Herein we must complain also of another new neglect to our speech, that the like care was not taken for us as for our brethren in Wales, in the making of the late act of Parliament for the uniformity of the Common Prayer, by which the five Bishops for Wales were commanded to see the Service Book to be printed in the Welch tongue. If it had been so here it had been a good counterpoise for the loss formerly mentioned concerning the young people; this might also perhaps have saved us some labour in this our undertaking, and it would have been of good use for some of our[42] old folks also, for we have some among these few that do speak Cornish, who do not understand a word of English, as well as those in Wales, and those may be many in some of the western parts, to whom Mr. Francis Robinson, parson of Landawednack told me, he had preached a sermon not long since in the Cornish tongue, only well understood by his auditory. This should have been taken into consideration by our gentlemen burgesses in that and other Parliaments, and by our bishops also; but better it had been if our ancient bishops when they fled hither from their invaders, had brought with them a character of their ancient speech, or left books written therein; or, in defect thereof, they or any other had done for us as Ulphius the bishop did for the Goths when they came to be seated in Italy, who there invented new Gothic letters for his people, and translated the Holy Scriptures into that language for them. This indeed had deserved our greatest thanks from our bishops, as no doubt they had them from those persons who received so great a benefit by their former and latter kindness therein; nor let that good old bishop Ulphius be censured (as he seems to be) for doing a superfluous work, because he might perhaps know that the then service of the church was celebrated in the Greek and Latin tongues, but rather let him be commended for his zeal in religion, and his love to his country and to his country people then with him, dwelling with strangers in another land, that continued so mindful of them and their speech, as we have been neglectful of ours. He by that means continued that tongue in use; we by his example might have regained ours, if the like care had been taken; but our people, as I have heard, in Queen Elizabeth’s time, desired that the Common Liturgy should be in the English tongue, to which they were then for novelty’s sake affected, not out of true judgment desired it. But, besides negligence, fatality is to be considered; fatality is a boundary beyond which nothing can pass; it hath been eminent in kingdoms and states, and those have had commonly fatal periods, as to a time determined five hundred years commonly. But more usual it is, that upon such mutations of kingdoms there have happened losses and mutations of tongues; it may therefore be the more wondered at, that this of the British, being none of the learned