Davy was born in 1743 near Tavistock, but passed his early years near here at Chudleigh and at Knighton, went to the Grammar School at Exeter and thence to Balliol College at Oxford, was then ordained, and held the curacies of Moreton, Drewsteignton and Lustleigh, remaining in the last from 1786 until about six months before his death in 1826. For that space of nearly forty years he was practically the parson of the parish, the rector being a pluralist and rarely visiting the place. In his sermons at Drewsteignton “he denounced the vices of his congregation in such terms that the people fled from the church and complained to the bishop.” But he set the bishop’s mind at rest by showing him twelve volumes of manuscript, containing the sermons he had preached. I have those twelve volumes in my library here. They have an expensive binding of that period, and the penmanship is good, but antiquated, _e.g._ vol. xi, p. 333, “& carry yʳ youthful Vices wᵗʰ yᵐ to yᵉ Grave.” The dates are 1777 in the first volume, 1779 in the next five, and 1781 in the remaining six. The first four volumes (of six sermons each) are “on yᵉ Attributes of God,” the fifth and sixth (of seven sermons each) are “on some of yᵉ most-important Articles of yᵉ Xⁿ Religion,” and the last six (of fourteen sermons each) are “on yᵉ several Virtues & Vices of Mankind.” These were the sermons that upset the people at Drewsteignton. But clearly he was making a general survey, and no more charged them with all the vices than he credited them with all the virtues. In 1786 he got these sermons published by subscription in six volumes, duodecimo. And then he went on writing till he had five hundred sermons of such scope that he felt justified in calling them _A System of Divinity_. He failed to get this published by subscription; and it would have cost about £2000 to print. So he set to work, and did it all himself with a printing-press of his own make. He began his printing in 1795, and in five months he turned out forty copies of the first 328 pages of vol. i, with title, preface, etc.; and he sent round twenty-six of these as specimens, to see if he could get support. There was practically no response: so he went on with the fourteen copies that remained, and of the rest [Illustration: THE WREY AT WREYLAND. POOL COPSE]