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 Corinæus 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”?