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A SHORT ACCOUNT OF ANTHONY PAYNE, THE CORNISH 

 GIANT; AND THE HISTORY OF HIS PORTRAIT, 



(See Frontispiece) 



Painted by Sir GODFRET KNELLBR, in 1680, 



And Presented to the Museum at Truro, by Robert Harvey, Esq., J. P., 1889. 



His sword was made to match his size 



As Roundheads did rememher ; 

 And when it swung 'twas like the whirl 



Of windmills in September. — Stokes. 



By the liberality of Mr. Robert Harvey, J. P., formerly of 

 Truro, now of Trenowtb and London, this Institution has just 

 received an important addition to its museum in the form of a 

 life-sized oil-painting- of Anthony Payne, the Cornish giant of 

 Stratton, painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in 1680. So far as is 

 known, this is the only likeness of Anthony Payne extant ; the 

 engraving in Gilbert's "Cornwall" having been copied from 

 this portrait. The engraver, besides other licenses, has done 

 very little justice to the intelligent face which Sir Godfrey 

 Kneller has given us in the original. The picture itself has seen 

 such strange vicissitudes — the wonder being that it is in existence 

 at all — that it is felt (by those who love Cornish men and antiqui- 

 ties) that it has happily ended them by finding a fitting resting 

 place in the central and chief scientific Institution of Cornwall. 



To Cornishmen, especially, there is much that is interesting 

 about Anthony Payne. Not only was he a giant in bulk, but he 

 was also so largely endowed with estimable qualities that we 

 would fain re-tell the story of the man and the picture. 



Anthony Payne, at twenty-one years of age, stood 7 feet 2 

 inches in his stockinged feet, and he grew two inches more after- 

 wards, was large in proportion, comely in appearance, and witty 

 — so quick of wit, in fact, that he was named ' ' The Falstaff of 

 the West." He was born at the manor house of Stratton, which 

 is a small market town of great antiquity, within a mile and a half 

 of the Bristol Channel, and sixteen miles N.N.W. of Launceston. 

 He was the son of ordinary parents, who lived as tenants on the 



