15 



which statements offered for his acceptance rest, is equally called 

 for with respect to other county histories. As far as I can judge 

 from the few Cornish genealogies I have been induced to scan, I 

 should doubt of there being any such thing as pure Celtic blood 

 among us. Yet, if the histories of Cornish families, such as 

 they are, are of interest enough to justify their being recounted, 

 every precaution should be taken that nothing but the truth shall 

 be propagated concerning them. Many incidents, however, have 

 convinced me that the accuracy of these narratives is often vitiated 

 at their source. Exemplorum gratia : — In C. S. Gilbert, a family of 

 old standing, is traced down to a wealthier man (who has left 

 mention of himself in identical terms) as its "heir and repre- 

 sentative," though there were male issue of an elder brother, 

 who is ignored in the genealogical account, then alive. In Davies 

 Gilbert, the name of a husband is substituted for that of a wife in 

 giving — in the case of an old family distinguished in our literature 

 whose male line had failed — those descendants in female lines that 

 still held some of its landed property. It was the husband who, 

 unsolicited, suppKed the historian "with the revision of the list 

 of such descendants down to that date. The sole intrinsic value 

 I attach to these facts is, that I happen to be able to say, in either 

 case, by what instrumentality the historian was misled. I have 

 also watched the steps by which a family fiction, nursed by a man 

 of genius, has, within the last few years, acquired the semblance 

 and currency of history; — a result that could never have been 

 attained had our recent writers in this section of letters adhered 

 to the recognised canons of their art. 



In other subjects than History I do not perceive that the past 

 Institutional year has produced anything of paramount importance 

 to us. Within it, as far as I am aware, no further insight into 

 the Cornish language has been gained. Through the good offices 

 of the Eev. G. L. Church, however, the widow of the late Dr. 

 Bannister has paid us the high compliment of presenting to us 

 the interleaved copy of Dr. Williams' Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum, 

 in which he had made notes with a view to a companion volume 

 in which the Enghsh words should stand first; as the best 

 way of fulfilling the last wishes of her husband that his labours 

 with this object might be so placed as to be easily accessible to 

 scholars. 



Antiquarians are never asleep, whether at home or abroad; and 

 it will be proved to-day that our o^vn have not ceased to be on 

 the alert. But just now more of their operations on a large scale 

 are carried on among the celebrated ruins of Asia than in Europe. 

 We have to join them in their regret at the deaths of Mr. Wm. 

 Sandys, F.S.A., and Mr. Albert Way, F.S.A. The former was, 



