Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/55

36 again from Gwavas, whose is the translation. It is in idiomatic late Cornish, in rather wild spelling.

3. Song on James II. and William of Orange, by John Tonkin of St Just, a tailor, who appears to have been a solitary Whig in a nation of Jacobites, as with very few exceptions the Cornish certainly were. It begins, "Menja tiz Kernuak buz galowas," and consists of fourteen four-lined stanzas of modern Cornish, probably composed in 1695, to Judge by the historical allusions. It is in the Gwavas MS. only, and has never been printed.

4. A song of moral advice by the same writer, beginning "Ni venja pea a munna seer," and consisting of seven four-lined stanzas, only one of which, beginning "An Prounter ni ez en Plew East," has been printed (from the Borlase MS.) in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall for 1866. The complete song is in the Gwavas MS., and has never been published.

5. A song beginning "Pelea era why moaz, moz, fettow, teag" (Where are you going, fair maid? he said). This consists of six four-lined stanzas, the second and fourth lines of each stanza being the burthen:—

"Gen agaz bedgeth gwin (or according to Borlase, Tonkin, and Gwavas, pedn du) ha agaz blew mellyn"

(With your white face, or black head, and your yellow hair)

and

"Rag delkiow sevi gwra muzi teag"

(For strawberry leaves make maidens fair).

The song was sung by one Edward Chirgwin or Chygwin, " brother-in-law to Mr. John Groze of Penzance, at Carclew, in 1698," as a note by T.