For to his mind the events he relates are true, and the mighty men he brings before us, from Brennus to Caractacus, as real as any Beduin he hobnobbed with in Arabia Deserta. Perhaps it is even odder, with regard to this epic, which is undoubtedly the greatest piece of literature the young century has produced, that it should be the work of an Irishman, and from beginning to end a glorification of the Celts, yet wholly and intensely Saxon in its character, with no trace of that special quality which distinguishes the Celtic imagination.
To return. The speech of the Cornish people is another subject about which erroneous ideas may be got from reading. Norden wrote that the native language was declining in his day, and adds: "But of late the Cornishe men have much conformed themselves to the use of the Englishe toung and their Englishe is equall to the beste." There is no doubt that he was speaking of the gentry, but hasty makers of books who came after him took it to mean that the people generally spoke good English, and this statement has been repeated in books down to the present day. Andrew Borde, in his Bohe of the Introduction of Knoledge, 1542, wrote: "In Cornwall is two speeches, the one is naughty Englische, and the other Cornysshe speeche." The last has been long dead, and dead will remain in spite of the efforts of one enthusiast who hopes to revive it and has actually written a sonnet in Cornish just to prove that it can be done; but "naughty Englische" is still generally spoken, though very much less naughty than the "proper Cornish" which I have described as quite unintelligible to a stranger.
It was explained to me by a gentleman, resident for many years in West Cornwall, a student of the people, that they have two distinct ways of speaking, especially in the villages along the coast and in places much frequented by visitors. In speaking to strangers they enunciate their words with deliberation so as to be understood, and those among them who have a good deal of practice succeed very well; but among themselves they speak in a hurried manner, slurring over or omitting half the syllables in half the words, so that it is most difficult to follow them. I am convinced from my own observation that he is right. I have sat conversing with a knot of fishermen, and after a while become silent, pretending to fall into a brown study while listening all the time, and they, seeing me absorbed in my own thoughts, as they imagined, have dropped quite naturally into their own familiar lingo.