The first in order of time, the most interesting and most entertaining, is Mr. Carew. This work was first published in 1602, a second edition came out in 1723, and a third, chiefly through the exertions of the late Mr. John Price of Penzance, in 1769. But the edition far exceeding all the others, with highly valuable additions, and with copious notes, was given to the public in 1811 by the late Lord Dunstanville, in one vol. 4to, 457 pages, with an excellent engraving of the author, from a picture at Anthony. Mr. RICHARD CAREW was of a very ancient and respectable family; he inherited Anthony from a long line of ancestors, and has transmitted it to his descendants. Wood says, in the Athenæ Oxonienses, that he was born in the year 1555, became a gentleman commoner of Christ Church at a very early age, but had his chambers in Bradgate Hall (since Pembroke College), and that at fourteen he disputed, extempore, with Sir Philip Sidney, in the presence of several distinguished visitants to the university. After three years’ residence at Oxford, Mr. Carew removed to the Middle Temple, where he passed three years more, and then went with his uncle on an embassy to Poland. In the year 1577 Mr. Carew married Juliana Arundell, of Trerice, and served the office of Sheriff in 1586. It is recorded that he was intimate with most of the noted scholars of those times, and especially with Sir Henry Spelman. He died in November 1620, and is buried in his parish church of Anthony, (see the epitaph, p. xxiv). Mr. Carew’s life is given in considerable detail as an introduction to his History of Cornwall. He wrote and translated several other works; but they seem not to have survived. Soon after Mr. Carew’s History, Mr. JOHN NORDEN’S was composed, with the title of “Speculi Britanniæ Pars. A Topographical and Historical Description of Cornwall, by the Perambulation, View, and Delineation of John Norden.” This work has been well characterized by Mr. Tonkin, as “a mean performance, full of egregious mistakes, with most defective and erroneous maps of every hundred, yet containing several things in it not to be met with elsewhere.” Our next historian, but after a considerable interval of time, was Mr. WILLIAM SCAWEN, a fragment only of whose work is known to be extant, and which will appear in these volumes. He was of an ancient family, well educated, and possessed of an ample fortune. He represented St. German’s in Parliament, and received the appointment of Vice-Warden of the Stannaries, immediately after the Restoration of King Charles the Second. Of Mr. Hals and Mr. Tonkin I have not any better information than what is given by Mr. Lysons. He says: