Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/349

Rh bury, as this transaction is circumstantially related by John of Glastonbury, in his history of that splendid abbey, published by Hearne.

St. David affords a remarkable instance, not merely of the fact that events are wrested to suit the taste or the prejudices of aftertimes, but of their being utterly inverted and transformed.

When Eastern fictions became blended with the chivalry of Europe, this anchorite, polemic divine, and apostle of his native country, appeared as a military hero, expelling the Saxons from Wales, at the head of an army in which each individual was distinguished from their Pagan adversaries by affixing to his helmet the plant which has since been ever venerated by the Welch. And finally, Mr. Richard Johnson, a canon of Exeter, having adopted the mystical number seven for the Champions of Christendom, and bestowed the undue proportion of four out of seven on these Islands, makes St. David, the champion of Wales, perform all the ordinary achievements of knight errantry, and adding, as was highly proper, a spirit of gallantry to that of valour, presents him as a lover eloping from Jerusalem with an Hebrew princess, who on her part had previously, by entreaties to her father, preserved the hero's life.

The great tithes of this parish belonged to the priory of Trewardruth, the vicarage to the duchy.

This parish contains 5734 statute acres. giving an increase of nearly 80 per cent. in 30 years.

This parish extends southward from the church to the foot of the granite hills near Roughtor. The northern