Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/190

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148
BURIAN.

do no murder?" The material of this work is found in great variety and beauty round the coast, and particularly at Porth Kernow, near the Logging Rock.

The last Mr. Davies of Burnuhall married . . . . . Kegwin of Newlyn; he wasted the remains of a property which had been gradually diminishing in the hands of his father and of his grandfather; so that about the year 1750, Burnuhall and some other farms were sold to Admiral Boscawen.

Boskenna is the property and residence of Mr. Francis Paynter, a very respectable gentleman and magistrate, the great-grandson, I believe, of the individual distinguished by Mr. Hals for his skill in husbandry. There is a tradition of his having purchased the place of one whose family had long possessed it, but who had ultimately become the huntsman of a pack of hounds kept originally as his own.

Mr. Francis Paynter, uncle of the gentleman now possessed of Boskenna, was greatly distinguished for his wit and humour. He was either the sole or joint author of a poem made in imitation of Prior's Alma, and in ridicule of the then dean of Burian, called "The Consultation." Mr. Paynter practised his profession of the law near St. Columb. He married Miss Pender of Penzance, and left several sons. The exercise of wit is not always, perhaps not frequently, associated with pecuniary gain. The Editor has heard Mr. Paynter declare that "The Consultation" prevented his obtaining a valuable stewardship from the family of which the dean was a member.

The Vyvyans of Trelovornow are said to have originated from Treviddror in this parish. And Lord Chief Justice Tresilian was from Burian, in whose descendants Pendor and Ristchurch, after the lapse of nearly five centuries, some of his property still remains.

From about fifty to seventy years ago Boskenna attracted much attention, and gave occasion to various