supposed to every country a singular genius) (a) I would therein join with the author. Howsoever, in this and all ix diòs dexóusta (b); and so I begin to you. As Amphitrite clips this island fortunate. When pope Clement VI. granted the fortunate isles to Lewis earl of Clermont, by that general name (meaning only the seven Canaries, and purposing their Christian conversion) the English ambassadors at Rome seriously doubted lest their own country had been comprised in the donation(c). They were Henry of Lancaster earl of Derby, Hugh Spenser, Ralph L. Stafford, the bishop of Oxford, and others, agents there with the pope, that be as a private friend, not as a judge or party interested, should determine of Edward the Third's right to France: where you have this ambassage in Walsingham (d), correct regnum Angliæ, and read Francia. Britain's excellence in earth and air (whence the Macares, and particularly Crete (e) among the Greeks, had their title) together with the pope's exactions, in taxing, collating, and provising of benefices (an intolerable wrong to laymen's inheritances and the crown-revenues) gave cause of this jealous conjecture; seconded in the conceit of them which derive Albion from "ßes (ƒ); where to the author in his title and this verse alludes. But of Albion more, presently. Amongst whose iron rocks grim Saturn yet remains. Fabulous Jupiter's ill dealing with his father Saturn, is well known; and that after deposing him, and his privities cut off, he perpetually imprisoned him. Homer (g) joins Japet with him, living in eternal night about the utmost ends of the Earth: which well fits the more northern climate of these islands. Of them (dispersed in the Deucalidonian sea) in one most temperate, of gentle air, and fragrant with sweetest odours, lying towards the northwest, it is reported(h), that Saturn lies bound in iron chains, kept by Briareus, attended by spirits, continually dreaming of Jupiter's projects, whereby his ministers prognosticate the secrets of Fate. Every thirty years, divers of the adjacent islanders with solemnity for success of the undertaken voyage, and competent provision, enter the vast seas,and at last, in this Saturnian isle (i) (by this name the sea is called also) enjoy the happy quiet of the place; some in studies of nature, and the mathematics, which continue; others in sensuality, which after thirty years return perhaps to their first home. This fabulous relation might be, and in part is, by chymies as well interpreted for mysteries of their art, as the common tale of (a) Rabbin. ad 10. Dan. Macrob. Saturnal. 3. e. 9. Symmach. epist. 40. 1. 1. D. Th. 2. dist. 10. art. 3. alii. | Dædalus' labyrinth, Jason and his Argonautics, and almost the whole chaos of mythic inventions. But neither geography (for I guess not where or what this isle should be, unless that des Mucræons (k) which Pantagruel discovered) nor the matter's self permits it less poetical (although a learned Greek father (?) out of some credulous historian seems to remember it) than the Elysian fields, which, with this, are always laid by Homer about the wiara wsigara yains (m); a place whereof too large liberty was given to feign, because of the difficult possibility in finding the truth. Only thus note seriously, that this revolution of thirty years (which with some latitude is Saturn's natural motion) is especially (n) noted for the longest period, or age also among our Druids; and that in a particular form, to be accounted yearly from the sixth moon, as their new years day; which circuit of time, divers of the ancients reckon for their generations in chronology; as store of authors (0) | show you. They instantly again do other bodies take. You cannot be without understanding of this Pythagorean opinion of transanination (I have like liberty to naturalize that word, as Lipsius had to make it a Roman, by turning μsriμfúxweis) (p) if ever you read any that speaks of Pythagoras (whom, for this particular, Epiphanius reckons among his heretics) or discourse largely of philosophical doctrine of the soul. But especially, if you affect it tempered with inviting pleasure, take Lucian's cock, and his Negromancy; if in serious discourse, Plato's Phædon, and Phædrus with his followers. Lipsius doubts (7) whether Pythagoras received it from the Druids, or they from him, because in his travels he convers'd as well with Gaulish as Indian Philosophers. Out of Cæsar and Lucan inform yourself with full testimony of this their opinion, too ordinary among the heathen and Jews also, which thought our (7) Saviour to be Jeremy or Elias upon this errour: irreligious indeed, yet such a one, as so strongly erected moving spirits, that they did never Upon affinity of Goropius thinks (m) Utmost ends of the earth. this with the Cape de Finisterre, the Elysian fields were by that promontory of Spain. Vide Strab. lib. y. (n) Plin. Hist. natur. 16. c. 44. (0) Eustath. ad Iliad. . Herodot. lib. . Suid. in v. Censorin. de die nat. c. 17. (P) A passing of souls from one to another. (g) Physiolog. Stoic. 1. 3. dissert. 12. (7) Just. Mart. dialog. (s) Spare in spending their lives, which they hoped to receive again. word) have been, altho' (mere human sufficienci's only considered) some of them were sublimate far above earthly conceit; as especially Hermes, Orpheus, Pythagoras, (first learning the soul's immortality of Pherecydes a Syrian) (1) Seneca, Plato and Plutarch; which last two, in a Greek hymn of an eastern bishop (u), are commended to Christ for such as came nearest to holiness of any untaught, Gentiles. Of the Druids more large in fitter place. Gave auswer from their caves, and took what shapes they please. In the Seam (an isle by the coast of the French Bretagne) nine virgins consecrate to perpetual chastity, were priests of a famous oracle, remembered by Mela. His printed books have Gallicenas vocant; where the great critic Turneb reads Galli zenas, or lenas vocant (x). But White of Basingstoke will have it cenas (y), as interpreting their profession and religion, which was in an arbitary metamorphosing themselves, charming the winds, (as of later time the witches of Lapland and Finland) skill in predictions, more than natural medicine, and such like; their kindness being in all chiefly to sailors (z). But finding that in the Syllies were also of both sexes such kind of professors, that there were Samnitæ (a), strangely superstitious in their Bacchanals, in an isle of this coast, (as is delivered by Strabo) and that the Gauls, Britons, Indians (twixt both whom and Pythagoras is found no small consent of doctrine) had their philosophers (under which name both priests and prophets of those times were included) called Samauæi (b), and Semni, and (perhaps by corruption of some of these) Samothei, which, to make it Greek, might be turned into Semnothes: I doubted whether some relic of these words remained in that of Mela, if you read Cenas or Senas (c), as contracted from Samanai; which by deduction from a root of some eastern tongue, might signify as much as what we call astrologers. But of this too much. Whose town unto the saints that lived here of yore. Not only to their own country saints (whose names are there very frequent) but also to the Irish a people anciently (according to the name of the Holy Island given to Ireland) (d) much devoted to, and by the English much respected for their holiness and learning. I omit their fabulous Cæsara, niece to Noah, their Bartholan (e), their Ruan, who, as they affirm, first planted religion before Christ among them: nor desire I your (y) Vain. (z) Solin, Polybist. c. 35. (a) 'Auvira Dionys. Afro in guy. multis, n. pro arbitrio antiquorum S litera adest vel abest. v. Casaubon, ad a. Strab. (b) Origen. zarà Kiλs. lib. a. Clem. Alex. strom., & B. Diog. Laert. lib. a. (e) Conjecture upon Mela. (d) Fest. Avieno insul. sacra dicta Hibernia. belief of this Ruan's age, which by their account (supposing him living 300 years after the flood, and christened by saint Patric) exceeded 1700 years, and so was elder than that impostor, whose feigned continuance of life and restless travels (f), ever since the passion, lately offered to deceive the credulous. Only thus I note out of venerable Bede, that in the Saxon times, it was usual for the English and Gaulish to make Ireland as it were, both their university and monastery, for studies of learning and divine contemplation, as the life of Gildas (g) also, and other frequent testimoniés discover. From which he first was call'd the Hoar-rock in the wood. That the ocean (as in many other places of other countries) hath eaten up much of what was here once shore, is a common report, approved irr the Cornish name of St. Michael's mount; which is Careg Cows in Clows (h), i. e. the Hoar-rock in the wood. And our Main-amber here, and Burien trophy Main-amber, i. e. Ambrose's stone, (not far from Pensanse) so great, that many men's united strength cannot remove it, yet with one finger you may wag it. The Burien trophy is nineteen stones, circularly disposed, and, in the middle, one much exceeding the rest in greatness: by conjecture of most learned Cainden, erected either under the Romans, or else by king Athelstan in his conquest of these parts. Were worthy of his end, but where he had his birth. Near Camel about Camblan, was Arthur (i) slain by Mordred, and on the same shore, east from the river's mouth, born in Tintagel castle. Gorlois prince of Cornwal, at Uther-Pendragon's corunation, solemnized in London, upon divers too kind passages and lascivious regards 'twixt the king and his wife Igerne, grew very jealous, in a rage left the court, committed his wife's chastity to this castle's safeguard; and to prevent the wasting of his country, which upon this discontent was threatned, betook himself in other forts to martial preparation Uther (his blood still boiling in lust) upon advice of Ulfin Rhicaradoch, one of his knights, by Ambrose Merlin's magic, personated like Gorlois, and Cifin like one Jordan, servant to Gorlois made such successful use of their imposture, that (the prince in the mean time slain) Arthur was the same night begotten, and verified that Nebo s πολλοὶ γνησίων ἀμείνονες(4); although Merlin by the rule of Hermes, or astrological direction, justified, that he was conceived three hours after Gorlois' (f) Assuerus Cordonnier (dictus in hist. Gallicâ Victoris ante triennium ed. de la paix, &c.) cujus partes olim egisse videntur Josephus Chartophylacius (referente episcopo Armeniaco apud Matt. Paris in Henr. III.) & Joannes ille (Guidoni Bonato in astrologia sic indigitatus) Butta-deus. (g) In biblioth. Floriacens. edit per Joann. à Bosco. (h) Carew descrip. Corn. lib. 2. () Dictus hinc in Merlini vaticinio, Aper Cornubiæ. (k) Euripid. Andromach. Bastards are often times better than legitimates. N Brute) if in any Greek or Latin story authentic, speaking of Eneas and his planting in Latium, were mention made of any such like thing. To reckon the learned men which deny him, or at least permit him not in conjecture, were too long a catalogue: and indeed, this critic age scarce any longer endures any nation their first supposed author's name; not Italus to the Italians, not His palus to the Spaniard, Bato to the Hollander, Brabo to the Brabantine, Francio to the French, Celtes to the Celt, Galathes to the Gaul, Scota to the Scot; no, nor scarce Romulus to his Rome, because of their unlikely and fictitious mixtures: especially this of Brute, supposed long before the beginning of the Olympiads (whence all time backward is justly called by Varro (p), unknown or fabulous) some two thousand seven hundred and more years since, about Samuel's time, is most of all doubted. But (reserving my censure) [ thus maintain the author: although nor Greek nor Latin, nor our country stories of Bede and Malmesbury especially, nor that fragment yet re Or that this foreland lies furth'st out into his sight, maining of Gildas, speak of him; and that his Which spreads his vigorous flames Fuller report of the excellence in wrestling and nimbleness of body, wherewith this western people have been and are famous, you may find in Carew's description of his country. But to give reason of the climate's nature for this prerogative in them, I think as difficult as to show why about the Magellanic streights they are so white, about the Cape de Buon Speranza so black (m), yet both under the same tropic; why the Abyssins are but tawny Moors, when as in the East Indian isles, Zeilan and Malabar, they are very black, both in the same parallel; or why we that live in this northern latitude, compared with the southern, should not be like affected from like cause. name were not publish'd until Geffrey of Mon- Henry of Huntingden (s) to one Warin, I read the refer it no more to the Sun, than the special horse-habitants of Britain." In a manuscript epistle of manship in our northern men, the nimble ability of the Irish, the fiery motions of the French, Italian jealousy, German liberty, Spanish puft-up vanity, or those different and perpetual carriages of stategovernment, Haste and Delay, which as inbred (?) qualities, were remarkable in the two most martial people of Greece. The cause of Ethiopian blackness and curled hair was long since judiciously fetcht (o) from the disposition of soil, air, water, and singular operations of the Heavens: with confutation of those which attribute it to the Sun's distance. And I am resolved that every land hath its so singular self-nature, and individual habitude with celestial influence, that human knowledge, consisting most of all in universality, is not yet furnish'd with what is requisite to so particular discovery. But for the learning of this point in a special treatise, Hippocrates, Ptolemy, Bodin, and others have copious disputes. (p) Apud Censorin. de die natal. cap. 21. Christophor. Helvici chronologiam sequimur, necƒ ut accuratiùs temporum subauctioni hoc loco incumbamus, res postulat; verùm & ille satis accuratè, qui Samuelis præfecturam Ann. 3850. haùt iniquo computo posuit. (q) Jo. Pris. defens. hist. Brit. (r) Ex vetust. & perpulchrè MS. Nennio sub titulo Gildæ. () Lib. de summitatibus rerum qui 10. est historiarum in MS. Huntingdon began his history at Caesar, but upon better inquisition added Brute. Librum illum, in quem ait se incidisse, Nennium fuisse obsignatis fermè tabulis sum potis adserere. with his successor Joshua is copious in the Isralites' entering, conquering, and expelling the Gergesites, Jebusites (d), and the rest out of the holy land: yet no witness have they of their transmigration, and peopling of Afric, which, by testimony of two pillars (e) erected and engraven at Tingis, hath been affirmed. But you blame me thus expatiating. Let me add for the author, that our most judicious antiquary of the last age, John Leland (ƒ), with reason and authority hath also for Brute argued strongly. Next Sylvius him succeeds Sylvius son to Eneas, to whom the prophecy was So goes the ordinary descent; but some make given: -Serum Lavinia conjunx, Educit sylvis regem regumque parentem (g); as you have it in Virgil. His parents' only death have his name Brotus, as from the Greek Beeros, He should descry the isle of Albion, highly blest. hath been followed (the translator being a man of some credit, and bishop of Saint Asaph's under king Stephen) by Ponticus Virunnius an Italian; most of our country historians of middle times, and this age, speaking so certainly of him, that they, blazon his coat (1) to you, "two lions combatant, and crowned or, in a field gules;" others, "or, a lion passant gules;" and lastly, by doctor White of Basing stroke, lately living at Doway, a Count Palatine; according to the title bestowed () by the Imperials upon their professors. Arguments are there also drawn from some affinity of the Greek tongue (r), and much of Trojan and Greek names, with the British. These things are the more enforc'd by the Cambro - Britons, through that universal desire, bewitching our Europe, to derive their blood from Trojans, which for them might as well be (y) by supposition of their ancestors' marriages with the hither deduced Roman colonies, who by original were certainly Trojan, if their antiquities deceive not. You may add this weak conjecture; that in those large excursions of the Gauls, Cimmerians, and Celts, (among them I doubt not but were many Britons, having with them cominunity of nation, manners, climate, customs; and Brennus himself is affirmed a Briton) which, under indistinct names, when this western world was undiscovered, over-ran Italy, Greece, and part of Asia, it is reported (z) that they came to Troy for safeguard; presuming perhaps upon like kindness, as we read of 'twixt the Trojans and Romans, in their wars with Antiochus (a) (which was loving respect through contingence of blood) upon like cause remembered to them by tradition. Briefly, seeing no national story, except such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius Cæsar, Tacitus, Procopius, Cantacuzen, the late Guicciardin, Commines, Machiavel, and their like, which were employed in the state of their times, can justify themselves but by tradition; and that many of the fathers and ecclesiastical historians (b), especially the Jewish rabbins (taking their highest learn-u, falsly attributed to Aristotle, Stephen, ing of Cabala, but from antique and successive Apuleius, others. And our monk of Bury () calls report) have inserted upon tradition many rela- Henry the Fifth, tions current enough, where holy writ crosses them not: you shall enough please Saturn and Mercury, presidents of antiquity and learning, if with the author you foster this belief. Where are the authorities (at least of the names) of Jannes and Jambres, the writings of Enoch (c), and other such like, which we know by divine tradition were: The same question might be of that infinite loss of authors, whose names are so frequent in Stephen, Athenæus, Plutarch, Clemens, Polybius, Livy, others. And how dangerous it were to examine antiquities by a foreign writer, (especially in those times) you may see by the stories of the Hebrews, delivered in Justin, Strabo, Tacitus, and such other discording and contrary (beside their infinite omissions) to Moses' infallible context. Nay he His request to Diana in an hexastich, and her answer in an ogdoastich, hexameters and pentasacrifice and ritual ceremonies, are in the British meters, discovered to him in a dream, with his story: the verses are pure Latin, which clearly (as is written of Apollo) (i) was not in those times fore in charity believe it a translation; by Gildas spoken by Diana, nor understood by Brute: therea British poet, as Virunnius tells you. The it Albion, which was the old name of this isle, author takes a justifiable liberty, making her call and remember'd in Pliny, Marcian, the book rigi -Protector of Brute's Albion, often using that name for the island. From Albina, daughter to Dioclesian (1) king of Syria, some fetch the name; others from a lady of that name, one of the Danaids; affirming their arrival (m) here, copulation with spirits, and bringing forth giants, and all this above 200 years before Brute. But neither was there any such king in Syria, nor had Danans (that can be found) any such daughter, nor travelled they for adventures, but by their father were newly married (n), after slaughter (d) See the sixth song. (e) Procopius de bell. Vandilic. lib. d. (g) Æneid. 6. & ibid. Serv. Honoratus. After thy death Lavinia brings a king born in the woods, father of kings. (h) Basingstoch. lib. 1. (1) Cicero de divinat. 1. 2. (k) J. Lidgat. lib. de bello Trojan. 5. & alibi sæpiùs. (4) Chronic. S. Albani. (m) Hugo de Genes. apud Harding. c. 3. (n) Pausanias in Laconic. of their husbands: briefly, nothing can be written more impudently fabulous. Others from king Albion, Neptune's son; from the Greeks (0) others, or from (I know not what) Olibius, a Celtish king, remember'd by the false Manethon. Follow them rather which will it ab albis rupibus (p), whereby it is specially conspicuous. So was an isle in the Indian sea called Leuca, i. e. white; and another (q) in Pontus, supposed also fortunate, and a rec. ptacle of the souls of those great heroes. Peleus and Achilles. Thus was a place by Tyber called Albiona (); and the very name of Albion was upon the Alps, which from like cause had their denomination; Alpum in the Sabine tongue (from the Greek #24) signifying white. Some much dislike this derivation, because (s) it comes from a tongue (suppose it either Greek or Latin) not anciently communicated to this isle. For my part, I think (clearly against the common opinion) that the name of Britain was known to strangers before Albion. I could vouch the finding (1) of one of the masts of Hiero's ship, i ris ogro ans Bgeravías (u), if judicious correction admonished me not rather to read Berrians, i. e. the now lower Calabria in Italy, a place above all other, I remember,for store of ship timber; commended (r) by Alcibiades to the Lacedæmonians. But with better surety can I produce the express name of Bgirarviny výcv(y), out of a writer (z) that lived and travelled in warfare with Scipio; before whose time Seylax (making a catalogue of twenty other isles) and Herodotus (to whom these western parts were by his confession unknown) never so much as speak of us by any name. Afterward was Albion imposed upon the cause before touched, expressing the old British name Inisguin (a): which argument moves me before all other, for that I see it usual in antiquity to have names among strangers, in their tongue just significant with the same in the language of the country to which they are applied; as the red sea is (in Strabo, Curtius, Stephen, others) named from a king of that coast called Erythræus, (for to speak of red sand, as some, or red hills, as an old writer (b), were but refuges of shameful ignorance) which was surely the same with Esau, called in holy writ Edom (c); both signifying (the one in Greek, the other in Hebrew) red. So the river Nile, in Hebrew and Ægyp tian (d) called i. e. black, is observed by that mighty prince of learning's state, Joseph Scaliger, (y) British isles. to signify the same colour in the word Αἰγύπτιος, used for it by Homer (e); which is inforc'd also by the black statues (f) among the Greeks, erected in honour of Nile, named also expressly (g) Melas: so in proper names of men; Simon (h) Zelotes in Luke, is but Simon the Canaanite, and 'Tdoyavès (1) in Orpheus the same with Moses, Janus with Enotrus: and in our times those authors, Melanchthon, Magirus, Theocrenus, Pelargus, in their own language, but Swertearth, Cooke, Fountain de Dieu, Storke. Divers such other plain examples might illustrate the conceit; but these sufficient. Take largest etymological liberty, and you may have it from Ellan-ban (i), i. e. the white isle, in Scottish, as they call their Albania; and to fit all together, the name of Britain from Brith-inis, i. e. the coloured isle, in Welsh; 'twixt which and the Greek Beúrov (k) or Beúrov (used for a kind of drink nearly like our beer) I would with the French Forcatulus think affinity, (as Italy was called Enotria, from the name of wine) were it not for that Bury may be had from an ordinary primitive, or else from Beidu, i. e. sweet (as Solinus teaches, making Britomart signify as much as sweet virgin) in the Cretic tongue. But this is to play with syllables, and abuse precious time. The city Turon built Understand Tours upon Loire, in France, whose name and foundation the inhabitants (1) refer to Turnus (of the same time with Eneas, but whether the same which Virgil speaks of, they know not); his funeral monuments they yet show, boast of, and from him idly derive the word Torneaments. The British story says Brute built it (so also Nennius) and from one Turon, Brute's nephew there buried, gives it the name. Homer is cited for testimony: in his works extant. 'tis not found. But because he had divers others (which wrongful time hath filcht from us) as appears in Herodotus and Suidas: you may in favour think it to be in some of those lost; yet I cannot in conscience offer to persuade you ́that he ever knew the continent of Gaul, (now, in part, France) although a learned German (m) endeavours, by force of wit and etymology, to carry Ulysses (which he makes of Elizza in Genesis) into Spain, and others before him (n) (but falsely) into the northern parts of Scotland. But for Homer's knowledge, see the last note to the sixth song. (e) Odyss. d. -Αἰγύπτοιο διέπετος ποταμοῖς. Fortè tamen fluvius Ægypti, ut Heb. 'n Gen. 15. commat. 17. (f) Pausan. Arcadic. . (g) Festus in Alcedo. (h) Nebrissens. in quinquag. cap. 49. (i) Camden. (k) Vocabulo Bgúra usi sunt Eschylus, Sophocles, Hellanicus, Archilochus, Hecatæus apud Athenæum, dipnosoph. 10. avrì roũ xgıbıvou čiveu, ejusdem ferè naturæ cum Scytho & Curmithe (2) Polyb. hist. y. qui Jul. Cæsarem ducentos apud Dioscoridem lib. d. cap. 5. & osń. fortè fermè annos entevertit. (a) The white isle. παρὰ τὸ βρύσιν. () Andrè du Chesne en les recherchez des (b) Uranius in Arabic. apud Steph. wigì wλ. in villes 1. cap. 221. Ερυθρά. (c) Gen. 36. Num. 20. (d) Isai. 23. Jerem. 2. (m) Goropius in Hispanic. 4. v. Strab. geograph. 7. & alios de Olyssippone. (n) Solini polyhist. cap. 35. |