484 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
It is quite plain that Fitz-Geffrey either did not know Plymouth, 
or that knowing it he wrote of it that which was not true. Asa 
matter of fact his acquaintance with it was but casual, on his way 
between Fowey and Oxford ; and he had been a student at the 
University from 1590, so that we may acquit him of anything 
worse than random phrase. It would not be worth while to argue 
gravely against the inaccuracy of statements that probably were 
not intended to be literally believed, were it not that he has been 
quoted as an authority. His object was to eulogise Drake, and he 
was so far successful that Sir Anthony Rous, one of Drake’s personal 
friends and executors, gave him the living of St. Dominick. His- 
torically the poem has precisely the same value as a last century 
dedication, and to all appearance had much the same origin. 
Camden comes next in order. Several editions of his Britannia 
appeared between 1586 and 1607. He speaks in warm praise of 
Drake, but says nothing concerning the water, though hasty readers 
of Bishop Gibson’s translation have imagined otherwise. In Gibson’s 
Britannia we indeed read of Drake that ‘‘ by his contrivance, and 
at his own proper charge, there was brought hither [Plymouth] a 
large stream from a great distance, through many windings and 
turnings, which is a mighty benefit to the place;” but these are 
the words of one who was so far from being a contemporary that 
his second edition, from which these words are quoted, appeared in 
1722. Camden therefore is silent; and his silence would count 
for something, if its notice were essential to the argument. 
There is an allusion to the water in “Sir Francis Drake 
Revived,” written by one of the family, published. 1626 and sub- 
sequently, in which Drake is credited with “filling Plimmouthe 
with a plentifull stream of fresh water’”—light words to represent 
the views of -later times, but perfectly consistent, though ignoring 
the chief actors, with the main facts. The indefinite language of 
these earlier writers is very noteworthy when contrasted with the 
full assumption of knowledge on the part of their successors. 
Third in date is Westcote, who in his View of Devon in 1630, 
says of Plymouth :— 
The streets are fairly paved, and kept clean and sweet, much 
refreshed by the fresh stream running through it plenteously to 
their great ease, pleasure, and profit, which was brought into the 
