Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/18

x tions to that period, without any communication with each other, which seems to have ceased soon after the first period above-mentioned. Mr. Tonkin himself says, speaking of Hals in the year 1739, 'it is between twenty-five and thirty years since I have seen any of his collections, and, I believe, at least twenty since I have seen him. I am told that he has greatly improved and polished them since that time; but as his method is quite different from mine, and that I have some other reasons not necessary to be mentioned for not corresponding with him, I can safely say, that in this present work of mine, I have not made use of one single line out of his compositions.' Mr. Tonkin, in one of his MSS. dated March 27th, 1733, desires that, 'if by death, or any other accident, his MSS. should fall into other hands, they would by no means publish them in the dress in which they then appeared, but be pleased to new-model them after the method followed in those few which had received his last corrections, such as at St. Agnes, St. Piran in the Sands, St. Michael-Penkevil,' etc. In 1737 he had made sufficient progress in his col- lections to enable him to put forth proposals, in which he announced the plan of his publication.

"In the year 1739, Mr. Tonkin had completed his MS. of the first part of his work, which was to treat of the county of Cornwall in general; his epistle dedicatory of that date is printed at the beginning of Lord de Dunstanville's edition of Carew, addressed to Sir William Carew, Bart. and Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart. then representatives in