OF CORNWALL. 3 i 5 
Cows nebas , cows da, ha da veth cowfas arta ; Speak little, fpeak. 
well, and well will be fpoken again. 
Of talking of Rate-affairs, there are fome remarkable cautions : 
Cows nebas , cows da, nebas an yevern yw an gwella ; Speak lit- 
tle, fpeak well, little of public matters is beft. 
The danger of talking againft the government is excellently 
reprefented in the following proverb : 
_ Nyn ges gun heb lagas, na kei heb fcovern ; There is no downs 
without eye, nor hedge without ears. 
l his language was fpoke fo generally in Cornwall down to the 
reign of Henry VIII. that Dr. John Moreman Vicar of Menhyn- 
net (alias Mynhinet) in Cornwall, in the latter part of that King’s 
time is laid to have been the firft who taught his parifhioners the 
Lord s Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments, in the Englifh 
tongue. When the Liturgy, at the Reformation, was appointed 
by authority to take place of the mafs, the Cornifh defired w that 
it fhould be in the Englifh language, being apprehenfive that it 
might be injoined them in their mother tongue, as it was with re- 
gard to the Welfh. By this means, and the gentry’s mixing gra- 
dually with the Englifh, the Corniih language loft ground in pro- 
portion as it lay nearer to Devon. In the parifh of Pheoke the 
Cornifh tongue refilled the fcythe of time fo long, that about the 
year 1640, Mr. William Jackman, then Vicar thereof, was forced 
to adminifter the Sacrament to the communicants in the Cornifh, 
becaufe the aged people did not underftand the Englifh tongue \ After 
the Reftoration we find the Cornifh furviving only in the more weftern 
parts, where the Rev d . Mr. F. Robinfon, Recftor of Landawidnek, is 
the laft that I have met with, who, not long before the year 1678, 
preached a Sermon in the Cornifh language only k About fifty 
years fince it was generally fpoken in the parilhes of Paul and St. 
Juft, the fifhermen and market-women in the former, and the 
tinners in the latter, converfing one with the other for the moft- 
part in the Cornifh tongue. A little before this time (viz. in 1700) 
Mr. Ed. Lhuyd before-mentioned (to acquaint himfelf with the 
Natural Hiftory and Monuments, but principally with the language, 
in order to perfect his Archasologia) came into Cornwall, and by 
the hints which he colle&ed, and the efpecial aftiftance of Mr. 
John Keigvvyn (a gentleman well verfed in the learned languages, 
as well as his own) compofed his Cornifh Grammar. This he after- 
wards publifhed in 1707, and being by that time thoroughly 
acquainted with the other diale&s of the Britifh tongue, was able 
” Native of South-hole in Cornwall, that is, w Scawen, ib. page 49. 
f. Southill, alias Suthull, (as in the Lincoln Vifi- 1 “ As he often told me,” fays Mr. Hals, 
tation) in Cornwall. r See Scawen’s M S, ib. ut fup. page 49. 
to 
