in Britain, his sons buried him in the city he had built, and then divided his dominions amongst themselves; each retiring to his part of the kingdom to govern it.

"Locrin, after a reign of ten years, was killed in battle; and his wife, the daughter of Corineus, taking upon her the government of the kingdom in the behalf of her son Maddan, held the sceptre during his minority: and at the end of fifteen years, delivered it to him; Maddan ruling the kingdom in peace for forty years after. He was then succeeded by his son Menpricius, a tyrannical Prince, remarkable for his being devoured in a horrible manner by a multitude of ravenous wolves, in the twentieth year of his reign. Ebrancus his son, a man of great stature and wonderful strength, next mounting the throne, held the government of the island full forty years; during which time, he, by an invasion of Gaul, enriched himself with an infinite mass of gold and silver, and was thereby enabled to build two cities, Kaerbranc and Alclud, together with the town of Mount Agned.

"Ebrancus was succeeded by his elder son Brutus, surnamed Green Shield, who reigned twelve years, and then the Crown descended to his son Liel, a peaceable and just prince; and he, enjoying a prosperous reign, built the city of Kaerleil, at the same time that Solomon began to build the temple of Jerusalem, and the Queen of Sheba came to hear his wisdom. His reign amounted to five and twenty years complete; but the King, towards the latter part of his life, growing remiss in his government, his neglect of affairs quickly occasioned acivil dissention in the kingdom; nor was this composed till the reign of his son Hudibras, who succeeding him, and holding the sceptre nine and thirty years, put an end to the dissentions among the people.

"Hudibras built Kaerlem, Kaerguen, and the town of Mount Paladur; and at this place an eagle spoke while the wall of the town was building. At this time Haggai, Amos, Joel, and Azariah, were prophets in Israel; and when Hudibras died, his son Bladud succeeded him.

"Whilst this Prince was a young man, he by some accident or other got the leprosy, and lest he should infect the nobility and gentry, who attended his father's levee, with that distemper, they all joined in an humble petition to the King, that the Prince might be banished the British Court. Lud Hudibras, finding himself under a necessity of complying with the peti

tion of his principal subjects, ordered Bladud to depart his palace; and the Queen, upon parting with her only son, presented him with aring, as a token by which she should know him again, if he should ever get cured of his loathsome disease.

"The young Prince was not long upon his exile, nor had he travelled far, before he met with a poor shepherd feeding his flocks upon the downs, with whom, after a little discourse about the time of the day and the variations of the weather, he exchanged his apparel, and then endeavoured for employ in the same way. Fortune so far favoured Bladud's designs, that he soon obtained from a swineherd, who lived near the place where Keynsham now stands, the care of a drove of pigs, which he in a short time infected with the leprosy; and to keep the disaster as long as possible from his master's knowledge proposed to drive the pigs under his care to the other side of the Avon, to fatten them with the acorns of the woods that covered the sides of the neighbouring hills.

"Bladud had behaved himself so well in his service, and had appeared so honest in every thing he did, that his proposal was readily complied with, and the very next day was appointed for putting it in execution; so that the Prince, providing himself with every thing that was necessary, set out with his herd early in the morning, and soon meeting with a shallow part of the avon, crossed it with his pigs, in token whereof he called that place by the name of Swineford.

"Here the rising sun, breaking through the clouds, first saluted the royal herdsman with his comfortable beams; and and while he was addressing himself to the glorious luminary, and praying that the wrath of Heaven against him might be averted, the whole drove of pigs, as if seized with a phrenzy, ran away, pursuing their course up the valley, by the side of the river, till they reached the spot of ground where the hot springs of Bath boil up.

"The scum which the water naturally emits, mixing with leaves of trees, and decayed weeds, had then made the land about the springs almost over-run with brambles, like a bog, into which the pigs directly immersed themselves, and so delighted were they in wallowing in their warm oozy bed, that Bladud was unable to get them away, till excessive hunger made them glad to follow the Prince for food. Then, by a satchel of acorns shook, and lightly strewed before them, Bladud drew his herd to a convenient place to wash and feed them by day, as well as to secure them by night, and there he

made distinct crues for the swine to lie in; the Prince concluding that, by keeping his pigs clean and separate, the infection would soon be over among the whole herd. And in this pursuit he was much encouraged, when, upon washing them clean of the filth with which they were covered, he observed some of the pigs to have shed their hoary marks.

"Bladud had not been settled many days at this place, which from the number of crues took the name of Swinswick, before he, by driving his herds into the woods for food, lost one of his best sows; nor could he find her, during a whole week's diligent search. But at last passing by the hot springs, be observed the strayed animal wandering in the mire about the waters; and, on washing her, she appeared cured of the leprosy...

The prince, struck with astonishment at this, and considering within himself, that if the cure of the sow were owing to her wallowing in the mud and waters, why he should not receive the same benefit by the same means, instantly resolved to try the experiment; and thereupon stripping himself naked, plunged into the sedge and waters, wallowing in them, as the sow and his other pigs had done. This he repeated every morning before he turned out his herd to feed, and every night after cruing them up; so that in a few days his white scales began to fall off, and then Bladud was convinced that the hot waters had virtues of the greatest efficacy for his disorder.

The prince, therefore, with the strongest hopes of obtaining a perfect cure for himself and pigs, came daily from Swinswick to the hot springs, bringing part of his herd with him, and bathing in the mud and waters alternately, till they had all received the cure he hoped and prayed for. After which Bladud drove his swine home, and not only told his master who he was, but gave him a particular account of his late disorder, and that he by a miracle of Heaven was restored again to his health. The prince at the same time assured the swineherd,, that as soon as he should come to the crown he would make him a gentleman, and give him an estate suitable to his dignity.

"The swincherd listened with great attention to what his servant said; and notwithstanding he saw a wonderful change in his countenance to what he had observed before, yet he he could not avoid looking upon him as a madman, and more especially for saying he was the king's only son. But Bladud, by the uniformity of his behaviour, and the politeness of his

conversation, so far removed his masters suspicion, that at last hé gave such credit to what he said, as made him resolve upon conducting him to court, to be satisfied of the truth of it.

"As soon as matters were prepared for the journey, the prince and his master sat out for the palace of Lud Hudibras; and after their arrival there, it was not long before Bladud found an opportunity, while the king and queen were dining in public, of putting the ring his mother had given him into a glass of wine that was presented to her; which the queen, after drinking the liquor, no sooner perceived at the bottom of the glass, than she knew it to be the token she had given her son; and with rapture cried out, "Where is Bladud, my child !"

"At these words an universal consternation overspread the whole assembly; and while the people were looking at one another with surprise and amazement, the prince made his way through the croud, and, prostrating himself before the king and queen, he was thereupon, to the great astonishment and satisfaction of his master, received by them and all the nobles present, though in his shepherd's clothes, with the utmost transports of joy, as the heir-apparent to the British crown; but could not be prevailed upon to tell where or how he got his cure.

"When the rejoicings were over on the happy event of Bladud's return from exile, and the young prince had sent his master home loaded with presents, he began to solicit his father for leave to take a journey into foreign parts, not only to improve himself in the knowledge of things, but to be out of the way of those who had been the cause of his banishment from court, the better to stifle his resentment for such cruel usage, and the king approving of his sons designs and reasons, resolved upon sending him to Greece, as he was a youth of extraordinary genius, to be instructed in the learning for which the Grecians were then eminent through all the world..

"Ambassadors were therefore immediately appointed to go to those learned people, and notify to them the king's intention; Lud Hudibras at the same time ordering a numerous retinue, arrayed in the most splendid manner, to attend his son. But Bladud besought his father to omit all this, and instead of sending him abroad as the heir-apparent of the British crown, to permit him to set out on his travels as a private person,

'dressed in att

.

Local New Bath Guide.

a habit of a student, desirous of nothing but the inment of knowledge.

"The king, after many persuasive arguments, complied with the son's desire, and Bladud set out for Greece, choosing Athens for his chief place of abode, and continuing eleven years abroad learning philosophy, mathematicks, and necromancy; he was contemporary with and the friend of Pythagoras. He possessed the arrow of Apollo, from which it is to be presumed that he sailed into Greece by means of the magnetic needle; so at his return to Britain, he was of great service to his father in the management of the government : whereby he learned the art of ruling so well; that when Lud Hudibras died, and Bladud succeeded him, no monarch could be more capable of governing a nation than he was.

"Bladud had no sooner ascended the British throne, than he went to the hot springs where he had gotten his miraculos cure when in exile, and made cisterns about them; built himself a palace near those cisterns with houses for the chief of his subjects; and then removed with his whole court to the palace and houses he had erected; which from thenceforward went under the title of Caerbren, and became the capital seat of the British kings.

"After this Bladud sent for his old master, and gave him a handsome estate near the place where he lived, which he settled upon him and his heirs for ever; building a mansionhouse for him, habitations for his family and servants, and proper crues for his herds of swine. These together made a town divided into two parts, the north town and the south town, to which the swineherd affixed the name of those animals that had been the cause of his good fortune; and to this day the north part of the town is called Hog's-Norton, but by some Norton-small-reward, from a tradition that the king's bounty was looked upon by the swineherd but as a small reward for what he had done for him.

"When these works were completed, Bladud applied himself to nothing but ingenious studies, which he pursued with so much assiduity, that at last he invented and made himself wings to fly with; but in one of his flights he unfortunately fell down upon Salsbury church, and, to the great grief of all his subjects, broke his neck, after a reign of twenty years."

The story of Bladud and his swine, however absurd, was firmly believed for centuries, and attested in the works of our