COTEHELE HOUSE. staircase from the hall leads towards a chamber in which Charles II. slept for several nights. The rooms are mostly hung with tapestry. The chapel is small. Another chapel in the Gothic style, situated upon a rocky eminence, rising very steeply from the river, is remarkable for the following circumstance which gave rise to its foundation : Sir Richard Edgecumbe was driven to hide himself in the thick woods of his domain which overhung the river, on account of his attachment to the earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII.; and being pursued by king Richard's party very closely, he found no other way to extricate himself from his danger but by policy: he therefore put a stone into his cap, and threw them into the river; being covered by the shelter of the surrounding forest, and his pursuers seeing the floating cap, imagining that in a state of desperation he had drowned himself, gave over the pursuit ; and sir Richard found means to escape to Britanny, to await the fortune of better times. On his restoration to his country, this gentleman was appointed comptroller of the household to Henry VII. by whom he was sent ambassador to France; and dying on his return at Morlaix in Britanny, he was buried at a neighbouring church, and his cenotaph placed in this chapel which he had founded; where he is figured on a painted tablet as a knight in armour, kneeling on one knee, his helmet and gauntlet by his side, and a bishop before him. LOGAN, OR ROCKING STONE, NEAR DREWSTEIGNTON, DEVONSHIRE, A MONUMENT of antiquity, is seated in the middle of the river Teign, which rolls over a rocky channel in this part of its course. "It is poised," says Polwhele, " upon another mass of stone which is deep greunded in the bed of the river. It is unequally sided, of great size; at some parts six, at others seven feet in height, and at the west end ten. From its west to east points, it may be in length about eighteen feet. It is flattish on the top, and seems to touch the stone below in no less than three or four places; but probably it is the gravel which the floods have left between that causes this appearance. I easily rocked it with one hand; but its quantity of motion did not exceed one inch, if so much. The equipoise, however, was more perceptible a few years since. Both the stones are granite; which is thick strewn in the channel of the river, and over all the adjacent country. It seems to have been the work of nature." But the scenery of the surrounding neighbourhood claims particular attention, on account of its singular grandeur. The path leading from the river to the Logan Stone, winds in a beautiful manner beneath the precipice of Piddle Down. The majestic ascent of the hill is peculiarly striking; at its greatest distance is plainly to be perceived a channel LOGAN, OR ROCKING STONE. evidently formed by floods, which have driven down the soil into the river, and rendered that part which has been perforated barren and rocky. The south side of the river is abruptly bounded in this part by a steep and lofty ridge of mountains, from the sides of which massive fragments of rocky substance are precipitated into the stream; the consequence is, that, being pent up in deep and narrow currents, the rushing of the waters is heard in dreadful uproar for a considerable distance, in its course to Bovey Tracy. -Raging still amid the shaggy rocks, Now flashes o'er the scatter'd fragments, now Along the mazes of the quiet vale. THOMSON, |
