144 THE president's address. 



he had recommended, we should not have been presented with 

 other writings of corresponding value. Our enterprize brought 

 us that reward. 



With regard to the past history of Cornwall we must assign 

 full value to the original statements of Nordon, Borlase, the 

 brothers Lysons, Polwhele, 0. S. Gilbert, Hitchens, Drew, 

 Davies Gilbert, and others, and having done so, we shall find 

 that we may say without controversy that the writings of Carew, 

 Hals, and Tonkin, have constituted the basis and framework of 

 nearly all the parochial histories of our county which have 

 appeared. 



Errors, of course, occur in them all, but they have preserved 

 to us much that is true and locally important. 



Although some of the remarks of Hals, for instance, are 

 glaringly incorrect, he has thrown light on many matters. The 

 chief part of his manuscript some of us saw before it was 

 deposited in the British Museum. Copies of his early edition 

 are rare, consequently, that one which Mr. Freeth bequeathed, 

 inter alia, to our shelves, is of special value to us. Tonkin 

 copied and to some extent corrected much of what Hals wrote, 

 yet only portions of their writings have been printed. 



We now possess most of the manuscripts which Tonkin is 

 known to have penned (as I hope to shew in a separate paper) 

 including his Parochial History, and we are particularly 

 fortunate in having had his Natural History (illustrated with 

 his own sketches) presented to us by Mr. Basset. That work 

 has never been issued in any form, and was lost sight of, for a 

 long period. 



The Whitaker manuscripts received from Tehidy have yet to 

 be fully examined. Most of that author's writings, I am told, 

 were given to the College with which he was chiefly connected 

 at Oxford. 



Ellis and White, and by Mr. W. C. Borlase. They were sold in February, 

 1887, by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge, to B. Quaritch, and through 

 him to our Institution for ^78 15s. 



Thus the 3 volumes, comprising the whole work, after remaining dispersed 

 for more than a hundred years, have been brought together again — and have 

 thereby been considerably enhanced in value, as an entire set. 



