In 1832 he published his Records of the Western Shore; in 1836, the second series of the same. In these appeared his Cornish ballads.
They were republished in a volume entitled Ecclesia, in 1841; again, with some additions, under the title, Reeds Shaken by the Wind, in 1842; and the second cluster of the same in 1843.
They again appeared with “Genoveva,” in a volume called Echoes of Old Cornwall, in 1845. “Genoveva” is a poem founded on the beautiful story of Geneviève de Brabant, and appeared first in German Ballads, Songs, etc., edited by Miss Smedley, and published by James Burns, no date.
His Cornish Ballads, and the Quest of the Sangreal, containing reprints of the same poems, came out in 1869. The Quest of the Sangreal was first published in 1864.
In 1870 he collected into a volume, entitled Footprints of Former Men in Cornwall, various papers on local traditions he had communicated to Once a Week, and other periodicals.
Of his ballads several have been given in this volume. Two more only are given here; one, “The Song of the Western Men,” which deceived Sir Walter Scott and Lord Macaulay into the belief that it was a genuine ancient ballad.
Macaulay says, in speaking of the agitation which prevailed throughout the country during the trial of the seven bishops, of whom Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, was one, “The people of Cornwall, a fierce, bold and athletic race, among whom there was a stronger provincial feeling than in any other part of the realm, were greatly moved by the danger of Trelawney, whom they reverenced less as a ruler of the Church, than as the head of an honourable house, and the heir, through twenty descents, of ancestors who had been of great note before the Normans set foot on English ground. All over the country the peasants chanted a ballad, of which the burden is still remembered:—
And shall Trelawney die? and shall Trelawney die?
Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why!
The miners from the caverns re-echoed the song with a variation:—