378 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION". 
thought to represent in some way the stage, and to show the rela- 
tive position of heaven and hell, and the places the principal 
dramatis persorice, whose names are given on it, were to occupy 
when not actually playing. 
The earliest positive account of the representation of the Cornish 
mysteries is that of Carew. He wrote his ''Survey" about the 
end of the 16th century, but it was not published till 1602. He 
speaks of the Guary miracle, or " miracle play," as an eye-witness, 
and as if it were something peculiar to Cornwall. 9 He describes it 
as " a kind of Enterlude, compiled in Cornish, out of some Scripture 
history, with that grosseness which accompanied the Romanes vetus 
comedia;" and says, "For representing it they raise an earthen 
amphitheatre in some open field, hauing the diameter of his en- 
closed playne some forty or fifty foot. The country people flock 
from all sides many miles off to hear and see it ; for they haue 
therein deuils and deuices to delight as well the eye as the eare." 
Scawen, vice-warden of the Stannaries after the Restoration, speaks 
of the Guirremears, or "speeches great," as he calls them, as 
things of the past. He says, 1 " They were used at the great con- 
ventions of the people, at which they had famous interludes, cele- 
brated with great preparations, and not without shows of devotion 
in them, solemnized in open and spacious downs of great capacity, 
encompassed about with earthen banks, and in some parts stone- 
work, of largeness to contain thousands, the shapes of which 
remain in many places at this day, though the use of them long 
since gone." Borlase gives a long account of them. 2 He explains 
the various metres used in them (for they are written in lhyme), 
speaks of the great number of persons of the drama, and of the want 
of unity in time, action, and place (altogether disregarded) ; and 
describes two of the playing places {plan an guarys), or " continued 
rounds," as he calls them, to distinguish them from "circles" of 
detached stones set upright. He gives particular descriptions of the 
"rounds" of Perranzabulo and S. Just in Pen with. The former 
is at present the more perfect ; it has a deep fosse or ditch all 
9 "The Survey of Cornwall," folio 71. 
1 "The Parochial History of Cornwall," by Davies Gilbert, P.R.S., &c., 
vol. iv., page 204. 
2 " The Natural History of Cornwall," pp. 295-9; "Observations on the 
Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall," 1st 
Ed., pp. 195-7. 
