Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/75

ST. AUSTELL TO ST. MAWES 69 interest, educational use, may be added to the attraction of rarity as a defence of all such cultivations as we find not only at Heligan and Mount Edgcumbe, but at Morrab Gardens and Tresco. Those of us who dislike them can keep away. But Heligan has a reputation also for genuine English beauty. The old mill here has been a favourite with many artists, and has be- come familiar in many an exhibition-room. At Lanshadron, close by, is a mutilated cross, which is perhaps unique in having an inscription around its base ; the inscription being Latin. Heligan is in the parish of St. Ewe, which is usually supposed to be a dedication to St. Eustachius ; but non- Celtic saints are almost as much out of place in Cornwall as exotic plants are, and St, Ewe was probably some forgotten British or Welsh mis- sionary. A former clergyman of this parish appears to have been notable as a healer of bodies as well of souls. We read of him that "Martin Atwell, parson of St. Ewe about 1600, was a physician of body as well as soul : now and then he used blood-letting or bleeding, and administered Marius Christi and other like cordials, yet mostly for all diseases he pre- scribed milk, and very often milk and apples, and recovered sundry out of desperate and forlorn extremities : his liberality was very great, his affection for religion sound, and he turned out with both hands in pios usus." Cer- tainly a most enlightened man for his time, and if we could only add that he recommended the milk to be sour we should have brought his modernity to the highest point. Mevagissey, about six miles south-west of St. Austell, was once one of the most flourishing 5