Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic]

The History of Britain,

That part especially now called
England.

From the first Traditional Beginning, continued
to the Norman Conqueft. Collected out
of the Antienteft and beft
Authors thereof.

Book I.

HE beginning of Nations, thofe excepted of whom facred Books have fpok'n, is to this day unknown. Nor only the beginning, but the deeds alfo of many fucceeding Ages, yea periods of Ages, either wholly unknown, or obfcur'd and blemisht with Fables. Whether it were that the use of Letters came in long after, or were it the violence of barbarous inundations, or they themselves at certain revolutions of time, fatally decaying, and degenerating into Sloth and Ignorance; wherby the monuments of more ancient civility have bin fom destroy'd, fom loft. Perhaps dif-esteem and contempt of the public affairs then prefent, as not worth recording, might partly be in caufe. Certainly oft-times we fee that wife men, and of beft abilitie have forborn to write the Acts of thir own daies, while they beheld with a just loathing and difdain, not only how unworthy, how pervers, how corrupt, but often how ignoble, how petty, how below all History the perfons and

thir actions were; who either by fortune, or fom rude election had attain'd as a fore judgment, and ignominie upon the Land, to have cheif fway in managing the Commonwealth. But that any law, or fuperstition of our old Philosophers the Druids forbad the Britans to write thir memorable deeds, I know not why any out of Cæfar1 fhould allege: he indeed faith, that thir doctrine they thought not lawful to commit to Letters; but in moft matters else, both privat, and public, among which well may History be reck❜nd, they us'd the Greek Tongue: and that the British Druids who taught thofe in Gaule would be ignorant of any Language known and us'd by thir Difciples, or fo frequently writing other things, and fo inquifitive into highest, would for want of recording be ever Children in the Knowledge of Times and Ages, is not likely. What ever might be the reason, this we find, that of British affairs, from the first peopling of the Iland to the coming of Julius Cæfar, nothing certain, either by Tradition, History, or Ancient Fame hath hitherto bin left us. which we have of oldest seeming, hath by the greater part of judicious Antiquaries bin long rejected for a modern Fable.

[ocr errors]

That

Nevertheless there being others befides the first fuppos'd Author, men not unread, nor unlerned in Antiquitie, who admitt that for approved ftory, which the former explode for fiction, and seeing that ofttimes relations heertofore accounted fabulous have bin after found to contain in them many foot-steps, and reliques of fomthing true, as what we read in Poets of the Flood, and Giants little beleev'd, till undoubted witneffes taught us, that all was not fain'd; I have therfore determin'd to bestow the telling over ev'n of these reputed Tales; be it for nothing else

1 Caf. 1. 6.

but in favour of our English Poets, and Rhetoricians, who by thir Art will know, how to use them judiciously.

I might also produce example, as Diodorus among the Greeks, Livie and others of the Latines, Polydore and Virunnius accounted among our own Writers. But I intend not with controverfies and quotations to delay or interrupt the smooth courfe of History; much less to argue and debate long who were the firft Inhabitants, with what probabilities, what authorities each opinion hath bin upheld, but shall endevor that which hitherto hath bin needed most, with plain, and lightfom brevity, to relate well and orderly things worth the noting, so as may best inftruct and benefit them that read. Which, imploring divine affistance, that it may redound to his glory, and the good of the British Nation, I now begin.

That the whole Earth was inhabited before the Flood, and to the utmost point of habitable ground, from those effectual words of God in the Creation, may be more then conjectur'd. Hence that this Iland also had her dwellers, her affairs, and perhaps her stories, eev'n in that old World those many hunderd years, with much reason we may inferr. After the Flood, and the difperfing of Nations, as they journey'd leafurely from the East, Gomer the eldest Son of Japhet, and his off-spring, as by Authorities, Arguments, and Affinitie of divers names is generally beleev'd, were the first that peopl'd all these West and Northren Climes. But they of our own Writers, who thought they had don nothing, unless with all circumftance they tell us when, and who first set foot upon this Iland, prefume to name out of fabulous and counterfet Authors a certain Samothes or Dis, a fowrth or fixt Son of Japhet, whom they make about 200 years after the Flood, to have planted with Colonies; firft the Continent of Celtica, or

Gaule, and next this Iland; Thence to have nam'd it Samothea, to have reign'd heer, and after him lineally fowr Kings, Magus, Saron, Druis, and Bardus. But the forg'd Berofus, whom only they have to cite, no where mentions that either hee, or any of those whom they bring, did ever pafs into Britain, or fend thir people hither. So that this outlandish figment may eafily excufe our not allowing it the room heer fo much as of a British Fable.

That which follows, perhaps as wide from truth, though feeming lefs impertinent, is, that the Samotheans under the Reign of Bardus were fubdu'd by Albion a Giant, Son of Neptune : who call'd the Iland after his own name, and rul'd it 44 years. Till at length paffing over into Gaul, in aid of his Brother Leftrygon, against whom Hercules was hafting out of Spain into Italy, he was there flain in fight, and Bergion alfo his Brother.

Sure anough we are, that Britan hath bin anciently term'd Albion, both by the Greeks and Romans. And Mela the Geographer makes mention of a stonie shoar in Languedoc, where by report fuch a Battel was fought. The rest, as his giving name to the Ile, or ever landing heer, depends altogether upon late surmises. But too abfurd, and too unconscionably grofs is that fond invention that wafted hither the fifty daughters of a strange ftrange Dioclefian King of Syria; brought in doubtles by fom illiterat pretender to fomthing mistak'n in the Common Poetical Story of Danaus King of Argos, while his vanity, not pleas'd with the obfcure beginning which trueft Antiquity affords the Nation, labour'd to contrive us a Pedigree, as he thought, more noble. These Daughters by appointment of Danaus on the mariage-night having murder'd all thir Husbands, except Linceus, whom his Wives loialty fav'd, were by him at the fuit of his Wife thir Sifter, not put to death, but

« PreviousContinue »