  Famous as our county is for its beautiful scenery, its wealth of prehistoric antiquities, and the abundance and variety of its wild life, it is still more renowned for its long Roll of Honour, for the many great and distinguished men who were born in it, or who have been more or less closely associated with it by residence within its borders. There can be little doubt that the foremost man in the whole history of Devon is Sir Francis Drake, the greatest of Elizabethan seamen, the first English circumnavigator of the globe, the terror of every Spanish ship, and the most conspicuous figure in the defeat of the Armada. Born near Tavistock, about 1540, of humble parentage, he early took to the sea, and was only seventeen when he and his kinsman Hawkyns, in the course of a trading-voyage to Guiana, were so ill-treated at a South American Spanish port that, for the rest of his life, Drake's chief aim seems to have been to avenge his injuries by plundering the towns, destroying the shipping, and capturing the treasure-ships of both Spain and Portugal. Among his greatest exploits were his voyage round the world, between 1577 and 1580—after which, on his return, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth on board his ship the Golden Hind; the ravaging of the West Indies in 1585 and 1586; the destruction in the harbour of Cadiz of ships and stores intended for the invasion of Sir Francis Drake During the comparatively few years he spent on shore Drake constructed the still-existing leat or water-course for bringing drinking-water into Plymouth, and he also represented that town as Member of Parliament. In 1595 he and Hawkyns set out for the West Indies on what proved to be their last expedition. Misfortune dogged the fleet from the outset. Both commanders died at sea, Hawkyns off Porto Rico, late in 1595, and Drake off Porto Bello, early in 1596. A greater man in some ways than even Drake himself was the gentle, noble, lovable, gallant Sir Walter Ralegh, a man who won renown in many fields, not only as soldier, sailor, and explorer, as courtier and administrator, but as historian and poet; whose whole life was crowded with adventure and romance, and who is one of the most picturesque figures in the entire range of English History. Born in 1552, in a house that still stands at Hayes Barton, he was only 17 when he left Oxford to fight for the Huguenots; and from that time, except for brief intervals at Court, and even shorter periods of quiet enjoyment of his property in Ireland, or of his home at Sherborne, or when he was a prisoner in the Tower, the rest of his life was spent in action; now fighting the rebel Desmonds in Ireland, now harrying the ships and towns of Spain and Portugal, now helping in the attack on the Armada, now engaged with his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert in perilous and fruitless exploration in the far north of America, now attempting to colonise Virginia—an enterprise whose sole result was Sir Walter Ralegh and his signature Elizabeth, whose favour he won by the sacrifice of his cloak, and lost again for a time owing to her jealousy On the accession of James I, however, Ralegh was charged with joining in the plot on behalf of Arabella Stuart, and was again sent to the Tower. During his long imprisonment there he wrote his most famous work, the History of the World, whose learned, eloquent, and philosophic pages proved that his skill was no less with his pen than with his sword. His stirring description of the last fight of the Revenge inspired Tennyson's noble ballad. Released from prison by James in order that he might once more sail up the Orinoco in search of the mythical treasure-land ruled over by El Dorado, he came back from that most disastrous expedition a broken man. Again committed to the Tower at the instigation of the Spanish Ambassador, he was soon afterwards beheaded on the old charge of treason, dying as he had lived, dignified, noble, and fearless to the last. Two other heroic figures of the Elizabethan age, worthy to be ranked in the same company with Drake, are his gallant comrade Hawkyns, who was born at Plymouth in 1532, and Grenville the indomitable, the hero of that last fight of the Revenge. Several other men who were born in our county have distinguished themselves as explorers, or by having helped, by peaceable means, to found our over-seas empire. Such were Davis, the arctic navigator, who was born near Dartmouth about 1550, who left his name in Davis's Straits, and who wrote The Seaman's Secrets and other works; Sir Humphrey Gilbert, born in 1539 at Dartmouth, distinguished as a soldier in the Irish wars of Elizabeth's reign, but still more as having taken possession of Newfoundland, thus establishing the first British colony; Gate, who with Somers colonised Bermuda in 1611; and Wills, who perished in 1861 with Burke in crossing Australia. Devonshire has been the native land of many soldiers. Two of the most distinguished, both of whom strongly influenced their country's destiny, and were made dukes as a reward for their services, were Monck and Marlborough. George Monck, born near Torrington in 1608, distinguished himself both by land and sea. He twice defeated the great Dutch admiral Van Tromp; and although severely beaten by de Ruyter he afterwards gained a great victory over him off the North Foreland. At first a Royalist, he joined the parliamentary army after his capture by Fairfax (followed by two years in the Tower) and Cromwell made him governor of Scotland. On the death of the Protector he marched to London, and was the chief instrument in the Restoration of Charles II, who made him Duke of Albemarle. John Churchill, better known as the Duke of Marlborough, born at Ashe House in 1650, was not only the Many great Devonshire men, including some of the earliest who became distinguished, were churchmen or divines, not a few of whom are also famous as authors. Such, for example, was Winfrid, otherwise Saint Boniface, and known as the Apostle of Germany, who, born probably at Crediton in 680, began his career as a Benedictine monk at Exeter, and after spending many years in converting the wild German tribes to Christianity, was appointed archbishop of Mainz, and was afterwards murdered by the Frisians in 755. Such were Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, Warelwast the builder of the Norman cathedral, Quivil the designer of the magnificent fabric that replaced it, Stapledon and Grandisson his able successors, Reynolds the leading Puritan divine at the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, whose proposal of a new translation of the Bible led to the Authorised Version of 1611, Trelawney, one of the Seven Bishops whose trial and acquittal formed one of the most memorable events of the reign of James II, Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, one of the fathers of English Protestantism, the "Judicious" Hooker, Charles Kingsley The most distinguished of the many Devonshire men of letters is Coleridge, poet and dreamer, philosopher and critic, who was born at Ottery St Mary in 1772. That, however, was his sole connection with the county. It was chiefly during his three years' residence at Nether Stowey, in Somerset, that the finest of his few masterpieces, especially the Ancient Mariner and part of Christabel, were written. Amongst other authors who were born in Devon may be named Gay, writer of plays, fables, and songs, among them the Beggars' Opera and Black-eyed Susan; Ford the dramatist; William Browne, the author of Britannia's Pastorals; Kitto, the deaf compiler of Biblical literature; Merivale the Roman historian; Rowe and Risdon, each of whom wrote books on the county; and Froude the historian, author of many books, and especially of the History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada. Herrick was not Devonshire born, but it was while he was vicar of Dean Prior, between 1647 and 1674, that he wrote the Hesperides, among which are some of the best lyrics in the language. Dryden, again, was a frequent visitor at Lord Clifford's seat at Ugbrooke, and there is a tradition that he there finished his translation of Virgil. It was at Lynton that Shelley wrote part of Queen Mab. Keats finished Endymion at Teignmouth. Tennyson was Distinguished in other ways may be mentioned Blundell, the Tiverton cloth-merchant, who, dying in 1601, left money for the establishment of Blundell's School; Bodley, born at Exeter in 1545, founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford; John Baring, founder of the great banking-house of Baring Brothers; Babbage, the inventor of the calculating machine; Bidder, the "Calculating Boy," son of a stone-mason of Moreton Hampstead; Cookworthy, the originator of Plymouth china; and Newcomen, a Dartmouth ironmonger, whose improvement on the atmospheric steam-engine of Savery, also a Devonshire man, was used early in the eighteenth century for pumping water out of mines. Blundell's School, Tiverton Devonshire has been specially remarkable for its artists, of whom the most distinguished were Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great portrait-painter, born at Plympton in 1723; Cosway, who painted exquisite miniatures; Samuel Prout, the famous architectural painter, and Skinner Prout his nephew; Eastlake, the great painter of figures, and the author of books on art; and Hilliard the goldsmith of Queen Elizabeth. Samuel Taylor Coleridge Two very famous Devonshire houses are those of Courtenay and Carew. There is said to be hardly a |
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