Page:The ancient language, and the dialect of Cornwall.djvu/28

 8 were then alive who could hold a conversation in Cornish on common topics, is plain from accounts of a subsequent date, to which we shall refer." In the year 1768, the Hon. Daines Barrington, brother of Captain, afterwards Admiral Barrington, went into Cornwall to ascertain whether the Cornish lanouao:e had entirely ceased or not, and in a letter written to John Lloyd, Esq., F.S.A., a few years after, viz. on March 31, 1773, he gives the following as the result of his journey, and as it refers to old Dolly Pentreath, a name so well known not only in, but out of Cornwall, it is well worth quoting. Says Mr. Barrington, ^^I set out from Penzance how- ever with the landlord of the principal inn for my guide, towards Sennen, or the most western point; and when I approached the village, I said that there must probably be some remains of the language in those parts, if anywhere, as the village was in the road to no place whatever ; and the only alehouse announced itself to be the last in England. My guide however told me that I should be disap- pointed ; but that if I would ride about ten miles about in my return to Penzance he would conduct me to a village called Mousehole, on the western side of Mount's Bay, where there was an old woman called Dolly Pentreath, who could speak Cornish fluently. While we were trav- elling together towards Mousehole, I enquired how he knew that this woman spoke Cornish; when he informed me, that he frequently went from Penzance to Mousehole to buy fish, which were sold by her; and that when he did