After a period of three hundred and ten years, the Celtes being subdued by Albion the giant, and this island subjected to his dominion, he changed its name of Samothea to that of Albion. This same Albion the giant was, as every body knows, the fourth son of Neptune-- I am proud to hear it, cried the colonel, but I protest to you it is the first I ever heard of him, or any of his family: I can now account for our superiority in naval affairs; and I most heartily hope that the trident, which this son of Neptune inherited from his father, shall never in any time to come be wrested from his posterity of this island. I hope not, replied De Lancaster; but I proceed with my narrative--Upon the landing of Brute with his Trojans, (which was not above three thousand years ago) I find it asserted by _Master Henry Lyte of Lytescarie_, that this island was no better than a rude and barren wilderness, _ferarum altrix_, a nursery for wild beasts, as he slightingly denominates it; but I must take leave to tell that learned antiquary, that his history, which he proudly styles _The Light of Britain_, might more properly be called The Libel upon Britain; for I will neither give credit to his lions, which he presumes to say overran the island, nor implicitly acquiesce in his monstrous white bulls, with shagged manes and hairy foreheads, forasmuch as I find no mention of them in our King Edward the First’s letters to Pope Boniface, wherein this very point of the landing of Brute in Albion is very learnedly discussed. As for his lions, I treat that fable with contempt, for, besides that King Edward does not mention them, I will never believe there could have been one in the whole island, else how came King Madan, the grandson of this very Brute, to be killed and devoured by wolves in a hunting match, when it has been notorious from all time, that the wolf will fly from the hunter, that has anointed himself with lion’s tallow? Will any man suppose that the royal sportsman could have failed taking that obvious precaution, had there been but a single ounce of the fat of that animal in the whole kingdom? Nobody will suppose it, said Wilson, and I am satisfied there were no lions for the reason you assign: I must beg leave to doubt also if there was any authority for his enormous white bulls, provided you are quite sure that King Edward does not hint at them in his correspondence with the Pope: but have we not lost sight of your ancestors amongst these lions and the bulls? Not so, replied De Lancaster, for upon the partition, which Brute made of the kingdom between his three sons Locrine, Camber and Albanact, my family is found in the Cambrian district upon the very spot, where Kray Castle now stands; which will warrant me in saying without vanity that few land-holders in the island can boast a longer tenure in their possessions, this being not above sixty-six years after the taking of Troy, and eleven hundred thirty and two years before the Christian æra.