316 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Grenville, as a Cornishman, that the Laureate should constructively 
rank him with the "men of Devon" in that great epic the 
" Kevenge." 
Camden, the great Elizabethan antiquary and genealogist, in 
his Britannia, speaks very highly indeed of the Cornishmen. He 
says: "And yet is Cornwall nothing happier in regard of the 
soil than it is for the people, who as they were endued and adorned 
with all civility, even in those ancient times, for by reason of 
their acquaintance with merchants sailing there for tin, as 
Diodorus Siculus reporteth, they were more courteous toward 
strangers, so they are valiant, hardy, well pitched in stature, 
brawny and strong limbed for wrestling, in which they so far 
excel, to say nothing of that manly exercise and feat of hurling 
the ball which they use, that for sleight and clean strength 
together, they justly win the prize and praise from other nations 
in that behalf." 
That the men of Cornwall have, in past times, been considered 
worthy of the front rank, is proved by the weight given to the 
county in the Parliaments of our ancient kings. Up to the date 
of the Eeform Bill of 1832, Cornwall sent forty-four members 
to Parliament out of a total of about five hundred and twenty for 
all England and Wales. 
Cornwall, therefore, held about one-twelfth share of the repre- 
sentation of England and Wales, and alone returned as many 
members as Scotland. This is apart from my subject to-night, 
excepting to show the esteem in which the Cornish people were 
held, as most of these seats were pocket boroughs, owned by the 
chief local families, who were neither possessed of great wealth 
nor of powerful interest at Court. It is curious that a county so 
remote from Court influences should have acquired, and so long 
retained, such an extraordinarily large representation in Parlia- 
ment. Most of these seats had been in existence before the close 
of the reign of Elizabeth. 
One is tempted to pursue the subject of the characteristics of 
the Cornish a little further, and to point out that although the 
inhabitants of the county have always, from the earliest times, 
been a religious people, we do not find that they exhibited the 
gross credulity of admiring nodding saints, and weeping images 
of the Virgin, or the fanaticism of burning heretics. I believe 
no martyr fires were lit in the most western county, and I doubt 
