sufficiently distinguished to require any further perpetuation of their fame than has been already conferred upon them by Polwhele's now scarce little work. Besides which, Polwhele, of course, had not access to the great Libraries and Collections which are now available in London, nor to the Transactions of many metropolitan and local Archæological Societies; he was, moreover, apt to be dazzled by the nearness of the effulgence of some of his characters:—and he, too, is now sixty or seventy years behind the time. Lastly, neither Fuller nor Polwhele had the advantage of the labours of those indefatigable pioneers in Cornish literature—the authors of the 'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis.'[1] Another recent work, invaluable to the would-be biographer of Cornwall's Worthies is the admirable history of Exeter College, Oxford, contained in the Register of the Rectors, Fellows, etc., by my old schoolfellow, the Rev. C. W. Boase, Fellow and Tutor of that College (Oxford, 1879). If it should be said that copious and complete biographies of one or two of my characters have already been written, I would venture to observe in reply, that these are monograph accounts only; in some cases consisting of two or three volumes, and now either out of print, or, from their bulk and cost, not generally accessible. May I allege another and a chief reason for writing this work? It is, that I thought those persons were right who considered the celebrities of my native county had not received the notice which they deserved. And yet, 'class for class,' says a writer in the Times, 28th March, 1882, 'they will beat all England.' Indeed (and I confess it with no little shame) some of those whose lives I have endeavoured to describe in the following pages, I did not myself, at one time, know to have been Cornishmen! And this although, as a Cornishman, I ought not to be altogether without the genius loci of our southernmost and westernmost county: yet—

'Semper honos, nomenque horum, laudesque manebunt.'

As regards the principle on which the lives have been selected of those who, amongst others, have been worthiest 'in arms, in arts, in song,' I may say that I have endeavoured to find such names as would be, in the first place, of sufficient importance to warrant their claims to notice being brought before the public; secondly, to make the selection as varied in character as possible; and, thirdly, to choose such as were likely to prove interesting to the general reader: for even biography itself—said by Librarians to be one of the most popular branches of the belles lettres—must prove uninteresting if dull subjects are dully treated. I earnestly trust that I have not fallen into this fatal error.

It might have been interesting to have said something of many mighty names of the past; even though numbers of them are scarcely more than legendary. Amongst others, of St. Ursula in the fourth century, 'daughter of the Cornish King Dionutus,' and Directress of the celebrated expedition of the 'eleven thousand virgins' to Cologne; of King Arthur himself; of Walter de Constantiis, Chancellor of England, and Chief Justice, in the twelfth century; of Thomas, and St. George, and Richard, and Godfrey, of Cornwall; of Odo de Tregarrick in Roche; of Simon de Thurway; of John de Trevisa,[2] the fourteenth-century scholar and divine, who was supposed to have translated part of the Bible into English; ('a daring work,' as Fuller says, 'for a private person in that age without particular command from Pope or Public Council'); and of that Syr Roger Wallyoborow, of Buryan, who, in the time of Henry VIII., 'miraculously brought home from the Holy Land a piece of the true Cross.' There are, besides, many others of later date, whose names I should have liked, but for the reasons already given, to include; such as the Bonythons;[3] the Carews; Sir John Eliot, the Patriot; Dean Miller; the Molesworths; the Edgcumbes of Mount Edgcumbe; Noy, Charles I.'s Attorney-General; Dean Prideaux; the Rashleighs; the Robarteses; the Trelawnys; the Tremaynes; and the Trevanions;—beside those whose loss to Cornwall Dr. Borlase lamented; and many others.

But there were few reliable materials for the first-named group: authentic accounts of the deeds of the legendary ancients have faded away into the 'dark backward and abysm of time;' and mere legends it was hardly worth while to perpetuate. Nor did it seem desirable to include a bare list of names, or repetitions of lives of a generally similar character; in which case the actors' names would often have been the chief variations in what was intended to be a readable, fireside book. In short, I have aimed at making my list representative rather than exhaustive.

With the object of not wearying the general reader, I have refrained from clouding my pages with minute references to authorities,—except when some special reason seemed to occur for doing so. I trust this will not be considered a defect, when I state that, for some of the lives which follow, the lists of authorities consulted would have occupied nearly one fourth of the space allotted to the lives themselves. As an instance, the number of entries given in the 'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis' for the Killigrews is 450; and one of these entries alone comprises nearly fifty items.

A most pleasing task remains to be discharged; namely, to record my heartfelt obligations to my friends, the Rev. F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, M.A., and Mr. H. Michell Whitley, C.E., for their very valuable assistance in seeing the following pages through the press.

I will only add, in the words of that delightful biographer, Izaak Walton, in his 'Life of George Herbert':

'I have used very great diligence to inform myself, that I might inform my reader of the truth of what follows; and, though I cannot adorn it with eloquence, yet I will do it with sincerity.'

W. H. T.        

Morlah Lodge,
        16, Tregunter Road,
                   London, S. W.