As regards the principle on which the lives have been selected of those who, amongst others, have been worthiest 'in arms, in arts, in song,' I may say that I have endeavoured to find such names as would be, in the first place, of sufficient importance to warrant their claims to notice being brought before the public; secondly, to make the selection as varied in character as possible; and, thirdly, to choose such as were likely to prove interesting to the general reader: for even biography itself--said by Librarians to be one of the most popular branches of the _belles lettres_--must prove uninteresting if dull subjects are dully treated. I earnestly trust that I have not fallen into this fatal error. It might have been interesting to have said something of many mighty names of the past; even though numbers of them are scarcely more than legendary. Amongst others, of St. Ursula in the fourth century, 'daughter of the Cornish King Dionutus,' and Directress of the celebrated expedition of the 'eleven thousand virgins' to Cologne; of King Arthur himself; of Walter de Constantiis, Chancellor of England, and Chief Justice, in the twelfth century; of Thomas, and St. George, and Richard, and Godfrey, of Cornwall; of Odo de Tregarrick in Roche; of Simon de Thurway; of John de Trevisa,[2] the fourteenth-century scholar and divine, who was supposed to have translated part of the Bible into English; ('a daring work,' as Fuller says, 'for a private person in that age without particular command from Pope or Public Council'); and of that Syr Roger Wallyoborow, of Buryan, who, in the time of Henry VIII., 'miraculously brought home from the Holy Land a piece of the true Cross.' There are, besides, many others of later date, whose names I should have liked, but for the reasons already given, to include; such as the Bonythons;[3] the Carews; Sir John Eliot, the Patriot; Dean Miller; the Molesworths; the Edgcumbes of Mount Edgcumbe; Noy, Charles I.'s Attorney-General; Dean Prideaux; the Rashleighs; the Robarteses; the Trelawnys; the Tremaynes; and the Trevanions;--beside those whose loss to Cornwall Dr. Borlase lamented; and many others. But there were few reliable materials for the first-named group: authentic accounts of the deeds of the legendary ancients have faded away into the 'dark backward and abysm of time;' and mere legends it was hardly worth while to perpetuate. Nor did it seem desirable to include a bare list of names, or repetitions of lives of a generally similar character; in which case the actors' names would often have been the chief variations in what was intended to be a readable, fireside book. In short, I have aimed at making my list representative rather than exhaustive.