3 i4 NATURAL HISTORY 
Grammar has fo varied, that they cannot converfe The Cornifh 
is reckoned more pleaflng in found becaufe lefs guttural than the 
Welfh, and indeed than the other dialeds. Thus, for infiance, 
the Welfh fay Lech or Llech , a flat ftone, the Cornifli, Leh. For 
Lhwch , (in Welfh a lake) the Cornifh lay Luh , &c. u The Cor- 
nifh, fays Mr. Scawen, (M S, page 5) is not gutturally to be pro- 
nounced as the Welfh, nor mutteringly as the Armoric, nor why- 
ningly as the Irilh ; ill qualities contracted by the two latter from 
their lervitudes and much fubjeCtion, but the Cornifli is manly and 
lively fpoken, and like thofe other primitive tongues,” viz. Celtic 
and Phenician. Again : £t It is a tongue, as uled in Cornwall, moft 
like the Phenician,” ibid m . and this intermixture of the Punic is 
the reafon that the idiom of a poem written in Cornifh, and called 
the Paflion n , is not eafily underftood by the Welfh 0 . It has alfo 
the character of being elegant and manly p , pure, fhort, and ex- 
preflive \ 
The moft material Angularities in this tongue are, that the fub- 
ftantive is placed generally before the adjeCtive ; the prepofltion. 
comes fometimes after the cafe governed ; the nominative, and 
governed cafe, and pronouns, are oftentimes incorporated with the 
verb; letters are changed in the beginning, middle, or end of a 
word, or fyllable ; fome omitted, fome inferted ; and ( much to the 
commendation of this tongue) of feveral words one is compounded 
(as in the Greek) for the fake of brevity, found, and expreflion r . 
There was nothing printed in this language till the learned Lhuyd 
publifhed his Cornifli Grammar. The MS S in the Bodleian Library 
have been already mentioned ‘ , to which I muff add, that in the 
Cotton Library there is a Cornifli Vocabulary 1 ; there are alfo feve- 
ral proverbs ftill remaining in the ancient Cornifh, all favouring of 
truth, fome of pointed wit, fome of deep wifdom. 
Neb 77 a gare y g way 71 coll rejloua ; He that heeds not gain, muff 
expeCt lofs. 
Neb na gare y gy , an gwra deveeder ; He that regards not his 
dog, will make him a choak-fheep. 
Guel yw guetha vel goofen ; It is better to keep than to beg. 
Gura da , rag ta honan te yn gura ; Do good, for thy felf thou 
doft it. 
Many proverbs relate to caution in fpeaking, as Tau tavas , be 
Alent, tongue. 
1 Scawen, M S, page 3. 
m t Ibid ; P. a S e 3> from Boxhornius and others. 
* See before, page 297, called Mount Calvarv . 
0 lb. Scawen, ib. page 5. 
p Ib. page 27. 
% Jk. page 51, and in preface to the Paflion, 
Ibid. 
r Of which fee Lhuyd’s Archaeoloeia, case 
225, &c. 6 5 
* Page 295. 
' Printed in the Vocab. at the end of the An- 
tiquities of Cornwall. 
Cows 
