COTEHELE. 109 



Where Chestnut grand, as in Thessalia*s woods, 

 Oak, with its forehead bared to front the storm. 

 And pillared elm fling mighty shadows round. 

 Mid massive leafage — lonely in decay 

 And grey with age — Cotehele's* embattled towers 

 Arise, a relic of baronial days ! 

 Few sounds are heard within its ancient halls, 

 And none without except the wild bee's hum 

 Sounding his ceaseless murmur in the sun, 

 The sighing of stray winds that wander near 

 And mellowed music from the echoing wood. 

 — Around the lichened walls grows many a flower. 

 Of brilliant pencilling or meekest grace, 

 Untended by man's hand but cherished here 

 By musing Spring, fanned by her fragrant sighs 

 And fed with balmy dew, to yield the wreck — - 

 The remnant — of old grandeur still a charm 

 Renewed for ever with the season's course. 



Cotehele ! 

 Imagination in her airy flight 

 Strays o'er the shadowy graves of buried years 

 To pause on what thou wert : when proud in place 

 The brave and noble of heroic days 

 Assembled here for wassailing or war. 

 Thy pile, so silent now, has rung with sounds 

 Of preparation for eventful strife 

 The clash of swords — the bugle's signal blast — 



* " Cuttayle, a large, fayre, auntiente howse of Peter Edgecumbe, 

 " situate nere the riuer Tamar, benefited with all kinde of necessa- 

 " ries, and verie well wooded, a speciall comoditie in those partes.^' 

 Norden's " Speculi Britanniae Pars.'' 



" Cuttayle, another house of Mr. Edgcumb's, so named (as we 

 "may conjecture) of the French Courtaile, in English, shortcut; 

 " because here the salt water course is straightened by the encroach- 

 "ing banks. The buildings are ancient, large, strong and fair, and 

 " appertenanced with the necessaries of wood, water, fishing, parks 

 " and mills ; with the devotion of (in times past) a rich furnished 

 " chapel, and with the charity of alms houses for certain poor people, 

 " whom the owners used to relieve." ' 



Carew's " Survey of Cornwall." 



More detailed accounts of Cotehele occur in Lyson's " Magna 

 Britannia" — " Beauties of England and Wales" — Rowe's * Pano- 

 rama of Plymouth" — Carringtons' " Guide," &c. &c. 



