The rain--which falls alike
upon the just and the unjust--beat through his own roof, but never
through the labourer's thatch; and Mrs. Nance, the cook, who hated
beggars, might not without art and secrecy dismiss a single beggar
unfed. His religion he told to no man, but believed the practice of
worship to be good for all men, and regularly encouraged it by
attending church on Sundays and festivals. He and the vicar ruled
our parish together in amity, as fellow-Christians and rival anglers.
Now, all these apparent contrarieties in my father flowed in fact
from a very rare simplicity, and this simplicity again had its origin
in his lineage, which was something more than royal.
On the Cornish shore of the Tamar River, which divides Cornwall from
Devon, and a little above Saltash, stands the country church of
Landulph, so close by the water that the high tides wash by its
graveyard wall. Within the church you will find a mural tablet of
brass thus inscribed--
"Here lyeth the body of Theodoro Paleologvs of Pesaro in
Italye, descended from ye Imperyall lyne of ye last Christian
Emperors of Greece being the sonne of Camilio ye sonne of
Prosper the sonne of Theodoro the sonne of John ye sonne of
Thomas second brother to Constantine Paleologvs, the 8th of
that name and last of yt lyne yt raygned in Constantinople
vntill svbdewed by the Tvrks who married with Mary ye davghter
of William Balls of Hadlye in Svffolke gent & had issve 5
children Theodoro John Ferdinando Maria & Dorothy & dep'ted
this life at Clyfton ye 21th of Ianvary 1636"
Above these words the tablet bears an eagle engraved with two heads,
and its talons resting upon two gates of Rome and Constantinople,
with (for difference) a crescent between the gates, and over all an
imperial crown.
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