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might think sufficiently protected by the adjacent forest.

Though it is probable that London only began to be much frequented between the first Roman invasion, under Julius, 55 years before Christ, and the second under Claudius A. D. 43; yet in less than twenty years after this last event, Tacitus describes it as 66 a city famous for its wealth and the great number of its merchants."

It

When the Romans became masters of London, they enlarged the precincts, and altered their form. extended in length from Ludgate-hill to a spot a little beyond the Tower. The breadth was not half equal to the length, and at each end grew considerably narrower. The time in which the walls were built is very uncertain. Some ascribed the work to Constantine the Great, as numbers of coins of his mother, Helena, have been discovered under them.

The ancient course of the walls was as follows: It began with a fort near the present site of the tower, was continued along the Minories, and the back of Houndsditch, across Bishopsgate-street, in a straight line by London-wall to Cripplegate; then returned southward by Crowder's Well Alley, (where several remnants of lofty towers were lately to be seen) to Aldersgate; thence along the back of Buil and Mouth-street, to Newgate, and again along the back of the houses in the Old Bailey to Ludgate; soon after which, it probably finished with another fort, where the house, late the King's PrintingHouse, in Black Friars, now stands: from hence another wall ran near the river side, along Thamesstreet, quite to the fort on the eastern extremity.

The walls. were three miles, one hundred and sixty-five feet in circumference, guarded at proper distances, on the land side, with fifteen lofty towers; and there were four gates. London-wall near Moor

fields, is now the most entire part left of that ancient precinct.

The Barbican, the Specula or watch tower belonging to every fortified place, must not be omitted. This stood a little without the walls, to the northwest of Cripplegate."

In most parts of ancient London, Roman antiquities have been found, whenever it has been thought necessary to dig to any considerable depth. Beneath the old St. Mary-le-Bow were found the walls, windows, and pavement of a Roman temple; and not far from it, eighteen feet deep, in adventitious soil, was the Roman causeway*.

In digging the foundation for the rebuilding of St. Paul's was found a vast cemetry: first lay the Saxons, in graves lined with chalk-stones, or in coffins of hollowed stones; beneath them had been the bodies of the Britons, placed in rows. Abundance of ivory and boxen pins, about six inches long, marked their place. These were supposed to have fastened the shrouds in which the bodies were wrapped. These perishing, left the pins entire. In the same row, but deeper, were Roman urns intermixed, lamps, lacrymatories; fragments of sacrificial vessels were also discovered, in digging towards the north-east corner; and in 1675, not far from the east corner, at a considerable depth, beneath some flinty pavement, were found numbers of vessels of earthen ware, and of glass, of most exquisite colours and beauty, some inscribed with the names of deities, heroes, or men of rank. Others ornamented

with variety of figures in bass relief, of animals and of rose trees. Tessulæ of jasper, porphry, or marble, such as form the pavement we so often see, were also discovered. Also glass beads and rings, large

*In Leadenhall-street, a beautiful tessellated Roman pave ment has been discovered, since the time of Pennant,

pins of ivory and bone, tusks of boars, and horns of deer sawn through. Other cemeteries and remains of Roman labour and skill have been discovered at different periods, within the precincts of London.

After the Romans abandoned Britain, a new and fierce race succeeded. The warlike Saxons, under their leaders Hengist and Horsa, landed in 448, at Upwines fleot, the present Ebbsflete, in the isle of Thanet. The Britons, however, remained masters of London at least nine years after that event; and by the year 604, it seems to have recovered from the ravages of the invaders. It became the chief town of the kingdom of Essex. Sebert was the first Christian king: and his maternal uncle, Ethelbert, king of Kent, founded here a church, dedicated to St. Paul.

In the reign of that great prince Alfred, London, or, to use the Saxon name, Lundenburgh, was made by him capital of all England. In consequence of a vow he had made, he sent Sighelm, bishop of Sherbourn, first to Rome, and from thence to India, with alms to the Christians of the town of St. Thomas, or Meliapour; who returned with various rich gems, some of which were to be seen in the church of Sherbourn, in the days of William of Malmesbury. It must not be omitted that he was the first who, from this island, had any intercourse with that distant country. Our commerce was secured by a variety of regulations at this period. By some laws made in a great council, or wittenagemot, held at Wantage*, during the reign of Ethelred, the rates of the customs, to be paid on the importation of different goods at the wharf of Billingsgate, were settled. From these laws it also appears, that there was a company of German merchants, called the

*The reputed birth-place of Alfred the Great.

emperor's men, then residing in London, who were obliged to pay to the king, for his protection, twice a year, (at Christmas and Easter) two pieces of grey, and one piece of brown cloth, ten pounds of pepper, five pair of gloves, and two casks of wine.

Under the auspices of Canute the Great, the trade of England flourished greatly; and the English merchants, particularly those of London, acquired a degree of weight and influence in the public councils of the kingdom, formerly unknown. This is evident from their importance at the commencement of the subsequent reign. "As soon as

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Canute was dead," says the Saxon chronicle, great assembly of the nobility met at Oxford, where were present Earl Leofric, almost all the Thanes to the north of the Thames, and the seamen of London, who chose Harold to be king of all England.” These seamen of London, who were members of this wittenagemot, or great council, were probably such merchants of that city as had made three voyages beyond seas, and had thereby acquired (according to a law of Athelstan's) a legal title to the dignity of Thanes.

At the time of the conquest, London ventured to sally out on the conqueror, but without success. It fell, however, more by internal faction, than its own weakness: yet there was strength enough left to make William think proper to secure their allegiance, by building that strong fortress, the Tower, In seventy years from that event, Fitzstephen pretends, that London mustered sixty thousand foot, and twenty thousand horse.

Richard I. to support the madness of the crusades, received from the citizens a large sum of money: and in return, permitted them to chuse annually two officers, under the name of bailiffs, or sheriffs; who were to supersede the former. The names of

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the two first, upon record, are Wolgarius and Geffry de Magnum.

In the next reign was added the office of Mayor, a title borrowed from the Norman Maire, as well as the office. Henry Fitz-alywn was the first elected to that trust.

Henry III. after the citizens had suffered many oppressions, restored their government, and appointed twenty-four citizens to share the power. In his son's reign, we find the city divided into twentyfour wards; the supreme magistrate of which was named Alderman, a very ancient Saxon title, signifying a man advanced in years, and of superior prudence and gravity.

The ancient city was defended in front by the river; on the west side by the deep ravine, since known by the name of Fleet-ditch; on the north by morasses; and on the east, by another ravine. All the land round Westminster Abbey was a flat fen, which continued beyond Fulham: but a rise commences opposite to it, and forms a magnificent bend above the curvature of the Thames, even to the Tower. The Surry side was in all probability a great expanse of water, or lake, which an ingenious countryman of Mr. Pennant's, not without reason, thinks might have given a name to our capital, Llyn Din, or the city on the lake. Such is a brief view

of the ancient history of London.

Mr Pennant begins his tour, by crossing over the Thames to Lambeth. In the earlier times it was a manor, possibly a royal one, for the great Hardiknut died here in 1042, in the midst of the jollity of a wedding dinner; and here, without any formality, the usurper Harold is said to have snatched the crown, and placed it on his own head. At that pe riod it was part of the estate of Godr, wife to Walter earl of Mantes, and Eustace earl of Boulogne; who presented it to the church of Rochester, but reserved

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