Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/52

Rh unknown, but it mentions a little book called The Duchess of Cornwall's Progress, which the author says that he wrote "some years past" for his children, refers (though not by name) to John Keigwjn, who died in 1710, as being still alive, and does not mention Lhuyd's Grammar, published in 1707, so that we may infer that the date is somewhere about 1700. The Duchess of Cornwall's Progress, which had at least thirty pages (for he refers to the thirtieth page), was probably in English, with a few passages in Cornish, which Dr. Borlase, who had seen two copies of it, transcribed into his Cornish Collections. Judging from his letters and from this tract, John Boson was a man of considerable intelligence, and one about whom one would like to know more, and his Cornish writings are of more value than those of the somewhat pedantic Keigwin.

12. The Story of John of Chy-an-Hur.—This is a popular tale of some length, of a labouring man who lived at Chy-an-Hur, or the Ram's House, in St. Levan, and went east seeking work, and of what befell him. It is the Tale of the Three Advices, found in many forms. It appears first in Lhuyd's Grammar, printed in 1707, where it has a Welsh translation. Lhuyd says that it "was written about forty years since," which dates it circ. 1667. Part of it, undated, but in the hand of John Boson, occurs with an English translation in the Gwavas MS. (Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 28,554). This, as appears by a note on the back of the first leaf, was written out for Gwavas's instruction in Cornish. The spelling is altogether different from Lhuyd's. Another copy in Cornish of Lhuyd's spelling, with an English translation, is in the Borlase MS., copied from the lost MS. of Thomas Tonkin, with some corrections by Dr.. Borlase. It was printed with Lhuyd's Welsh and an