OF CORNWALL. 299 
rials, fcenes, and iymbols, though the moil incoherent, unedifying, 
and abfurd. 
Thefe interludes obtained not only in Cornwall (where they were 
called Guare-mir , or Miracle Plays, and the place of aCting plaen an 
guare *), but elfewhere, and lafted fometimes more than one day, and 
were attended not only by the vulgar, but by people of the higheft 
condition, and were remembered, fays Bifhop Nicholfon *, by the laft 
generation. In the late edition of Stow’s Survey, vol. I. page 247, is 
the following account : “ But London for the fhows upon theatres 
and comical paftimes, hath holy plays, reprefentations of miracles 
which holy confeilors have wrought, or reprefentations of torments 
wherein the conftancy of martyrs appeared.” And again : “Thefe 
or the like exercifes have been continued till our time, namely, in 
ftage-plays, whereof we may read in the year 1394 (feventeenth of 
Richard II.) a play to be played by the parifh clerks of London at 
the Skinner’s- Well, befides Smith-Field, which play continued three 
days together, the King, Queen, and Nobles of the Realm being 
prefent; and of another played in the year 1409, (tenth of Henry 
IV.) which lafted eight days, and was of matter from the Creation 
of the world, whereat was prefent molt part of the Nobility and 
Gentry of England V’ Some faint remains of the fame cuftom I 
have often feen in the weft of Cornwall during the Chriftmas fea- 
fon, when at the family-feafts of gentlemen, the Chriftmas Plays 
were admitted, and fome of the moft learned among the vulgar (after 
leave obtained) entered in difguife, and before the gentry, who were 
properly feated, perfonated characters, and carryed on miferable dia- 
logues on Scripture-fubjeCts ; when their memory could go no far- 
ther, they filled up the reft of the entertainment with more puerile 
reprefentations, the combats of puppets, the final vi&ory of the hero 
of the drama, and death of his antagonift. 
Among the general cuftoms, we muft not forget the manly ex- sect. ix. 
ercifes of wreftling and hurling, the former more generally pra&ifed Wreftling. 
in this county than in any part of England, the latter peculiar to 
it. The Cornifh have been remarkable for their expertnefs in 
Athletary contentions for many ages, as if they inherited the fkill 
and ftrength of their fabulous firft Duke Corinaeus, whofe fame 
confifts chiefly in the reputation he won by wreftling with, and 
overcoming the giant Gogmagog, and that fable perhaps founded 
five hundred years fince upon the then acknowledged and univerfal 
reputation of the people of this county for wreftling. But to leave 
fables j what fhould have implanted this cuftom in fuch a corner of 
z Letter, ib. ut fupra. a From Fitz Stephen. 
Britain, 
* That is, the plain for plays. 
