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Personal.

Among the Americans who will return from abroad this summer are: Mr. Walter H. Kilham, the holder of the Rotch Scholarship, who has now been abroad two years; Mr. F. E. Perkins, who has been abroad three years; and Mr. W. Atherton,--all of Boston. Messrs. D. Hale, W. W. Knowles, G. O. Totten, Laflin, and Ramond, of New York, and Mr. A. D. Koch, of Milwaukee, also return this summer.

Mr. J. Greenleaf Thorp announces his removal to the Constable Building, 111 Fifth Avenue, New York.

In bringing the affairs of the Architect Department of the city of Boston to a final settlement pending its abolishment on July 1, Mr. Edw. H. Hoyt has been acting as City Architect Wheelwright's assistant, in place of Mr. Matthew Sullivan, now abroad, who has most acceptably filled that position during the whole of Mr. Wheelwright's term of office. In future the work of the city will be distributed among private architects.

Mr. Frank E. Wallis has gone into partnership with Frank E. Freeman, and opened an office on West Twentieth Street, New York City.

NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS

The letter below was written after a three months' trial advertisement

Rochester, N. Y., July 27, 1895.

BATES & GUILD, 6 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.

We were tempted recently to put an advertisement in the Architectural Review on account of the good results received from the Brochure Series. Please send us the bill for our account for the first quarter, so that we can have it audited and send you a check.

Very truly yours,

Dic. W. F. M. MORSE MACHINE CO.

It costs .00 a year

Adrian Gilbert interested himself in the discovery of the North-West Passage, but neither of the brothers did much more than secure for Dartmouth a principal share in the Newfoundland trade, for many and many a year one of the chief props of Devon commerce.

Of far greater practical significance, as a centre of maritime adventure, was Plymouth. Hence sprang William Hawkins, the first of his nation to sail a ship in the Southern Seas. Hence sprang his more famous son, Sir John Hawkins, the first Englishman that ever entered the Bay of Mexico, and who spent the bribes of Philip of Spain in defensive preparations against that tyrant's fleet. Here was organized the Plymouth Company founded for the colonization of North Virginia after the failure of Sir Walter Raleigh to form a settlement. The efforts of the Plymouth Company were at first not very felicitous, but in 1620 it received a new charter, and although its schemes were absurdly ambitious, and fell ludicrously short of realization, and although it was administered for private ends rather than in a large spirit of enlightened patriotism, still the mere existence of the company must have tended to promote the flow of men and money to the new plantations beyond the seas.

Later in the year, Prince Maurice exerted himself to reduce Plymouth, but, although the Cavaliers fought well, the garrison, equally brave and perhaps more pious, drove them back to the cry of "God with us!" Among the besiegers was King Charles himself, but not even the presence of royalty could alter the situation, and he and Maurice presently withdrew from the scene of operations. The siege was not ended till the spring of 1645, in the January of which year Roundheads and Cavaliers occupied the same relative positions as Britons and Boers in the memorable fight at Wagon Hill. Even after this terrible repulse, the Cavaliers did not quite abandon hope, and several small actions took place; but the advent of Fairfax in 1646 led to a precipitate retreat, and the Cavalier strongholds--Mount Edgecumbe and Ince House--gallantly defended throughout, had to be given up.

Devon men took an active part in the Monmouth Rebellion; and, in common with its neighbours, the county experienced the judicial atrocities of the notorious Jeffreys. A "bloody assize" was opened at Exeter on September 14th, 1685, when twenty-one rebels were sentenced, thirteen of whom were executed. Thirteen more were fined and whipped, and one was reprieved. A feature in this assize was the publication of 342 names, all belonging to persons who were at large when the business closed. These comparatively fortunate yeomen had escaped the search of the civil and military powers, and were tenants of the open country, living in copses and haystacks as best they might.

The Prince of Orange was in Exeter for three days before any of the county gentry appeared in his support, and naturally the members of his suite began to feel disconcerted. Presently, however, the gentlemen of Devon rallied to his standard, and in compliance with a proposal of Sir Edward Seymour, formed a general association for promoting his interest. A notable arrival was Mr. Hugh Speke, who, it is said, had been personally offered by King James the return of a fine of ?5,000 if he would atone for his support of Monmouth by acting as spy on the Prince of Orange, and had bravely refused. The Mayor and Aldermen now thought it high time to recognise the change in the situation and observe a greater measure of respect towards one who, it seemed likely, would soon be their lawful sovereign. The Dean, too, hastened home to give in his adhesion to the Prince; and William left Exeter with the assurance that the West Country, which could not forgive the Jacobite massacre, was heart and soul with him, and that elsewhere the power of his despotic father-in-law was rapidly crumbling.

In a second letter, reproduced in the Harleian Miscellany, we are informed that there had been "lately driven into Dartmouth, and since taken, a French vessel loaded altogether with images and knives of a very large proportion, in length nineteen inches, and in breadth two inches and an half; what they were designed for, God only knows." Possibly for a purpose not wholly unlike that which inspired the unpleasant visit of some of the same nation to Teignmouth in 1690, when they fired the town. It appears that the county force had been drafted to Torquay with the object of resisting a threatened landing from the French fleet, which was anchored in the bay. Certain French galleys, availing themselves of the opportunity thus afforded them, stole round to Teignmouth, threw about two hundred great shot into the town, and disembarked 1,700 men, who wrought immense damage in the place, already deserted by its inhabitants. For three hours there was pillage, and then over a hundred houses were burnt. A contemporary named Jordan, recounting the circumstances, cannot restrain his righteous indignation. "Moreover," says he, "to add sacrilege to their robbery and violence, they, in a barbarous manner, entered the two churches in the said town, and in a most unchristian manner tore the Bibles and Common Prayer Books in pieces, scattering the leaves thereof about the streets, broke down the pulpits, overthrew the Communion tables, together also with many other marks of a barbarous and enraged cruelty; and such goods and merchandize as they could not or dare not stay to carry away, they spoiled and destroyed, killing very many cattle and hogs, which they left dead behind them in the streets." This, the last, invasion of Devonshire, cost the county ?11,030, the amount at which the damage was assessed, and which was raised by collections in the churches after the reading of a brief. French Street, Teignmouth, conserves by its name the memory of this heavy, but happily transient, disaster.

With the seventeenth century ends the heroic period of Devonian history. From that time it figures merely as a province sharing in the triumphs and distresses of the country of which it forms part, but having no special or distinctive record. The most exciting era was, without doubt, the Napoleonic age, when the dread of a new French invasion was terminated only by the glorious victory of Trafalgar.

THE EDITOR.

THE MYTH OF BRUTUS THE TROJAN.

BY THE LATE R. N. WORTH, F.G.S., ETC.

Brutus, son of Sylvius, grandson of AEneas the Trojan, killed his father while hunting, was expelled from Italy, and settled in Greece. Here the scattered Trojans, to the number of seven thousand, besides women and children, placed themselves under his command, and, led by him, defeated the Grecian King Pandrasus. The terms of peace were hard. Pandrasus gave Brutus his daughter, Ignoge, to wife, and provided 324 ships, laden with all kinds of provisions, in which the Trojan host sailed away to seek their fortune. An oracle of Diana directed them to an island in the Western Sea, beyond Gaul, "by giants once possessed." Voyaging amidst perils, upon the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea they found four nations of Trojan descent, under the rule of Corinaeus, who afterwards became the Cornish folk. Uniting their forces, the Trojans sailed to the Loire, where they defeated the Gauls and ravaged Aquitaine with fire and sword. Then Brutus

"... Repaired to the fleet, and loading it with the riches and spoils he had taken, set sail with a fair wind towards the promised island, and arrived on the coast of Totnes. This island was then called Albion, and was inhabited by none but a few giants. Notwithstanding this, the pleasant situation of the places, the plenty of rivers abounding with fish, and the engaging prospect of its woods, made Brutus and his company very desirous to fix their habitation in it. They therefore passed through all the provinces, forced the giants to fly into the caves of the mountains, and divided the country among them, according to the directions of their commander. After this they began to till the ground and build houses, so that in a little time the country looked like a place that had been long inhabited. At last Brutus called the island after his own name, Britain, and his companions Britons; for by these means he desired to perpetuate the memory of his name; from whence afterwards the language of the nation, which at first bore the name of Trojan or rough Greek, was called British. But Corinaeus, in imitation of his leader, called that part of the island which fell to his share Corina, and his people Corineans, after his name; and though he had his choice of the provinces before all the rest, yet he preferred this county, which is now called in Latin Cornubia, either from its being in the shape of a horn , or from the corruption of the same name. For it was a diversion to him to encounter the said giants, which were in greater numbers there than in all the other provinces that fell to the share of his companions. Among the rest was one detestable monster called Goemagot, in stature twelve cubits, and of such prodigious strength that at one stroke he pulled up an oak as if it had been a hazel wand. On a certain day, when Brutus was holding a solemn festival to the gods in the port where they at first landed, this giant, with twenty more of his companions, came in upon the Britons, among whom he made a dreadful slaughter. But the Britons at last, assembling together in a body, put them to the rout, and killed them every one, except Goemagot. Brutus had given orders to have him preserved alive, out of a desire to see a combat between him and Corinaeus, who took a great pleasure in such encounters. Corinaeus, overjoyed at this, prepared himself, and, throwing aside his arms, challenged him to wrestle with him. At the beginning of the encounter, Corinaeus and the giant, standing front to front, held each other strongly in their arms, and panted aloud for breath; but Goemagot presently grasping Corinaeus with all his might, broke three of his ribs, two on his right side and one on his left; at which Corinaeus, highly enraged, roused up his whole strength, and snatching him upon his shoulder, ran with him, as fast as the weight would allow him, to the next shore, and there getting upon the top of a high rock, hurled down the savage monster into the sea, where, falling on the sides of craggy rocks, he was torn to pieces, and coloured the waves with his blood. The place where he fell, taking its name from the giant's fall, is called Lam Goemagot, that is, Goemagot's Leap, to this day."

Footnote 1:

Such, in its complete form, is the myth of Brutus the Trojan, as told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, sometime Bishop of St. Asaph, who professed, and probably with truth, to translate the British history of which it forms a part from "a very ancient book in the British tongue," given to him by Walter Mapes, by whom it had been brought from Brittany. Geoffrey wrote in the earlier part of the twelfth century, and he does not indicate with more precision than the use of the term "very ancient" the date of his original.

If, however, we are to accept the writings of Nennius as they have been handed down as substantially of the date assigned to them by the author--the middle of the ninth century--the legend of Brutus, though not in the full dimensions of the Geoffreian myth, was current at least a thousand years ago; and in two forms. In one account, Nennius states that our island derives its name from Brutus, a Roman consul, grandson of AEneas, who shot his father with an arrow, and, being expelled from Italy, after sundry wanderings settled in Britain--a statement that agrees fairly well with that of Geoffrey. In the other account, which Nennius says he had learned from the ancient books of his ancestors, Brutus, though still through Rhea Silvia, his great-grandmother, of Trojan descent, was grandson of Alanus, the first man who dwelt in Europe, twelfth in descent from Japhet in his Trojan genealogy, and twentieth on the side of his great-grandfather, Fethuir. Alanus is a kind of European Noah, with three sons--Hisicion, Armenon, and Neugio; and all his grandsons are reputed to have founded nations--Francus, Romanus, Alamanus, Brutus, Gothus, Valagothus, Cibidus, Burgundus, Longobardus, Vandalus, Saxo, Boganus. He is wholly mythical.

Brutus here does not stand alone. He falls into place as part of a patriarchal tradition, assigning to each of the leading peoples of Europe an ancestor who had left them the heritage of his name. This one fact, to my mind, removes all suspicion of the genuineness of these passages of Nennius, which have been sometimes regarded as interpolations. With Geoffrey not only is the story greatly amplified, but it is detached from its relations, and is no longer part of what may fairly be called one organic whole. Nennius, therefore, gives us an earlier form of the myth than Geoffrey. I think, too, that the essential distinctions of the two accounts render it clear that the ancient authorities of Nennius and Geoffrey are not identical, from which we may infer that the original tradition is of far older date than either of these early recorders.

But we may go still further. Whether the legend of Brutus is still extant in an Armoric form, I am not aware, but it appears in Welsh MSS. of an early date; the "Brut Tysilio" and the "Brut Gr. ab Arthur" being important. It has been questioned whether, in effect, these are not translations of Geoffrey; but there seems no more reason for assuming this than for disbelieving the direct statement of Geoffrey himself, that he obtained his materials from a Breton source. Bretons, Welsh, and Cornish are not only kindred in blood and tongue, but, up to the time when the continuity of their later national or tribal life was rudely shattered, had a common history and tradition, which became the general heritage. If the story of Brutus has any relation to the early career of the British folk, we should expect to discover traces of the legend wherever the Britons found their way. If this suggestion be correct, if Geoffrey drew from Armoric sources, and if the "Brut Tysilio," which is generally regarded as the oldest of the Welsh chronicles, represents an independent stream, the myth must be dated back far beyond even Nennius, as the common property of the Western Britons, ere, in the early part of the seventh century, the successes of the Saxons hemmed one section into Wales, another into Cornwall, and drove a third portion into exile with their kindred in Armorica. There is, consequently, good reason to believe that the tradition is as old as any other portion of our earliest recorded history or quasi-history, and covers, at least, the whole of our historical period.

The narrative of Geoffrey does not give the myth in quite its fullest shape. For that we have to turn to local sources. Tradition has long connected the landing of Brutus with the good town of Totnes; the combat between Corinaeus and Goemagot with Plymouth Hoe. Like the bricks in the chimney called in to witness to the noble ancestry of Cade, has not Totnes its "Brutus stone"? And did not Plymouth have its "Goemagot"?

The whole history of the "Brutus stone" appears to be traditional, if not recent. My friend, Mr. Edward Windeatt, informs me that it is not mentioned anywhere in the records of the ancient borough of Totnes. I fail to find any trace of it in the pages of our local chroniclers, beyond the statement of Prince that "there is yet remaining towards the lower end of the town of Totnes a certain rock called Brute's Stone, which tradition here more pleasantly than positively says is that on which Brute first set his foot when he came ashore." The good people of Totnes, so it is said, have had it handed down to them by their fathers from a time beyond the memory of man, that Brutus, when he sailed up the Dart, which must consequently have been a river of notable pretensions, stepped ashore upon this stone, and exclaimed, with regal facility of evil rhyme:--

"Here I stand, and here I rest, And this place shall be called Totnes!"

The stone itself affords no aid. All mystery departed when it was recently lifted in the course of pavemental repairs, and found to be a boulder of no great dimensions, with a very modern-looking bone lying below. However, it is the "Brutus stone," and I dare say will long be the object of a certain amount of popular faith.

Footnote 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.

But, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth himself, Totnes town could not have been intended by him as the scene of the landing of Brutus. It was when Brutus was "holding a solemn festival to the gods, in the port where they had at first landed," that he and his followers were attacked by Goemagot and his party. There it was that Goemagot and Corinaeus had that famous wrestling bout, which ended in Corinaeus running with his gigantic foe to the next shore, and throwing him off a rock into the sea. There is no sea at Totnes, no tall craggy cliff; and for Corinaeus to have run with his burden from Totnes to the nearest point of Start or Tor Bay would have been a feat worthy even of a Hercules.

We are not surprised to find, therefore, that Totnes has her rivals--Dover, set up by the Kentish folk, and Plymouth, each claiming to be the scene of the combat between Corinaeus and Goemagot, and claiming, therefore, incidentally, also to be the port in which Brutus landed. I do not know that we can trace either tradition very far into antiquity. They do not occur in the chronicles, where, indeed, the very name of Plymouth is unknown. The earliest reference to that locality has been generally regarded as the Saxon Tamarworth. I am not at all sure, however, that Plymouth is not intended by Geoffrey's "Hamo's Port," which he assumes to be Southampton. Geoffrey, indeed, says that Southampton obtained the "ham" in its name from a crafty Roman named Hamo, killed there by Arviragus; but if the identification is no better than the etymology, we may dismiss it altogether. On the other hand, the name of the estuary of the Tamar is still the Hamoaze--a curious coincidence, if it goes no further. There is nothing in the story of Hamo itself to indicate Southampton or preclude Plymouth; only a few references to Hamo's Port occur in Geoffrey. One of these, where Belinas is described as making a highway "over the breadth of the kingdom" from Menevia to Hamo's Port, may rather seem to point to Southampton; but there is no positive identification, even if we assume the story to be true. Again, "Maximian the senator," when invited into Britain by Caradoc, Duke of Cornwall, to be King of Britain, lands at Hamo's Port; and here the inference would rather be that it was on Cornish territory. And so when Hoel sent 15,000 Armoricans to the help of Arthur, it was at Hamo's Port they landed. It was from Hamo's Port that Arthur is said to have set sail on his expedition against the Romans--a fabulous story, indeed, but still helping to indicate the commodiousness and importance of the harbour intended. It was at Hamo's Port that Brian, nephew of Cadwalla, landed on his mission to kill the magician of Edwin the King, who dwelt at York, lest this magician might inform Edwin of Cadwalla's coming to the relief of the British. After he had killed Pellitus, Brian called the Britons together at Exeter; and it would be fair to infer that the place where he landed was likely to be one where the Britons had some strength. Here, again, whatever we may make of the history, it is Hamo's Port that is the fitting centre of national life; and it is the Hamoaze that best suits the reference.

Footnote 3:

Bridport also, on the ground of its etymology, Brute-port .

This legend of Brute the Trojan was firmly believed in, and associated with these Western shores, by the leading intellects of the Elizabethan day. Spenser refers to it in his:--

That well can witness yet unto this day The Western Hogh besprinkled with the Gore Of mighty Goemot.

Upon that loftie place at Plimmouth, call'd the Hoe, Those mightie Wrastlers met;

and how that Gogmagog was by Corin--

Pitcht head-long from the hill; as when a man doth throw An Axtree that with sleight deliurd from the Foe Roots up the yeelding earth, so that his violent fall, Strooke Neptune with such strength, as shouldred him withall; That where the monstrous waues like mountaines late did stand, They leapt out of the place, and left the bared sand To gaze vpon wide heauen.

We know when these figures ceased to be. Can we form any idea as to when they originated? Their earliest extant mention occurs in the Receiver's Accounts of the borough of Plymouth, under date 1494-5:--

It. paid to Cotewyll for y^e renewying of y^e pyctur of Gogmagog a pon y^e howe. vij^

Some years ago I threw out the suggestion that as Geoffrey made no allusion to these figures, "it must be assumed either that he did not know of their existence, or that they did not then exist." Believing the latter the more reasonable conclusion, I suggested, further, "that they were first cut in the latter half of the twelfth century, soon after Geoffrey's chronicle became current, or not long subsequently; unless, as is possible, they had a different origin, and were associated with the wrestling story in later days." Finally, I put forward the hypothesis, "that the legend, in the first place, did refer to something that occurred in the fifth century at or near the Hoe, and with which the Armorican allies, whom Ambrosius called to his aid about the year 438, were associated; that the Armoricans, on their return to Brittany, between the fifth and twelfth centuries, under the mingled influence of half-understood classical history and of religious sentiment working through the romantic mind, it developed into the full-blown myth of Brutus the Trojan; and that when it returned to England, and was made known under the auspices of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Plymouthians of that day, to perpetuate the memory of what they undoubtedly believed to be sterling fact, cut the figures of the two champions on the greensward of the Hoe."

I am not inclined now to adopt this hypothesis so broadly as it was then suggested. Probably the story did take shape in Brittany in some such fashion, but I now believe we must look far beyond the fifth century for its origin. There seems, however, little reason to doubt that the "Brutus stone" of Totnes and the Gogmagog of Plymouth originated, like the Gog and Magog of London City, in the popularity of Geoffrey's book. The name, of course, linked Totnes with the legend, but we have absolutely no knowledge whatever of the reason why Plymouth came into the story. Dover, indeed, has no case what-ever--not even a "Gogmagog."

What, then, are the claims of Totnes?

Now, as to Totnes, it is important, in the first place, to observe that in all the early works, Totnes is generally alluded to as the name of a district, and not of a town. For example, in the story of Brutus, as given by Geoffrey of Monmouth, his hero "set sail with a fair wind towards the promised island, and arrived on the coast of Totnes." Nennius does not mention any place of debarkation. Geoffrey makes Vespasian arrive at the shore of Totnes, and, in quoting Merlin's prophecy to Vortigern concerning his own fate, says of the threatened invasion of Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon, "to-morrow they will be on the shore of Totnes." Later in the same chronicle, the Saxons whom Arthur had allowed to depart "tacked about again towards Britain, and went on shore at Totnes." Though the town seems rather to be indicated here, it is not necessarily so.

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