392 COENISH CHAIRS. 



mysterious " Cader of St. Michael," It is a chair composed of 

 two stones projecting from the two sides of the tower battlements 

 and uniting into a sort of seat, just at the south-western angle, 

 but elevated above the battlements on each side, and overhanging 

 the rocky precipice beneath. " Opinions are divided, as some 

 contend that it is the remains of a stone lantern, in which a light 

 was kept by night, and during foggy weather, for the direction 

 of shipping ; whilst others believe that it had some connection- 

 ship with the pilgrims." Lake: sub St. Hilary. 



In the Pall Mall Magazine, the Hon. John St. Aubyn thus 

 writes: "At the south-western corner of the tower are the 

 remains of a stone lantern, which probably served as a beacon — 

 perhaps the earliest specimon of a light-house in these seas. 

 The outer part is broken away, and is reputed to have the power 

 of conferring supremacy in domestic affairs on the husband or 

 wife who succeeds in sitting in it iii'st. As it is not easy to get 

 in, and still more difficult to get out, and when you are there 

 your legs hang over the face of the tower wall at a giddy height, 

 a lady who attempts the adventure is considerably handicapped." 

 And this giddy height is magnified to a degree almost impossible 

 to conceive by a man of such superlative imaginative powers as 

 Charles Dickens, who describes it as being three thousand feet 

 (just fancy it) above the fathomless (!) ocean (John Forster's Life 

 of Charles Dickens, p. 206), thereby making the extraordinary 

 height to be counter balanced by illimitable depth — 3000 height 

 versus fathomless profundity. Robert Southey in his visits to 

 Derwent Coleridge, the poet's son, who lived at Helston, became 

 acquainted with the extraordinary virtues of the chair, and wrote 

 a poem on the subject. 



Chair made from the Trunk of a Tree. 

 At Tren wheal, about \\ miles from Grodolphin, is preserved 

 a chair formed out of the trunk of a tree. It appears that, 

 about seventy or eighty years ago, miners dug out of the land 

 belonging to the Vicarage of St. Hilary an immense tree-bole, 

 which must have lain buried there for many years. The trunk 

 was divided into three portions, one of which was given to the 

 then Vicar of St. Hilary, in acknowledgment of his right as 

 possessor of the land where it was found, and a second was 



