402
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vi. NOV. 2.3, 1912.
altar of the Norman church. The underside
has never been cut, and it was probably
bedded on a masonry column, like the old
Roman altars. The monolith was removed
to the wall of the old vestry in the church-
yard. Many pieces of the old roof-timbers
have been preserved. They may be seen in
the frame of the altar and reredos, in the
wall -plate of the sanctuary, in the roof
of the porch, and on the organ case. The
panels of the pulpit are portions of an old
roodscreen. Similar carving may be seen
in Gwinear Church. At the foot of the
tower on the south side is a coped stone
the lid of a stone coffin cut in the shape of the
ridge of a roof. Such stones are very rare,
and this, in its workmanship, is one of the
oldest, going back, it may be, as far as the
fifth or sixth century. The stone is now
only about two -thirds of its original length.
In the vestry wall (inside) the flat cover of
a stone coffin is imbedded. It has a raised
cross, with two foliations, running along its
whole length.
The churchyard cross was placed in its present position in 1857. Till that date it stood about 20 yards to the east of where it now stands. It was sunk in the ground nearly up to the head. It is remarkable for the bold relief in which the figure on the front is cut, for the rudeness of the inter- laced work on each side of the stem, for the ear on each side of the head, and for the two lower holes, which are not pierced through. In the left-hand side of the lychgate, when entering the churchyard, is a stone on which a figure has been very crudely cut perhaps a copy of that on the cross. Several pieces of old stonework are imbedded in the outer walls of the church and vestry.
The list of rectors hung on the pillar near the font is worthy of attention. It shows an unbroken succession from 1257 A.D. to the present time, which proves the his- torical continuity of the Church of England through all those years. The east window, which takes its subject from the ' Te Deum,' represents our Blessed Lord, the King of Glory, adored by apostles, prophets, martyrs (amongst whom is St. Piala), and the Holy Catholic Church (St. Kenstec, a Cornish bishop, representing the British Church). The intertwining vine symbolizes the unity of Christ and His Church throughout all ages.
From what has been written above it will be seen that from the fifth century to the present time Phillack Church has borne unbroken testimony to " the Faith that was once (for all) delivered to the saints."
NEL MEZZO.
CHARLES GORE OF WEIMAR,
SOME years ago, in reading the interesting volumes ' A Grand Duchess : the Life of Anna Amalia, Duchess of Saxe-Weimar- Eisenach, and the Classical Circle of Weimar,' by Frances Gerard (the pseudonym of Miss Geraldine Fitzgerald), 1902, I came across some passages relating to an English family called Gore, which settled there about 1791, and became " part and parcel of the inner Court circle " (i. 197). They were sur- rounded in mystery, says the biographer, nothing can be ascertained about them ; they faded out of the Weimar chronicles, and some money left by one of them to the town could never be realized " in conse- quence of all trace of the Gores being lost : ' (ib., i. 299-300). This piqued my curiosity, more especially as I read (ib., ii. 569) that the ducal library at Weimar contained their collection of books, numbering 900 volumes. I longed to know the nature of the volumes and the history of the man who had spent most of the years of a long life on the conti- nent of Europe, and the last of them in the thick of the Napoleonic troubles.
It happened that in the summer of 1911 a connexion of mine, Mr. J. R. Hobhouse, was staying at Weimar, and I enlisted his services in the Gore investigations. Through his instrumentality the learned official at the head of the ducal library favoured me in the most courteous manner with the details of the books which formerly belonged to the Gores. Herr Paul von Bojanowski writes as follows :
" On Charles Gore's death his books were purchased by Duke Carl August, after they had been examined by the then librarian Vulpius. His report on them, dated 26th June, 1807, and still among the records (Vulp., vol. (H), runs :
" ' I have found that its chief strength lies, as was to be expected, in works in the English language ; the rest are written in French, with the exception of some classical books and some fine editions of Italian poets. There are in this little library beautiful first editions of books of travel with copperplates, excellent works on navigation and shipbuilding, a few military works, particularly on the English Avar in India, collections of Indian views, antiquarian disser- tations, good books on English history and the description of Great Britain, and about 60 volumes of romance.'
" Vulpius gives the total number of volumes as 1886, and their value as 700 thaler (2100 marks).
" According to entries in the records (14th January, 1808) the works placed in the ducal library numbered 879, and 78 works were assigned to the Duke's military library. The rest seem to have been disposed of as duplicates. There is no list of all Gore's books extant, nor even of
