Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/97

Rh ing of Thomas Carlyon, Gent, a branch of the Menagwins family, who has lately built a very neat new house here, which being seated on a rising grround, from whence there is a good prospect of the sea, and having a fruitful spot of land around it, is as pleasant a seat as any in the neighbourhood. His son Thomas has married Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Mr. Philip Hawkins, of Pennance, by whom he hath several children. This last Thomas was in the commission of the peace, and died in this present Jan. (1732) leaving his eldest son, Philip, a minor. This property belonged in former times to the Bodregens.

THE EDITOR. The popular legends of St. Blaze relate that he was most barbarously lacerated with wool-combs, which sufficiently accounts for his having been adopted as the patron of all persons concerned in the manufacture of cloth.

There is an idle tradition of the exact spot where St. Blaze landed; but it is quite certain that he never was in the west of Europe; nor can any reason now be assigned for the selection of this saint, beyond that of his general popularity. About the year 1774 a curious piece of machinery was exhibited all over England, which represented the whole manufacture of broadcloth, from the shearing of the wool to the last operation of pressing. A small figure was actually at work on each separate process; and over them all, as a general director, and arrayed in his pontifical habit and mitre, appeared Bishop Blaze. He is the patron of Ragusa.

The derivation of Carlyon from Richard Coeur de Lion, seems to be equally puerile, unfounded, and absurd. Car, or Caer, is evidently a fortified place; and Lyon must be one of those corruptions, more common than any other, of a word which has lost its appropriate