180 ■ THE PEESIDEjSTt's ADDRESS. 



To sliow tlie vitality of an error once committed, I will advert 

 to one with wliicli a natural curiosity has made me acquainted : — 

 In the year 1652, some months before the extinction of the long 

 parliament in the days of the Commonwealth, an ancestor of 

 mine was buried in St. Erme Church (about four miles fropa this 

 room), and on the slab that closes his vault, there is an 

 inscription, which C. S. Grilbert, in his History of Cornwall, 

 copies so strictly to the letter as to preserve its obsolete spellings. 

 Nevertheless, it so happens that there is a slip in this respect in 

 such a primary point as the name of the deceased : for the copy 

 has it as John Jago, where the slab presents it in bold Roman 

 capitals as lOHN lAGOE ; i.e., not only have the initial II 

 been replaced by JJ, but the final letter of the surname has been 

 omitted. We may presiune that this misspelling was somehow 

 accidental, but what shall we say of the fact that there are other 

 county histories that contain the same inscription with the same 

 errors, without ever an intimation than it was obtained otherwise 

 than immediately from the stone ? This is not all : — A marriage 

 settlement in which this man was one of the two principals still 

 remains somewhere in private archives, to which a distinguished 

 local historian has access ; who thence cites the name in 

 Grilbert's manner, — but clearly from inadvertence ; for in an 

 abstract of the deed which he has kindly sent me, he writes 

 throughout of lohn Jagoe, not only with the addition of an E, 

 but with a coupling of incongruous initials that could never have 

 happened in 1636. It is discernible enough that did the original 

 lie open to our inspection, it would reveal a name precisely 

 according with that on the slab. Again, inasmuch as the son, 

 in issue of this settlement, married a Miss Tonkin, who was an 

 aunt of the author of the Parochial History of Cornwall, wherein 

 the part played in life by the father is recorded, we shoiild have 

 fancied that the surname would be found therein as he was 

 wont to write it himself, yet, as edited by D. Gilbert, it gives it 

 as it is spelt by the other historians alluded to ; though an E is 

 therein added for his grandson Itai (over whose grave is simply 

 I. I. 1744), who was Tonkin's own cousin and contemporary. I 

 have never seen the MS. here in question, but had I any doubt 

 that the name, apart from a possible slip of the pen, as spelt in 

 it, in no particular differs from that on the slab, it would be dissi- 

 pated by my having seen another MS. in Tonkin's handwriting. 



