vastness of Hercules' stature by the length of his foot, so among
these ruins are remains enough left for a man to give a guess what
noble buildings, &c. were made by the piety, charity, and
magnanimity of our forefathers.

And as in prospects, we are there pleased most where something keeps
the eye from being lost, and leaves us room to guess; so here the eye
and mind is no less affected with these stately ruins, than they would
have been when standing and entire. They breed in generous minds a
kind of pity, and sets the thoughts a-work to make out their magnifice
as they were taken in perfection. These remains are "tanquam Tabulata
Naufragii", that after the revolution of so many years and
governments, have escaped the teeth of Time, and (which is more
dangerous) the hands of mistaken Zeal. So that the retrieving of these
forgotten things from oblivion, in some sort resembles that of a
conjurer, who make those walk and appear that have lain in their
graves many hundreds of years, and to represent, as it were to the
eye, the places, customs, and fashions that were of old time.

Let us imagine then what kind of country this was in the time of the
ancient Britains, by the nature of the soil, which is a soure,
woodsere land, very natural for the production of oaks especially;
one may conclude, that this North-Division was a shady, dismal wood;
and the inhabitants almost as salvage as the beasts, whose skins were
their only raiment. The language, British (which for the honour of it,
was in those days spoken from the Orcades to Italy and Spain). The
boats on the Avon (which signifies river) were baskets of twigs
covered with an ox-skin, which the poor people in Wales use to this
day, and call them curricles.