But his greatest work is the Poly-Olbion, in twenty Cantos or Songs, of which the first is here given, with the Author’s Notes or Illustrations, as it contains a description of Cornwall, commencing with a Dialogue between St. Michael’s Mount and the Bar of Hayle, which
must have passed immediately over Tredrea the Editor’s House.
The singular title of his great work is derived from the Greek Πόλυς many and also very; and Ολβιὸς happy; some neuter substantive understood, perhaps the Latin Regnum; and founded on one of the idle fancies current in the middle ages, which derived Albion (a name of this island) in some way or another from Ολβιὸς.
Michael Drayton commences his national poem with the western point of the Country, and his First Song is as follows:
THE ARGUMENT.
The sprightly Muse her wing displays,
And the French islands first surveys;
Bears up with Neptune, and in glory
Transcends proud Cornwal’s promontory;