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| The Brutus Stone in Totnes today - image by myself (my photopgraph) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
"Apropos of landing-places, it may interest some of your readers to learn that the very stone upon which Brutus, the nephew of AEneas, landed at Totnes, still remains! It is inserted in the footway nearly opposite the Mayoralty-house in the Fore Street. "From Totnes, the neighbouring shore was heretofore called Totonesc : and the British History tells us, that Brutus, the founder of the British nation, arrived here; and Havillanus [John de Aloilla or Hauteville. according to Mr. Wright] as a poet, following the same authority, writes thus : —
" Inde dato cursu, Brutus comitatus Achate
Gallorum spoliis cumulatis navibus aequor
Exarat, ct superis auraque faventibus usus,
Littora felices intrat Totonesia portus."
" From hence griat Brute with his Achates steer'd.
Full fraught with Gallic spoils their ships appear'd;
The Winds and Gods were all at their command,
And happy Totnes shew'd them grateful land."
Gibson's Camden.
Totnes is made mention of in the Lais de Marie : —
" II tient sun chemin tut avant.
A la mer vient, si est passer,
En Toteneit est arriver."
Lai d'Eliduc.
J. MlLNER BARRT, M.D.
Totnes, Devon, Jan. 30. 1850."
NOTES AND QUERIES. [No. 15. Feb. 9. 1850.]
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