Page:The ancient language, and the dialect of Cornwall.djvu/49

 THE PEEFACE TO THE COENISH DICTIONAKY BY WILLIAMS. The following is the Preface already referred to as written for the Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum, by the Revd. Robert Williams, M.A., and dated 1865. "The object of the Editor in the compilation of this work was to collect and explain all the remains of the ancient British language of Cornwall, and by comparing the words with the synonyms in the cognate dialects to supply an acknowledged want in Celtic literature. The sources for the supply of material are very few, and may be briefly enumerated. The learned philologist Edward Lhuyd, in his Arch- seologia Britannica, (fol. Oxford, 1707;) first published a grammar of the Cornish language, as spoken in his time, being then in a state of corruption and decay. He also gave a promise of a Cornish vocabulary, which he did not live to accomplish. In 1769, (the present writer's copy is dated 1754, with a vocabulary) Dr. Borlase published a Cornish-English vocabulary, in his Antiquities of Cornwall, which is chiefly derived from Lhuyd. The next work published w^as the vocabulary of Dr. Pryce, in 1790, 4to. This is so full of errors that the Editor soon felt satisfied that Pryce was