17. Fisheries.

If mining be a decayed industry in Cornwall, that of fishing shows no diminution. In an old book of natural history published in 1776, the principal fishery of pilchards is described. "Pilchards appear in vast shoals off the Cornish coasts about the middle of July, and disappear at the beginning of winter; though a few of them sometimes return again after Christmas. The fishing employs a great many men on the sea, and men, women, and children on land, in salting, pressing, washing, and cleaning; in making boats, nets, ropes, casks; and all the tradesmen depending on their construction and sale. The usual quantities exported each year, for ten years, from 1746 to 1756 inclusive, on the average is as follows: Fowey has exported 1732 hogsheads annually; Falmouth 14,631; Penzance and Mounts Bay 12,149; St Ives 1282; in all amounting to 29,795 hogsheads." And the same writer thus describes the fish. "The pilchard greatly resembles the herring, but differs from it in some particulars; it is a third less, and the body is proportionably broader: it has a black spot near the upper corner of the gills, and the belly is not so sharp. It has no teeth, either in the jaws, the tongue, or the palate." It is now held that the pilchard is identical with the sardine, but in a different stage of growth.

The pilchards are taken generally from the middle of August to the middle of September, when large "schools" are seen coming up the Channel. Each fishing stationgenerally has two or more companies or clubs of twenty or thirty men; each company owning various boats and generally two of the gigantic seines employed, which cost £250 or more. These nets are about 250 fathoms or more long and about 15 fathoms deep, and three boats go to each seine. The first boat, which is also the largest, is called the seine-boat, as it carries the net and seven men in it; the next is termed the "vollier," or "cock-boat," and carries another seine, called the tuck-seine, which is 100 fathoms long and 18 deep, this boat also carries seven men; the third boat is called the "lurker," and contains three or four men, and in this boat is the master.

Pilchard Boats, Mevagissey

The pilchards were at one time supposed to come from the Polar Sea, but it has now been ascertained thatthe main body retires for the winter into deep water to the westward of the Scilly Isles. About the middle of spring they quit the deep seas and begin to consort in small shoals which gradually increase to the end of July or the beginning of August, when they combine in one mighty host and begin their migration eastward. They strike the land a little north of Cape Cornwall, where they break up into two portions, one following the north coast of Cornwall, the other the south.

When the shoal is approaching, men and boys who have been lying on the cliffs doing nothing start into activity and rush to the boats. The gulls may be seen hovering over the advancing army, and a change appears in the colour of the water. At once the "huers," as the signallers are called, get out their signals—a ball at the end of a stick—and proceed to direct the pursuing boats according to the movements of the school.

The seine-boat leads the way followed by the vollier, and the crew of the foremost boat pass a warp, that is, throw a rope, which is fixed to the end of the seine on board the vollier, and then shoot the net overboard, which, having leaden weights at bottom, sinks, while the top is buoyed up with corks. The seine-boat is rowed in a circular course round where the fish are "stoiting" or jumping, and when they have reached the vollier, the fish are enclosed. They then join the two ends of the seine together with a cord to prevent the fish from breaking out, and whilst this is being done a man is engaged in frightening the fish away from the still open end by means of a stone fastened to a rope. When the two ends of thenet are laced together, grapes, i.e. grapples, are let down to keep the net expanded and steady till the fish have been taken up. This latter process is called "tucking the seine." The boat with the tuck-seine on board passes the warp of that seine to one of the other boats and then shoots this net within the big seine. It is then drawn up to the edge of the water, when it is seen to be one quivering mass of silver. The fish are now taken or dipped out with baskets into the boats. When the boats are filled, if more fish remain in the large seine, it is left in the water, till by successive tuckings all the fish have been removed. In addition to seining large numbers of pilchards are taken in drift nets.

The Huers' House, Newquay

Formerly pilchards were smoked, and went by thename offumados, which name has been corrupted into "fair maids." A not over-complimentary saying in Cornwall is that "pilchards and women when they are bad are very bad, and when good are only middling." Pilchards constitute an important article of food to the poorer classes on the coast, but doubtless the Cornishmen get very tired of them as an article of diet. Large quantities are exported to Spain and Italy. Some are made into "sardines" in oil in the local factories.

A peculiarity of the county is that ecclesiastical dues in the nature of tithes are levied on the persons employed in the pilchard fisheries.

The number of hogsheads packed for export every year varies considerably, but the yearly produce averages from 20,000 to 30,000 hogsheads. In certain years the amount has reached nearly 50,000. In 1901 the fishery found employment for 3734 men, in 1905 in Penzance alone for 1275. Beside pilchards, there are mackerel, hake, cod, etc.

Pilchard Boats, St Ives Harbour

The quantity of fish taken, other than mackerel,herrings, pilchards, and sprats in 1905 at Looe was 5841 cwt., at Mevagissey 4893, at Falmouth 3213, at Porthleven 6132, at Newlyn 37,468. Of mackerel, herrings and sprats, at Looe 10,403 cwt., at Mevagissey 40,236, at Falmouth 5991, at Porthleven 26,945, at Newlyn 493,956. The total value of the fish taken in the year at Looe was £5377, at Mevagissey £13,818, at Falmouth £17,718, at Porthleven £11,454, at Newlyn £232,466.

Turning to the north coast, in the first category were taken at Sennen 1074 cwt., at St Ives 2431, at Padstow4051. In the second category, at Sennen 605 cwt., at St Ives 80,557, at Padstow but 318, at Port Isaac 2526.

The value of the fish taken at Sennen was £2065, at St Ives £39,941, at Padstow £6660, at Port Isaac £2169.

Landing Fish, Newlyn

There are no great seaports in Cornwall. Falmouth was by far the most considerable when the packet service ran from it to the West Indies, Portugal, and New York. The station was established in 1688. In 1705 five packet-boats left it for the West Indies and in 1709 as many for Lisbon; not till 1755 did two sail for New York, but the number was increased to four in 1763.

In 1782, eighteen packets sailed from Falmouth for the West Indies and America. Up to 1823 the packets had sailed under contract between the General Post Office and the commanders, who received their appointment from that establishment and engaged to provide, equip, and man a proper ship for the purpose, for a sum of £1800 per annum. These vessels were from 180 to 210 tons register. But after 1823 the above system was changed, for the service was placed under the orders of the Admiralty instead of the Post Office; and as vessels were wanted they were supplied by men-of-war.

The St Vincent's Anchor, Falmouth

In 1827 thirty-nine packets left Falmouth; in 1834 six steamers were employed. But in 1850 Falmouth ceased altogether to be a packet station. This wasgreatly to the detriment of the town. It still remains as a port of call for outward-bound sailing-ships. Further up the river is Penryn, which was a town and a port before Falmouth was thought of. The silting up of the river does not now allow other than small boats and barges to reach it.

Letters came down on mail coaches, from London through Exeter, by Launceston to Bodmin, and thence to Truro and Falmouth. The rate appointed for the coaches, including stoppages, was bound to be thirteen miles an hour. The mail spun along night and day, without a halt save for change of horses. The stages on an average were eight miles, and the horses, four-in-hand, went at a gallop. The guard wore the royal livery of scarlet, and always had his blunderbus handy, in case of an attempt by highwaymen to hold up his coach.

Charlestown and Polmear in St Austell Bay are only important for the trade in china-clay exported thence; Marazion and Penzance, and St Mary's in Scilly only for the conveyance of flowers to London. But these ports and such as are on the north coast are convenient as mouths through which Welsh coal can be imported to feed the cellars and fires in the peninsula. Pilchards also are exported from these little ports to Italy and Spain; and anciently a considerable trade was carried on between them and France, Spain, and Portugal in wine, and a considerable amount of wine and spirits entered the county through small creeks and coves, into which smugglers conveyed their kegs. The gentry and taverners were kept well supplied with liquor that never paid duty.

The original population of Cornwall was probably Iberic, of the same primitive race as the dark-haired population of Ireland, before the island was invaded and subjugated by the Celts.

The branch of the Celts in Britain and Cornwall was Brythonic, and there is nothing certain to show that the Goidels were in Cornwall before the Brythons. It is true that some few river names, and again inscriptions are Irish, but these latter pertain to the settlement in Cornwall of Irish expelled from Ossory and Wicklow in the fifth century.

Popularly the dark hair and dusky complexions of some of the Cornish is attributed to Spaniards wrecked from the Armada. But no Spanish wreck came on shore in Cornwall. The first loss the Armada sustained was east of Plymouth. On its way back to Spain none of the vessels came near Cornwall. Several were wrecked on the coast of Ireland and their crews massacred to a man by the natives.

Posidonius travelled afterb.c.123 and visited Spain, where he collected a variety of information on points of geography and natural history, and after spending thirty days at Gades returned to Italy. He learned among other things something about the collection of tin in Bolerium, a name afterwards appropriated by Ptolemy to the Land's End. He says: "The inhabitants of that promontory of Britain which is called Bolerium are very fond of strangers,and from their intercourse with foreign merchants are civilised in their manner of life. They prepare the tin, working very skilfully the earth in which it is produced. The ground is rocky, but it contains earthy veins, the produce of which is ground down, smelted, and purified. They make the metal up into slabs shaped like knuckle-bones, and carry it to a certain island lying in front of Britain called Ictis. During the ebb of the tide the intervening space is left dry, and to this place they carry over abundance of tin in their waggons.... Here then, the merchants buy the tin from the natives, and carry it over to Gaul; and after travelling overland for about thirty days, they finally bring their loads on pack-horses to the outlet of the Rhone." It is very doubtful whether Posidonius ever visited Britain. What he relates is doubtless due to information received by him, either at Gades or at Massilia.

According to Timaeus, the contemporary of Pytheas, the isle of Vectis was six days sail from Britain, "in an inward direction." Vectis, there can be little doubt, is the Isle of Wight, formerly connected with the mainland by a ridge of chalk since broken through by the waves. Ancient mariners coasted, and those who came to Britain for tin followed the Gallic shore till they could see the white cliffs of Dover, when they crossed, and coasted down channel to the Isle of Wight.

There is no evidence that the Phoenicians ever visited Cornwall. Nor has a single relic of Phoenician art or coin been found in Cornwall. The traders with Britain were the Veneti of the Morbihan, in Brittany. Moreover,as General Pitt Rivers has pointed out, bronze celts (axe heads), which have been unearthed in Cornwall, are never found in any parts where the Phoenicians have been.

It has been assumed with much confidence that Cornwall or the Scilly Isles must have been the Cassiterides of the ancients. But even this is doubtful. The Cassiterides were described as lying west of Spain, and the description applies to the Azores; it may have been due to ignorance or design that they were represented as islands prolific in tin.

The Nine Maidens, St Columb Major

That tin was worked in Cornwall from a very early period can hardly be questioned, in 1823 at Carnon a deer-horn pick was discovered 40 ft. below the surface, but as a crucifix was also found there 30 ft. below thesurface, this only shows how the creeks have had their floors turned over and silted up.

Though tin was exported from Cornwall, bronze was not manufactured there till a comparatively late period. Bronze came from the East, and the great centre whence radiated the trade in bronze weapons was the basin of the Po.

What seems to be abundantly clear is that the export of tin from Britain had come to an end by the first century of the present era. Caesar, on invading Britain, heard nothing about it, and when Britain was finally conquered, the Romans who worked the lead mines in the Mendips, and gold and copper in Wales, totally neglected Cornwall, holding it to be worthless. They never settled there, only traversed it to the Land's End, leaving behind them a couple of square camps, some coins, few and far between, and some Samian ware; but this shows little more than that a traffic went on between the Britons of Cornwall and the Romans and Romano-British beyond Exeter. The fact that the Romans had no idea that tin was to be found in the peninsula shows that the mining for it had ceased there for some time previous. The Brythonic Celts are held to have invaded Britainb.c.300; and it is probable that from that date the industry in tin mining carried on by the Ivernian natives declined rapidly and expired, leaving not a tradition behind.

It is noteworthy that the Dumnonii were behind the British peoples in the east. They had no coinage, whereas those in the south-east had theirs, copied from a stater of Philip of Macedon. No Greek coins had reached theDumnonii, and they had consequently none to copy, however clumsily.

In the battle of Deorham, 577, the Britons were defeated with great slaughter, and the West Welsh of Devon and Cornwall were cut off from further communication with their brethren of Wales. The Saxons steadily advanced, but for long the Parrett was the boundary. In 823 a battle was fought between the Saxons and Britons at Gavulford, now Galford, a point on the old road from Exeter to the west, where the hills draw together, and whence it is commanded by a huge camp. The Britons now called the Danes to their aid, and twelve years afterwards a battle was fought on Hingeston Down, above Calstock, in which Egbert was victorious. This was in 835. Hitherto the Britons had occupied one portion of Exeter, but Athelstan, after defeating the Cornish King Howell, not only expelled them from the city but fixed the Tamar as their boundary. Then he passed through Cornwall, and even visited the Scilly Isles. The Count of Poher in Brittany, of whose son Alan Barbetorte was the godson of Athelstan, fled from Brittany with a crowd of his countrymen from the devastations of the Northmen, and Athelstan gave them homes in England. It is probable that he planted some in the Lizard, and others about Camborne, for we find there church dedications to distinctively Breton saints, and we know, moreover, that the fugitive Bretons brought with them the bones of their patron saints. As they spoke the same tongue as the Cornish, it would be natural for Athelstan to send them there.

In 981, the Danish pirates plundered the monastery of St Petrock, and in 997 ravaged the territories of their old allies from one end of Cornwall to the other with fire and sword. Shortly before this, in 993, Olaf Tryggvason of Norway, with Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, after having attacked London, devastated the east coast, burnt Sandwich and Ipswich, and stormed Bamborough, then harried the Scottish coast, the Western Isles, the Isle of Man, and Ireland, where "he burned far and wide, wherever inhabited." He then came to the Scilly Isles, where he put into Tresco harbour. There the monks of the abbey founded by Athelstan so impressed him, that he consented to be baptized.

In 1068, the county was plundered by Godwin and Edmund, sons of Harold, after a battle in Somersetshire, and on their way back to Ireland.

In 1322, the craze for going on pilgrimage took possession of Cornish men, women, and children, and they set off for the Holy Land, whence few returned.

In 1497, in consequence of the dissatisfaction occasioned by the levy of a burdensome tax, the commoners of Cornwall, headed by Thomas Flamank, a gentleman, and Michael Joseph, a Bodmin blacksmith, rose in rebellion. Having prevailed on Lord Audley to be their general, they marched as far as to Blackheath in Kent, where they were defeated with much slaughter by Lord Daubeny. In the same year Perkin Warbeck landed, according to some at Whitesand Bay, near the Land's End, according to others in St Ives' Bay, and marching to Bodmin, found the Cornish ripe for a new rebellion. At the head of3000 men he marched to Exeter, but was unable to take it. He made his way to Taunton, where, despairing of success, he deserted his army and fled, but was taken and executed.

In 1548, another rebellion broke out occasioned by the changes in religion, which the Cornish resented. Their leader was Hugh Arundell, Governor of St Michael's Mount. They proceeded to besiege Exeter, but although the city was sorely distressed for want of provisions it held out till relieved, and in a battle fought at Woodbury, they were defeated with immense slaughter. Cornwall remained quiet in the reign of Elizabeth, save that it sent out whole fleets of privateers to prey on the Spanish traders and treasure vessels.

The Armada was off the Lizard on the 29th to 30th July, 1588. An English fishing-boat was hanging near them, counting their numbers. They gave chase, but the boat shot away down wind and disappeared. It carried the news to Drake at Plymouth, who at once prepared to sail forth.

In the Civil War, Cornwall was almost unanimous on the side of the King. Lord Robartes, however, threw in his lot with the Parliament. On the side of the King were Sir Bevil Grenville, Sir Ralph Hopton, Godolphin, Slanning, and Trevanion. A battle was fought at Boconnoc on January 19, 1643, in which General Ruthven and the Roundheads were defeated. Another battle in which the Royalists were successful was at Stamford Hill above Stratton, May 16, 1643.

Charles I visited Cornwall, and was so impressed bythe devotion and loyalty of the people that he addressed to them a letter of recognition, copies of which may be seen in some of the churches. Prince Charles spent a great part of the autumn and winter of 1645 in Cornwall; on March 2, 1645-6, he embarked at Pendennis Castle for the Scilly Isles, where he "was much straitened for provisions." He quitted Scilly on April 16, and landed next day in Jersey, whence he sailed for France. Queen Henrietta Maria had left Pendennis for France in July, 1644.

Cornwall took no active part in the Revolution; in the European War, it sent forth many gallant sailors, among whom in the first place may be reckoned Admiral Boscawen, "old Dreadnought." But since the Civil War the history of the Duchy has been mainly one of social and industrial advance. The principal events stirring the community were the introduction of steam-engines to pump the mines, affrays with smugglers, and the excitement and unlimited bribery and corruption at elections in the rotten boroughs till these latter were swept away by the Reform Bill of 1832. About these rotten boroughs a few words must be said. The old boroughs that existed before the reign of Edward VI were Truro, Helston, Lostwithiel, Bodmin, Liskeard, and Launceston. But the advisers of Edward VI, conscious of insecure tenure of the throne and doubting whether the country was willing to go with them in their sweeping alterations in religion, and desirous of counteracting the growing importance of the House of Commons, considered that their object would be best attained by conferring the right of returning membersof Parliament upon the obscure dependent villages of Cornwall. Accordingly Saltash, Camelford, West Looe, Bossiney, Grampound, Penryn, Mitchell, and Newport were elevated into boroughs, each returning two members to Parliament.

St Mawes, Falmouth Harbour

Under Queen Mary, St Ives received the same privileges, and under Elizabeth six more were made boroughs with the same rights, St Germans, St Mawes, Tregony, East Looe, Fowey, and Callington. Some of these places, as Mitchell, Tregony, and St Mawes, were mere hamlets. They all soon passed away from the direct control of the Crown and fell into the hands of borough mongers who returned what members they liked, by gross bribery, expecting to be repaid with Baronetcies and with lucrative sinecures by the Ministry of the day they supported.

The first men who inhabited our island were the merest savages. They had no knowledge of the use of metals, they could not make pottery; they had not domesticated the cow, the sheep, or the dog. They used extremely rude flint weapons and tools. They were contemporary with the cave bear, the woolly rhinoceros, the mammoth, and the cave hyæna, all which beasts then lived in Britain; and at that time the temperature was much colder than at present. This period is called the Palaeolithic, or Old Stone Age.

The next race that entered our island found the temperature much as it is now. They were comparatively civilised. They still used flint implements, but of a very superior type, and far better finished than those of the earlier race. Moreover they were agricultural, grew corn, had cows and sheep and dogs, and made pottery. This race it was which erected the so-called cromlechs, stone circles, and tall upright stones. The remains of their villages of circular stone huts are very numerous on the moors. This period is called the Neolithic, or New Stone Age.

After a time bronze was introduced, by trade, and was at first as valuable as gold is to us. But after a while it became much more common. Its introduction marked the commencement of the Bronze Age.

To the Bronze Age succeeded the Iron Age. Thismetal was introduced by the conquering Celts, of whom there existed two branches, one called Brythonic, of which were the Britons, now represented by the Welsh, the Cornish, the Cumbrians, and the Bretons of Brittany; the other called Goidelic, and now represented by the Irish, the natives of the Isle of Man, and the Scots. The Celts with their iron weapons speedily overcame and enslaved the earlier race, usually called Ivernian. The latter was dusky and dark haired, but the Celt probably had yellow or red hair, blue or grey eyes, and a fair complexion.

No satisfactory evidence has been produced that Palaeolithic man occupied Cornwall, but the traces of Neolithic man at the stage when he became acquainted with the use of bronze are abundant. By him were erected the rude stone monuments that are scattered over the county, and he had his favourite sites for trimming flints into scrapers and arrow-heads. One of the most notable of these was the shore of Dozmare Pool.

Of the rude stone monuments the dolmen or cromlech is sepulchral, the dolmen when large having been a tribal or family mausoleum, and the kistvaen, which is far smaller, contained the bones of one individual alone. The dolmen is composed of three or more upright stones sustaining one or more coverers, and was often buried under a cairn. The finest in Cornwall are Zennor and Lanyon Quoits, the Trethevy Stone, and Chûn Quoit.

Stone circles are numerous. Their purpose has not been determined, but on Dartmoor, where they have been examined, they exhibit a floor strewn with charcoal. They have, moreover, usually numerous cairns or barrowsassociated with them. The finest sacred circle is that of the Stripple Stones on the Bodmin moors, but this has of late years been sadly mutilated. The "Merry Maidens," in St Buryan's parish near Penzance, is a magnificent circle. Other circles are those of Boscawen-ûn, Dauns Môr, Wendron, the Trippet Stones on Blisland moor, Fernacre and Stannon on the St Breward moors, the Hurlers near the Cheesewring, the Nine Maidens in St Columb Major, Duloe, etc.

Lanyon Cromlech

Menhirs or "longstones" are upright monoliths, probably set up in memorial of the dead. Of these there are many in Cornwall but none of great height. The Pipers in St Buryan are the loftiest, 13 ft. 6 in. and 15 ft.

The Merry Maidens, St Buryan

The Merry Maidens, St Burylan

Of stone alignments Cornwall is almost wholly barren, but one at St Breock can be claimed with confidence. This is the more remarkable as they abound on Dartmoor. But the reason probably is that the stones have been carried off to serve as gateposts, and in some cases are embedded in walls of fields. They were probably erected in commemoration of the dead and are always associated with cairns and interments.

Subterranean chambers, constructed of upright stones with coverers, were possibly store chambers for grain. The best preserved is at Trelowarren.

Upright holed stones are met with in Madron, St Buryan, St Just, Sancreed, Constantine, Wendron, etc. Their purport is unknown.

Very curious are the clusters of communal huts at Chysauster, Bosporthennis, etc. They probably belong to the Iron Age, whereas the hut circles scattered over a hill side, or within a pound, pertained to the early Bronze Age.

Arrow heads, lance heads and scrapers have been found in tolerable abundance on the Bodmin moors, on Carn Brea, at St Agnes, etc., and celts (axe heads) of greenstone and diorite have occurred, but not with great frequency.

At Harlyn Bay has been found a cemetery of the Iron Age, all the bodies in slate cists, crouching. In the cairns and kistvaens (stone coffins) on the other hand the bodies have been burnt. Numerous urns of the well-determined Bronze Age type have been recovered from cairns.

The camps of stone and earth in Cornwall are very numerous. They all—or nearly all—date back to thesame period of the early bronze, but may have been used by later peoples. They are of two descriptions, the cliff castles, where a headland is protected by banks and dykes on the side of the mainland, and circular or oval camps crowning heights, with concentric rings of circumvallation. Where the hill top does not admit of the circular form the earthworks adapt themselves to the contour of the hill.

Roman remains are conspicuously rare in Cornwall. Some fragments of Samian ware, coins, and a bronze and silver metal vessel have been found in Bossens, a camp in St Erth, and the head of an ensign at St Just. A second Roman camp is Tregeare, near Bodmin. An inscribed milestone of the time of Constantine the Great is in the churchyard of St Hilary. The metal bowl at Bossens was inscribed by Aelius Modestus to the god Mars.

Of the Celtic period, gold lunettes have been found at Harlyn; a gold cup near the Cheesewring in a cairn along with a corroded iron weapon; a portion of a gold armlet at Penzance and of a brooch at the Lizard.

Of Saxon remains the principal are the hoard at Trewhiddle, a silver chalice, finger-ring, pins, etc. Coins have been found; among them one of Ethelred, struck at Launceston. On the altar slab formerly at Treslothan, now supporting a sundial at Pendarves, is inscribed the Saxon name of Ægured; and an old bell at Lanhydrock has on it "Æthelstan sumpta an[ima] sua." These are scanty remains, fewer even than the Roman.

St Cleer: Monument to Doniert

St Cleer: Monument to Doniert, son of Caradoc, died A.D. 872

Cornwall is, however, rich in Romano-British inscribed stones, dating from the eighth century down. At St Cleer is the memorial stone to Doniert (Dungarth) son ofCaradoc. In Lewannick churchyard are stones with inscriptions not only in Latin characters but also with Ogams at the angle, showing that the Irish had settled there. Some of the inscribed stones are certainly earlier than the eighth century, to which cautious antiquaries have brought them down.

Mawgan Cross

Crosses of granite are common, and some are very early, certainly earlier than Athelstan's passage through Cornwall in 938. But others are much later. They vary considerably in size and in shape. Some were used as preaching stations before churches had been built, but others marked the tracks over the moors, and some may have indicated boundaries. Some are excessivelyrude, some have the figure of the Saviour carved upon them, and these are comparatively late. Others—as that of St Neot—have elaborate scroll-work on them like those in South Wales.

St Buryan's Cross

A preliminary word on the various styles of English architecture is necessary before we consider the churches and other important buildings of our county.

Pre-Norman or, as it is usually, though with no great certainty termed, Saxon building in England, was the work of early craftsmen with an imperfect knowledge of stone construction, who commonly used rough rubblewalls, no buttresses, small semicircular or triangular arches, and square towers with what is termed "long-and-short work" at the quoins or corners. It survives almost solely in portions of small churches.

The Norman Conquest started a widespread building of massive churches and castles in the continental style called Romanesque, which in England has got the name of "Norman". They had walls of great thickness, semicircular vaults, round-headed doors and windows, and massive square towers.

From 1150 to 1200 the building became lighter, the arches pointed, and there was perfected the science of vaulting, by which the weight is brought upon piers and buttresses. This method of building, the "Gothic," originated from the endeavour to cover the widest and loftiest areas with the greatest economy of stone. The first English Gothic, called "Early English," from about 1180 to 1250, is characterised by slender piers (commonly of marble), lofty pointed vaults, and long, narrow, lancet-headed windows. After 1250 the windows became broader, divided up, and ornamented by patterns of tracery, while in the vault the ribs were multiplied. The greatest elegance of English Gothic was reached from 1260 to 1290, at which date English sculpture was at its highest, and art in painting, coloured glass making, and general craftsmanship at its zenith.

After 1300 the structure of stone buildings began to be overlaid with ornament, the window tracery and vault ribs were of intricate patterns, the pinnacles and spires loaded with crocket and ornament. This later style isknown as "Decorated," and came to an end with the Black Death, which stopped all building for a time.

With the changed conditions of life the type of building changed. With curious uniformity and quickness the style called "Perpendicular"—which is unknown abroad—developed after 1360 in all parts of England and lasted with scarcely any change up to 1520. As its name implies, it is characterised by the perpendicular arrangement of the tracery and panels on walls and in windows, and it is also distinguished by the flattened arches and the square hoods over the doorways, by the elaborate vault-traceries (especially fan-vaulting), and by the use of flat roofs and towers without spires.

The mediaeval styles in England ended with the dissolution of the monasteries (1530-1540), for the Reformation checked the building of churches. There succeeded the building of manor-houses, in which the style called "Tudor" arose—distinguished by flat-headed windows, level ceilings, and panelled rooms. The ornaments of classic style were introduced under the influences of Renaissance sculpture and distinguish the "Jacobean" style, so called after James I. About this time the professional architect arose. Hitherto, building had been entirely in the hands of the builder and the craftsman.

Cornwall does not furnish stately and richly adorned churches as does Devonshire, and even more so, Somersetshire. This is due to the intractable material available, granite, which unlike that of Brittany did not lend itself to rich sculpture. Only the Elvan stone, already described, could be worked with delicacy, and this is easilycorroded by the weather, and the Catacluse stone is black. The beautiful Polyphant stone of Lewannick does not seem to have been largely employed. Although so close to Launceston, when the church there was reconstructed by Sir Henry Trecarrel, in the reign of Henry VIII, he employed only granite, which was sculptured with infinite labour, and with poor effect.

Buried Church, Perranporth

The most ancient churches in Cornwall were probably exceedingly rude. Only two of the earliest remain and these are in ruins, Perranporth and St Gothien, very much resembling churches of the most primitive period in Ireland.

Norman Doorway, St Germans Church

There are some important remains of Norman architecture, notably the west front and part of the naveof St Germans, some portion of Blisland, the south door of Kilkhampton, the westernmost arches of Morwenstow, Tintagel, and some tympana of doorways with rude sculpture. In many of the churches the early fonts remain. Originally baptisms took place in tanks or barrels sunk in the earth; then, when adult baptisms ceased,square or circular troughs were placed on the floor, and later were raised on pedestals; and not infrequently the pedestal is an addition, at a later date, to the basin of the font itself.

Of the Early English period, the remains are scanty. St Anthony in Roseland is the most perfect example in Cornwall.

Tympanum, Egloskerry Church

Of the Middle Pointed, or Decorated period, are Padstow, St Columb Major, Sheviock, Lostwithiel—where the very peculiar spire is singularly beautiful and foreign in character—and portions in Lanteglos by Fowey, and St Ive near Liskcard.

Lanteglos Church

But, as in Devonshire, so in Cornwall, there was an outburst of church building in the Third Pointed or Perpendicularperiod. Then only—since the early sculptors of the crosses—did architects and carvers attack the granite, and most of the churches were then rebuilt. The finest are St Kewe, Mawgan in Pyder with a beautiful tower, Probus with a richly sculptured tower of the reign of Elizabeth, St Austell—also with a good tower, the carvings in Elvan—St Neot, Stratton, and Buryan. One remarkable feature is in the porches, where tracery of an ogival character is introduced in the arch. The Rev. W. Haslam, in theTransactions of the Exeter Dioc. Arch. Society, says of the Cornish churches that they "are low, and somewhat flat in the pitch of the roof, and without buttresses to break the long plain horizontal lines which are so conspicuous. All these are features of the Perpendicularstyle, I admit, but not to the extent to which they are carried in Cornwall. Besides this, the general form of a Cornish church is plain; externally, the plan of the larger ones is a parallelogram, divided into three low ridges of roof: there is a porch on the south side; this is the only break in the horizontal line I allude to. The smaller churches have generally but one aisle, and these have a transept also, but sometimes two transepts; but even these do not relieve the plainness of the exterior. This is not the character of one church, or two, or three; but more or less of all. It is their character, and I attribute it to the boisterous nature of the climate in that narrow county, exposed as it is, with very little shelter, to violent storms from the sea on both sides."

Launceston Church

No great elaboration of tracery was possible with granite, and the architects abandoned the thought of making the churches attractive externally, devoting their attention to the internal decoration. The appearance of a large Cornish church now is that it is a long low shed, lacking in height and dignity. But the architect divided it in two by the screen, and thus brought it into proportion. Unfortunately, however, in very few have the beautiful rood-screens been left, which were generally spared in the Devonshire churches. Those of Cornwall in no way fell short of those in Devon, but the Puritans first of all, and then the barbarians of the Georgian period swept them away, and the churches in the nineteenth century fell into the hands of local architects who left them "naked, swept"—but not "garnished." They were, let us hope, the last of the Cornish wreckers. A few, but only a few screens remain.

In the interior of the Cornish churches the chief feature is the absence of a chancel arch, which is almost universal. The arch was unnecessary when the roodloft extended upwards and was backed by a painted board. In some of the churches there are interesting bench ends. At St Austell, the miners' tools are represented on them; on some rabbits running in and out of their burrows are figured, and seagulls are frequent.

In painted glass Cornwall is not rich, except in the 15 windows of St Neot near Liskeard, and in that in the north aisle, and the fragments in the south aisle of St Kewe.

The church towers in Cornwall are for the most part square without buttresses, and with four pinnacles. Onepeculiarity of these pinnacles is that they are often cut on a curve to lean outwards, probably to mitigate the stiffness of effect.

Landewednack Church

A few words must be devoted to the new Cathedral at Truro erected from the designs of the late Mr J.L. Pearson in a French Gothic style of architecture. It consists of a choir of five bays, with retrochoir, transepts, nave with north and south aisles, baptistery and south-west porch, richly sculptured; a central and two westerntowers. Attached to the south side of the choir is the fine old parish church of St Mary, or a portion of it. There is an elaborately sculptured reredos over the altar. Notwithstanding its faults Truro Cathedral is a notable monument of the enthusiasm and self-denial of the Cornish people.

Dupath Well, Callington

The Holy Wells of Cornwall are a distinct feature of the county. In all Celtic lands, previous to the introductionof Christianity, there was a great veneration for wells, and the early missionaries took advantage of this to turn them into baptisteries, or in other ways to consecrate them. Holy wells abound in Cornwall, but they have not always much architectural character. That of Dupath, by Liskeard, is the finest, but there is also another that is fine at St Cleer, and one most interesting and unique at St Clether, where, indeed, there are two, for the water from the first flows into a chapel and is carried under the old stone altar, to decant into another well outside the chapel. The Madron Holy Well was for long famous for cures.

Before the Norman Conquest there were no masonry built castles in Cornwall, only stockades of wood surmounting earthworks or piled up masses of stone uncemented. The usual SaxonBurhwas a mound, surmounted by a structure of timber, reached by a bridge or ladder from a base-court that was encompassed by moat and mound and stockade. The Norman system of building a castle was to erect a round or square keep, a massive structure of stone, on the mound that had formerly been surmounted by a wooden structure, and to surround the base-court with a stone wall. Within this were erected the necessary domestic buildings. Very generally the entrance to the court was strongly defended by a second tower. The style of castle was greatlyaltered in the reign of Edward I but of such Edwardian castles there are no examples in Cornwall, save the poor fragment of Tintagel. The Normans built a castle at Launceston, and there the circular keep standing on a lofty tump of rock, artificially shaped, is of their construction, but the ruined buildings below, with the gateways and walls of the base-court, are later.

The castle of Trematon also consists of a "motte" surmounted by a circular keep, and a base-court with square tower at the entrance, with an archway.

Tintagel Castle is reduced to a miserable ruin, part on the mainland, part on the islet, with the intervening portion blocked up by fallen rocks, forming a narrow isthmus. The deep chasm that formerly separated the two portions of the castle was anciently spanned by a drawbridge. The work appears to be of the thirteenth century. On the island are the remains of a chapel with its altar slab still in place. Tintagel became a residence of the Earls of Cornwall, and in 1245, Richard son of King John received in it his nephew David, Prince of Wales. It was subsequently used occasionally as a prison. In the reign of Elizabeth, that penurious queen, deeming the expense of keeping it up too onerous, allowed it to fall into ruin.

St Michael's Mount was crowned with a castle and a church. The oldest portion is the central tower, of the fourteenth or fifteenth century; other portions are later additions, and much very bad modern work has tended to its sad disfigurement. Edward the Confessor planted a monastery on the rock, and granted it to Mont S. Michelin Normandy; at the Conquest it was made over to Robert Earl of Mortain, but the Benedictines of Mont S. Michel continued to have a cell there with a prior. It was consequently at once a religious house and a military post.

Restormel, near Lostwithiel, consists of a keep crowning a hill, with a gatehouse on the west, a projecting tower on the E.N.E., and a chapel. It is not older than the reign of Henry III and was the stronghold of the Cardinhams and then of the Traceys, from whom it passed to the Earls of Cornwall. The circular keep is only 30 ft. high. The castle was already ruinous in the time of the Civil War, but it was put in repair and held by the Parliamentary forces till taken by Grenville.

St Mawes is a small but perfect castle, erected by Henry VIII.

St Mawes Castle

Pendennis Castle was another erection of Henry VIII, on the site of earlier fortifications. The circular tower dates from his time, but it was added to considerably in the reign of Elizabeth. In 1644 Pendennis afforded shelter to Queen Henrietta Maria, when embarking for France, and hither came Prince Charles in 1646 on his way to Scilly.

Helsborough, near Michaelstow, was a fortress belonging to the Earls of Cornwall, but it shows no tokens of having ever been walled with masonry. The only structural remains to be seen are the ruins in the midst of a Perpendicular chapel.

On Carn Brea is a tower, another on Roche rock; and St Catherine's Castle, erected by order of Henry VIII, defended the entrance to the harbour of Fowey.

In England generally castles belonged only to the Crown or to great nobles, and no gentleman was suffered to castellate or embattle his walls without a special licence from the Crown. In Cornwall all the castles pertained to the Crown or the Duke of Cornwall, and private persons had to content themselves with purely domestic mansions. Till the reign of Elizabeth the dining-hall reaching to the roof was the most conspicuous feature, and opening out of it was the ladies' bower, a small oak-panelled room. The inconvenience arising from a house being cut in halfby the hall led in the reign of Elizabeth to an alteration, and the halls were ceiled over, so that the upper portion could be used for bedrooms and passage. Before her reign the usual form of a house was quadrangular, that is to say a court surrounded by buildings entered by a gate, with the hall and principal portions of the house opposite the entrance gate. But in the reign of Elizabeth it became the fashion to form the house in the shape of the letter E. In her father's reign it often had the shape of the letter H with the open ends closed by slight walls.

Cornwall possesses very few stately houses. At the close of the seventeenth century a schoolmaster at Trebartha filled a folio with sketches of the ancient manor-houses of the neighbourhood of the Tamar; picturesque old mansions of the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth. Nearly every one has disappeared. The squirearchy of Cornwall, flush of money, through tin, pulled down their old residences and built mansions in the Georgian period, totally devoid of interest. Of the old houses few remain except as farm houses. They were, however, never so magnificent as those in the counties where bricks and easily dressed stone existed. But still there remain Cothele, unaltered, the beautiful house of Lord Mount Edgcumbe on the Tamar; Basil, the manor-house of the Trevelyans, much mutilated by the barbarous hand of a modern architect; Trecarrel, near Launceston, an old Tudor mansion with a noble hall, never completed; Place, near Padstow, formerly Prideaux Castle, the Elizabethan residence of the Prideaux Brunes, very stately, and with a dining room rich in carved oak; Lanherne, built in 1580, a small manor-house of theArundells and now a convent; Lanhydrock, built by the first Lord Roberts—they called themselves later Robartes; Place House, Fowey, with rich sculpture; Trerice, the old seat of the Arundells; Tregudick with its Elizabethan hall; Penheale, once the seat of the Speccots, in Egloskerry; Tonacombe, an unaltered house of the reign of Henry VII, in Morwenstow; Penfound in Poundstock, small but charming; and Lanreath, with a carved oak parlour, the ancient house of the Grylls family. There are others, now farmhouses, and only spared on that account, deserted when the squires moved elsewhere and did not pull down their ancestral residences.

Cothele

A monastic building consisted of a church, with acloister court adjoining, about which were the dormitories, a library, and a refectory or room in which all had their meals in common. There would be often two courts, one outer, the other with the cloister about it in which the monks mainly lived and in the centre of which was the monastic graveyard. The garden of pot herbs and herbs for medicinal purposes was an essential feature of all monastic settlements, as was also the stewpond or ponds for fish. The necessity under which the monks lay of being near water, both for their fish and for sanitary purposes and for drinking, led to all monastic establishments lying low down in valleys by running streams.

Of monastic remains there are few. At Launceston the foundations of St John's Priory have been laid bare. At Glasney in Penryn a few walls alone represent what was once a stately priory. Of the great house at Bodmin hardly a wall stands, but some remains of the sanatorium exist at Lavethan. At Lanivet are the remains of St Benet's Monastery, till 1859 the most picturesque and best preserved of the monastic buildings in Cornwall, except St Michael's Mount. An engraving of the remains was published by Lysons in 1814, which shows the house to have been beautifully situated, and as beautiful as its situation demanded. At the date mentioned it was mutilated and spoilt.

Cornwall cannot boast picturesque cottages. Some few remain that possess some charm, as the old Post-office at Tintagel, some slate-hung dwellings in West Looe, the Lugger Inn, Fowey, and the almshouses at St Germans. There are as well some that call for an artist to use hispencil at Saltash. But, on the whole, the county is poor in the domestic architecture of farm and cottage, and house fronts in the towns, with rare exceptions, are not of any artistic character.

The Old Post Office, Tintagel

The great road from London to Falmouth ran through Launceston, Bodmin, and Truro, and was kept in good order, and over it raced the mail coaches that conveyed letters on to the packets at Falmouth. This was the main artery of communication for more than a century, till Falmouth was abandoned as a mail-packet station by the Government. From 18 to 20 fine vessels performed this service, carrying letters and papers to all parts of theworld, until the extension of railways caused the service to be transferred to Southampton.

Whether there were systematically constructed Roman roads in Cornwall has been doubted. One curious ancient road—the Giant's Hedge—is found near Lanreath, and appears to have been a portion of a road raised on a bank that started from a ferry over the Tamar and was carried into the west of Cornwall. There was a road also that came from Exeter and crossed the Tamar at Polson Bridge and then turned north to Camelford. Another ran past Stratton to the estuary of the Camel opposite Padstow, where Romano-British remains have been found on Bray Hill. But it is possible enough that these roads were of British and not of Roman construction.

In the Middle Ages little or nothing was done to keep the roads in repair. Even in the eighteenth century all that was thought necessary was to throw down a load of boulders into the ruts, rake them in, and leave coach and cart wheels to grind them up. But the roads were taken in hand at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the turnpikes served to provide funds for keeping them in order, while Macadam's invention of breaking the stones before laying them on the roads assisted enormously in facilitating transit along them.

A Cornish Stile

The roads in Cornwall are now for the most part excellent, metalled with elvan, and cyclists and motorists can have little to complain of on that score.

Two railway companies have penetrated the county; the G.W.R. in the south crosses the Tamar by the famous Saltash tubular bridge, and runs to Penzance,by Truro. There is a branch to Bodmin, another to Fowey, and another crosses the county to Newquay. After reaching Truro, the line deserts the south, but sends a branch down to Falmouth. It runs to Redruth and Camborne and reaches the sea at Hayle. It sends a short branch up to St Ives, but the main line turns south again to end in a terminus at Penzance. The L. & S.W.R., after sending out a branch to Bude, reaches Launceston, and then supplies the dreary country from Launceston to Camelford with communication. From Camelford it runs to Wadebridge; and down the estuary to Padstow, a branch to the south serving Bodmin.

In addition to the branches already mentioned are others to Looe and Helston.

Penzance is reached from Paddington in 8½ hours and Newquay in half-an-hour less.

The L. & S.W.R. leaving Waterloo reaches Launceston in 5½ hours, Bude in 6 hours, and Wadebridge in under 7 hours. From Wadebridge coaches run to Newquay.

A steamer maintains communication with the Scilly Isles from Penzance.

Before the Conquest the divisions of the county were probably those afterwards forming the old deaneries, and followed the limits of the Celtic tribes under their severalchiefs. Of these there were eight:—East and West, Kerrier, Penwith, Powder, Pyder, Trigg Major, and Trigg Minor, but at the Conquest a redistribution was made in hundreds. These were Conarton, Fawiton, Pawton, Riatton, Stratton, Tibesta or Tibesterna, and Winneton. There may have been an Anglo-Saxon redistribution. But it was a rearrangement that did not last, and never commended itself to the people, and it is not easy now to ascertain what the limits were. Conarton was Penwith. Perhaps Tibesta was Powder and Winneton Kerrier. East and West composed one district of Wyvelshire.

Cornwall was first an Earldom, and then accordingly a County, but when raised to be a Dukedom it became a Duchy. It had two chief officers, the Earl and the Sheriff, the latter appointed by the crown.

The county was divided up into hundreds for administrative purposes. Each hundred was supposed roughly to contain a hundred free families. Each hundred had its own court, and every township its assembly under the reeve. But the tinners were under their own laws and officers, and their court, called the Stannary Court, sat formerly at Lostwithiel. Every manor also had its court.

All the hundreds of Cornwall, except Penwith, from time immemorial belonged to the Earls of Cornwall. The hundreds and Petty Sessional Divisions are now coextensive, and are as follows:—1. Hundred of East (Northern Division). 2. Hundred of East (Southern Division). 3. Hundred of Kerrier. 4. Hundred of Lesnewth. 5. Hundred of Penwith. 6. Hundred of Powder, East.7. Hundred of Pyder, West. 8. Hundred of Pyder, East. 9. Hundred of Stratton. 10. Hundred of Trigg. 11. Hundred of West.

Cornwall formerly returned four county members in two divisions, but under the provisions of the "Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885," it now returns six members in six divisions. 1. The western or St Ives division. 2. The north-western or Camborne division. 3. The Truro division. 4. The Mid or St Austell division. 5. The south-eastern or Bodmin division. 6. The north-eastern or Launceston division. Under the provisions of the above-mentioned Act, the boroughs of Bodmin, Helston, Launceston, Liskeard, St Ives, and Truro were deprived of independent representation and merged in the county, and Penryn and Falmouth lost one member.

In 1877 the diocese of Truro, taken from that of Exeter, was formed, comprising the whole county of Cornwall, together with the parishes of Broadwood-Widger, Virginstow, Werrington, St Giles on the Heath, and North Petherwin, which are in the county of Devon. The Stannary Court is now at Truro, but its occupation is almost gone.

The Poor Law Unions are Bodmin, Camelford, Falmouth, Helston, Launceston, Liskeard, Penzance, St Austell, Redruth, St Columb, St Germans, Scilly Isles, Stratton, and Truro.

The County Council formed under the Local Government Act of 1888 consists of a chairman, aldermen, and councillors; but for the local government of the towns and parishes another Act was passed in 1894, and newnames were given to the local bodies. In the large urban parishes the chief authorities are now entitled District Councils, while the smaller parishes have their Parish Councils or only Parish Meetings.

The Old Guildhall and Pillory, Looe

The county is in the western circuit; the assize and quarter sessions, which were formerly held at Launceston,a most inconvenient place for the purpose, being at the extreme limit of the county, are now held at Bodmin.

In Cornwall there are 223 civil parishes and the municipal boroughs are eleven, Bodmin, Falmouth, Helston, Launceston, Liskeard, Lostwithiel, Penryn, Penzance, Saltash, St Ives, and Truro.

The civil parishes and those that are ecclesiastical are not always conterminous. Of the latter there are 236. There are two Archdeaconries, Cornwall and Bodmin, and twelve deaneries, St Austell, Carnmarth, Kerrier, Penwith, Powder, and Pydar in the Archdeaconry of Cornwall, and Bodmin, East, Stratton, Trigg Major and Minor, and West in that of Bodmin. There is a Bishop at Truro and a suffragan who takes his title from St Germans.

It would, perhaps, be invidious to say that Cornwall has produced men of more brilliant and varied achievements than any other county in England, but she can certainly show a very notable roll of honour. As might be expected from her geographical position, aided by good harbours, she has produced some great seamen who have done gallant service for England. At the head of these must come Sir Richard Grenville, hero of theRevenge, whose action off the Azores in 1591 has rendered him one of England's immortals. Trapped by the huge Spanish fleet off Flores, Sir Richard had many of his crew sick on shore, but declined to leave till they had been brought on board. TheRevengeengaged fifteen large Spanish men-of-war and stood at bay from three in the afternoon all through the night till the following morning, when the last barrel of powder was spent. Ralegh told of it, as did Gervase Markham in 1595, and Tennyson nearly 300 years later in the stirring lines:—

"Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.For some were sunk and many were shattered, and so could fight us no more—God of Battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?"

His grandson, Sir Bevil Grenville, "the Mirror of Chivalry," was a scarcely less notable warrior on land and fell in the Royalist victory of Lansdowne near Bath in 1643. Admiral Edward Boscawen, "Old Dreadnought," third son of Viscount Falmouth, distinguished himself at the taking of Cartagena and in the Cape Breton expedition, but his most memorable deed was the defeat of the French Toulon fleet in Lagos Bay in 1759. Captain Bligh, noteworthy as the captain of theBounty,of which the mutiny is one of the most familiar tragedies of the sea, was perhaps in great measure the author of his own misfortunes, for he was a man of very overbearing temper, but his journey of 3618 miles in an open boat after having been set adrift with others by the mutineers was a remarkable feat. The Pellew family has added at least two names to the roll of distinguished sailors. Edward Pellew, when in command of theNymphe, manned by Cornish miners, captured the French man-of-warCléopâtreunder peculiarly gallant circumstances, the first of a series of brilliant exploits which led to his being created Baron Exmouth. Later, in 1816, he bombarded Algiers, reduced the Dey to submission, and put an end to the Barbary corsairs. His brother, Admiral Sir Isaac Pellew, commanded theConquerorat the battle of Trafalgar.

Captain Bligh

Cornwall being a land of mines has developed machinery and furthered invention in this direction. The most notable of the inventors she has produced is Richard Trevithick, who first made the high-pressure engine, and is still more remarkable as the early pioneer of motor traffic, putting his road locomotive on the Camborne highway on Christmas Day, 1801, and obtaining a speed with it of 12 miles per hour. In 1812 he laid before the Navy Board his invention for a screw propeller for ships, only to meet with a refusal. Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, born in 1793, also ran steam-motors on the roads until they were forbidden by Act of Parliament, and the work of a lifetime and his fortune of £30,000 vanished into thin air. The oxy-hydrogen blowpipe and the steam-jetwere invented by him. The wreck of H.M.S.Ansonon Looe bar with the loss of over 100 lives in 1807 had a great effect on one of the spectators, Henry Trengrouse, a Helston cabinet-maker, who thereupon invented the rocket life-saving apparatus and spent £3000—all his means—in experiments and in vain endeavours to induce Government to adopt the system. Another great benefactor to mankind was Sir Humphry Davy, the son of a poor gilder near Penzance. His safety-lamp he noblyrefused to patent lest the sphere of its usefulness should be restricted, and he is fittingly honoured with a statue in his native town.

Sir Humphry Davy

More than one distinguished traveller finds place among Cornish worthies. Richard Lander, the son of a Truro innkeeper (1805-34), stands at the head of them. He went with Clapperton to Sokoto and on his death took up his work, tracing the mouth of the Niger on a second expedition, and dying on a third at Fernando Po. Peter Mundy, born about 1596 at "Penrin, a pretty towne in Corne Wall," as he describes it, was one of the most remarkable travellers that the West of England has produced, whether in virtue of his long trading voyages to the Far East, or of his continental wanderings, of which he kept a not less careful record. James Silk Buckingham, who died in 1855, wrote eighteen books of travel, but was mainly noteworthy for his endeavours to do away with the monopoly of the East India Company.

Among statesmen must be noticed Sir John Eliot, born at Port Eliot in 1592, and at one time friend of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, with whom he later broke, and taking up a strong line in the Parliament of 1628 against arbitrary taxation helped to force the Petition of Right from Charles. He was ultimately committed to the Tower, where he died three years later in 1632. To give an adequate sketch of the life of Sidney Godolphin would be to give the history of the times of Charles II, James II, William of Orange and Anne, with each and all of whom he was closely implicated. An extraordinarily able financier, his characterwas such as to permit him to serve either party indifferently. "Sidney Godolphin," said Charles, "is never in the way and never out of the way." Lord High Treasurer under Queen Anne, he was made Earl of Godolphin, only to be disgraced in 1710 and die shortly after.

Samuel Drew, the "Cornish Metaphysician," who was born at St Austell, had been a smuggler and a shoemaker in his earlier days, but developed into a Wesleyan preacher and became the author of an essay on the Immortality of the Soul. Of more normal mould was Humphrey Prideaux, born at Padstow in 1648, who wrote aLife of Mahomet, andThe Old and New Testament Connected, which reached its 27th edition only a few years ago. He became Dean of Norwich and died in 1724.

Cornwall has produced several local antiquaries, as the Rev. Richard Polwhele, who died in 1838; the Rev. William Borlase, d. 1772; William Hals, the historian of the Duchy; and William Sandys, who died in 1874. She has had but few true poets, but the Rev. Robert Stephen Hawker, though not actually born in Cornwall, spent all his life there and may certainly come under this heading. He became Vicar of Morwenstow in 1834, and remained there till his death in 1875, having during this time transformed his parishioners from a set of lawless wreckers to a decent community. His poems were almost all connected with Cornish subjects, and one of the best known of them is that on BishopTrelawney's imprisonment—"A good sword and a trusty sword," with the refrain—"And shall Trelawney die? There's twenty thousand Cornishmen; Shall know the reason why."

John Opie

"A wondrous Cornishman, who is carrying all before him" is Sir Joshua Reynolds' description of John Opie the painter, who was born the son of a poor carpenter near Truro in 1761, became an R.A. and portrait-painter of great note, and died in 1807. His second wife was Amelia Opie the novelist, daughter of the Norwich physician, Dr Alderson. Henry Bone, the enamellist, is also of sufficient distinction to deserve mention here.

Of the astronomers of modern times few have attained the eminence of John Couch Adams, the discoverer of the planet Neptune, who was born at Laneast in 1819. As a shepherd boy he loved to lie on his back and watch the stars, and he at once devoted himself to the study of astronomy when he was sent to school at Saltash. He became Senior Wrangler at Cambridge in 1843, and soon after taking his degree, being struck with irregularities in the motion of Uranus, he made a series of calculations and observations which resulted in the discovery of the new planet, the French astronomer Leverrier having simultaneously recorded its existence. A distinguished geologist and one of the pioneers of scientific cave exploration was William Pengelly, whose great work was the thorough examination of Kent's Cavern near Torquay, a labour which lasted from 1865 to 1880. Last, but by no means least worthy of mention in our list, must come Davies Gilbert, a great discerner of rising genius, to which he was ever ready to lend help and encouragement. The patron of Davy, Trevithick, Horn-*blower, and Goldsworthy Gurney, he was himself a man of remarkable and varied abilities, scientist, mathematician, and antiquary, and President of the Royal Society. He died in 1839.

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