Chapter 49

The _Dictionary of National Biography_ says of Sir John Call that he was "descended from an old family which, it is said, once owned considerable property in Devon and Cornwall." That proviso "it is said" is conveniently inserted. Anything may be said, as that the cow jumped over the moon, but that a saying may be believed we must know who uttered it. Now the originator of this saying was probably William Playfair, in his _British Family Antiquity_, 1809. In that the following interesting statement occurs: "From pa…