There is a good deal of history in Cornwall. Some may be read in
stones, and some in books. The stone reading is very interesting to
those who like it, and affords a good scope for imagination. Without
imagination, stone reading is a trifle dull. Stones are everywhere at
the Land's End and Lizard--some are stationary, and some "rock," and
all are weather-worn. The Bookworm had a trick of running his hands
over the surfaces of pre-historic monuments, like a blind man reading.
It was just a fancy of his that he was shaking hands with antiquity.
Our Mr. Square-set put his pencil mark in our Murray against what is
called the "show-stones," and he couldn't tell us much more than we
could find out for ourselves. We thought it best to let ancient stone
history alone until we had a dull Sunday, or a wet day; and look out
for what was nearer our own times.
We found that the Cornishman's motto is "One and All," and that
"One" comes first, so he says, "I and the King;" and, when he speaks
geographically, it is Cornwall first, then England, and then the rest.
Formerly, everything outside of England was Cornwall, but he is not so
sure now. However, he always takes a bit of the old county with him
when he travels, so that the piskies may find him. A Cornishman abroad
is given to "wishtness," and so he gets up clubs in London and other
places, and talks of pasties and cream, blue skies and sapphire seas,
and sings "Trelawney," and dances the "Flurry" dance, and One and All's
it generally.
The Cornish had their own kings and queens--and as the kings were
liberal to themselves in the matter of queens, they were not always
happy. The Bookworm helped us a good deal at times, and told us that
the ancient kings were not much given to diplomatic correspondence, nor
to the keeping of "memorials of the reign," so that modern historians
had a pretty free hand. The kings, however, must have been numerous at
one time, as there was a king at Gweek and another at Marazion--as
thick as tenants on a gentleman's estate. Cornish history had, however,
been worked up by poets, and the characters of the old kings drawn
by Tennyson and Kingsley were not too amiable. There was Tennyson's
Cornish king, who had an uncomfortable way of sneaking round on tiptoe
and striking a man in the back. The poet had not made allowance for
the fact that King Modred lived in days before private inquiry offices
were invented, and so was obliged to do his own dirty work, instead
of employing a professional spy at per hour and expenses. For real
knowledge of Cornish kings, Kingsley whips creation. Listen!
"Fat was the feasting, and loud was the harping, in the halls of Alef,
King of Gweek." There was going to be a wedding, so that may pass. Then
we come to details worthy of the poet historian: "Savory was the smell
of fried pilchard and hake; more savory still that of roast porpoise;
most savory of all that of fifty huge squab pies, built up of layers of
apples, bacon, onions, and mutton, and at the bottom of each a squab,
or young cormorant, which diffused both through the pie and through
the ambient air, a delicate odour of mingled guano and polecat." There
was a little toddy, of course, to wash it down, and a few songs with
harp accompaniment, and the bride, being properly elated with the
perfume of "guano and polecat," was very civil, and, being a princess
in her own right, and queen of Marazion, gave the vocalist a ring to
remember her by. The next morning the newly-wedded pair start off on
their honeymoon, and this is what happens. The King of Marazion grips
his bride's arm until she screams, and says, "And you shall pass your
bridal night in my dog-kennel, after my dog-whip has taught you not to
give rings again to wandering harpers."
Tennyson and Kingsley have been read pretty generally by men and
women of the Anglo-Saxon race, and some people may even think that
the Cornish kings were like these portraits, and fed upon "guano
and polecat" flavoured pies, and whipped their brides to sleep in
dog-kennels in their bridal garments. Poets have always been privileged.
There were Cornish "kings," of course, just as there were Cornish
"saints" and a Cornish language, and all three played their little
parts, and went off the stage, without even the lights being turned
down for them. With regard to the kings, this seemed to have happened:
when the local rates and taxes were getting too high, and trouble was
brewing about the Education Act, the kings saw that they must go under,
and gave way to a Duke. Edward the Black Prince, having won his spurs
in the Crusades, the kings asked him to take over what they could no
longer keep, or didn't want, and so, "like a Cornishman's gift, what he
does not want for himself" became a proverb. The proverb may be relied
on as authentic. The Prince of Wales has been the Duke of Cornwall
ever since, so the Cornish people have had a very close connection
with royalty from pre-historic times, as the Bookworm discovered; then
through Kingsley's "guano and polecat" period, and then from Edward the
Black Prince down to the present, which we can verify for ourselves
every year, when the Duchy accounts are published, and the ancient
tribute passes into the noble Duke's banking account. History loses
much of its charm for poets and romantic souls when it enters the
prosaic region of banker's ledger and cheque book, but this sort of
prose has advantages.
The Cornish had a long way to walk when they wanted just to talk
matters over with their sovereign. They went in their thousands to
London on several occasions when things were not to their liking, and
the late Queen was the first sovereign of the realm to come into the
county and "God bless" the people on their own doorsteps. Charles I.
came into the county under very peculiar circumstances, and, though he
was qualifying for martyrdom, he found time to write a very handsome
letter of thanks "to the Inhabitants of the county of Cornwall" for
giving the Cromwelliams more than they bargained for, or wanted even,
on several occasions. This letter is still to be found painted on
boards in parish churches, and as conspicuously placed as the Lord's
Prayer or the Ten Commandments. The practice of reading the letter in
churches and chapels has long been discontinued, but the testimony to
unselfish devotion and gallant defence of a sovereign whose star was
setting in blood remains.
Good Queen Bess rather liked Cornishmen, or said she did, which
answered the same purpose. She said that "Cornish gentlemen were all
born courtiers, with a becoming confidence," two qualities which
naturally attracted her as woman and lady. Climate probably has
something to do with native politeness, and that is why the Eastern
races are so civil to one another.
The people are like Japs for politeness to one another on a deal. When
a man is drawing the long bow and coming it too strong, the other
fellow will say, "I wonder if it is so," with the slightest possible
accent of suspicion in his tone. We were present when two men were
trying to make a deal in horseflesh, "halter for halter," as the
saying is. The owner of a weedy-looking chestnut wished to swop with
the owner of a useful black cob, and his rhetoric was florid. Sometimes
he drew on his imagination in praise of the chestnut, and the owner
of the black cob would say, "I wonder now," just by way of note of
admiration. Then the chestnut's owner, growing bolder and more vigorous
in his style, garnished his language with many fancy words, and wound
up by asking, "Doan't 'ee believe me?" And the other man replied, as
politely as a Chesterfield, "I'll believe 'ee to oblige 'ee." The
Foreign Office couldn't beat it.
[Illustration: PADSTOW.]
The Bookworm discovered that Cornwall had somehow linked itself with
great names in history, or, rather, that some great names had linked
themselves with Cornwall, using her as a gallant for a season, and
then passing out of her life. Camelford had three successful wooers in
Lord Lansdowne, Lord Brougham, and "Ossian" Macpherson; Lostwithiel
was wooed and won by Joseph Addison; then Horace Walpole, jilted at
Callington, made up to East Looe, still attractive, when the great Lord
Palmerston came along with a buttonhole in his coat and the blarney.
Then John Hampden found a first love in Grampound, and Sir Francis
Drake a soft place in the bosom of Bossiney, a mere village close to
the angry roar of Tintagel's sea. But all these seats were mere lights
o' love, and some were swept away on account of their dissoluteness
before the great Reform Bill, and then the rest went, and none were
remembered on account of their gallant political lovers. Guy said it
didn't make a bit of difference what the constituency was, or where, so
long as the man was right. He saw a great many advantages in the old
pocket borough; and if he ever went into Parliament (which he might) as
a stepping-stone to the Woolsack (like the veteran Lord Chancellor, who
found comfortable quarters at Launceston), he'd like to have the fewest
number of constituents, and those all of one mind. But the Bookworm
would not have it that way, and stuck to his guns that it was the
constituency which really had a seat in Parliament, and constituency
and member were one and indivisible; and when not, there was failure
somewhere in first principles. The Bookworm always takes these things
so seriously, Guy says.
[Illustration: COTTAGE, ST IVES.]