24. yeares About this time the Saduces and Pharisees beganne their sects in Iewry now the warre of Iurguth began and ended nowe Tully was borne in the yeare of the world 3859 an hundred and three yeares before Christ Bledgabrede began 3860. and raigned 20. yeares in this time was Pompei borne into the world Redargy began 3880. and ruled 3. yeares in this time was I. Caesar borne into the world Samuly ruled two yeares Penisell three yeares Pirry raigned 2. yeares foure kinges in 10. yeares and ended in the yeare of the worlde 3890 in which time Antony and Crassus the Oratours of Roome and in Q.M. Scaeuola the Lawyer liued So these 24. kinges continued 166. yeares in the Gouernment of Brutanie Heere is no Topography heere is no place named they were now I may well say kinges Abstracts that they did it no where either incomprehēsibly like Gods or metaphisically like strange men The musicke of Bledgabred and the actions of the rest were belike in no place of any great account Yet because they were kinges and enioyed their kingdomes theyr doomes must needes be giuen somewhere and their cunning must needes be shewed in some place and that was euen the generall Land of Brutany without any particular nomination of lesse places Right Soueraignes and perfit kings whose Actes were vniuersall common to the whole realme not appropriate or fancied to any one Region therein If the head moue and guide the body it doth more then if it moue or guide one part thereof A generall praise is greatest and this was these kinges speciall glory aboue others to rule all places to rule the Land The best vse of one commendation or other is to encounter some one dispraise or other that hath been or may be but they that do all thinges well haue no neede themselues of particular History If Sily ruled 2. yeares suppose in reason hee was no silly one If the other kinges were kinges that was all in all A king cannot possibly be without his excellencies and memorials Now I diuine modestly heere were actors without recorders of their actions patrons of learning but no learned men or they were of both sortes but their studies came to no effect by some force or they were very old when they came to the Crown and could do nothing or the furies and helhoundes raged so extreamely that the Muses and Graces coulde not bee quiet for them or their actes were wrought in needle-worke onely and so worne out or the senses and senslesse desires so ruled them that theyr liues were not so short as their actes or the Histories were written in some strange kind of polygraphy and steganography and coulde neuer yet be read but remaine in some obscure place or they made little account of writers and these set as light by them or they that take most pains at their booke were not most regarded and thereupon studied to themselues or some infortunate and maleuolent configuration of mouable skies and starres and spirites remoued all Histories out of the way or the Kinges and People agreed among themselues to bee remembred by being not remembred wishing to haue their time called The vnknowe Regiment adiudging secrecie greatest wisedome or our Countrimen listened so much after other Noble Actors in the earth that they had no leisure to doe any thing themselues or they disdained to haue them theyr iudges after their death whom they would scorne to haue their iudges in their life or some outlandish enuy destroyed the rowles and registers of our Histories to make vs seem barbarous or the Vniuersitie men of Stamford had by some Priuiledge got them wiues and so forth and had no leisure to do any thing but liue or before the kings were crowned they were worthy men and after theyr coronations they fell to make books of nothing or they could tell how to get a Soueraigntie but they knewe not how to keepe it or they writ their Chronicle hieroglyphically and set the pictures of other creatures in the places of their kinges and by the ignorance of some carelesse men were esteemed as gaies and not otherwise regarded or it was not thus or so perhaps neither this nor that but some other way I cannot tell howe nor I care not greatly for feare I may bee thought neither idle nor well occupied Now good Reader albeit I ioyne a morall genealogy with a naturall and seeme to breake the stile of history yet because affections rule otherwhile asmuch as kinges I may truely say my deuise is allowable in itselfe Where issue wanteth in the Prince there the issue of the people is considered seeing some Princes are begotten of the people as some are of their parents these are heires by the law of particular nature and they by the reason of vniuersall nature and of grace As for the other partes of this third Offspring I hope they are seemely and fit enough for this place It is lawfull to make the best vse and most gaine that wee can honestly of anie thing that we read or write probable additions and reasonable collections are neuer amisse it is better of the two extreames to make more then wee neede of our Countreimen rather than make lesse of them then wee should superfluitie is not best nor scarcitie that history is most worth which doth a man most good THE FOVRTH GENEALOGY or issue of Capor LAbour the sonne of Parsimony the daughter of Queene Temperance made Capor a man of infinite wealth then Order the sonne of Reason the daughter of the Empresse Truth made him a man of greatest fauour in this Land by these two meanes ioyned with his royall bloud he became Ruler of Brutany and begat Dinel Dinel begat Hely Hely begat three sonnes the first Lud the second Cassiuelan the third Stenny Lud begat 2. sonnes the first Androgy the second Tenancy Then came Death and tooke away Lud and hys brother Stenny while his two sonnes were children and Age made Cassiuelan Ruler then came Discontent and begat Rage in the minde of Androgy that hee went away then arose Parentage and created Tenancy for the king Tenancy begat Cimbelin Cimbelin begat 2. sonnes the first Guinder the second Aruirage then came Deceite and slew Guinder then Deuise set forth Aruirage and made him right king Aruirage begat Marius of his wife Senissa the daughter of Claudius the Emperour Marius begat Coil the 2. Coil begat Lucy which dyed without issue These are the 11. heires males and successors of Capor in his kingdom for the Generation of Cassiuelan of Stenny of Androgy and of Guinder are vnknown the more is the pity seeing they were very singular men in their kinds Albranches of a tree prosper not euer some are withered rotten The Arts and Actes of Capor and the Caporites are seene by their Vertues and Vices Their Vertue or Iustice is in Defending and regarding Lud and Stenny were at great variance betweene themselues because Lud would haue the City of Troy new
latine Are you not aduised how many things are writtē in Greek and Latine of the Beginning of the world though there were neither Greeke nor Latine 2000. yeares and more after the Creation of heauen and earth and such a reason might partly be brought against your selfe in your first king Fergusius if I would follow so needlesse a cause in comparing his time with the times of the latine tongue wherein you write of him You might haue done well to proue that the Moonke saith howe Brute receiued his answere of Diana and asked her Counsell in latine speach which because you haue not proued your Horatius and your Saliare carmen and your Numa and your wordes are but winde Cannot an Historian report the Orations of the Indians of the Germans of the Numidians in latine vnlesse the Numidians Germans and Indians spake latine were the Orations in your Chronicles Master Buchanan spoken first in latine So your Penitus obliti and ne tenue quidem and other bootlesse words are vain and little or nought worth in this present question Tis not euer true that hath a quidem I cannot certainly say that the Brutans language was vsed in Italy in the dayes of Brute but I may well say notwithstanding your trifling mycterisme that if the Oracles and men had spoken it they had been neuer the worse nor the language neuer the better But you were in a running thought and supposed your selfe subtle enough when you had brought your inuention to a disiunctiue proposition with much effect I promise you when it tendeth hitherto euen to proue that the Brutan speach then was not the same our Brutans vse now in Cambry Yet by your leaue Buchanan it is no proofe against this language in that many tongues appeare in it in your time seeing Brutanisme might at first bee as full of diuerse tongues by reason of much trauell as it is nowe and then your argument hath nor vse nor force in your question and in trueth though Scots be called generally false yet Buchanan may be true so Moonks may dreame dreames and yet Geffry Monmouth write a trueth Why should not a Moonke be as credible as a Paedanty or a solitarie student vnderstand that he readeth as much as a busie schoolemaster or a Cambrian read Chronicles which a Scot neuer saw or Geffry be as plaine and verifiable as Buchanan being not so deep ouer head and eares in verses and Poetry as he yet now at last the George confesseth that his owne reasons are but minims and minute persecutions and slender thinges and is faine to say that the Moonke himselfe seemeth to acknowledge his fiction though it appeareth not so by the Moonkes wordes Thus it cannot be proued euidently that the history of Brute is a fained and poeticall narration vnlesse it be first proued that there were no more Intelligences and Registers in the life of Geffrey then of George and that Geffrey had no Authours for his defence because George cannot knowe them If nothing be true in one country which hath not suffragees from another Countrey I cannot tell what historie may stand irrefragably by this determination no not when we read the auncientest partes and primitiue recordes of best historiographers Was there not an Apostle Paul vnder Nero because Suetonius and Tacitus name none such much Iustine teach the Iewes howe to thinke of the deliuery of Israel But I omit those instances which might be giuē against you because in a question I regard the argument more then the illustration thereof and so should you too by your leaue for all your 24. yeares trauell Are they malè callidi and is vanitie in them that call Diana an huntresse and say that in the time of Brute Diana was accounted a Goddesse I confesse I cānot see how they are lewdly and fraudulently vaine that write thus then it remaineth that you make these words good if you can The chast body the painfull bodie but labour and continencie in mans body breede a kinde of diuinitie in man I pray when you in your Psalmes as they call them yours deuise the most kindes of verses that you can do you confesse that Dauid made them at first in so many sortes of verses as you haue written them surely you will denie it Iwis it is not necessarie that Brute and Diana should speake verses because Geffry Monmouth recordeth their wordes in verses But let be suppose they did speake in these or in other verses then he doubtlesse or some other for him translated their words into hexameters and pentameters as you see What vanitie or falshood is on either side neuer thinke to carry it away with threed-bare wordes or to leade your Readers where you list A wise perswader are you is Diana called Loxias in your bookes or if Apollo be oblique and crooked and intricate in his answeres must Diana needes be so or if Dianaes Priest be commonly obscure foulded vp in speach cannot it be that hee should be perspicuous at anie one time are you to appoint him how to speake so manie yeares after his death I pray if Pythia be euer doubtfull and oblique because shee is so for the most part what doubtfulnesse or obliquitie is in this aunswere You are come to my rich temples Lycurgus beloued of God and of all that inhabite the heauenly houses I am in doubt whether I should call thee a mon or a God but I much rather beleeue that thou art a God Lycurgus as Herodotus hath recorded in his Clio and what ambiguitie is in that Answere which Pythia gaue vnto Craesus in the same booke of Herodotus what saye to Aristodocus in the same booke who neither asked in verse nor was answered in verse what saye to them of Marea and Apia which asked Hammons Oracle in prose and were answered in prose as it appeareth in Euterpe What saye to the Doue of Dodona or the Oracle of the cittie Butis giuen to Pheron that spake in prose in the same booke to let passe such answeres a good manie giuen without verse or ambiguitie Or if they were giuen in verse being nowe written otherwise with allowance of Readers what hath the Moonke done amisse in the maner of these verses he may aswell register prose in verse as they register verse in prose As for your Opinor this may bee well answered in your verball manner O pinor narras non rectè accipis you know the maker Terentius I that am young may aswell bestowe my labour to answere you as you being olde may obiect so vnfruitfully Howe is that proued a manifest fiction that this Iland at Brutes comming was a wildernesse being yet so this daie still in manie places Can two Gyantes and their two families or so manie Giantes as make an Armie so fill this countrie that it shall not rightly be called a desart when they are all in one shire the other shires are verie desarts when they being so few are scattered into so manie shires betweene the
was in one who foresaw and foretold the fall of monasteries hee would be effectually musicall as Timotheus that coulde either inflame or quench Alexanders spirites with hys melody in a word he would be a right noble Artist in all these seuen Arts or in some of them Now I am sure that all the historicall Recordes which I haue yet seene and I beleeue are commonly to be seene of Mithridates Orpheus Ramus Pythagoras Arthimedes Stoflerinus and Timotheus are not able by the hundred part to make any student as renowned an Artist as they were though the be read and perused most exquisitly Another Nobleman or Captaine of men desireth to be Honourable by Nauigation as Vespusius was delighteth to search the secretes of warfare as Hanniball did wisheth to rise from an obscure Countrey life to a Princely seat as Numa did could be glad of such a medicinal facultie as Aesculapius had in raising a dead man to life he wisheth to himself the spirit of Moses in making lawes and working myracles in a word He studieth to purchase himselfe a glorious Name both for his life time and after his death as these men haue done aforetime Now I dare say vppon sufficient reading that the Histories which are written of Vespusius Hanniball Numa Aesculapius and Moses are not able to beget such a man as euery of them was in his kind neither can the causes that serued them according to their registers serue other men for effecting of like actions I cannot of a Man be made a Bee and gather hony out of all sweet flowers and herbes but if God will I may be a Collector of the wisdome of all ancient books make Ambrosia rather then hony out of them I haue need of these men once to see what they did as younglings do and againe I read them to see if their Histories can instruct me to do the like and now I must depend vppon the proofe of other Artes then are comprehended in Histories these giue but a light in the way which I would walke in I must haue eyes in my head ere I come to that way and feete and strength to beare me through it els the way is not for me but for them that can go in it what make I there I heare much of it and when I would go in it I want eyes and feet to bring me thither and am driuen to say That God which giueth eyes to the blind and walkes to the lame had neede giue me more then Histories haue in them or els I shal neuer be that I would be in one Art or other Then seeing Histories breed onely desires and wishes and expectations in the hearts of students nothing but affections seeing they neuer create any habit or perfection in them I omit the verball and talkatiue vses of histories which other men stand vpon and conceiue in my mind this Idaea of one that would be a man of men as God is named the Lord of Lords The second Suppose A Man that is borne of healthful and strong parents that are vnder thirtie years and aboue twentie is commonly in good health and of great strength for sound timber must needes make a strong building if aduised workemen haue the framing of it He that is brought vp in all kindes of labour from his childhood will indure any paines in his manhood for custome is a second nature as those armes of an oke or other tree are strongest ordinarily which are toward the North. A man will not feed aboundantly for pleasure but necessarily for health for he hath seene that a body neither full nor empty is seldome or neuer distempered and sicke He will not be idle at any time but either studying or practising great and small matters for himselfe and his friendes continually for the more good we thinke and do the neerer we are to God almightie A man wil not reiect the speech and face of any man on the earth but he will onely haue vse of them that are like himselfe in disposition and action for the hatred of any man is hurtfull and where all agree in one there is happiest successe He doth not respect how they liued and apparelled and emploied themselues that are dead but what good soeuer he can do he doth it with all his minde might and neuer ceaseth from his work till it be finished in the best maner for commonly men may doe greater actes then they doe if they measure not themselues by other men seeing he that trieth his owne parts most is euer most glorious A man will be skilfull in all thinges which prolong life or shorten it that hee may preserue himselfe and hys friends and destroy his and their enemies for in death al Noble Acts are cut off and the ouerthrow of contraries is the generation of concord and multiplication of consent He will beleeue that he knoweth himself by triall he hath an eye in his hand and heart that neuer sleepeth for he that trusteth other mens words and deeds without proofe of them is carried euery way with euery faction and fiction of the world A man will so arme his body with moderate antidotes that no poyson shall easily ouercome him for hee prouideth for the worst and remembreth withall that the best can saue it selfe He is prepared for all changes and chances that may come vpon him in this life considereth rather what may happen vnto him then peruse the fortunes of other men Thus I haue written generally but I may not tell my tale and idee particularly in euery poynt till I be a few yeares elder The third Suppose TWo noblemen that partly by nature and partly by art could make their bodies indefatigable for euery attempt and exploit agreed betweene themselues to try whether books of historie or deuises of their own would make the more braue man He that followed books desired onely to be like the best Worthies of other ages he that relyed vpon his owne deuise was not content with the examples of bookes but inuented the means to excel the best that euer was the bookman putting his felicitie in imitation came short of those patterns and yet was glad whē he came neere them the deuiser setting his mind on emulation searched the causes of auncient excellencies and by adding to the causes added to the effectes and went beyond them all in what case he would The bookman saith giue me the life of Alexander the life of Caesar the life of Sanderbeg and then thinketh he hath gotten the spoyles of the East and West and all patterns of glory that may be gotten the deuiser saith let me see the causes that made those three men so eminent aboue other men so I shall perceiue a defect of these causes in Historians then I must supply them and excell those three in mine own person or in ruling others the most od and speciall acts that euer they did may not onely be matched saith he but also ouermatched wel enough I beleeue and to be plaine I see nothing euen in Vlisses or Achilles but it may be seen I hope in another vnlesse these books will giue me leaue to trie whether I may surmount their Nobilities I will be so bold in reason as to say that books were made to keep men vnder a certain height and within a certain compasse and to make men half the men that they might be and as it were very woodcocks in comparison of that they should proue by trying all and trusting none but which they find certainly and experimentally true Thus the bookman is a gallant man with an eare mark and chains of bondage about his necke but the deuiser himselfe is a soueraigne authour of manhood hauing no cognisance of subiection about him besides the mortalitie of his flesh which notwithstanding he maketh in some sort immortall eyther in leauing the life therof in his succession or in spending the might of it in contemplatiue assaults and atchiuements for study spendeth the outward man more then action The Deuiser saith that men of chiefest note haue euer been of his mind they haue not beleeued that old bookish rule Oporter discentem credere for then they had neuer been better then other mens schollers whereas by the meanes aforesaid they are become captaines in their kind yet if they had neuer been borne I am sure saith he that I had been of this mind Mundus est omnes libri this rule is manly Oporter discentem dubitare vnlesse he will be deceiued and runne on the head halfe his life time in a word it appeareth plainly that many men which cannot read in bookes vse daily the same or better meanes to try out maysteries then the graundest bookmen if my iudgement be an error I would know from what cause the first Doctors had their Artes before bookes were made the sworde makes not the warrior no help is equall with the principall nature is mightier then Art the actor more worthy man then his scribe Wherefore in respect of the premises and such other considerations I haue rather taken an Essay in our Brutan history then made a Worke. If I be faultie in writing too much I confesse I knowe no method of writing briefly If I be blamed in writing too litle I wil not deny that the old Brutans deserue a large Chronicle if I haue kept in the midst of both it agreeth most with my desire But why should I doubt of this or that of friend or foe Let euery one speake and write freely not licentiously in honour of his owne Countrey that is not against his kindred and himselfe which are partes thereof It is a dangerous position to refuse the offspring of Brute both in regard of all reuerend antiquities of historie and in respect of our owne Countreimen and neighbours to whome I wishe all concord and agreement among themselues and against their enemies for euer FINIS