after having taken one view of the unbounded prospect, withdraw from the extreme rock, lest their senses should be overpowered by the awfulness of the scene. They discerned the Scilly islands at the distance of twenty-seven miles, and had more immediately before them the Long-Ships; a range of rocks which were formerly the scene of repeated ship-wrecks, but of late years have been much less dangerous, since the erection of a light-house on the central rock. The view of these striking objects of nature compensated the disappointment which they had experienced in regard to several works of art, many of the mines being shut up on account of the stagnation produced in the copper-trade by the war. They felt this disappointment most at the celebrated Wherry-mine, situated about half a mile from Penzance which having been worked a great way under the bed of the sea, the descent to it takes place through an immense iron chimney, fixed in the midst of the waves, and raised about twelve feet above their level; — a narrow platform leading from the beach to the mouth of this maritime entrance.

In regard to the character of the Cornish miners, we felt considerable solicitude to hear the testimony of Mr. Warner. Knowing the revolution produced of late years in their morals, as well as in those of our colliers, by the indefatigable zeal of the Methodists, we were desirous to observe in what terms the conduct of these sectaries would be described by a member of the Church; and we had the satisfaction to find the same liberality on the author's part in this as in other instances. We extract his account of the occupation and disposition of the miners:

We observed a few circumstances in their character as a body, which appeared to distinguish them from all other tribes of workmen that had before fallen under our notice. These peculiarities naturally arise from the nature of their employment, which is altogether unlike that of the labouring classes in general throughout the kingdom. The expence of sinking the shafts, and cutting the adits, or courses by which part of the water is drained from the mines, lies with the adven turers, who furnish also the machinery for the works. The lode is then taken by the miners on tribute, as it is called, or in other words, on speculation; an agreement by which they undertake to drive the vein and raise the ore, (finding their own tools, candles, gunpowder, &c.) on the condition of their receiving a certain proportion of the profits on the copper or tin produced and sold, be it little or much; a proportion which is determined and accounted for every month. This circumstance of the uncertainty of their gains has a marked effect upon their character. The activity which hope inspires keeps their spirits in an agreeable agitation, renders their minds lively and alert, and prevents that dulness which generally characterizes the English labourer. Should success crown their speculation, it is needless to say that joy is the result; but if it terminate otherwise, the expect

ation of a more fortunate take holds out its never-failing consolations to them, and the charm of perspective good fortune quickly banishes all the gloom of present disappointment. They cannot be distressed by want, as the adventurers always make an advance to them after an unlucky attempt, to provide immediate necessaries for themselves and families; and thus relieved from a care which deadens all the energies of a common labourer under misfortune, and bows him down to the dust, they proceed to a second experiment with unabated ardour, and undiminished spirits. As their profits are regulated by proportions, and determined by calculations, their interest naturally leads them to become conversant with numbers; and there are scarcely any of them who are not acquainted with the lower branches of arithmetic. The various machinery too employed in the mines directs their attention so much to the mechanical powers, that it is rare to meet with a good miner who is not also a decent practical geometrician. They are men also of very correct judgment, particularly on the subject of their own work; a faculty of peculiar importance to them in appreciating their labour, when it is to be performed at settled wages. By a recollection and comparison of the results of former experience, when a miner is taken to a spot to sink a shaft, he knows at a glance at what rate per fathom he ought to be paid for his labour, and makes his agreement accordingly; a bargain that is seldom found to give any disproportionate advantage either to his employers or himself. The moral habits of the miners are not less respectable, in general, than their intellectual ones. We were told, by the most unquestionable authority, that they are civil and respectful in their manners, and sober and decent in their conduct. Early marriage, that surest guardian of virtue, and best spur of honest industry, is very general amongst the Cornish miners, and naturally introduces with it continence, regularity, and domestic habits. Instances of ebriety will of course occasionally occur amongst such numbers: but drunkenness is by no means a practice with them. Their chief beverages are water and tea, of which they are so fond, that many of them drink it with their dinners. They live in cottages, either rented, or erected by themselves; for as soon as a miner has saved a Jittle from the profits of his labour, he incloses a small piece of waste land, builds a tenement, plants a pittance of ground for a garden, and becomes proprietor of the spot on which he dwells. Here he lives upon his gains, (which, when copper sells well, may amount, upon an average, to about 51. per month,) in comfort, and generally with credit; if not an object of envy, one at least which the political œconomist may contemplate with improvement, the moralist with pleasure, and the philanthropist with delight. Nor let it be forgotten, that the religious sentiment is pretty universally diffused amongst them, producing those good fruits of quiet, decency, and order, which will inevitably more or less accompany a knowlege of its sublime truths and awful sanctions.' The customs which, some years ago, brutalized the miners of Cornwall, and kept them in a state little better than that of savages, are now, in a great measure, exploded; the desperate wrestling matches, for prizes, that frequently terminated in death or mutilation; the inhuman cock-fights,

which robbed the miners of what little feeling they possessed, and often left them plunged in debt and ruin; the pitched battles which were fought between the workmen of different mines or different parishes, and constantly ended in blood; and the riotous revelings held on particular days, when the gains of labour were always dissipated in the most brutal debauchery, are now of very rare occurrence, and will probably, in the course of a few years, be only remembered in tradition; the spots where these scenes of disorder were held, being now inclosed, and a great part of them covered with the habita tions of the miners. You will naturally enquire who have been the immediate instruments of so much good, in a district so unlikely to exhibit such gratifying appearances? and I feel that I am but doing justice to a class of people, much, though undeservedly calumniated, when I answer, the Wesleian Methodists. With a zeal that ought to put to the blush men of higher pretensions, these indefatigable servants of their master have penetrated into the wilds of the mines, and, unappalled by danger or difficulty, careless of abuse or derision, and inflexible in the good work they had undertaken, they have perseveringly taught, gradually reclaimed, and at length, I may almost venture to say, completely reformed a large body of men, who, without their exertions, would probably have still been immersed in the deepest spiritual darkness, and the grossest moral turpitude.'

Our chief objections to Mr. Warner originate in his diffuse style, and too copious insertions from the works of others. Borlase's natural history of Cornwall, and Dr. Maton's Observations on the Western counties, are ransacked with an unsparing hand; and extracts are sometimes inserted at length, when a brief summary of the substance might have sufficed. The passages in the book which have chiefly put our patience to the proof are the prolix account of St. Michael's Mount, the uninteresting research into the early ages of the tin-trade, and a long examination (p. 239.) of the etymology of the insignificant town of Redruth. In a writer less fluent than Mr. Warner in original composition, we should have been apt to set down these heavy draughts from brother authors as expedients for swelling the volume to the bookseller's size. We would advise him also to retrench all common-place quotations, and to take for granted that his readers are already apprized of such matters as (p. 240.) that Smithfield is the great carcase-. mart of the metropolis.' After these deductions, we may venture to promise Mr. Warner's readers a considerable share of instruction and entertainment. His store of erudition is extensive, and his style is animated and perspicuous. He discovers, moreover, a good portion of ingenuity in deciding antiquarian difficulties; such, for example, as the difference between Cornwall and Wiltshire in regard to sepulchral monuments. the latter county, they consist of earthen tumuli or barrows :

In

in the former, of heaps of stones called cairns. The white chalk of Wiltshire, says Mr. Warner, furnished, when piled into a mound, a tomb much more conspicuous than it was possible to raise from the dingy and scanty soil of the Cornish hills. Recourse, therefore, was had to accumulations of stones of the same kind as those which are still so frequently seen on the hills of Scotland, and which evidently owe their origin to a similar cause. In mentioning Scotland, we are reminded of another point of resemblance between the Highlands and Cornwall, of a very different kind indeed from the foregoing, but not undeserving of notice; we mean the abundant supply of both in the important article of fish. The pilchard is to the one what the herring is to the other; and we know no other part of the British dominions that is possessed of equal resources against the pressure of scarcity.

Mr. Warner's route in advancing was along the eastern shore of Cornwall, and his return was by the west. To his chapters he is in the habit of prefixing a sketch (cut in wood) of the road expressing the several stages, which compensates in some measure for the want of a general map. — We shall conclude this article by a short extract from his remarks on the relics of the Cornish language:

So late as the time of Henry VIII. it was the universal dialect of the county, and Dr. John Moreman, vicar of Menhynnet, towards the conclusion of that reign, was the first who taught his parishioners the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments, in the English tongue. It is a curious exception to that general rule of the attachment manifested by nations or provinces to their vernacular language, that the Cornish, at the Reformation, requested to have the Liturgy in English, rather than in their mother tongue. The request was complied with, and the service in most places performed thenceforth in English. A few parishes, however, patriotically preferred their native dialect; and, in 1640, Mr. William Jackson, vicar of Pheoke, found himself under the necessity of administering the sacrament in Cornish, as his parishioners understood no other language. From this period its limits were gradually circum. scribed, at its trade and intercourse with England increased; so that a century since it was only to be found, as a vehicle of conversation, amongst the inhabitants of Paul's and St. Just, in the western extremity of the county *. Mr. Daines Barrington made a journey

Mr. Ray, in his Itineraries, p. 281, tells us, "that Mr. Dickan Gwyn was considered as the only person who could then write in the Cornish language, and who lived in one of the most western parishes, called St. Just, where there were few but what could speak English; whilst few of the children also could speak Cornish, so that the language would soon be entirely lost."-Archeol. yol. iii. p. 279.

into Cornwall, in search of its remains, in 1768, but could find only one person, Dolly Pentreath, an old fisher-woman, at Mousehole, who spoke Cornish *. It is evident, from more recent researches, that his enquiries were not so successful as they might have been, had he possessed more knowledge than he did of the subject that engaged his attention; but their result may also convince us that forty years ago the faculty of speaking the language was exceedingly limited. Notwithstanding our most assiduous enquiries, we were unable to discover any one who spoke it at present; though, from Whitaker's account, we had no doubt that it still lurked in some hole or corner, arrived to the last fluttering pulse of its existence, and doomed probably to give up the ghost, without being again brought forward into public notice.'

The view of a Kistvaen in Breock, Cornwall, prefixed to the title, is the only plate which decorates this volume.

ART. IV.

By

Constance de Castile; a Poem, in Ten Cantos.
11. 5s. Boards. Cadell and

William Sotheby, Esq. 4to.
Davies. 1810.

THAT the translator of Virgil's Georgics, and of Wieland's Oberon, should imitate the style of a modern metrical romance, is a circumstance in itself sufficient to demand some portion of critical censure: but that his imitation should be totally deficient in that fancy and that vigour, which can alone compensate for the irregularity of the style in question, is indeed a cause for regret. The genius of our old and legiti mate poetry may exclaim to Mr. Sotheby, "Et tu Brute!"; and, assuredly, "this is the unkindest stab of all" which that insulted genius has received. When by education, custom, and habit, or by the natural bent of his abilities, a writer is rendered unable to conform to the dictates of a correct taste, and must appear, in all his original rudeness, " Imagination's chartered libertine," it is vain to expostulate with him who cannot amend; on the contrary, we should hail with enthusiasm

"The brave disorder of his meteor-course,"

and encourage him to continue dazzling us in his native sphere: - but to every poetical pretender, who has " the contortions of the Sybil without her inspiration," we must again and again exclaim,

"An, quodcunque facit Macenas, te quoque verum est,

Tanto dissimilem, et tanto certare minorem ?"

No aberrations from the established track can be permitted to mediocrity. The dull excentricities of bewildered ignorance

* She died in January 1778, at Mousehole, aged 102.' REY. OCT. 1819. L

must