BRITAIN. 



unwilling to leave fo much as one alive of all that wretched 

 nation." After thefe humane exertions, " they build towns, 

 as Homer telUlits," in fome work to Homer and to us 

 equally unknown ; and then doubling if it were prudent to 

 fifrht there any more, they fail to Biitain, the promifed land, 

 and arrive at Totnefs. 



A new train of miracles l.'tcins ; and, indeed, a little im- 

 piety is cxhihitcii by Jelfcn-, loi tie goddtfs toh' Bnite, that 

 this ifiand had formerly bef" inhabited by giants, but was 

 now deferted ; vet, in coiuiadiftion to itie divine afTt-rtion, 

 the daring monk, in his iixt.enth cli..pter, pcopksit, though 

 thiiilv, with giants flill. 



However, at their com' g, awny fly the giants to their 

 caves, to the ^■r^Ht difco"! -nt of Ci rineus, " to whom it was 

 the greatell poflible diverfion to encounter them." To in- 

 dulge his fav in ite inclination, he begs " the country of 

 Cornwall for his (hare, becaule the giants were in greater 

 liimibcr there, than in all tlie other provinces." Brute 

 obliges him : and an opportunity foon arrives to make Co- 

 rinciis very happy. 



" Among the reft there was one deteftable monfter, named 

 Guemagot, in ftature 12 cubits (or about iS feet high), 

 and of fuch prodigious ftrength, that at one fliake he would 

 pii!l up an oak, as if it had been an hazel wand. One day, 

 when Brute was at Totnefs, this fellow, and 20 more of h s 

 companions, fell upon the new-comers, among whom they 

 made a dreadful flaughfer." This was precifely what Cori- 

 neus wanted ; for as the other twenty were foon difpatdied. 

 Brute ordered " Goemagot to be prefcrved alive, ont of a 

 defile to fee a combat between Iiim and Coiineus, who took 

 vail pleafnre in fuch rencoin.ters." 



" Overjoyed Jt this, Coiineus threw afulc his arms, and 

 challenged the gia.it to a wreltiing match ;" but a Cornifh 

 hug frjm the Gobah of Cornwall loon broke three of Co- 

 rineus's ubs, which, we are very ciicumftantially told, were 

 two on his right fide, and one upon his left. But tliis acci- 

 dent, inftfad of difabling, "enraged Corineus to fuch a de- 

 gree," that though never me'itioned but as a mortal man, 

 and of mortal fize, he feizcJ hold wf this tremendous giant, 

 " threw him over h's (houlders as if he had been a hare, ran 

 with him as faft as he was able for the weight to the next 

 fhore, nay, got even up to tlie top of a very high rock, and 

 there hurled do^vu the fivage monfter into the fea." " The 

 place where he fell," adds Jcffery, " is called Goemagot's 

 leap to this d;;y." 



The above eircumdances prefent a faithful abridgment 

 of the firll fixtccn chapters of this ancient hiftory. The 

 firft patrons of " The Britifh Hiltory" defended all its ftory. 

 The later advocates allow it to contain a few hyperboles, 

 but warmly maintain that it ought not to be wtiolly rejected 

 on this account. But, unfortunately, the whole hiftory is 

 in this ftrain ; of this only a few more brief Ipecimens need 

 be given. 



Biennus, who bcfieged Rome at the head of the Gauls, 

 when Camilius and the geefe faved the capitol, was, accord- 

 ing to this hirtorv, a Briton; and his brother Belitius, then 

 king of Britain, was with him. Conaii, king of America, 

 wanting wives for his foldiers, afks the king of Cornwall for 

 foine, who fends h m 11, coo daughters of his nobility, and 

 60,000 of a meaner fort. The greater part of thefe are 

 drowned ; the reft are murdered. The magi commanded 

 Vortigern to find a youth who had never had a father, and 

 Merhn is accordingly brought, whofe mother had a miracu- 

 lous conception from a demon. The king cannot build a 

 tower, becaufe it is fwallowed up as tall as it is raifed. 

 Merlin foretells, that there is a pinid deep under the ground, 

 which occafions it, and that at the bottom of it are two hol- 

 low ilones, in which two dragons are adeep. UlLtr Pen- 



dragon, to gratify liis paffion for Igerna, is transformed by 

 Merlin into the figure of her hufband. To crown the whole, 

 Cadwallo being tofied on a certain idand, and longing for 

 venifon, his fervant Brian goes in fearch of fome, but finding 

 none, he cuts out a piece of his own thigh, which he roafts 

 upon a fpit, and carries to his mafter as venifon ! ! ! What- 

 ever may have been the prejudices of former times in favour 

 of the book, every reader will now treat it with derifion, 

 though he may not chute to adopt the quaint phraleology 

 of the Dutchman, who called it a " grootc, grove, lange, 

 dicke, tafteliieke, ende uiibefchnemte h)gen," which in plain 

 Englifh is, a great, heavy, long, thick, palpable, and 

 fliamelefs lie. 



The account of Brutus and his Trojans having colonized 

 Britain, was in exiftence before JefTery. It appears in Nen- 

 nius, who lived about, or before, the ninth century : his pro- 

 face is a triumph to the advocates of the Trojan, becaufe it 

 announces that he had taken his hiftory not only from the 

 Roman annals, the chronicles of the holy fathers, and the 

 hiftories of the Scots and Saxons, but alfo from the tradi- 

 tions of his anceftors, and from the monuments of the an- 

 cient inhabitants of Britain. On infpefting his hiftory, it 

 is curious to remark to what fouices lie refers his fevtral in- 

 cidents. The tale of Brutus is from the annals of the 

 Romans ; and his genealogy up to ./Eneas, thence to Noah, 

 and thence to Adam, was furnifhed to the chonographer by 

 the traditions and writings of thofe who firft inhabited Bri- 

 tain. Unfortunately for the tale, no Roman annals that 

 we know of have fenftioned the hiftory of Brute ; and we 

 may be allowed to deny that the Druids had any acquaint- 

 ance with the Jewifli fcriptures. 



Of other romances on this remote part of our hiftory ; 

 the didioiieft forgery of Annius of Viterbo, who made cer- 

 tain annals of Berofus and others, in which Samothes, the 

 fon of Japhct, is faid to have led a Celtic colony into Bri- 

 tain ; of Albion, a giant, who was ftnt after Samothes to 

 give it a name ; of the vifits of Hercules and UlyfTes ; of 

 Albina, the princtfs of Syria, and her thirty fitters, com- 

 mitted to the mercy of the fea for murdering their hufbands, 

 who were thrown providentially on England ; of Celto, the 

 daughter of Britannos ; of Britannus, the grandfon of Ne- 

 meth, who brought a colony here out of Ireland, and of 

 foch like wild and abfurd inventions, we need only fay that 

 they are fit to clafs with the hiftory of jeffery, and may be 

 permitted to repofe in oblivion, as proper companions to his 

 Brute and Corineus. To the fame grave may be configned 

 all thofe writers who have wafted their time in deriving the 

 Britons from Japhet, from Gomer, from Javan, from Thi- 

 ms, from Afkenaz, or from Shem. Such derivations are as 

 unreafonable as the fpeculation of the man who affirmed 

 that the earth was divided between the tiiiee fons of one 

 father, as a typical reprefentative of the divine Trinity. 



The only accounts that can be fully relied on for the 

 eaily hiftory of the European nations, arc thofe which the 

 Roman and Grecian writers have tranfmitted to us. Even 

 tlieir ftatements frequently demand our ciiticifm, but we 

 muft dig for truth in their mines. 



From the extent of geographical knowledge which Homer 

 difplays, we might not uiireafoiiably expeft to find fome 

 allufion to the Britifti iflands in his works ; but altiioiigh he 

 mentions with familiarity Italy, Sicily, Greece, ThelTaly, 

 Epirus, with fome adjacent countries, and by Strabo and 

 later authors, has been thought to allude to Spain, no 

 other part of Europe is explicitly commemorated in his 

 Epopcas. 



One of the oldeft Greek books which contains any allu- 

 fion to the Britilh iflands, is the Argonaiitica afcribed to 

 Orpheus. The cdebratcd perfou of this name lived ante- 

 rior 



