made him his steward. In a few years he saved money, and on the death of Mr. Savery set up a bookseller's shop in Plymouth, where he died in 1773 from disease of the heart. My grandfather married Mary Baskerville, a descendant of the great printer. At my grandfather's death my father succeeded to the business, and married a Miss Cobley, daughter of a clergyman, who had the living of Ide, near Exeter. He was killed early in life by the fall of a sounding-board on his head while preaching."

Unfortunately B. R. Haydon does not give the Christian names of his father and grandfather, so that we are not able to say where they hitch on to the submerged Haydons of Cadhay.

B. R. Haydon left at his death not only an