Chapter XII: Appendix: V (1)

_Observations on an Ancient Manuscript, entitled Passio Christi,
written in the Cornish Language, and now preserved in the
Bodleian Library; with an account of the Language, Manners, and
Customs of the People of Cornwall. By William Scawen, Esq.
Vice-Warden of the Stannaries._ (_From a Manuscript in the
Library of Thomas Astle, Esq. 1777._)

_On the Manuscript itself. On the description of the Passion
contained therein. On the tongue in which the Passion is
described, and the properties thereof, and how it relates to and
concerns the people and places of Cornwall._

CONCERNING the manuscript itself, (which is the ground of the fabric) the first thing that presents itself is the outside, which is not polished, but in a homely, humble simplicity, and written upon a rough old vellum, which may be supposed to be before parchments here came much into use; and by the rude pictures set out therewith, it may seem to be before the art of painting became better amongst us.

Next to behold the chirography thereof, written in no other than the old Court Hand, not of the best form, but seeming somewhat older than we find it in other places, and some of the letters and characters different from the common Court Hand.

As to the speech itself, it is such as the common speakers of the Cornish now used here do not understand, nor any but such as will be at the pains to study it, no more than the common speakers of the vulgar nation of the Greeks do at this day Homer’s Iliad. So the Lord’s Prayer in the year 700 was thus in English: Vren fader thic arth, &c. In 900, Thu ure fader the eart on heofenum.

As to the antiquity thereof, we observe the name of our Saviour is all along written IHS, after the old form used in crucifixes, and then also the name written Chrest, not Christ. So we find it written in Tacitus, Suetonius, and in some other Roman authors it may be found. So Christians were called Chrestians, as Tertullian observes, Apol. c. 3.[25] And so the vulgar in Cornish speak it Chrest, and not Christ.

In this old piece are no words antiently intermixed of the Saxon tongue or Angles, which shews, in all probability, that it was written before their time at least, if not much further off; whereas, the common speech of it now carries much of those latter figures, to the disfiguring of the face thereof. But of all other intermixion, it seems to receive in it (with a kind of delight) the tongue of the Romans, by whom the people were easily brought to take up that tongue which they brought with them, and afterwards more and more by degrees in succeeding times, the Roman speech was interwoven with the Cornish, out of a natural propensity to it, as that tongue came to be used of all other nations afterwards, as was observed before.

Another argument there is (and that which is to be admired and rejoiced at) that in this old piece of the Passion, there is nothing heretical, little of error to be found, or savouring of ill opinions; which is strange, since it has passed through so many ages, in which so many ill broods have been hatched, and, amongst others, one of our own, the Pelagian heresy, a brat bred here amongst us at Bangor. Nor is there any mention made of any monastical persons, or several orders of men so living. Nothing that refers to Monks, Friars, Priors, or to any other orders, secular or sacred, nor any thing said in approbation or dislike of any such thing.

There is nothing in it savouring of the old bards or their poetry, nor having references to Merlyanisms, but a bare and sober relation of matter of fact.

II. As to the description of the Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour, I cannot again but admire, that it is so unpolluted with the Arian or Pelagian heresies. There are, it is true, some inoffensive and harmless traditions, and a word may be let slip of the Virgin Mary; and in those traditions you may observe the concurrence of others.

And, first, concerning this Longis: it is to be inquired whether he be not that Longinus mentioned in our Calendar on the fifteenth of March, or that Longinus on the first of December; for of Longinus there is the same history to be found in Picinellus his Mundus Symbolicus;[26] whose words are, D. P. Comestor ad Longinum vitiosos et caligantes fuisse oculos, cum vero fluentem in Christi latere sanguinem casu illis admovisset, videndi acumen recepisse. In eandem Septentiam canit S. G. Nazian-zenus.[27]

Ubi fixit hastam, defluentis sanguinis
Tinctam liquore, et ecce! ut utraque manu
Hausit, oculosque hoc ungit hinc ut scilicet
Detergat oculum nocte, que cera legit, &c.

When into Christ he thrust his tainted spear,
Lo! unto both his hands the blood flow’d there,
Wherewith he anoints his eyes and then saw clear,
Which like the night till that time blinded were.

Mr. Lassells, in his Voyages into Italy, tells us, that the picture of Longinus stands under the top of the spear with which Christ’s side was pierced, in the cupola at St. Peter’s church at Rome. It may be conjectured, that this tradition owes its origin to the literal sense of that prophecy; “they should look on him whom they had pierced.”

For the wood of the cross, (another of the traditions,) Genebrard’s account thereof, as reported by Purchas in his Pilgrimage, p. 30, comes somewhat near it, which is, that Seth went to the Cherub which kept Paradise, and received three grains of the Tree of Life, whereof we read in the Apocalypse, “The leaves shall heal the nation.” With these three grains was an oil made, wherewith Adam was anointed, and the stones put into his mouth, whence sprang the tree whereof the cross of our Lord was made, hidden by Solomon in the Temple, and after in the pool of Bethesda; according to which, in a church window at St. Neot’s, is one pictured putting something under another’s tongue, with this inscription, Hic Seth ponit tria grana sub lingua Adæ. If any list to see further about the timber whereof the cross was made, let him read Mr, Evelyn’s Sylva, c. 3, Num. 17. As to that of the smith’s wife, in forming the nails for the crucifixion, perhaps they might think, that as the first woman had the first hand in the transgression, so a woman must be employed in the last act of this tragedy. We may observe,

1. What true and manifest notions these antient people had, and faithfully retained, of the Trinity, and the reverence they gave them.

2. How distinctly and clearly they did set forth, in those dark days they lived in, the several distinct attributes of the Deity, assigning power to the Father, wisdom to the Son, goodness to the blessed Spirit.

4. How well they agree and adhere to the doctrine of the true church of Christ, in the points maintained by us concerning the loss and fall of man and mankind, and the restoration of him, and concerning the eternal decree and purpose of God, in the salvation of man, notwithstanding his fall.

We may observe by the Resurrection, thus shortly declared as it is, that it appears plainly that those people were not Nullyfidians.

Nor were they Solyfidians.

They placed the foundation of their happiness in belief.

And the superstruction thereupon in good works.

Lastly, we cannot think they were any way inclinable to the minds of those scoffers at the day of judgment, which St. Peter meets with in his second Epistle, 2, 9, and 10. Our people acknowledged, that at the Great Day of account a punishment shall be upon the wicked, and a glory expected to be given to the godly. Thus far as a taste only of what is contained therein.

III. On the tongue in which the Passion of our Saviour is thus described, we have, among other things, such as these observables:

1. The Idiom.
2. The Innocency and Cleanness.
3. The Wisdom.
4. Significances of it.

1. For the Idioms. They put the substantive before the adjunct or adjective. 2. The preposition sometimes comes after the noun. 3. It is usual to change a letter in the beginning, middle, or end of a word or syllable, and sometimes to omit in each for sound sake. 4. They contract several words into one for sound sake, and that very short also; with many other changes, of which it is hard to know or find any certain rule now, but some may be made out upon reading, due observation and experience had on this that follows; and for the pronunciation, the Cornish is not to be gutturally pronounced as the Welsh for the most part is, nor mutteringly as the Armorick, nor whiningly as the Irish (which two latter qualities seem to have been contracted from their servitudes), but must be lively and manly spoken, like other primitive tongues.

2. For the Innocency of it. What is most remarkable is, that it hath a most excellent defective qualification in it, peculiar to itself; for, whereas all other tongues abound in execrable oaths, the old Cornish have none at all, not so much as reproachful terms. The word that comes nearest to an oath with them is Areire, Areiaree, which is Mary, Mary, spoken by way of wonder. The next good defective qualification is, that there are no great titles in it, which Nutricule Tyrannidis.

3. For the Wisdom, Proverbs (which contain usually the wisdom of a nation) they have had, but we cannot find them in any great plenty. Yet some there are worthy observing, as these:

Cows nebas, cows da, nebas an yeveren an gevella.
Speak little, speak well, little of public matter is best.

Cows nebas, cows da, hada veth cowsas arta.
Speak little, speak well, and well will be spoken again.

Taw Tavas.
Be silent tongue.――To call one Tavas Tavas, Tongue Tongue, is as
great a reproach as you can put upon any one.

Reys yw meeras dueth ken lemmell uneth.
Look twice before you leap once.

Neb na gare y gwayn coll restewa.
He that loves not gain loss befall him.

Neb na gare y gy an gwra deveeder.
He that loves not his dog will make him a choaked sheep.

Non ges goon heb lagas na kei hebs scovern.
There is no down without eye, nor hedge without ears.

Na reys gara anvor goth ragan vor noweth.
Do not leave the way old for the way new.

Guel gw gwetha vel goofen.
Better keep than ask.――This is spoken of a wariness and
precaution concerning lending.

Grova da rag, tha hannen te yn gurd.
Do good, for thyself thou dost it.

4. Significancy of the Tongue. Adam gave names to the creatures, according to their natures; but the people of this land, having no better guide, have given names upon long experience had, and much observation made of the nature of things, and those do mostly appear now as to places and families. I shall adventure upon some instances:

Lanceston, alias Dunhevet. Camden would fain have it to be Fanum Stephani; indeed St. Stephen’s, which is a mile off, seems to be the mother church, Lanceston the daughter church. Others would have it to be Lancelot’s Town, one of the Champion Knights of King Arthur, but that is further from truth. The Chief Justice Foster, talking with me about it, would fain have Dunhevet to be the most ancient name, from Dune a town, and Hevet above it, which there is accordingly. I told his lordship we must fetch the derivation higher, from the Cornish original (and not from the Saxon), and that is Leostofen, which is a place of large extent, or a broad end, which is properly so according to the situation thereof, at the broad end of the county, from whence it grows towards the west still narrower, like to the point of a wedge. I read in a good author, that Radulphus, brother to Alfius, Duke of Cornwall, was founder of Lanceston. I think he means the castle there, not the town.

The names of places above, and from those places downwards, have suffered much violence along the river from Devon side, by reason of the mutations formerly spoken of; but from thence we shall take notice of some that have received their names antiently, passing down the river of Tamar (and on some of the branches thereof) where, by the way, I may say I am astonished at some of our late Geographers, who, in enumerating the famous bridges in all this have omitted altogether ours in Cornwall, of which, among land, other lesser, we have three that are very eminent, one of which, Wadebridge, stands further west; the two others, besides many smaller, are on the river of Tamar; one Horsbridge, the other called Newbridge. But much more I wonder at their omission among the rivers of the famous river of Tamar, a river, after the Thames, not behind any of note in this kingdom, which I mention the sooner, because it is most properly ours in Cornwall; for though it be great and very navigable far up, yet it arises in and floats only in this little county of Cornwall, and its whole course contains within the same, and it is the boundary thereof from other parts, wherein other streams do flow, Linnar, Fiddy, &c. and before it falls into the Estuarium, where it gives entertainment from Devon on the other side to Tavy, Plym, Yeom, and others, where they all lose their names in Tamar. And I do much more wonder that it should be printed by some others, that this famous river should fall into the sea near the Land’s End, whereas this alone possesses the whole honourable harbour of Plymouth (more than sixty miles distant from the Land’s End), and stands appropriated to the interest of Cornwall, belonging to the Duke thereof, the Prince of Wales. And to return to what I said last, in coming down from this broad end of the county to that famous harbour, though our next bordering neighbour Devonshire and the saints, have stolen away from us many of the antient British names, and intruded upon us many strange ones, yet some left us here and there of the antient speech all along, upon the river and the branches thereof, which I am obliged to memorize.

Lawhit, in Glamorganshire, is said to be Fanum Iltuti, to which the Ton being added in Cornish, makes it up. Iltutus was an ancient British Monk in King Arthur’s time. Landue may be the church or chapel of St. David, though Landuan in Cornish is the black church or chapel. And for Lezant, that is the holy saint, meaning St. Michael, to whom that church was dedicated.

As Cargreene, which is a rock in the gravel standing in a green place. Carbeele or Carbilly, a rock mentulæ formæ. Carkeele of the same signification.

Landulph, where St. Dulpho is memorized by the church’s name, and the well there so called St. Dulpho’s well. Halton, i. e. Haelton, a green place near the water.

Pillaton, a round or clue by a green.

Larrake I did formerly suppose to have been from Laun or Lun, which is usually set for a church or chapel; but on better consideration I think otherwise of it now, because I find several other places hereabouts written Larrake, which have no reference to church; and because the manor antiently was written and called Larrake, which is antienter than the church, and it signifies a place of content in Cornish.[28]

Blerrake I take to be of the same signification too; a little from which latter place, if content may be had from a prospect, it is there in my opinion. A place formerly called Ballahow, now the fairest and amplest I know any where, excepting such as are dignified by the sight of a metropolis, or such places of eminency, though it stands not on a promontory, and but a little from the sea in a plain, though but a rough one, and from it you may look directly into the sea, as far as human eye-sight can enable you.

Towards the sea-shore on the one side, you have in eye the Start in Devon, and westward the Lizard, for your boundaries. Towards the land northward, the wild moors of Devon, called the East Moors, and the other side the West Moors in Cornwall. Between those you may observe the vale countries of both, two rich valleys, one in Devon side, and the other in Cornwall, and take the sight of Tamar as their boundaries, and you will wonder, looking at it from above, to know how to think that river should find a way through those countries to the sea, especially if you consider that you seldom see water in those tracts of land by which it passes, yet you see also as it passes Plymouth the royal citadel, Plymton, Millbrooke, and abundance of small villages and boroughs in a country on each side pleasant, and the whole prospect not obscured by hills, or any thing else by which you may be hindered from the sun in any part of the day; besides this overlooks the Eddy-rock or stone, a dreadful place about a league out in the sea, where many hundred of ships have been wrecked, being in the trade way to the harbour from the west; yet I have heard some antient skilful mariners to aver, that if a good artist should go about to strike on this rock purposely, he would not be able to do it, so far doth chance go beyond art.

Cuttenbrake is a concealed head, and E. Trematon, a place on three hills.

Inesworth, which is Ineswartha, the island above, or the higher island, in respect to the situation of the island of St. Nicholas below, where the saint hath gotten the mastery again.

Ints or Ince, which is a proper name for an island, though this be joined, as Insworth is, by a short neck to other parts of the parish of St. Stephen’s. Here passing, we come by the mouth of the river to Pembernose, which is in Cornish the head of the night, or midnight, as if it were said that there is safe coming in there at any time; and from thence we pass to the uttermost point westward, called Penlee, which is the headland to the leeward; and so sailing along by the sea side to the two Gayers, the East and West Gayers near Ramehead, which may give nomination to families of that name in the west, which are now worn out there, and have had a good recruit in Plymouth, and from thence a better in London, by a late Lord Mayor, there so called, but taking his descent from Cornish original, according to the word.

Rame is a long ridge of rocks, and here called Ramehead, because it is so formed towards the sea like a ram’s horn, which hath turnings in it to put mariners in mind thereof: in Cornish Pendenhar. Sailing along from thence by the sea side, we come to Millan Dreth, that is, a mill on the sea sand at Loo,[29] or Lough, which is a common name with most nations for a low or watery place, and so Port-Loo, and Port-pinnion, the little port, nigh to which also is Denloe, or Delough; and stepping a little from thence in the land, is Minhinnitt, which is a hill on a highway, and so indeed it is rightly styled; and the well of St. Lollo, and the foot of Liskeard. Near to it is Liskeard (a near neighbour thereto), some say a place affected; others take it from the Cornish word Leskeveres, like length, like breadth, a square, so it anciently was, and so fortified, as the castle walls yet in part remaining show. Some would not have us go so far back, but would have us take it from a physician so named, and a miracle supposed to be wrought by him there, and this may be right also; but then we must suppose that to be St. Luke the physician, and some ground there is for that also, for the most antient street thereof is to this day called St. Luke’s street. Luke’s Day also is their day of feasting, and for choice of their Governor. This agrees well enough with the former as the fortification of it; and towards the sea again we come to Lestwithiel. Some hold that to be lion’s tail or lion’s train; others take it to be ‘enough together.’ The place, though now grown much in decay, hath formerly been held the only shire town, and where the Knights of the Shire have been still chosen, and the Convocation of the Stanneries held, &c. A great hall was lately there, which was used for those purposes in my knowledge, belonging to the Dukes of Cornwall, who did the like when under them; and here also they kept their court and residence, near to which stands yet their castle Restormell, in Cornish a bellyfull of money, a place of honey; besides which the Dukes had seven others, Liskeard, Tintagell, Lanceston, and Trematon, which is in Cornish three hills on a green top, though that came to the Crown by attainder. As for the river Vz or Vzell, which some speak of, I suppose is a mistake; the river there is the river of Fowey, in Cornish Foath, which hath its head spring in the moors above it, Venton Foath, in English called Foycombwell and Aqua de Fowey. As it comes further down near Foath, is a town or place called Tywardreth, in Cornish, a town on the sand, or above the sand, which agrees well with its situation, where heretofore there stood a priory, the buildings whereof are now decayed. I may not forget as next to Foath the town of Polruan, which is now a small village of fishing, but heretofore famous, standing on the top of an ancient hill, where are the ruins of a spacious fair church, called yet by the name of St. Saviour’s, Polruan is in Cornish, a frosty bottom, or frosty pool, this being seated over against Foath; between those two towns heretofore there went athwart the river a chain of iron from a small castle on each side, for their security against foreigners by sea, but by their neglect of preserving it in time of peace, was stolen away from them by some boats that came from Dartmouth in Devon, and carried there, where the river is of equal breadth, and the harbour is much like that of Fowey, and hath over against the town of Dartmouth a little town called King’s Way, which answers to Polruan against Fowey. The Fowey men have attempted the restitution of their chain, but never could obtain it, because they had been so careless, it being the means of their own preservation formerly. Between these two neighbouring towns of Fowey and Polruan, standing one against the other, in the harbour between them, there used to be antiently a solemn contention of justing performed upon the river every May-day, upon two boats singled out of equal strength, from the one side and from the other, to encounter each other upon the water, there being a stage made on each of them, upon the end of the boat, for the several champions to stand on. Several boats were to row with six oars a-piece, rowing fiercely against one another. The champions were arrayed only in white, slightly but better armed about the breast and neck, and holding a lance rebated in the form of an oar (according to their trade); but a fierce attempt they make upon each other, and one or both of them is usually carried by the push to sound the depth of the harbour, and then a new supply of others for fresh encounter is called for again.

This I have seen to be performed in my time, and it usually drew abundance of people together to behold the sport from the hills on both sides, and from the town, with many others, with boats likewise upon the river, and not without need, to receive up and recover their dejected champions, who end their encounters in peace, not without liquor, the element of their contention.

Mevagissy, or Mevagissey, a hill to keep mares in.

Penwarn, a head beloved.

Bodrigan, a hill by the ebbing of the sea.

Dudman or Gubman, a place where much ore is cast in.

This spot of land called Bodrigan, a spacious fair barton looking towards the sea, was not very long since possessed by gentry of the same name, whose estate was great; and being forfeited to King Henry the Seventh, part thereof was given to Trevanion, a noble family of this county; but this Bodrigan, with many other lands, to Edgcombe, that Sir Richard Edgcombe, of whom let me deliver my judgment, that he was a witty, valiant, wise, good man, and a good commonwealth’s man. Witty, as appears by his hiding himself and throwing his cap and coat away for his preservation, O quantum est subditis casibus ingenium. Valiant, in that he was made a Knight Banneret at Bosworth field. Wise, in that he was made choice of for one of the Commissioners for the happy treaty of marriage of Margaret, the King’s eldest daughter, with James the Fourth, King of Scots, a happiness to the kingdom at this day. A good man, and not a pilferer of the people (as many were in those days); otherwise he would be named in Perkin Warbeck’s Declaration, set down by Chancellor Bacon. A good commonwealth’s man, as appears by that stately and costly fabric of Newbridge built by him.

Peale, a spire, lies to the north of Tolpenwith a mile, and it is the true Land’s-end. This spire, called the Pele, stood on a little island; between it and the shore there is room for a boat to pass with oars; the spire was ten fathom or more above the ordinary flux of the sea, very narrow on the top, hardly room for a man to sit on it; in the floor it was and is fourteen feet square. In the year before King Charles the First was beheaded, it was prodigiously cut off in the floor by a storm, and falling broke in three pieces.

Herles, truly interpreted Hercules’ Pillars, are a ridge of rocks a quarter of a mile in length, standing like pillars divided into small islands, and distant from the Pele a mile. From these by the north coast we come to St. Ives, in Cornish Port Eer of Geer, a port with a pool. Paddestow, so called by Saxon Angles, being Patherickstow. Another place near by, called Little Petherick, which partakes not of the Cornish at all; for in the Cornish it is Lethanneck, a place of much sea-sand, which agrees well with the site, much sea and much sand there is driven. A little above which is the house of Edmund Prideaux, esq. my kinsman, now called Place, formerly Guarandre, or Warthantre, i. e. above the town or above the sand; but that we may do right to latter times also, we find much mention to be made also of Patrickstow, and that St. Patrick, after much time spent in Ireland, and endowments of learning by long study were obtained, he came into Cornwall, and built a monastery there not far from the river of Severn, which comes home to that which is said by Archbishop Usher, as also to the name of the place. Locus ubi Petrocus consedit in Cornubia, Petrocstow, hodie Padstow nominatur, prius Laffeneck. Antiq. p. 292; and after thirty years went to Rome, &c. By other authors it is said, that at Bodmyn his body was buried but stolen from thence, and carried by one Martinus to the abbey of Menevy or Mein, in Little Britany; but upon complaint to the king it was restored, and brought back undiminished to the Prior of Bodmyn. b. §. p. 293. But whether this were to be understood of St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, it is altogether to be doubted, since as to the burial of his body there hath been so much contention that that should be at Glastonbury; but another Patrick there was, perhaps a third, and one of note too, stiled Sænor Sæenex Patricius, as appears by the learned primate. He is said to be at the same time, and that he was Domesticus Sancti Patricii. Another there was also at some hundred years distance. With one of these it may better accord than with the great Patricius, who it may be said, had his name Dignitatis causa, as was usual with the Romans and Athenians, his parental name being Moun or Muun.

The town of Stratton, in Cornish Straneton, a green dispersed with houses. Near this town is the place where the Cornish forces, on behalf of King Charles the Second, obtained the glorious victory over the rebellious army, anno 1643. In memory of which battle Sir Ralph Hopton was created Baron of Stratton, who afterwards dying without issue, the same title was conferred upon Sir John Berkley, both which lords were commanders in the Cornish army at that time.

There is a pretty vulgar fiction that Tamar, Tamara, being a subterraneous nymph, was courted and sought after by Tavy and Tawrage, who found her sitting under a bush at Morewinstow, the furthest part of Cornwall in the north. They being weary in searching after her, sat down by her and slept; she perceiving them to be fallen asleep, steals away from them suddenly and goes directly to the south. Tavy being first awakened, goes away silently after her, not acquainting his co-rival therewith. Tawrage that awakened last, finding them both gone, in haste rusheth out, and angrily runs away towards the north, foaming and fretting all along as he goes, till he loses himself in the Sabrina; whilst Tavy, on the Devon side, sends out some of his small streams to visit and court her, and to observe which way the nymph went, but she having got the start of him, leaves not of her speed till she comes into the Sound.

ANTIQUITIES CORNUONTANIC.

_The causes of the Cornish Speech’s Decay._

1. The first and great cause of the decay of the Cornish speech was their want of a character, which not only contributed to the decay of the tongue, but to the vanquishing of the nation of the Britons, they being thereby disabled upon emergent occasions to write or communicate with one another against their invaders, and so “dum pugnabant singuli vincuntur universi,” as Tacitus says; and he also observes, “non aliud adversus validissimas gentes pro Romanis utilius quàm quod in commune non consulebant.”

What would have become of the Roman tongue, when the Goths and Vandals broke in upon Rome and all Italy, mixing the Roman tongue with their Runa-Gothica, if there had not been learned men (amounting to 160 elegant classical authors in Augustus his time) who preserved the tongue in their works?

I know it hath been and yet is the judgment of learned men, that the old Britons never had any character, yet I hope they will give me the liberty of declaring the reasons of my dissenting. I. It hath always been supposed that Ireland had a character; now Ireland was always accounted a British Island, however; yet I cannot positively affirm that the character which the Bishop of Tuam sets forth as British be really so, there seeming to be little difference between that and the old Saxon; neither can I consent to what he saith, that the Saxons, whom he calls their neighbours, learned their very characters from Ireland.

2. Though we may depend on Cæsar’s[30] authority, that Druidum doctrina non fuit literis mandata, sed memoriæ fuit, ne aut in vulgus proficiscentur, aut juventus qui eam perdiscebant negligentia aut in curia remitterent, which reasons, in my judgment, rather demonstrate that they had a character to communicate their doctrines by, if they had pleased to use it. II. The great use made of the Roman tongue, the laws of their conquest extending to letters and speech, as well as to territory; and where there is a delight, there are things best retained. Romanam Linguam Britanni non abnuebant, ut eloquentiam concupisserent. Tacit.

Fertur habere meos, si vera est fama, libellos
Inter delicias pulchra Vienna suas.
Dicitur et nostros cantare Britannia versus.
Martial.[31]

Afri, Galli, Hispani avido arripuerunt et inducto novo paulatim oblituerunt veterum sermonem. Lips.

III. The great loss of Armorica, near unto us, by friendship, by cognition, by interest, by correspondence. Cornwall has received princes from thence, and they from us. We had heretofore mutual interchanges of private families, but as to our speech we are alike careless. We can understand words of one another, but have not the benefit of conferences with one another in our ancient tongue. I have met with some Friars born and bred there, who, one would think, should be able to discourse of their own pristine tongue, and of their own birthplaces, yet found them, though not totally ignorant that such things had been, yet insensible and careless of their former condition. They could tell me that my name Scawen, was in their tongue Elders, as here it is; that there are those that bear the same name, and one of them a bishop; but when he writ it he changed it to Sambucus, shewing thereby a mind declared to a new, rather than an inclination to his old name, and relation to his country speech.

IV. But, least the tender lamentations of those losses should be thought to put us out of memory of the loss of our tongue, the matter which we have in hand, we are here to mention a fourth cause, and that which most concerns this Peninsula of Cornwall, which is the giving over of the Guirremears,[32] which were used at the great conventions of the people, at which they had famous interludes celebrated with great preparations, and not without shews of devotion[33] in them, solemnized in open and spacious downs of great capacity, encompassed about with earthen banks, and in some part stone work of largeness to contain thousands, the shapes of which remain in many places at this day, though the use of them long since gone. These were frequently used in most parts of the county, at the conveniency of the people, for their meeting together, in which they represented, by grave actings, scriptural histories, personating patriarchs, princes, and other persons; and with great oratory pronounced their harangue, framed by art, and composed with heroic stile, such as have been known to be of old in other nations, as Gualterius,[34] an ancient father, hath been mentioned to be. This was a great means to keep in use the tongue with delight and admiration, and it continued also friendship and good correspondency in the people. They had recitations in them poetical and divine, one of which I may suppose this small relique of antiquity to be, in which the passion of our Saviour, and his resurrection, is described. They had also their Carols at several times, especially at Christmas, which they solemnly sung, and sometimes used, as I have heard, in their churches after prayers, the burden of which songs, “Nowell, Nowell, good news, good news of the Gospel,” by which means they kept the use of the tongue the better.

V. I cannot find that the British have boasted of many miracles done among them; if any such antiently there were, they were deprived of the memory of them by the Romans. I cannot affirm with so much reason (as some of our neighbours have done with confidence) who say, that at the last digging on the Haw for the foundation of the citadel of Plymouth, the great jaws and teeth therein found, were those of Gogmagog, who was there said to be thrown down by Corineus, whom some will have to be the founder of the Cornish;[35] nor am I able to assert, that some great instruments of war in brass, and huge limbs and portraitures of persons long ago, as some say that have been in some of the western parishes, were parts of giants, or other great men, who had formerly had their being there. But we may rather think those to be imaginary things or devices of old bards said to be there, though we have no certain memory of them neither. Nor may we think it strange that such things may be spoken of, since we may well credit some good historians, that write that Alexander, after that he had returned from his journey to India, caused a great representation to be made on the ground on the western side of the river Indus, of a huge campaign almost immeasurable, with tents, cabins, and platforms, and arms also, for horses, racks, and mangers, of such height as were not to be reached at; and that there were also scattered about the ground bits and bridles for horses, of extraordinary length and bigness, and that all this “ut de magnis majora loquantur,” and to make men think upon him and his miraculous acts with the more admiration.

VI. The sixth cause is, the loss of the ancient records, not of the Duchy or the Earldom of Cornwall, (which some affirm were burnt, and others lost in the ancient ruins of the castles of Rostormell, and other such,) but of those of whole Cornwall, whilst one of the four dynasties of this island, (or, as Pancirollus,) one of the five.

VII. The seventh cause is desuetude, or want of a continued use; and it is no wonder, if, after so many losses, the true use of the tongue vanished away or grew not into contempt. Speeches are compounded of words, and both of them of one nature, and continued according to their use, and of one of them it may be said as of the other

Multa recensentur quæ nunc cecidere, cadentque
Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus.

Words many and tongues we recount,
Which being fallen do oft remount,
And those that are now priz’d by us,
May fall to ground for want of use.

VIII. A general stupidity may be observed to be in the whole county. As to other matters monumental, there is little mention made of our antient stately fabrics amongst us, now ruinated; as to the founders of them, castles, battles fought, and other things: and as to churches (though we have abundance of fair ones for so small a county, where there is no city nor any great town in it) excellent foundations, but who the builders were we have no intelligence, only a great many false tutelaries of them we hear of. Little of the monasteries hath been said by those that have written copiously of others elsewhere. Scarcely anything of the ancient bishops here, or of the bishop’s see; only we know it to be said antiently, that it was removed from Bodmyn to St. German’s,[36] and that it was about anno 1000, Danorum turbine, from a country more open, to a place more woodland. The cathedral indeed might have been better memorized by Godwin in his Catalogue of Bishops, and enumeration of all the bishopricks; yet little is said of it or the four several chapels in several distinct places of the parish thereto belonging; and as for the monastery nothing at all. It is strange too that Mr. Camden should say, “Germani viculum nihil aliud est hodie, quam piscatorum casulæ:” whereas, there are no such things belonging to such a trade there seen, but instead thereof a cathedral, maintained at the great cost of the inhabitants, (though a great part, by an accident, about one hundred years since fell down,) a good monastical house yet undemolished, and hospitably inhabited, to the relief of poor people. The bishop’s seat and house are yet eminently extant in a Cornish name. The borough of St. German’s enjoys still the privilege of sending burgesses to Parliament by prescription. Pity it is that St. German, who came hither to suppress the Pelagian heresy, should have so bad a going off; for an old fable remains yet in report, that St. German being ill used fled away, leaving a sad curse behind him, to the cliffs at Rame near the head; where bewailing his misfortunes, the compassionating rocks in the cliffs shed tears with him, at a place ever since called St. German’s Well. True it is, such a spring there is, but the occasion of it cannot be more truly affirmed than the other part of the story that follows, viz. That he should be carried thence into remote countries by angels in a fiery chariot, the tract of whose wheels were said to be seen in those cliffs, but they are invisible. Thus much for the site of the place. As to the person of St. German, who perhaps never saw the place, I need not turn over old fabulous legends, nor a better sort who have written his life heretofore, but I may have liberty to relate what I have from the better hands of learned persons.[37] That besides his disputation and confutation of Pelagius at Verulam, and thereby freeing the church and nation from those heresies by a public edict from the Emperor Valentinian, whereby they were no more troubled with them afterwards, he the said St. German did other great works for this land, viz. 1st. the institution of schools of learning among the Britons; Dubritius and Iltutus being both of them his disciples. Dubritius was made Archbishop of Carlehon; Iltutus sent to Lan Iltut, a church bearing his name to this day; and one Daniell, made Bishop of Bangor; from these famous men the monastery of Bangor, and other monasteries in this land, were so well furnished with learned men, at the coming in of St. Austin from the Pope, they stood upon discreet and honourable terms.

2. The introduction of the Gallican Liturgy into use in the churches of Britany, which was ever different from the Romans, and thereby a happy means to have kept this nation from so much acquaintance with the Pope, as they had with him afterwards, to their great trouble. It is also said that St. Patrick, who carried over into Ireland the education monastic, and good principles therewith, and is held to be the Apostle of Ireland, spent many years under the discipline of St. German, when he came hither; who, after he had been employed in the embassy to the Emperor at Ravenna, died there one year before the Saxons’ arrival.

All this time we are left in the dark concerning the fabric of the Monastery of St. German’s, which could not be built till two or three hundred years perhaps after the Saxons got a perfect dominion here over the land, but we may believe that that and the cathedral might be dedicated to his memory afterwards, in respect of the many good works he had done elsewhere.

IX. As we have had an ill registry of monumental matters, so for five or six centuries past (before the two last), I doubt we had but few learned men here, which induces me to put that to the ninth cause of the decay of the Cornish tongue. After the suppression of the Druids, and that Christianity was received, yet learning decayed some while amongst the people, the best of them being carried abroad by the Romans and never returned; and then the supposed Saints coming in after them, made no reparation thereof, but by their supposed miracles, with which they entertained the people. So they had very few learned men amongst them, places of breeding and obtaining learning being remote, scarcely approachable, and the nation in continual troubles and dangers; and for latter times such learned men as came to us, seeing our own neglect of our tongue, have thought it not fit to take the pains to inquire into it, as a thing obscure and not fit to be studied by them, and so suffered to decay insensibly by them and the inhabitants.

X. The Cornish tongue hath mostly resided for some ages past in the names of the people, the gentry chiefly, and in the names of places, observed to be significant mostly as to the site, &c. or for some things eminent about them. Concerning both these, I must take liberty to shew how the speech has been invaded, and eaten up by intrusion, much of which hath been about churches and their sites, as well as by neglectful inobservation; for those Saxon saints have hungrily eaten up the antient names, which, when they could not well digest for hardness of the words, many catched up others from those whom they fieigned to be the tutelaries of those places, churches, and fountains, and supposed miracles wrought thereabouts, as St. Kaine, St. Gurrion, St. Tudy, St. Ive, St. Endellion, St. Kue, Landulph, St. Ust, St. Just, St. Marthren, &c. Of St. Mardren’s Well,[38] (which is a parish west to the Mount) a fresh true story of two persons, both of them lame and decrepit, thus recovered from their infirmity. These two persons, after they had applied themselves to divers physicians and chirurgeons for cure, and finding no success by them, they resorted to St. Mardren’s Well, and according to the ancient custom, which they had heard of, the same which was once in a year, to wit, on Corpus Christi evening, to lay some small offering on the altar there, and to lie on the ground all night, drink of the water there, and in the morning after, to take a good draught more, and to take and carry away some of the water, each of them in a bottle, at their departure. This course these two men followed, and within three weeks they found the effect of it, and by degrees their strength increasing, were able to move themselves on crutches. The year following they take the same course again, after which they were able to go with the help of a stick; and at length one of them, John Thomas, being a fisherman, was, and is able at this day, to follow his fishing craft. The other, whose name was William Cork, was a soldier under the command of my kinsman, Colonel William Godolphin, (as he has often told me) was able to perform his duty, and died in the service of his majesty King Charles I. But herewith take also this: one Mr. Hutchens, a person well known in those parts, and now lately dead, being parson of Ludgvan, a near neighbouring parish to St. Mardren’s Well, he observing that many of his parishioners often frequented this well superstitiously, for which he reproved them privately, and sometimes publicly in his sermons; but afterwards, he the said Mr. Hutchens, meeting with a woman coming from the well with a bottle in her hand, desired her earnestly that he might drink thereof, being then troubled with cholical pains, which accordingly he did, and was eased of his infirmity. The latter story is a full confutation of the former, for if the taking the water accidentally thus prevailed upon the party to his cure, as it is likely it did, then the miracle which was intended to be by the ceremony of lying on the ground and offering, is wholly fled, and it leaves the virtue of the water to be the true cause of the cure. And we have here, as in many places of the land, great variety of salutary springs, which have diversity of operations, which by natural reason have been found to be productive of good effects, and not by miracle, as the vain fancies of monks and friars have been exercised in heretofore.

Howbeit, there are some old names yet remaining of places of prayers or oratories, and the ruins shewing them to be such, as V. Gr. Paderda, which is prayers good, (of which many places are so named); Eglarose, the church in the vale, supposed antienter than the names of their churches. Their sites are eminent and ancient, standing towards the east, though no mention made how they came to be in decay, but supposed to be after the Saxon churches came to be erected, and miracles supposed to be wrought by those whose names they bear. Churches’ sites took new names, whereas the old Cornish names remain in all other places of the parishes generally; yet the names of the four old castles remain, and of manors also for the most part, and some other things in the Cornish, and do so continue the better, by reason of men’s particular interest in them: and so are the eminent hills likewise, especially towards the sea, and the hundred or hamlet names of the country remain so chiefly in the western parts; those on the eastern, standing towards the borders, have their names wrested away by neighbourhood, as are other things by like accidents in the eastern parts of the county; other names have been encroached upon by fantastical or vainglorious builders calling their houses after their own names, and others upon vain toys; but these are not many. Moreover, concerning the loss of our speech, and the names of families, I must here (but tenderly though) blame the incuriosity of some of our gentry; who, forsaking the etymologies of their own speech, have studied out new derivations of their names, endeavouring to make themselves as it were descended from French or Norman originals, in adopting or adapting their names thereunto; whereas, their own names in the Cornish are more honourable, genuine, and true; from the Conquest, forsooth, those would have their descent, (no illustrious thing in itself) whereas the ancestry of many of them have been here long before. How finely many have cozened themselves thereby, might be shewn, if it would not be offensively taken, by taking up of coat armour as from French originals. The art of heraldry hath been drawn out to us in French terms and trickings, mostly begun when our kings had most to do in those parts, and so from thence it hath continued ever since; and our Cornish gentry, finding the English so much addicted thereunto, have followed in that tract the same mode, and would fain have themselves understood such, when they were much better before than those French or Latin terms could make them, in which many of the English may be blamed as well as we; for the herald’s art hath many mysteries in it under their French and Latin terms, and many mistakes may be thereby to us and others who are not well acquainted with them, but in those that concern our own tongue, it is evident many have wronged themselves, and more may do so if not well heeded.

The grounds of two mistakes are very obvious. 1st. Upon the Tre or Ter. 2dly. Upon the Ross or Rose. Tre or Ter in Cornish commonly signifies a town, or rather place, and it has always an adjunct with it. Tri is the number. 3. Those men willingly mistake one for another; and so in French heraldry terms, they use to fancy and contrive those with any such three things as may be like or cohere with, or may be adapted to any thing or things in their surnames; whether very handsome or not, is not much stood upon. Another usual mistake is upon Ross, which, as they seem to fancy, should be a rose; but Ross in Cornish is a vale or valley. Now for this their French-Latin tutors, when they go into the field of Mars, put them in their coat armour prettily to smell out a rose or flower (a fading honour instead of a durable one); so any three such things, agreeable perhaps a little to their names, are taken up and retained from abroad, when their own at home have a much bttter scent and more lasting.

Some, however, amongst us, have kept themselves better to the antiquities of their Cornish names in their coat armour, as that honourable family Godolphin,[39] in keeping still displayed abroad his white eagle, from the Cornish Gothulgon. Richard, king of the Romans, Emperor elect, supplied his Cornish border with silver (perhaps tin) plates, deducing them from the antient earls of Cornwall, as borne by them before the Norman Conquest, and, in honour to them and himself, still bearing the same afterwards. Chiverton, whose name in Cornish is a house on a green place or hill, he beareth a coat thereunto accordant, a castle with a green field under it; which may be well thought on as to the name in[40] Cornish, though, in the heraldry it had been more complete. V. a castle A. as I apprehend; Scaberius, which is sweepers or sweeping, A. 3 broom besoms V.; Gavergan, a goat; Keverel, a he-goat, or he-goats; that creature taking most delight, as it is observed, in the cliffs thereabout. These are better significations taken from home, than the other that are foreign; and yet the assumption of a coat from any particular act of a man’s own, is better than such as have reference barely to names, without some special signification therewith.