" Stow remarks, it "bee not of sufficient force to drawe the gaynesayers," was once esteemed of such validity by the citizens, as to be transcribed into their Liber Albus, and afterwards repeated in the Recordatorium Civitatis Speculum. So high, indeed, was its credit, that, in a memorial presented to Henry the Sixth, in his seventh year, and now preserved among the records in the Tower, it is advanced as evidence of "the great antiquity, precedence, and dignity, of the City, before Rome, &c." From the above period to the century immediately preceding the Roman Invasion, even fable is silent in regard to London; but we are then told, that it was encircled with walls,' and graced with fayre buildings and towres,' by King Lud; who also builded the strong gate in the west part of the cittie,' afterwards called Ludgate, and changed the name of Troy-novant into Caer-Lud. It is stated, likewise, that four British Kings were buried in London,' and that Mulmutius Dunwallo (whose son Belinus is said to have founded the gate and haven at Billingsgate) built a temple therein, and dedicated it to Peace.' For the authenticity of these statements, we have only the disputed testimony of Geoffrey; yet, however deficient in truth may be his relations, there can be little doubt but that London was a British city, as well as of British foundation, notwithstanding that both Bishop Stillingfleet, and Stow's continuator, Maitland, agree in ascribing its origin to the Romans. Pennant, speaking of the manners of the Britons in the time of Cæsar, but previous to the Roman Invasion, says, "There is not the least reason to doubt but that London existed at that period, and was a place of much resort. It stood in such a situation as the Britons would select, according to the rule they established. An immense forest originally extended to the river side; and even as late as the reign of Henry the Second, covered the northern neighbourhood of the City, and was filled with various species of beasts of chace. It was defended naturally by fosses; one formed by the creek which ran along Fleet Ditch; the other afterwards known *Stow's London, p. 472, 1st Edit. +Fitz-Stephen's Descrip. of Lond. p. 20 known by the name of Wall-brook: the south side was guarded by the Thames. The north they might think sufficiently protected by the adjacent forest."* This argument for the priority of London, may be strengthened by the course of the Watling Street, which the best informed antiquaries consider as a British road, and as constructed long before the Romans obtained footing in Britain. This road, crossing the Thames from Stone Street, in Surrey, entered Middlesex at DowGate, or Dwr-Gate, whence it continued along the tract still de signated as the Watling Street. Now as the term Dwr-Gate, or water-gate, is evidently British, it must have been applied to this passage prior to the Roman occupation of London, for the Romans would never have permitted a Trajectus of their own to receive a name from those whom they had conquered; and secondly, as the river is certainly not, nor ever could have been, fordable between Dwr-Gate and the opposite shore, the road which crossed here was most probably continued in this particular direction for the convenience of the British inhabitants of London.+ Ptolemy, whose work, however valuable, is not free from geographical errors, has placed Londinium on the southern side of the river Thames; and Dr. Gale, assuming his authority to be correct, has, in his Commentary upon the Itinerary of Antoninus, affixed the site of the Roman London to the spot still called St. George's Fields, though with evident impropriety, as the whole tract is now almost entirely covered with streets and buildings. In proof of his opinion, he mentions that many Roman coins, tessellated works, bricks, sepulchral remains, &c. have been found there' his words are, "In his Campis quos Sancti Georgii plebs rocat, multa Romanorum numismata, opera tesselata, lateres, et rudera, subinde deprehensa sunt. Ipse urnam majusculam, ossibus refertam, เ * Pennant's Lond, p. 3. 4th Edit. + This latter argument will receive corroboration, when it is recollected, that about a mile and a half higher up the Thames, at York Stairs, there was actually a ford in very early times. At Dow-gate must have been a British Ferry. refertam, nuper redemi a fossoribus, qui, non procul ab hôc Burgo (Southwark) ad austrum multos alios simul eruerunt."* The arguments of Dr. Gale have been opposed with success by different writers, and, among others, by Maitland, and Dr. Woodward. The former, who seems to have considered the ground more attentively than any other author,' states his belief that the sagacious Romans would never have made choice of so noisome a place for a station, as St. George's Fields must then have been: "for to me it is evident,” he continues, " that at that time those fields must have been overflowed by every spring-tide. For, notwithstanding the river's being at present confined by artificial banks, I have frequently, at spring-tides, seen the small current of water which issues from the river Thames through a common sewer at the Falcon, not only fill all the neighbouring ditches, but also, at the upper end of Gravel Lane, overflow its banks into St. George's Fields. And considering that above a twelfth part of the water of the river is denied passage [when the tide sets up the river] by the piers and starlings of London Bridge, (it flowing, at an ordinary spring-tide, upwards of nineteen inches on the east more than on the west side of the said bridge,) I think this is a plain indication, that, before the Thames was confined by banks, St. George's Fields must have been considerably under water every high tide; and that part of the said fields called Lambeth Marsh, was under water not an age ago: and upon observation it will still appear, that, before the exclusion of the river, it must have been overflowed by most neap tides."+ Maitland's argument will acquire proof from a circumstance communicated by Robert Mitchell, Esq. architect, who, about the year 1775, having erected some houses on the Blackfriars Road, near to the Magdalen Hospital, afterwards supplied them with water by means of a machine which raised it from some ancient ditches that extended to the river, and were regularly filled by the flowing of the tides. Dr. Woodward opposes the authority of Tacitus to that of Ptolemy; and intimates, that if the discovery of Roman remains in St. George's Fields could be regarded as a proof of Roman London Antonini Itin. p. 65. + Maitland's Lond. p. 8. don being situated on the southern bank of the Thames, its site might as well be assigned to any part of the ground between that place and Blackheath, as the like antiquities have been discovered for some miles eastward.' “I have now in my custody," he states, "the hand of an ancient Terminus, with two faces: there were found along with it large flat bricks, and other antiquities, that were unquestionably Roman: all these were retrieved about twenty years since, in digging in the gardens (Mr. Cole's) along the south side of the Deptford Road. I have seen, likewise, a Simpulum that was digged up near New Cross: and there were several years ago discovered two urns, and five or six of those vials that are usually called lachrymatories, a little beyond Deptford. Nay, there have been very lately a great number of urns, and other things, discovered on Blackheath." Tacitus, who had the most authentic information on the affairs of Britain, and was somewhat prior in time to Ptolemy, evidently restricts the operations of the brave, but unfortunate, Boadicea, to the northern side of the Thames; and as London is known to have fallen beneath her vengeance, that circumstance alone disproves Ptolemy's assertion: and further, had London really stood in St. George's Fields, it never could have been noticed by Tacitus as possessing any 'sweetness,' or attractions,' in its situation:' the marshiness of the ground must have belied the description. Presuming, then, that the site of London was ever where it now stands, there can be little hesitation in assigning the Roman remains discovered along the southern shore of the Thames, to the ages subsequent to the Embankment of that river: this, in all probability, was a Roman work;† and a Roman Castrum, as Dr. Woodward * See a Letter to Mr. Hearne, written in 1711, and printed in Leland's Itin. Vol. VIII. Edit. 3d, and Preface to it, p. 7. "When the Britons," says the late venerable historian Whitaker, in a communication to the Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. LVII. p. 685, (Aug. 1787,)" were the sole lords of this Island, their rivers, we may be sure, strayed at liberty over the adjacent country, confined by no artificial Woodward has conjectured, may have been erected where the coins, bricks, &c. were found in St. George's Fields; yet that supposition is somewhat affected by the name South-werc, which is clearly Saxon. The more plausible conjecture is, that the Romans had villas, and perhaps other buildings, both for pleasure and retirement, in different directions around the Metropolis. The etymology of the name of London is involved in a similar incertitude to the period of its origin. Tacitus calls it LONDINIUM, and COLONIA AUGUSTA: Ammianus Marcellinus mentions it as an ancient place, once called Lundinium, but when he wrote, AUGUSTA; and the same author styles it AUGUSTA TRINOBANTUM: Bede calls it LONDONIA; and King Alfred, in his translation of the passage in Bede, LUNDENCEASTER: other appellations given to it by the Saxons, were LUNDENBERIG and LUNDENWIC. Some writers have supposed the word London to be derived from the British Llong, a ship, and Din, a town; but this could not artificial barriers, and having no other limits to their overflow, than what Nature herself had provided. This would be particularly the case with the Thames. London itself was only a fortress in the woods then; and the river at its foot roamed over all the low grounds that skirt its channel: thus it ran on the south from the west of Wandsworth to Woolwich, to Dartford, to Gravesend, and to Sheerness; and on the north, ranged from Poplar and the Isle of Dogs, along the levels of Essex to the mouth of the Thames. "In this state of the river the Romans settled at London, which, under their management, soon became a considerable mart of trade. It afterwards rose to the dignity of a military colony; and it was even made at last the capital of one of those provinces into which the Roman parts of Britain were divided. The spirit of Roman refinement, therefore, would naturally be attracted by the marshes immediately under its eye, and would naturally exert itself to recover them from the waters. The low grounds in St. George's Fields, particularly, would soon catch the eye, and soon feel the hand of the improving Romans; and from those grounds the spirit of embanking would naturally go along both the sides of the river; and in nearly four centuries of the Roman residence |