lia. Though the dance through
the streets to a special kind of hornpipe, in at the front doors and
out at the back, is still continued, the old spirit that actuated it
is dead--it has become very much of a make-believe, a show for
visitors, a galvanised custom that might as well be decently buried.

If we believed the guide-books, we might imagine that Cornish folk
were still a gay, childlike, merry-making people, carrying on the
customs of their forefathers, cherishing the old traditions, nursing
the old myths and superstitions, dreaming dreams and seeing visions.
Even writers who might know better try to present them as a race
apart, sharing to the full in that character of mysticism and vision
which is attributed to Celtic peoples. As a matter of fact the Cornish
are by no means gentle-minded simpletons nor poetic visionaries,
though, of course, there may be a few of either class among them; and
these nominally Celtic folk have no greater power of imagination than
the natives of other English counties nominally Saxon. There is a
strain of difference--something that is possibly pre-Celtic--something
at times sinister, passionate, incoherent; but there is nothing that
is more romantic, more thoughtful, than may be found in the average
countryman of the southern counties. We have all met delightful
Cornish people--hospitable, kindly, lovable; but, thank God, such are
to be met with elsewhere. It is not that the Cornish are to be
under-valued or slighted, but they are to be defended from the foolish
claims of casual visitors and the equally unwise assertions of some
natives. There is one grave charge that may be laid against the
people--Mr. W. H. Hudson made it in his beautiful book on the Land's
End: this is a charge of cruelty, especially against birds. There
could be no good in repeating this--it is never pleasant to say things
that sound unkind and perhaps uncharitable--unless it be that when the
people realise that certain practices are thought cruel by outsiders,
they may in time come to see the cruelty themselves. There is also the
supposed religiousness of Cornwall. From reading certain books we
might be led to imagine that Wesley found the Cornish savages and left
them Christians. He did a great deal certainly--let no one say a word
against that noble-hearted man. But the aspects of Wesley's teaching
that took chief root in Cornwall, as also in Wales, were just those
parts on which he himself would have laid lea