1

cliffe, the inventor of the "dressing machine," and Fitzherbert, the father of English husbandry.

"Cumberland, as a whole, has not been changed by the spirit of modern industry. It keeps more clearly than any part of England the traces of old times. Its people are stalwart, sturdy, and independent. The sense of personal dignity is strong, and secures a genuine social equality. The Cumbrians pride themselves on being kindly, homely, and outspoken. Even a passing traveller through the county feels that he is amongst a folk who have their roots in an historic past."

Somerset has always borne a reputation for sturdy independence, a love of liberty, and intolerance of oppression and wrong, combined with a certain amount of austerity. The county's sentiments were rather with Cromwell than Charles.

Warwickshire has always been in the forefront of English endeavour. As Bishop Creighton says, "It was not accidental that Warwickshire produced the greatest of Englishmen. 'The heart of England,' as the county has been called, summed up all that was most purely English in its scenery and its associations. The quiet beauty of the winding Avon is still the same as when Shakespeare wandered along its banks. The neighbouring country had, in a still greater degree than now, the charm of English woodland; for the region of Arden, which Shakespeare has immortalised, had not been enclosed, though the clearings were frequent enough to rob it of its old wildness, and make a conspicuous example of all that is most charming in rural life. . . . Shakespeare's genius, in true English fashion, was combined with homely common sense.'

Now Cornwall has always been a peculiar county, set apart as it were-from the rest of England. By Nature it was separated from England, or nearly so, by the Tamar; so that practically it is an island, and may be considered as such.

The natives of the east end of Cornwall still talk of going to England when they cross the Tamar, as we have said. Counties which are insular or peninsular "breed an obstinate provincialism, unknown in the merely historical or administrative divisions of a great plain; and this rooted provincialism, rather than finished cosmopolitanism, is a source of 1 Mandell Creighton, Bishop of London, in The Stories of Some English Shires.

STAY-AT-HOMES

11

the varied initiative without which liberty would lose half its significance."1

Its civilisation is as early as, if not earlier than any other part of the country, which again is only natural, for foreign ships approaching England sight first Land's End, Cape Cornwall, or the Lizard, and the enterprising mariners of the ancient civilisations would first land there. Its remarkable history and its deeply seated individuality owe inception in all probability to the element tin.

Until quite recent times most men and women lived their lives in the neighbourhood of the place where they were born. Even at the present day instances of this are less uncommon than many would imagine, especially in Cornwall. For example, I went into a cottage at Sennen Cove and entered into conversation with the solitary old lady living there quite alone. She told me she had never once slept out of her cottage, and the farthest journey she had been was once to St. Ives. When at the Lizard I came across a most intelligent man-a "serpentine-worker," that is, a maker of little ornaments out of the local marble, which is a great industry of the promontory. I ascertained that though past middle age he had never been away from home farther than Truro, and that his mother and father before him had made that town the limit also of their travels. He was one of the José "-clan-descendants of Spaniards who had intermarried at the Lizard with the natives. These are not notable exceptions, for even on the busy thoroughfare of Penzance to Land's End the driver of the old-fashioned 'bus still carrying His Majesty's mails said his greatest journey had been to Bodmin to attend as a witness at the assizes, and he had no desire to visit London, though he had had tempting offers to do so.

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So we see it is probably the rule that, except in the case of London and some seaport towns, where foreigners came and settled, each person alive a hundred years ago only was, as a rule, descended from a few hundred ancestors who had all lived in his own neighbourhood for centuries past. "Since the beginning of the present century," Mr. Mackinder, "pedigrees have become more complicated, owing to the frequent shifting of population in the process 1 Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, p. 15.

of economic readjustment. A national solidarity of blood is being gradually substituted for provincial solidarities; but there are still strongly marked local characteristics in the great majority of the humbler population, although the upper classes, at least of England, have already blended more or less into a common type."

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Diodorus the Sicilian, a contemporary of Cæsar and Augustus, probably wrote his famous work after the year 8 B.C., when Augustus corrected the calendar and introduced the intercalation every fourth year. His undoubted reference to Cornwall is most interesting and valuable. He says (Book V, chap. п), “But Julius Cæsar in our time ... was the first . . . that conquered the island, and compelled the Britons to pay Tribute. . . We shall now only say something concerning the island, and the Tin that is found there. In form it is triangular, like Sicily; but the sides are unequal . . . but the other point called Balerium is four days' sail from the continent." This point is evidently either Land's End or Cape Cornwall. Now we shall speak something of the Tin that's dug and gotten there. They that inhabit the British Promontary of Balerium, by reason of their Converse with Merchants, are more civiliz'd and courteous to Strangers than the rest are. These are the People that make the Tin, which with a great deal of Care and Labour they dig out of the Ground; and that being Rocky the Mettle is mixt with some veins of Earth, out of which they melt the Mettle and then refine it. Then they heat it into four-square Pieces like to a Dye and carry it to a British isle, near at Hand, called Iktis" (St. Michael's Mount). "For at low Tide, all being dry between them and the Island, they convey over in Carts abundance of Tin in the meantime. But there's one thing peculiar to these islands, which lye between Britain and Europe; For at Full Sea they appear to be Islands, but at low water for a long way they look like so many peninsula's. Hence the merchants transport the Tin they buy of the inhabitants to France, and for thirty days journey they carry it in packs upon horses backs through France, to the mouth of the River Rhone. But this much concerning Tin.” 1 1 The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian. "Made English by G. Booth, of the City of Chester, Esq. London, MDCC." Page 185.

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For which, Diodorus, we owe thee many thanks, as you show us how far in advance at that early period was this part of Cornwall over the rest of Britain in commerce. While the remainder of this island of ours was peopled by half-naked savages, living on their flocks and herds, and internecine wars; clothed in skins, or only clothed in warpaint at times; while Paris was not; while the artistic cities of the Continent were primeval forests or swamps, peopled by lake-dwellers or savages, Land's End and Mount's Bay were peopled with industrious inhabitants living in little bee-hive huts, burying their great men in state under cromlechs, and not only forging their own weapons of metal, but bartering ingots of tin for the commodities of foreign parts. In general education the Cornishmen of those days must have been far in advance of their compatriots.

Herodotus, who wrote in 440 B.C., knew something of Cornwall from hearsay, for he says, "I have nothing certain to relate concerning the western bounds of Europe. I know as little of the islands called Cassiterides from the tin, which is thence imported amongst us." Here again notice, it was tin which in those early days made Britain known to ancient civilisation; not oysters, as some have said, and certainly not coal.

If Cornwall (and the Scilly Isles) supplied the ancient world with tin, as seems most probable, then it follows that the tin mentioned in the Bible came from the county. “Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs" (Ezek. xXVII. 12).1

If it be true that the tin of the Bible came from Cornwall, as most think who have studied the subject, how it exalts our estimate of the county, and of the mining industry which is its leading characteristic! The picture of the arrival of the merchants is thus graphically drawn by Mr. LachSzyrma: "Lo! to the south, ships are coming,-strange quaint, beaked galleys, with bronzed Jewish-looking crews in long Asiatic robes! They enter the Bay and make for the Mount, the appointed emporium of their trade with the natives, who are jealous of the foreigners landing on

1 Also Num. XXXI. 22; Isa. 1. 25; Ezek. xxii. 18, 20.

t

the mainland. Out of the bee-hive huts, now stream to the shore little crowds of the natives. They are a fair-skinned, bright-coloured people, and talk in a quaint Celtic language. Their dress is very queer, long black cloaks and tunics reaching to the feet, girt about the breast,' and they are 'walking with staves' in their hands. They make for the Mount; and lead with them their hardy little horses, laden with blocks of tin. These they barter with the Jewishlooking Merchants for money, clothes and pottery."

It is, therefore, to the element and metal tin that Cornwall, from the earliest times of which we have any records, owes its pristine distinctive peculiarities. The commercial spirit which began at so early a period to be associated with Cornwall in conjunction with business capacity and training has never lapsed. Shrewdness, intelligence, directness of purpose, hospitality, are among the characteristics still noticeable in Cornwall, all of which, no doubt, are the fruit of the county's early participations in business.

But I have no doubt this early trading with the ancient civilised world was also the indirect cause of the introduction of the delight in athletics which the inhabitants of Penwith have always displayed. The amphitheatre also came in its inception from Rome. The wrestling and hurling matches also may have been introduced by the Roman warriors, who landed at the havens of Cornwall. This love of sports is recognised by Macaulay, in his History of England, as is also the clannishness of Cornishmen. "The people of Cornwall, a fierce, bold, athletic race, among whom there was a stronger provincial feeling than in any other part of the realm," were greatly moved by the danger of Trelawney, whom they honoured less as a ruler of the Church than as the head of an honourable house, and the heir through twenty descents of ancestors, who had been of great note before the Normans had set foot on English ground. It was then that the feeling of Cornwall broke forth into a stirring song, of which the burden is still remembered:

"And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die?

Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why." But the counties differ remarkably not only in the character of the people, and their physiognomy and expression, but also in other directions.