Page:The Brittish Princes, an Heroick Poem - Howard (1669, 1st ed).djvu/15

 those numerous Relicks of Camps and Fortifications, at this day beheld, speak enough, without other Records, the famous encounters of our Ancestors: For this reason the Reader must be so ingenious, as not to look upon my Poem as a History, but rather hold himself obliged to my Muse, that has provided Heroes, and Princes, who, for ought he knowes, had then a being; or, from a reasonable Concession, might be supposed to have. Their Representations likewise, in point of Government in my Poem, I conceive not unnatural, to what was then practised, in this Isle, which is granted, by all Historians, to have had several Principalities; the wisdome of whose Princes, could not but unite them, against their Common Enemy, whensoe'r their Concerne requires it, of which we have Examples in Story: And, whereas I have raised a Son to the most famous King Arthur, in my Character of Albianus, not known to our Histories. I may say thus much in behalfe of my Muses Records; That, since so little, and that darkely, is discover'd to us from Story, of that Heroick Prince, or the certain time of his Raign, it is possible the being of so glorious a Son, (though true) may be at this day (with other Monuments of him) equally unknown. While this Island, receiving so many Alterations in State, from Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans; who, with the Ruines of Warr, have been even fatal to the very Memories of our Predecessors, by almost a total suppres-