occasioned by this practice: it having come to the turn of one of the actors to go on the stage, the ordinary said, “Goe forth, man, and shew thy selfe.” The actor, from ignorance, or more probably from a sort of Listonian affected stupidity, stepped forward, made his bow (if bows were then in fashion) and repeated, “Goe forth, man, and shew thy selfe.” The ordinary whispered in his ear, “Oh, you marre all the play.” The actor, with appropriate gesture, repeated aloud, “Oh, you marre all the play.” The prompter then lost his patience, and reviled him with all the bitter terms he could think of, which the actor invariably repeated aloud with a steady serious countenance, as if engaged in the most solemn performance. The ordinary was at last obliged to give over, and the assembly, according to Carew, received “ a great deale more sport and laughter than 20 such guaries could have afforded.”
Borlase, in his “Natural History of the County,” mention three Cornish interludes of the 15th century, in the Bodleian Library: the 1st, containing “The Creation of the World;“ the 2nd, “The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ;“ and the 3rd, “The Resurrection.” “The Creation of the World,” by William Jordan, was written by him in 1611. He was a Helstone man; but whether the same Jordan who officiated as a sort of city poet laureate about the same time, does not appear.[1]
The original language of the county became obsolete probably full a century since, and for a long time previous to that, had not been the prevalent
- ↑ The Shakspearian reader will he amused in this Cornish Interlude to find the expression “Tely valy” used as an exclamation, which will remind him of ‘Tillie Vallie Lady,” &c.; but the language in which it is written does not appeal’ to be pure old Cornish.
