THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
53 
the only two extant western inscribed stones which give unmis- 
takeable proof of Irish influence in their Ogham writings are not 
in Cornwall but in Devon. 1 There are, however, stones in Corn- 
wall with lettering of Irish type, and the crosses also frequently 
indicate Irish parentage. The earliest characters of Christianity in 
Cornwall being thus clearly external, suggests additional grounds 
for belief in the isolated and independent status of Dunmonia in 
Eoman times. There was a church in Eoman Britain long before 
the date of these remains ; but there is no shadow of proof that it 
had extended into the Western Peninsula. 
The Irish missionaries but continued an intercourse between the 
two countries which had commenced long before. There is a dis- 
tinctly Irish character in four gold gorgets, or lunulas, found in 
Cornwall — all near the north coast (Padstow and St. Juliot, &c, 
and nowhere else in Great Britain) ; and though a gold cup from a 
barrow near the Cheesewring is considered of Scandinavian type, 
all the early gold ornaments of Cornwall have their counterparts in 
Ireland. 2 The profusion of bronze implements and weapons found 
in Ireland is a less precise but equally certain proof — in the tin 
they contain — of this connection. 
A new and valuable source of information concerning the early 
history of man is supplied by the study of comparative folk-lore. 
The wisdom of age, degraded to the wonder of childhood, has again 
risen into importance. Superstitions are less individual develop- 
ments than phases of moribund faiths. The purely accidental has 
no place in the continuous history of the race ; and the seemingly 
isolated and casual are but the fragments of an organic whole. 
Here, too, we are but on the threshold of enquiry. Enormous 
masses of material have to be classified ere deduction can be 
hopefully systematised. Yet, even in this earlier stage, we may 
not neglect the plainer lessons of our Western Folk-Lore, though, 
with two notable exceptions, its results are mainly of a negative 
character, and local colouring is faint. 
1 The Fardel (now in the British Museum) and the "Nabarr" stone, 
originally of Buckland Monachorum, now in the Vicarage Garden, Tavistock. 
Vide C. Spence Bate's "Inscribed Stones and Ancient Crosses of Devon," 
Tram. Plym. Inst. vol. iii. pp. 392-398. 
2 Jour. R. I. Corn. vi. pp. 134-142 (Sir E. Smirke) ; ix. pp. 34-38 (A. 
Way). Brittany and Denmark have supplied the nearest approach to the 
lunulse, beyond Ireland. 
VOL. VIII. D 
