“‘Dolly Pentreath is short of figure 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 intellect seemingly not impaired.... 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 talk a word of English before she was past twenty years of age, as, her father being a fisherman, she was sent with fish to Penzance at twelve years old, and sold them in the Cornish language, which the inhabitants in general, even the gentry, did then well understand. She is positive, however, that there is neither in Mousehole, nor in any other part of the county, any other person who knows anything of it, or at least can converse in it. She is poor, and maintained partly by the parish, and partly by fortune-telling and gabbling Cornish.’” A monument has been erected to her memory by Prince Lucien Bonaparte. She died on December 26th, 1777, and was buried in January, 1778. The following epitaph was written for her:-- _Cornish._ “Coth Doll Pentreath caus ha deau; Marow ha kledyz ed Paul plêa:-- Na ed an egloz, gan pobel brâs, Bes ed egloz-hay coth Dolly es.” _English._ “Old Doll Pentreath, one hundred aged and two, Deceased, and buried in Paul parish too:-- Not in the church, with people great and high, But in the church-yard doth old Dolly lie.” A word may here be added relative to the Cornish tongue. The Celtic language is divided into two branches, one represented by the Irish and Gaelic of North Scotland, and this is called the Goidhelic, or Gaelic; the other by the Welsh, old Cornish, and Breton, and this is called the Brythonic. The main distinction between them consists in the Gaelic employing _k_ or the hard _c_ where the Welsh and Cornish would use _p_. Thus _pen_ is used in the latter, and _ken_ in the former. When the Irish adopted the word _purpur_, purple, they changed it into _corcair_; and when they took the low Latin _premter_ for presbyter into their language they twisted it into _crumthir_. The Cornish was identical with old Welsh, and the Breton was originally identical with the Cornish; but in course of time some changes grew up differentiating the tongues, and forming dialects derived from the same mother tongue, that is all. In or about 1540 Dr. Moreman, vicar of Menheniot, in the east of the county, was the first to teach the people the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Commandments in English.