But Mr. Whitaker would not have committed this error, if he had been heedful of a principle, observed in the composition of Cornish words, which can never be safely overlooked, in any attempt to investigate their meaning. The ancient names of places in Cornwall mostly consist of two substantive nouns, one of which has the force of an adjective, and qualifies the other: as _Penrose_, _Penpraze_, _Polwhele_. The component parts of such words have always been treated as if they had been associated by caprice, or accident; and the same elements have been represented as adjectives or substantives indifferently, according to the fancy or convenience of the interpreter. But in truth, the ingredients of all these compounds are combined and distinguished by a settled rule. It is generally supposed, that in all instances the word used substantively precedes that which is employed adjectively. In many cases, however, it does not: and as, therefore, the qualifying noun cannot with certainty be discovered by its position, they who suppose it to occupy uniformly the second place, can be right only by chance; and we are consequently to look for some other mark, by which it may be easily and invariably known. That mark is the _accent_. Thus we say _Pensáns_: and so, if we admit, what Mr. Whitaker supposes, that _Pen_ may signify a _hill_, and _sans_ a _bay_, the word in that case would mean the _Bay-hill_, and not as he says, the _Hill-bay_. But as this accent lives only in common speech, and the peculiarities of the English manner have already considerably disturbed it, those who have occasion to write any Cornish words, and especially the cultivators of our history and antiquities, should always mark the accented syllable: for there is no other way of making this rule of interpretation available; and of preventing perplexities for the time to come, still greater than those, which have already existed. But besides the natural and inevitable tendency of the predominant English to change the pronunciation of Cornish words, there is a kind of whim or fashion amongst some, who know nothing of these things, by which the corruption is wilfully hastened; and while they confidently say _Pénrose_, _Pénprase_, and _Nánkivel_, they presume to correct those, who with more knowledge or less affectation, are accustomed to speak otherwise. APPENDIX. X. TANNER’S NOTITIA MONASTICA FOR CORNWALL, FROM NASMITH’S EDITION, FOLIO, 1787, WITH ADDITIONS. (For these additions I am indebted to Sir Henry Ellis, F.R.S. Sec. S.A. one of the Editors of the New Edition of Dugdale’s Monasticon. EDIT.) I. ST. ANTONY, _or_ Antonine. In this county were two priories of this name, which are often confounded by some of our writers.