S. MYLOR AND MABE CHURCHES. 395 



whole preventive system as an unjust interference with natural 

 liberty : — 



" We have not a moment we can call our own-- 



Officious zeal, in luckless hour, laid wait, 

 And, wilful, sent the murderous ball of fate ! 



fames to his home, which late in health he left, 

 Wounded returns — of life is soon bereft ! " 



There is a world of meaning in the words "wilful" and 

 "officious zeal." This may be compared with a stone in the 

 churchyard of All Saints, Hastings, in memory of Thomas 

 Noakes, who was shot by a custom house officer in the discharge 

 of his duty, where in his epitaph, the dead man is made to say : — 



" May it be known, tho' I am clay, 

 A base man took my life away." 



Another stone commemorates a wheelwright, and is dated 1770 : — 



"Alass Frend Joseph. His end war AUmost Sudden, 

 As thou the Mandate came Express from heaven. 



his foot it Slip. And he did fall 



help help he cries— & that was all." 



which IS evidently the loving tribute of some friendly and pious 

 though unlettered, muse. Quaint and simple pathos such as 

 this far less deserves our ridicule than the vulgar monstrosities 

 of the professional stone-mason, who combines trite eulogy with 

 a stock text or two, and a few heathen symbols, suggestive of 

 the absence of faith in a resurrection, and of other things 

 abhorrent to the Christian mind. 



Perhaps, however, the object which attracts, and deserves, 

 most attention in the churchyard is the fine cross by the south 

 door, which was found during the restoration of 1869, serving 

 as a buttress against the south wall. In Langdon's Cornish 

 Crosses it is admirably illustrated, but as it should le and not as 

 it is, for he has drawn it with its full 17 feet 6 inches above 

 ground, whereas those who erected it have planted it nearly 

 seven feet in the ground, thereby concealing its principal 

 characteristic of being the tallest cross in the county. Another 

 very unusual feature of this splendid round-headed cross is its 

 square shaft, which measures 16 inches at the bottom, and about 

 15 inches at the top. 



