"An eccentric old gentleman of the name Knill, a private secretary some fifty or sixty years ago to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, becoming afterwards collector of the port of S. Ives, built a three-sided pyramid of granite on the top of a high hill, near the town of S. Ives. The pyramid is represented as a pocket edition of an Egyptian one, and in it this gentleman caused a chamber to be built, with a stone coffin, giving out his intention to be buried there, and leaving a charge on an estate to the corporation of S. Ives for the maintenance and repair, etc., of the pyramid. He, however, died in London; and by his latest will, so far from perpetuating the ostentatious idea, desired that his body should be given up to the surgeons for dissection, a penance, it is supposed, for past follies, after which the remains were buried in London. The pyramid, however, still stands as a landmark. On one side, in raised letters in granite, appear the words 'Hic jacet nil.' It was understood that the 'K' and another 'l' would be added when the projector should be placed within; and on the other side, 'Ex nihilo nil fit,' to be filled up in like manner, Knill. The mausoleum obtained then, and still bears the name of Knill's Folly." This account, full of inaccuracies, called forth a letter to the editor from a relative of John Knill, at Penrose, by Helston, dated October, 1853, which appeared in the November issue of the same magazine. He stated that John Knill was educated for the law, but did not adopt it as a profession. He preferred to accept the office of collector of customs at S. Ives. After a while he was sent as Inspector-General of Customs to the West Indies, whence he returned to his duties at S. Ives, after having discharged his office of inspectorship. In 1777 the Earl of Buckinghamshire, who was recorder of S. Ives, invited Mr. Knill to accompany him to Ireland as his private secretary, when he, the earl, had been made lord-lieutenant. The offer was accepted. In 1782, thirty years before his death, he erected the mausoleum, partly actuated by a philanthropic motive as affording a landmark to ships approaching the port, and partly by a wish to find employment for men at a time of considerable distress, having also a desire to be buried there, if the ground could be consecrated. This intention was afterwards abandoned. Mr. Knill resided for some years previous to his death in Gray's Inn, and was a bencher of that society. He died there in 1811, and was buried in the vaults of S. Andrew's, Holborn. On one side of the monument is the word "Resurgam." On the second side, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," and on the third is no inscription at all, and the silly puns given by the informant of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ had no existence save in the imagination of the correspondent.