BRITAINE or BRITANNIE, which also is ALBION, ... the most famous Iland, without comparison, of
the whole world; severed from the continent of Europe by the interflowing of the Ocean, lieth
against Germanie and France trianglewise, by reason of three Promontories shooting out into
divers parts: to wit, Belerium, i. ...
e. the Cape of S. Burien in Cornwall, Westward; Cantium,
i. e. the Fore-land of Kent, into the East; and Tarvisium or Orcas, i. e. the point of Catnesse
in Scotland, Northward. On the West side, whereas Ireland is seated, Vergivius, i. e. the Western
Ocean, breaketh in; from the North, it hath the most vast and wide Hyperborean sea beating
upon it; on the East, where it coasteth upon Germanie, enforced sore it is with the Germane
sea; and Southward, as it lieth opposite to France, with the British. Disjoined from those
neighbour-countries all about by a convenient distance every way, fitted with commodious and
open havens for traffique with the universall world, and to the generall good, as it were,
of mankind, thrusting it selfe forward with great desire from all parts into the sea. For
between the said Fore-land of Kent and Calais in France it so advanceth it selfe, and the
sea is so streited, that some thinke the land there was pierced thorow, and received the
seas into it, which before-time had been excluded. For the maintenance of which conceit,
they allege both Vergil in that verse of his, "And Britans people quite disjoin'd from
all the world besides."