XIII. The coming-in of strangers of all sorts upon us, artificers, traders, home-born and foreigners, whom our
great commodities of tin (more profitable to others than ourselves) and fishing, have invited to us to converse with, and often to stay with us; these all, as they could not easily learn our tongue, for which they could not find any guide or direction, especially in these latter days, nor the same generally spoken or affected amongst ourselves, so they were more apt and ready to let loose their own tongues to be commixed with ours, and such, for the novelty sake thereof, people were more ready to receive than to communicate ours to any improvement to them. But ministers in particular have much decreased the speech; this country being far from academies, strangers from other parts of the kingdom have sought, as they still do, and have had their promotions here, where benefices are observed to be very good, and those have left their progenies, and thereby their names, remaining behind them, whereby the Cornish names have been diminished, as the tongue also: so that, as the reputed saints heretofore where they seated themselves, have robbed the places where their churches now stand for the most part of the Cornish names they had before, so the ministers since those times coming from other places, and other strangers, have filled up in many places the inhabitants and places here with their new names and titles brought amongst us, to the loss of many of the old. Here too we may add what wrong another sort of strangers have done to us, especially in the civil wars, and in particular by destroying of Mincamber, a famous monument, being a rock of infinite weight, which, as a burden, was laid upon other great stones, and yet so equally thereon poised up by nature only, as a little child could instantly move it, but no one man or many remove it. This natural monument all travellers that came that way desired to behold; but in the time of Oliver’s usurpation, when all monumental things became despicable, one Shrubsall, one of Oliver’s heroes, then governor of Pendennes, by labour and much ado caused to be undermined and thrown down, to the great grief of the country, but to his own great glory as he thought, doing it as he said, with a small cane in his hand. I myself have heard him to boast of this act, being a prisoner then under him.
XIV. Another cause I shall mention as a great loss of the tongue, though it be a great and wonderful advantage
to the people otherwise: the orders of the church and state, commanding all the people young to learn the Lord’s Prayer, Belief, &c. in the vulgar tongue, supposing that to be intended the English, if a mother, surely a stepmother to us. Younglings take in that most, and retain longest, wherewith they are seasoned and bred up in their education.
Herein we must complain also of another new neglect to our speech, that the like care was not taken for us as for our brethren in Wales, in the making of the late act of Parliament for the uniformity of the Common Prayer, by which the five Bishops for Wales were commanded to see the Service Book to be printed in the Welch tongue. If it had been so here it had been a good counterpoise for the loss formerly mentioned concerning the young people; this might also perhaps have saved us some labour in this our undertaking, and it would have been of good use for some of our[42] old folks also, for we have some among these few that do speak Cornish, who do not understand a word of English, as well as those in Wales, and those may be many in some of the western parts, to whom Mr. Francis Robinson, parson of Landawednack told me, he had preached a sermon not long since in the Cornish tongue, only well understood by his auditory. This should have been taken into consideration by our gentlemen burgesses in that and other Parliaments, and by our bishops also; but better it had been if our ancient bishops when they fled hither from their invaders, had brought with them a character of their ancient speech, or left books written therein; or, in defect thereof, they or any other had done for us as Ulphius the bishop did for the Goths when they came to be seated in Italy, who there invented new Gothic letters for his people, and translated the Holy Scriptures into that language for them. This indeed had deserved
our greatest thanks from our bishops, as no doubt they had them from those persons who received so great a benefit by their former and latter kindness therein; nor let that good old bishop Ulphius be censured (as he seems to be) for doing a superfluous work, because he might perhaps know that the then service of the church was celebrated in the Greek and Latin tongues, but rather let him be commended for his zeal in religion, and his love to his country and to his country people then with him, dwelling with strangers in another land, that continued so mindful of them and their speech, as we have been neglectful of ours. He by that means continued that tongue in use; we by his example might have regained ours, if the like care had been taken; but our people, as I have heard, in Queen Elizabeth’s time, desired that the Common Liturgy should be in the English tongue, to which they were then for novelty’s sake affected, not out of true judgment desired it. But, besides negligence, fatality is to be considered; fatality is a boundary beyond which nothing can pass; it hath been eminent in kingdoms and states, and those have had commonly fatal periods, as to a time determined five hundred years commonly. But more usual it is, that upon such mutations of kingdoms there have happened losses and mutations of tongues; it may therefore be the more wondered at, that this of the British, being none of the learned tongues to which the Lord had intrusted the writing of his Sacred Scriptures, should have here lasted so long through so many mutations, and that there is yet such a record thereof, as our old manuscript imports, with the purity of the doctrine therein contained, and some other small things in the Bodleian Library.
XV. The little or no help, rather discouragement, which the gentry and other people of our own have given in these latter days, who have lived in those parts where the tongue hath been in some use. In the time of the late unhappy civil war, we began to make some use of it upon the runnagates that went from us to the contrary part from our opposite works, and more we should have done if the enemy had not been jealous of them, and prevented us. This may be fit to be improved into somewhat, if the like occasion happen, for it may be talked freely and aloud to advantage, to which no other tongue hath reference. The poorest sort at this day, when they speak it as they come
abroad, are laughed at by the rich that understand it not, which is by their own fault in not endeavouring after it.
XVI. The want of writing it is the great cause of its decay; for, though there wanted a proper character for it, yet we might have written it in the character now in use, but I never saw a letter written in it from one gentleman to another, or by any scholar; which is to be wondered at, and blamed as a thing unbecoming such as ought to be studious in every thing that is ancient: but since I began to set about this work, I prevailed upon those that translated it to write me several letters, which they at first found very hard to be done; but after some practice it seemed easier.
Here I cannot but lament the want of such persons, books, records and papers, which were late in being, and not now to be had, and my misfortune in not having translated them, that most unhappily escaped me; one was the manuscript of Anguin, who had translated out of Cornish into English —— his relations, after his decease, (having suits before me as Vice-Warden of the Stanneries for tin bounds) promised me the favour of those translations, but before their return to their houses, their people tearing all about for their controverted goods, had torn to pieces all those papers. In another place I was promised the sight of a Cornish Accidence; but that by another such-like accident was totally spoiled by children before it could be brought me. I have heard also that a Matins in Cornish was amongst the books of Dr. Joseph Maynard, but I could never attain to it. But besides the no helps by which I lie in this labyrinth, I have likewise had discouragements amongst ourselves at home. I have been often told that, besides the difficulty of the attempt, it would be thought ridiculous for one to go about the restoring of that tongue which he himself could not speak nor understand truly when spoken, to which I have made answer with these two following instances: one is of a countryman of ours, Langford by name; who being blind was yet able to teach others the noble science of defence, only he desired to know still the length of the weapon of his fellow combatant, with a guess of his posture, and this he practised with good success. The other is of one Grizling, of whom Mr. Camden says, that he being deaf could see words; that is, that notwithstanding his deafness he could answer any man’s