Page:The ancient language, and the dialect of Cornwall.djvu/30

10 I had scarcely said or thought anything more about this matter, till last summer, (1772) having mentioned it to some Cornish people, I found that they could not credit that any person had existed within these few years, who could speak their native language ; and therefore, though I imagined there was but a small chance of Dolly Pentreath continuing to live, yet I wrote to the president then in Devonshire, to desire that he would make some inquiry with regard to her ; and he was so obliging as to procure me information from a gentleman whose house was within three miles of Mousehole, a considerable part of whose letter I shall subjoin. ' Dolly Pentreath is short of stature, and bends very much with old age, being in her eighty-seventh year; so lusty however as to walk hither, to Castle Horneck, about three miles, in bad weather, in the morning and back again. She is somewhat deaf, but her intellects seemingly not impaired ; has a memory so good, that she remembers perfectly well, that about four or five years ago, at Mousehole, where she lives, she was sent for by a gentleman, who being a stranger, had a curiosity to hear the Cornish language, w^hich she was famed for retaining and speaking fluently ; and that the inkeeper where the gentleman came from, attended him. (This gentleman, says Daines Barrington, ^^ was my- self; however I did not presume to send for her, but waited upon her.") She does indeed talk Cornish as readily as others do English, being bred up from a child to know no other language; nor could she (if we may believe her) talk a