RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN CORNWALL. 209 



Still the old words held their place, and many of them have 

 continued to be spoken down to this very date, notwithstanding 

 the hostile and friendly invasions into Cornwall of other dialects. 



The Cornu-British language as a whole has been rescued 

 from oblivion in an intelligible and practical form by modern 

 compilers and lexicographers,* who have studied the subject 

 locally, and collected details from mediaeval manuscripts. 



The very words then, which were spoken in Cornwall by the 

 heathen Celts or Britons, whose cremated bodies occupy the urns 

 before us, are still heard in the land. 



(III). ROMAN REMAINS. 



When the Britons in the west had become subject, directly 

 or indirectly, to the influence of the Roman Empire (the great 

 dispenser of education in the old world), intelligible words instead 

 of mere rock-marks, inscribed on stone, were set up for particular 

 purposes; and various small articles such as coins and bowls 

 bearing inscriptions were brought into Cornwall. 



Many inscribed relics remain. A few purely Roman, others 

 Romano-British. 



Judged by the characters in which the legends are cut, it is 

 evident that the genuine Roman (the work of the instructors) 

 are the earlier. 



It has been my good fortune to discover perhaps the oldest 

 inscribed stone of all yet brought to light in the County. If it 

 be not the oldest, it is contemporaneous with the most ancient 

 that has been found, and the two, closely connected by historical 

 associations, form a pair, of the same era. They will presently 

 be described. 



Much discussion has taken place as to the nature of the 

 Roman domination or occupation of Cornwall. f Some have 

 thought that the imperial troops took forcible possession, and 

 constructed roads. Others that nothing more than commerce 

 and trade were attempted, and that such roads as were required 

 for traffic had already been formed by the natives. Peaceful 



*See Williams's Cornu. Brit. Lexicon, Bannister's Glossary of Cornish names, 

 and Dr. F. W. P. Jago's English-Cornish Dictionary. 



fSee Borlase's Antiquities (Book rv, chapters 1-6). Also the Surveys and 

 Histories of Cornwall, and Hiibner's Corpus Inscrip. Lat. (Vol. vn, p. 12). Also 

 the writings of Mr. N. Whitley, Mr. R. N. Worth, Sir J. Maclean, &c. 



