and Derby.
Footnotes
[1]. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Giles’ Translation.
[2]. An old inhabitant of Totnes, named John Newland, states that he and his father removed this stone from a well which they were digging about sixty years ago, and deposited it in its present position. The stone is precisely such a boulder as occurs in large numbers in the deposit left by the Dart on the further margin of the alluvial flat or “strath” at Totnes, and which is cut through by the tramroad to the quay, near the railway station. Popular opinion is in favour of the authenticity of the stone, but it can hardly have been the “rock” referred to by Prince, already cited, “towards the lower end of the town”; and for my own part, I am inclined to regard it as the “modern antique” Newland’s account would make it, to which the old tradition has been transferred. Moreover, there is yet current a local tradition that Brutus landed at Warland. If this is not held to dispose of the present “Brutus stone,” it certainly indicates an important divergence of authorities.
[3]. Bridport also, on the ground of its etymology, Brute-port (!).
[4]. Burritt’s Walk from London to Land’s End.
[5]. Chief authorities for this paper: Dugdale and Oliver’s Monasticon; old documents connected with Tavistock, recovered in ancient oak chest in 1886; various papers on Tavistock Worthies, in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association; Mr. A. H. Bullen’s “Life of William Browne,” in the Dictionary of National Biography; and Mr. Wm. Carew Hazlitt’s Introduction to the Roxburghe Club Edition of Browne’s Works, 1868.
[6]. Devonshire wool was already a valuable commodity, and was bought at that time, it is said, by Flemish merchants who frequented Devonshire ports.