V. I cannot find that the British have boasted of many miracles done among them; if any such antiently there were, they were deprived of the memory of them by the Romans. I cannot affirm with so much reason (as some of our neighbours have done with confidence) who say, that at the last digging on the Haw for the foundation of the citadel of Plymouth, the great jaws and teeth therein found, were those of Gogmagog, who was there said to be thrown down by Corineus, whom some will have to be the founder of the Cornish;[35] nor am I able to assert, that some great instruments of war in brass, and huge limbs and portraitures of persons long ago, as some say that have been in some of the western parishes, were parts of giants, or other great men, who had formerly had their being there. But we may rather think those to be imaginary things or devices of old bards said to be there, though we have no certain memory of them neither. Nor may we think it strange that such things may be spoken of, since we may well credit some good historians, that
write that Alexander, after that he had returned from his journey to India, caused a great representation to be made on the ground on the western side of the river Indus, of a huge campaign almost immeasurable, with tents, cabins, and platforms, and arms also, for horses, racks, and mangers, of such height as were not to be reached at; and that there were also scattered about the ground bits and bridles for horses, of extraordinary length and bigness, and that all this “ut de magnis majora loquantur,” and to make men think upon him and his miraculous acts with the more admiration.
VI. The sixth cause is, the loss of the ancient records, not of the Duchy or the Earldom of Cornwall, (which some affirm were burnt, and others lost in the ancient ruins of the castles of Rostormell, and other such,) but of those of whole Cornwall, whilst one of the four dynasties of this island, (or, as Pancirollus,) one of the five.
VII. The seventh cause is desuetude, or want of a continued use; and it is no wonder, if, after so many losses, the true use of the tongue vanished away or grew not into contempt. Speeches are compounded of words, and both of them of one nature, and continued according to their use, and of one of them it may be said as of the other
Multa recensentur quæ nunc cecidere, cadentque
Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus.
Words many and tongues we recount,
Which being fallen do oft remount,
And those that are now priz’d by us,
May fall to ground for want of use.