Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/131

FROM FALMOUTH TO THE LIZARD 125 the Cornishe men have much conformed them- selves to the use of the EngKsh tongue, and their English is equal to the best, especially in the eastern parts. In the weste parts of the countrye, in the hundreds of Penwith and Kirrier, the Cornishe tongue is most in use amongste the inhabitants." A little later, a loyal Cornishman bewailed •' our Cornish tongue has been so long on the wane that we can hardly hope to see it increase again ; for, as English first confined it within this narrow country, so it still presses on, leaving it no place but about the cliffs and sea, it being now almost only spoken from the Land's End to the Mount, and again from the Lizard towards Helston and Falmouth." The inevitable happened, just as somewhat the same process has taken place in Wales, in Ireland, and in the Scottish Highlands. In these three countries the old tongue had the aid of a power- ful literature. Welsh and Erse may be very long in dying out, as we hope they will be ; yet nothing can prevent the people of Wales and Ireland becoming bi-lingual, and this can only have one ultimate result. Commercially, a single language is necessary to the nation, and there has never been any doubt as to which that lan- guage must be. And some of those who cling to their vernacular as a proof of their Celticism may be making a great mistake ; speech is never a proof of race, and survivals of other blood than Celtic adopted dialects of the Celtic speech.