The question has often been asked, 'Why is there for Cornwall no
companion-book to Prince's "Worthies of Devon"?' Fuller, it is true,
in his 'Worthies,' allots a section to Cornwall; but the notices,
though pregnant with shrewd humour, are slight and incomplete; and
Fuller, of course, is now out of date: indeed, most of the Cornishmen
whose names will be found in the following pages lived since his
time. The Rev. R. Polwhele, of Polwhele, one of the historians of
his native county, has certainly left us some amusing notices in his
'Biographical Sketches;' but out of the sixty names that he enumerates,
'all-eating Time hath left us but a little morsel (for manners) of
their memories;' and some half-dozen only seem to be 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.'