CORNISH WORTHIES to find a long list of men in the first rank of eminence. Cornwall none the less has a con- siderable roll-call of notables. The catalogue here given must necessarily be brief, and must be limited to those who belong to the duchy by birth or parentage ; no object is gained by naming persons who may at some time or other have visited or resided here. Cornwall has given to Britain one personage of world-wide fame — the great and semi- mythical Arthur — " That grey king whose name, a ghost, Streams Hke a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak, And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still ". But Arthur is not all a ghost, though Tennyson has made him so. No mere spectre of man's conjuring could show such vitality. Tristram also, sung by many poets, belonged to old Cornwall ; and Geraint, who was wedded to Enid. But this name of Geraint applies to several princes of the royal Damnonian stock, belonging equally to Devon and Cornwall. St. Ursula, noted for her numerous virgin comrades in pilgrimage, was Cornish, as was St. Constantine ; but the majority of Cornwall's saints were really Irish or Welsh. Among early scholars Cornwall can claim John and Michael, both known as " of Cornwall " ; Thurnay, Tregony, John de Trevisa and Walter of Exeter ; while later we have the noted historians and antiquarians, Richard Carew, Hals, Tonkin, Gilbert, Polwhele, and more than one Borlase. Polwhele was also a 51
