the Name of _Britain_, and which was so prevalent in him, that he chose rather to suppress the Conversion of _Lucius_ than mention it. But what could thus set _Eusebius_ against _Britain_? Had he been ever injured by the _Britons_? Does he not elsewhere mention both them and their Country? This jesuitical, absurd, and groundless Speculation, which must expose the Author of it to the Ridicule of every Reader, I should perhaps have let pass unobserved, had he not in this very Place insulted, beyond the Bounds of common Decency, the Reformers of Religion, for rejecting some idle Ceremonies, which he supposes to have been practised at the Conversion of _Lucius_. But, not to lay the whole Stress on the Silence of _Eusebius_, and other antient Writers, to whom King _Lucius_ was utterly unknown, why should he have been at the Trouble of sending to _Rome_ for an Instructor? Were there not many in his own Kingdom as capable of instructing him as any _Rome_ could send? The Christian Religion had been planted in this Island long before the Reign of _Lucius_, in the Time of the Apostles, as _Gildas_ seems to insinuate[250], at least very early in the Second Century; for _Origen_, who flourished in the Beginning of the Third, tells us, that the Virtue of the Name of _Jesus_ had passed the Seas, to find out the _Britons_ in another World[251]. [Sidenote: _Several Monkish Fables concerning King_ Lucius.] The short Account, which _Bede_ gives us of the Embassy and Conversion of King _Lucius_, has not only been greedily swallowed by the Monkish Writers, who came after him, but has served as a Ground-plot to the innumerable Fables with which they have filled this Part of their Histories. They even tell us the Names of the Embassadors sent by _Lucius_ to the Pope, and of the Legates _a Latere_ sent by the Pope to _Lucius_. The former were _Elvanus_ and _Medwinus_, who, being ordained Bishops by _Eleutherius_, returned to _Britain_, and greatly contributed to the Conversion of this Island. These Fables gained Credit, by Degrees, in those Ages of Ignorance and Superstition, insomuch that the Two Embassadors were at last ranked among the Saints; and their Bodies, where or when found, nobody knows, exposed to public Veneration, in the Monastery of _Glassenbury_, on the First of _January_[252]. The Pope’s Legates were _Fugacius_ and _Damianus_, who, as we are told, went back to _Rome_, to obtain of _Eleutherius_ a Confirmation of what they had done; and, from _Rome_, returned into _Britain_, with a Letter from the Pope to King _Lucius_[253]. As for the King himself, he is said to have quitted his Kingdom, and, turning Missionary, to have preached the Gospel in _Germany_, especially at _Ausburgh_; to have travelled from thence into the Country of the _Grisons_; and, lastly, to have been ordained Bishop of _Coire_, their Metropolis; and to have died there a Martyr[254]. To these Monkish Fables King _Lucius_ owes a Place among