FALMOUTH AND TRURO 89 time. By dint of effort, also, Falmouth was created a distinct parish, freed from St. Budock and St. Gluvias. All these steps were taken in face of much opposition, and against the influence of Robartes, Arundels, and Godolphins, who sup- ported Truro, Helston, and Penryn in petitioning that " the erecting of a town at Smithike would tend to the ruin and impoverishing of the ancient coinage towns and market-towns aforesaid, not far distant from thence ; and they therefore humbly prayed the King's Majesty that the build- ings and undertakings of Mr. Killigrew might be inhibited for the future." Such had been an earlier petition to James I., and the same spirit of opposition pursued every development of the young town. Strife and litigation pursued the Killigrews unremittingly, until the extinction of the family in the direct line, somewhere about the middle of the eighteenth century. There is one great literary glory attaching to them. It was to Mistress Anne Killigrew that Dryden wrote his noble elegiac ode, which Dr. Johnson thought the finest in the language. With the dignity and melody that distinguished Dryden at his best, he apostrophises the lady as one who had herself courted the muses of poetry and painting — Hear then a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse In no ignoble verse, But such as thy own voice did practise here, When thy first fruits of poesy were given, To make thyself a welcome inmate there ; While yet a young probationer And candidate of heaven." The ode was addressed to Anne, daughter of Dr. Henry Killigrew, born in 1660, who died of
