THE POETIC SPIRIT 197 



his fellow-Cornishmen for their indifference with a 

 bitter eloquence. But he did not grieve over the 

 dying language on account of any noble or beautiful 

 or otherwise valuable work enshrined in it. The few 

 mystery or miracle plays and other native produc- 

 tions which existed (and exist still) were not worth 

 preserving. What troubled him was the thought 

 that the old ways and spirit were to a great extent 

 dependent on the old tongue. The plays were value- 

 less as literature and were of the same quality as a 

 thousand more which were once performed in most 

 parts of England, the loss of which nobody regrets, 

 but their performance drew people together from all 

 parts to the vast open-air theatre, the plan-au-Guare, 

 and in this way whatever little romance and poetry 

 existed in the minds of the people was kept alive. 



A mightier change was to come later, when Wesley 

 made his descent on the county about the middle of 

 the eighteenth century and converted the people 

 wholesale to Methodism. This was in many ways the 

 very worst form of religion for a people of the temper 

 and character of the Cornish, but it suited them exactly 

 at the time it came to them a dull and stagnant 

 period in their history when the Church was indiffer- 

 ent. They were a highly emotional race and were 

 in a starved condition, hungry for some great excite- 

 ment, some outlet for their repressed natures, some 

 excuse for a mad outburst, and this gave it them 

 these wonderful gatherings of miners, fishermen and 

 labourers on the land, in the old disused theatres 

 under the wide open sky, listening to that mysterious 



