The father of Sir Joshua Reynolds was master of the Grammar School of Plympton Erle, and here the great painter was born. In the crowded days of his middle life he gave a proof of his interest in his native town by being its Mayor, and on his election presented the town with his own portrait painted by himself. The picture was hung in the Guildhall, and Sir Joshua asked the Recorder of the borough to see that it was hung in a good position. In his reply the Recorder paid a compliment whose full meaning he did not grasp. He explained that 'he had seen to this, and the portrait hung between old pictures of Ourry and Edgecumbe which serve as foils, and set it off to great advantage. This letter greatly amused Sir Joshua, who knew that these old pictures were early works of his own.'
'Tavy creeps upon The western vales of fertile Albion; Here dashes roughly on an aged rock, That his intended passage doth up-lock;... Here digs a cave at some high mountain's foot, There undermines an oak, tears up his root:... As (woo'd by May's delights) I have been borne To take the kind air of a wistful morn Near Tavy's voiceful stream (to whom I owe More strains than from my pipe can ever flow). Here have I heard a sweet bird never lin[7] To chide the river for his clam'rous din;... So numberless the songsters are that sing In the sweet groves of that too-careless spring... Among the rest a shepherd (though but young, Yet hearten'd to his pipe), with all the skill His few years could, began to fit his quill. By Tavy's speedy stream he fed his flock, Where when he sat to sport him on a rock, The water-nymphs would often come unto him, And for a dance with many gay gifts woo him. Now posies of this flower, and then of that; Now with fine shells, then with a rushy hat, With coral or red stones brought from the deep To make him bracelets, or to mark his sheep.'
Tavistock is a quiet little 'ancient borough,' which at the first glance from the hill to the north-west suggests the early-Victorian word 'embowered,' for it looks as if the rudiments of the town had arisen in the midst of a large wood. The town lies chiefly in a hollow, and the trees that cover the sides surround and encroach upon the streets in the pleasantest way, and their foliage, the hills on every side, and the rushing Tavy through the midst, give an un-townlike air that is charming. But to imagine, from this rustic and very still look, that the place lacked history, would be to make a great mistake. On the contrary, its history starts in such very early days that only a few scattered relics remain to show the wave of human life that passed over the country.