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taken poffeffion of about the fame time; but the laft clames the honor of being of a far earlier date, more opulent, populous, and a royal feat before the conqueft of Britain. Camalodunum was made a Colonia, or a place governed entirely by Roman laws and cuftoms; Verulamium, a Municipium, in which the natives were honored with the privileges of Roman citizens, and enjoyed their own laws and conftitutions; and Londinumn only a Præfectura, the inhabitants, a mixture of Romans and Britons, being fuffered to enjoy no more than the name of citizens of Rome, being governed by præfects fent annually from thence, without having either their own laws or magiftrates. It was even then of fuch concourfe, and fuch vaft trade, that the wife conquerors did not think fit to truft the inhabitants with the fame privileges as other places, of which they had lefs reafon to be jealous.

There is no mention of this important place, till the reign of Nero; when Tacitus fpeaks of it as not having been diftinguished as a colony, but famous for its great concourfe of merchants, and its vaft commerce: this indicates, at left, that London had been at that time

of fome antiquity as a trading town, and founded long before the reign of that emperor. The exports from hence were cattle, hides, and corn; dogs made a fmall article; and, let me add, that flaves were a confiderable object. Our internal parts were on a level with the African flave coafts; and wars among the petty monarchs were promoted for the fake of a traffic now so strongly controverted. The imports were at first falt, earthen ware, and works in brafs, polished

bits of bones emulating ivory, horfe-collars, toys of amber, and glaffes, and other articles of the. fame material. We need not infist on the commerce of this period, for there was a great trade carried on with the Gauls in the days of Cæfar: that celebrated invader affigning, as his reafon for attempting this ifland, the vaft fupplies which we gave to his Gaulish enemies, and which interrupted his conquefts on the continent.

When the Romans became maf ters of London, they enlarged the precincts, and altered their form. It extended in length from Ludgate-hill to a fpot a little beyond the Tower. The breadth was not half equal to the length, and at each end grew confiderably narrower. The time in which the wall was built is very uncertain. Some afcribe the work to Conftantine the great. Maitland, to Theodofius, governor of Britain in 369. Poffibly their founder might have been. Conftantine, as numbers of coins of his mother Helena have been difcovered under them, placed there by him in compliment to her. To fupport this conjecture, we may ftrengthen it by faying, that in honor of this emprefs, the city, about that time, received from her the tilte of Augufta; which, for fome. time, fuperfeded the antient one of Londinium. Long before this pe riod, it was fully Romanized, and the customs, manners, buildings, and arts of the conqueror adopted. The commerce of the empire flowed in regularly; came in a direct channel from the feveral parts then known, not as in the earlier days (when defcribed by Strabo) by the intervention of other nations; for till the fettlement of the Roman con

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queft, nothing could come immediately from Italy. The antient courfe of the walls was as follows: -It began with a fort near the prefent fite of the Tower, was continued along the Minories, and the back of Houndfditch, acroís Bifhopfgate-ftreet, in a ftrait line by London-wall to Cripplegate; then returned fouthward by Crowder's Well Alley, (where feveral remnants of lofty towers were lately to be feen) to Alderfgate; thence along the back of Bull-and-mouthftreet to Newgate, and again along the back of the houses in the Old Bailey to Ludgate; foon after which it probably finished with another fort, where the house, late the king's printing houfe, in Black Friars, now ftands: from hence another wall ran near the river-fide, along Thames-ftreet, quite to the fort on the eastern extremity. In another place I fhall have occafion to mention that the river at prefent is moved confiderably more to the fouth, than it was in the times in queftion.

That the Romans had a fort on the spot at present occupied by the Tower, is now past doubt, fince the difcovery of a filver ingot, and three golden coins; one of the emperor Honorius, the others of Arcadius. Its weight is ten ounces eight grains of the troy pound. In the middle is ftruck, in Roman let

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ple, and intended to afcertain the purity of the filver coin, that might have been fent over with it, Honorius reigning over the empire of the west, as Arcadius did over that of the east. This was at the expiration of the Roman power in Britain. The coins were fuppofed to have been part of the money fent to pay the laft legion which was ever fent to the affiftance of the Britons. The Tower was the treafury in which the public money was depofited. The coins are in fine prefervation. On the reverse is an armed man treading on a captive, with the legend VICTORIA AVGGG, and at the bottom CONOB. The first alludes to the fuccefs of the legion against the Picts and Scots. interd Conftantinopoli obfignata *.

CONOB. may

The walls were three miles a hundred and fixty-five feet in circumference, guarded at proper diftances, on the land fide, with fifteen lofty towers; fome of them were remaining within these few years, and poffibly may ftill. Maitland mentions one, twenty-fix feet high, near Gravel-lane, on the weft fide of Houndfditch; another, about eighty paces fouth-eaft towards Aldgate; and the bafes of another, fupporting a modern house, at the lower end of the ftreet called the Vineyard, fouth of Aldgate. But fince his publication, they have been demolished, fo that there is not a trace left. The walls, when perfect, are fuppofed to have been twenty-two feet high, the towers, forty. Thefe, with the remnants of the wall, proved the Roman ftructure, by the tiles and difpofition

See the learned dean Milles's effay on these subjects in the Archaelogia, v. p: 291, tab. xxv.

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of the mafonry.London-wall, near Moorfields, is now the most entire part left of that antient precinct. I must not omit the Barbican, the fpecula or watch-tower belonging fortified place. This flood a little without the walls, to the north-west of Cripplegate.

to every

The gates, which received the great military roads, were four. The Prætorian way, the Saxon Watling-ftreet, paffed under one, on the fite of the late Newgate; veftiges having been difcovered of the road in digging above Holbornbridge: it turned down to Dowgate, or more properly Dwr-gate or Water-gate, where there was a trajectus or ferry, to join it to the Watling-ftreet, which was continued to Dover. The Hermin-ftreet paffed under Cripplegate; and a vicinal way went under Aldgate, by Bethnal Green, towards Oldford, a pafs over the river Lee to Duroleiton, the modern Leiton, in Effex.

In most parts of antient London, Roman antiquities have been found, whenever it has been thought neceffary to dig to any confiderable depth. Beneath the old Saint Mary le Bow were found the walls, windows, and pavement of a Roman temple; and not far from it, eighteen feet deep in adventitious foil, was the Roman causeway. The great elevation of the prefent ground above its former ftate, will be taken notice of in another place.

In digging the foundation for the rebuilding of St. Paul's, was found a vaft cemetery firft lay the Saxons, in grayes lined with chalk ftones, or in coffins of hollowed ftones; beneath th m had been the bodies of the Britons, placed in rows. Abundance of ivory and boxen pins, about fix inches long,

marked their place, Thele were fuppofed to have faftened the fhrouds in which the bodies were wrapped. These perishing, left the pins entire. In the fame row, but deeper, were Roman urns intermixed, lamps, lacrymatories; fragments of facrificial veffels were also discovered, in digging towards the north-eaft corner; and in 1675. not far from the east corner, at a confiderable depth, beneath fome flinty pavement, were found numbers of veffels of earthen ware, and of glafs, of moft exquifite colours and beauty, fome inscribed with the names of deities, heroes, or men of rank. Others ornamented with variety of figures in bas relief, of animals and of rofe-trees. Tef ferulæ of jafper, porphyry, or marble, fuch as form the pavement we so often fee, were alfo discovered. Alfo glafs beads and rings, large pins of ivory and bone, tulks of boars, and horns of deer fawn through. Alfo coins of different emperors, among them fome of Conftantine; which at once deftroys the conjecture of Mr. Maitland, who fuppofes that this collection were flung together at the facking of London by our injured Boadicia.

The choice of the fituation of this great city was moft judicious. It is on a gravelly foil; and on a declivity down to the borders of a magnificent river. The flope is evident in every part of the ancient city, and the vaft modern buildings. The antient city was defended in front by the river; on the weft fide by the deep ravine, fince known by the name of Fleet-ditch; on the north by moraffes; on the eaft, as I fufpect, by another ravine. All the land round Westminster Abbey

was

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was a flat fen, which continued beyond Fulham but a rife commences oppofite to it, and forms a magnificent bend above the curvature of the Thames, even to the Tower. The Surry fide was in all probability a great expanfe of water, a lake, a Llyn, as the Welsh call it; which an ingenious countryman of mine*, not without reason, thinks might have given a name to our capital; Llyn Din, or the city on the lake. This moft probably was the original name: and that derived from Llong a fhip, and din a ' town, might have been bestowed when the place became a feat of trade, and famous for the concourfe of fhipping. The expanfe of water might have filled the space-between the rifing grounds at Deptford, and thofe at Clapham; and been bounded to the fouth by the beautiful Surry Hills. Lambeth Marsh, and the Bankfide, evidently were recovered from the water. Along Lambeth are the names of Narrow Walls, or the mounds which ferved for that purpose; and in Southwark, Bankfide again fhews the means of converting the antient lake into useful land: even to this day the tract beyond Southwark, and in particular that beyond Bermondsey-street, is fo very low, and beneath the level of common tides, that the proprietors are obliged to fecure it by embankments.

Antiquity of Billingsgate, and antient
Prices of Fish and other Articles.
From the fame.

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FTER the Cuftom-house,
the first place of note is Bil-

lingfgate, or, to adapt the fpelling to conjectures of antiquaries," who go beyond the realms of Chaos and old night," Belin's-gate, or the gate of Belinus king of Britain, fellowadventurer with Brennus king of the Gauls, at the facking of Rome, three hundred and fixty years before the Chriftian æra: and the Beli mawr, who graces the pedigrees of numbers of us antient Britons. For fear of falling on fome inglorious name, I fubmit to the' etymology; but must confess there does not appear any record of a gate at this place: his fon Lud was more fortunate, for Ludgate preferves his memory to every citizen, who knows the juft value of antiquity. Gate here fignifies only a place where there was a concourfe of people; a common quay or wharf, where there is a free going in and out of the fame. This was a small port for the reception of fhipping, and, for a confiderable time, the most important place for the landing of almost every article of commerce. It was not till the reign of king William that it became celebrated as a fish-market; who, in 1699, by act of parlement made it a free port for fish, which might be fold there every day in the week except Sunday. The object of this has long been fruftrated, and the epicure who goes (as was a frequent practice) to Billingfgate to eat fish in perfection, will now be cruelly difappointed.

I cannot give a lift of the fish moft acceptable in the Saxon ages; but there is a lift left of thofe which were brought to market in that of Edward I. who descended even to regulate the prices, that his fubjects

★ Mr. William Owen, of Barmouth, now refident in London.

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Beft freih merlings, i. e. merlangi, whitings, four for

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Best powdered ditto, 12 for Beft pickled herrings, twenty OI This fhews that the invention of pickling was before the time of William Benkelen, who died in 1397. See Brit. Zool. iii. article Herring.

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Beft fmelts, the hundred Beft roche, in fummer Beft lucy, or pike, at

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By the very high price of the pike, it is very probable that this fish had not yet been introduced into our ponds, but was imported at this period as a luxury, pickled, or fome way preferved.

Among thefe fifh, let me obferve, that the conger is, at prefent, never admitted to any good table; and to fpeak of ferving up a porpefie whole, or in part, would fet your guefls a ftaring. Yet, fuch is the difference of tafte, both thefe fifhes were in high esteem. King Richard's mafter cooks have left a moft excellent receipt for congur in fawfe; and as for the other great fith, it was either eaten roafted, or falted, or in broth, or furmenie with porpeffe. The learned doctor Caius even tells us the proper fauce, and fays, that it fhould be the fame with that for a dolphin; another dith unheard of in our days. From the great price the lucy or pike bore, one may reasonably fufpect that it was at that time an exotic fifh, and brought over at a vast expence.

I confess myself unacquainted with the words barkey, bran, and betule: fard was properly the fardine or pilchard: I am equally at a lofs about croplings and rumb: but the pickled balenes were certainly the pholas dactylus of Lin

næus,

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