lesser
toparchs, as Aurelius Canon, Vortipor, Cuneglas, and Constantine.
These were chieftains, Vortipor in Pembrokeshire, the rest in some
quarter or other of Britain, all living when Gildas wrote.
Constantine, whom Gildas represents as a native of Cornwall, and as
he is commonly understood, also as prince of that country, did
penance. The chief crime imputed to him is the murder of two royal
youths in a church, and of two noblemen who had the charge of their
education. Those Carte imagines to have been the sons of Caradoc
Ureich Uras, who was chief prince of the Cornish Britons in the
latter end of king Arthur's reign, as is attested by the author of
the Triades. The prelates whom Gildas reproves, were such as Maelgun
had promoted: for the sees of South-Wales were at that time filled
with excellent prelates, whose virtues Gildas desired to copy.
Carte, t. 1, p. 214.
4. Scoti-chron. c. 26.
5. Gildas's epistle, De Excidio Britanniae, was published extremely
incorrect and incomplete, till the learned Thomas Gale gave us a far
more accurate and complete edition, t. 3, Scriptor. Britan., which
is reprinted with notes by Bertrame in Germany, Hanniae imp. an.
1757, together with Nennius's history of the Britons, and Richard
Corin, of Westminster, De Situ Britanniae. Gildas's Castigatio Cleri
is extant in the library of the fathers, ed. Colon. t. 5, part 3, p.
682.
6. Dom Morice shows that about one hundred and twenty years were an
ordinary term of human life among the ancient Britons, and that
their usual liquor, called Kwrw, made of barley and water, was a
kind of beer, a drink most suitable to the climate and constitutions
of the inhabitants. See Dom Morice, Memoires sur l'Histoire de
Bretange, t. 1, preface; and Lamery, Diss. sur les Boissons.

ST. GILDAS THE ALBANIAN, OR THE SCOT, C.[1]

HIS father, who was called Caunus, and was king of certain southern
provinces in North Britain, was slain in war by king Arthur. St. Gildas
improved temporal afflictions into the greatest spiritual advantages,
and, despising a false and treacherous world, aspired with his whole
heart to a heavenly kingdom. Having engaged himself in a monastic state,
he retired with St. Cado, abbot of Llan-carvan, into certain desert
islands, whence they were driven by pirates from the Orcades. Two
islands, called Ronech and Ecni, afforded him for