1808.] 
~ Fo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
TAKE the liberty of sending you the 
following anecdotes of Totnes. The 
greater part of them are collected from 
Prince’s “ Danmonii Orientales Illus. 
tres,” Camden’s “ Magna Britannia,” ed. 
1730, and “ Jettery of Monmouth’s His- 
tory of England.” Should you think them 
worth inserting in your valuable Maga- 
zine, I may perhaps, at some future time, 
send you an account of the many inter- 
esting objects which are to be met with 
in the neighbourhood of Totnes, as Berry- 
castle, Compton-castle,the river Dart,&c. 
Totnes, according to the old histo- 
rian Jeffery of Monmouth, is the most 
ancient town in England; the first 
that was inhabited by men; for previ- 
ously to the landing of Brute, the whole 
island was inhabited, though very thinly, 
by giants! This luckless lad, Brute, who 
was the great grandson. of Eneas the 
Trojan, killed his mother in his birth, and 
at fifteen years of age destroyed his fa- 
ther. Being expelled Italy for the par- 
ricide, he wandered about the world, till, 
by stratagem and good fortune, he be- 
came possessed of the daughter of king 
Pandrasus for his wife, with plenty of 
gold, silver, ships, corn, wine, and oil. 
- With all these riches, and at the head of 
a fleet of three hundred and twenty-four 
ships, he set sail in quest of further ad- 
ventures. In the course of the voyage 
they landed on an uninhabited island, 
where there was a temple of Diana, and 
a statue of the goddess that gave answers 
to all who consulted her. Here Brute 
enguircd whither they were togo, and was 
informed by the goddess, who appeared 
to him in person, that beyond Gaul there 
was an island in the west, where he 
should found another Troy, and a race of 
kings by whom all the world should be 
subdued, With this answer they put to 
--sea, and after great danger from pirates, 
and sca-monsters called Syrens, they 
picked up some Trojans whose general 
was Corineus, a very modest man, but so 
courageous, that “if he encountered with 
any gfant, he would immediately over- 
throw him as if he had been a child” 
They then attacked and defeated all the 
confederated Gauls, burnt their cities, 
_ Taidwaste their fields, and ‘‘ made dread- 
ful slaughter among the people, being un- 
__ willing to leaye so much as one alive of 
all that wretched nation.” After this 
they set sail for Britain, the promised 
dand, and arrived at Totnes, . 
_ Montunx Dlas., No, 177, 
nv 
Account of the Town of Totnes, in Devonshire. 
309 
And here noble diversion awaited 
Brute’s friend Corineus, for to him was 
confided the difficult enterprize of driving 
out all the giants from the country of 
Cornwall, because they were in greater - 
number there than in all the other pro- 
vinces. ‘There was one of these detes- 
table monsters named Goemagot, about 
eighteen feet high, and of such prodigious 
strength, that at one shake he would pull 
up an oak asif ithad been an hazel-wand. 
One day when Brute was at Totnes, this 
felléw and twenty more of his compa- 
nions fell upon the new-comers, among 
whom they made dreadful slaughter; but 
they were all soon dispatched except 
Goemagot, whom Corineus, throwing 
aside his arms, challenged to a wrestling 
match; but a cornish hug from the Goliah 
of Cornwall, soon broke three of his ribs, 
two on his right side and one upon his 
left. This enraged Corineus to sucha 
degree, that he seized hold of this tre- 
mendous giant, “threw him over his 
shoulders as if he had been a hare, ran 
with him as fast as he was able for the 
weight to the next shore, nay,got even up 
to the top of a very high rock, and there 
hurled down the savage monster into the 
sea. The place. where he fell (adds 
Jeffery), is calied Goemagot’s- leap to 
this day.” Such is an outline of a part 
of the story which was gravely related by 
Jefiery of Monmouth, and firmly believed 
by those of our early historians who lived 
prior to the sixteenth century. 
But in proving the antiquity of Totnes, 
it is not necessary to have recourse to 
Jeffery of Monmouth; for at the survey 
of the kingdom made by order of William 
the Conqueror, according to Dooms-day 
- Book, it did not geld but when Exeter 
gelded, and it was to serve upon any ex- 
pedition by land or sea, asdid Barnstaple 
and Lidford. William gave it to the 
noble Norman Judael, who took from it 
his name “de Totoness,” (derived by 
Leland from Dodoness, a rocky town,) 
made it the principal seat of his barony, 
and erected a castle. From Judael it 
came .by the, Brewers, Brecoses, and 
Cantelupo Lord of Abergavenny, to the 
Lords Zouche, who repaired the castle, 
and made the town much more beautiful 
and strong. It continued in this family 
ull Jolin, Baron Zouche, being banished 
for siding with King Richard II. King 
Henry VII. gave it to Piers Edgcumbi,a 
_maan.of high birth and wisdom, whose fa- 
_mily, retained, it till the second, year of 
Queen Elizabeth, when Richard, Edg- 
Si8 ) cumbe, 
