Part 38

[103] In Speed’s History of England, p. 261. Maiden Bower by the sea-coast in Norfolk, where Hunstanton was built. This was undoubtedly a Roman camp there.

[104] At the same time and place, the king, and Bertuald archbishop of Canterbury, held a council and enacted canons.

K. Henry I. kept his court here, 1122. as Hen. Hunt says, p. 218. _b._

[105] A brass Roman _lar_ dug up about Grosvenor square (in possession of Mr. Beaupre Bell) near where the Roman road ran, the Watling-street.

[106] May place, west of Crayford, seems _Noviomagus_. Oct. 1722, many Roman coins found in an urn near Croydon.

[107] Rochester was a very strong place, and the water went quite round it.

[108] Bishop Gundulf died 1108.

[109] The river Medvacus runs through Vicenza, a city in Italy, built by the Gauls. I suppose our present Britons, or Welsh, are Gauls, the same as Cæsar conquered; that the oldest Britons are the Irish, who are much of Phœnician original, and part of the shepherds banished Africa, and who came along with Hercules Ægyptus, Assis, Melcartus, who built Carteja or Cadiz, and civilized the Celtic nations, remembered by the Gauls under the name of Hercules Ogmius.

[110] I find in this country, that the word _Chart_ generally imports some works of antiquity. Chartway from E. Sutton to Munchilsey.

[111] In Stone church are many Roman bricks.

[112] The name of Watling-street, as it passes through the city, is almost lost by the negligence of the inhabitants, who generally of late call it Beer-cart lane.

[113] The ground east of Canterbury is sandy, and favourable for hops.

[114] In this port landed St. Augustin, the apostle of our Saxon ancestors.

[115] Vitruvius directs the gates of cities to be made oblique. This was called _Madan_ gate, from the figure of a _woman_ over it, as the vulgar fancy.

[116] There are a great number of large barrows about Sandwich; one at Winsborough, with a tree upon it; so it is called by the vulgar, but the learned make it Wodnesborough: between that and Sandwich is another, called Marvil hill.

[117] Among the sand-hills by Sandwich I found a curious plant, which I take to be the _satyrium abortivum_, or bird’s-nest of Gerard: it has a bulbous root of a red colour; the stem sometimes a foot long, whitish like young asparagus, and almost naked; a great spike of white flowers, of the cucullate sort, with a black _apex_: they are exceeding odoriferous. I found much _eryngo_ there, which smells pleasantly when broke; and on all the banks of the ditches hereabouts garden-fennel grows in great plenty.

Sandwich is in a miserable, decayed condition, following apace the downfall of its mother _Rutupium_: it might easily be made the best harbour on this coast, by cutting a new channel for the river about a mile and half through the sand-hills south easterly; for the water of the river Stour would sufficiently scour it, did it run strait, and with that direction. All the walls and bulworks of the town are dismantled, the gates tumbling down; and a few cannon lie scattered here and there. This town likewise might be made very strong; for, besides the river Stour, another rivulet runs through it, that would keep the ditches always full.

[118] At Hardres place, the seat of Sir William Hardres, lay king Henry VIII. when going upon his expedition at Boloign: he left his picture here, and an old dagger, very broad, and about as long as a Roman sword: the handle is of silver gilt and enamelled, with mottos on it. The old gates of this seat were the gates of Boloign, brought thence at that siege by Sir William’s ancestor, who accompanied the king.

[119] By St. Margaret’s are many natural cavities in the chalk cliffs, and an admirable large spring arising from the beach with great force when the tide is out.

[120] To Dover from Canterbury the Watling-street is still the common way: it is left intire over Barham downs, with a high ridge strait pointing to Canterbury cathedral tower: as soon as it enters the downs it traverses a group of Celtic barrows, then leaves a small camp of Cæsar’s: further on it has been basely inclosed through two fields, and levelled with ploughing: then it passes by a great single barrow, whereon stood the mill, which is now removed higher up: then it ascends the hill to a hedge corner, where are three barrows, a great one between two little ones, all inclosed with a double square intrenchment of no great bulk: I fancy them Roman, because parallel to, and close by, the Roman road: the great barrow has a cavity at top, and an entrance eastward; whether casually, or with design, I know not. At Lyddon the Watling-street falls into that noble valley of Dover, made of two huge ridges of chalk, which divide themselves into lesser valleys, dropping into the great one at regular distances, as the little leaves of plants meet at the main stem: this valley, when viewed from the end, looks like a landscape on scenes lessening, according to perspective, to Dover, between the two _Phari_ and the sea at the end, inclosed between them. The street slides along the northern declivity, crosses the rivulet which wanders through the midst of the valley at Buckland, so to Biggin gate, where is its termination, by the side of the old port, having now run from Chester about 250 miles. Many barrows on the sides of those hills.

[121] Such a Roman _Pharos_ at Damiata in Egypt, the view of it in Le Brun, plate 70. letter A.

[122] I suppose likewise that the sails of ships ought to be narrower at top, where they are fastened to the yard’s arm, broader at bottom, like a cloke; and so they are ordinarily made in some measure.

[123] At Folkstone the famous Dr. Harvey was born, ob. 1657.

[124] The seat of Ostenhanger, through the park whereof the Stone-street runs to Limne, was a noble building: they sold it lately for 1000 pounds to a mason, who pulled it all down. An inscription of the chapel there is now made a stone step in the house of Mr. Smith of Stanford; thus copied by Mr. Godfrey:

IVIL. V. ET. XX A LINCARNATION NOSTRE CHRIST ET LE XII. ANNE DV TRES HAULT ET TRES SANT ET TRES EXCELLENT PRINCE NOSTRE ET ROY HĒR̄̅Y VIII A LE HONEVR DV DIEV ET DE LA GLORIEUSE VIERGE MARIE FVT FAICTE ET ACHEVEE CESTE CHAPELLE PAR MESSIRE EDOVARD POYNINGS CHEVALIER DE LA NOBLE ORDRE DV GARTIER ET CONTRE ROYLER DE LA MASON DV ROY CVY DIEV DDINT SA GRACE ET BONNE VIE ET LONGVE ET PARADIS A LA FIN AMEN.

[125] Asclepiades says Boreas, a king of the Celts, planted an unknown tree on the _tumulus_ of his daughter _Cyparissa_; whence the name of it, and its funeral use. Trees planted on Protesilaus’s sepulchre, Pliny, XVI. 44. So an oak on Illus’s _tumulus_, ibid. so on the tomb of Amycus king of the Bebrycians, _ibid._

[126] St. Martin’s day, in the Norway clogs, is marked with a goose; for on that day they always feasted with a roasted goose: they say St. Martin, being elected to a bishoprick, hid himself, but was discovered by that animal. We have transferred the ceremony to Michaelmas. Sumner’s glossary, voce ᵹe-beoꞃꞅciꞃe, mentions the _alæ_ of the northern people, meaning such a religious ceremony as we have been speaking of: and, if one consults Skinner’s _Etymologicon_ for the derivation of our word _ale_, we may be apt to suspect it is most reasonable to refer it to this custom, from the incongruity of his.

[127] This work on the outside of the gates is called _titulus_ by Hyginus: he orders it to be sixty foot distant from the gate. The word and thing, whether round or square, is analogous to our modern priest-cap, as called: perhaps it should be _tutulus_.

[128] Captain Madox sent me some Roman coins; a Maximian pretty large, LON ; with an instrument of brass.

[129] In Weekfield, much foundations of houses, coins, &c.

[130] Divitiacus, king of the Gauls, had a great command in Britain, in _Belgium_, and seems to have given his name to the Devizes, upon his frontier.

Wells remains of the _Belgæ_.

[131] A most noble busto in brass found at the Bath, anno 1727. Mr. Gale says it is not easy to know whether it be a man’s or a woman’s: I suppose it is the Genius of the city, buried there for luck sake. Such another found in the middle of Paris, very deep, with a mural crown on; and such a one had ours, the holes being visible where it was fastened.

[132] In the public papers, Jan. 1722–3, at Corton, Somersetshire, a small Roman urn full of coins, Valerian, Gallienus, Aurelian, in the hands of Mr. Tho. Nash, rector there.

[133] Some have had a notion that Joseph of Arimathea was buried at Montague hill, not at Glasenbury; but if Joseph ever was in Britain, it is most likely he was buried really at Glasenbury: and probably it is Simon the Zealot, or Canaanite, one of our Saviour’s apostles, that is buried at Montague; the two stories being confounded, and perhaps two made of one: for that Simon preached in Britain, wrought miracles here, was martyred and buried in Britain, we have the express testimony, and very ancient, of Nicephorus, Dorotheus, the Greek Monologies, wherein he is said to be crucified and buried there.

[134] A broad Roman sword found here, 1688. Here is a spring.

[135] Alexander, at building Alexandria, marked the track of the walls with bread-corn.

[136] Urbs primum in medio regionis maximè condatur, delecto in loco qui cæteras quoque opportunitates complectatur, quas & concipere & designare minimè difficile est; deinde in partes duodecim distributio fiat, ut Vestae prima Jovique atque Minervæ consecretur; & illa urbis pars Arx nuncupetur, & septo diligenter muniatur: & ex eo urbem & regionem in duodecim partes distribuant: vici præterea in 12 partes erunt distribuendi, sicuti & cæteræ civium facultates ut ex 12 partium constitutione cursuum lustrationes commodius peragi possint: 12 quoque partes 12 diis erunt deinceps attribuendæ; & unaquæque pars, ex ejus dei nomine cui illa obtigerit, erit nuncupanda, ut tribus ipsa sit suo & tutelari deo cognominata; sed ut 12 urbis membra, sicuti in reliqua regione factum est, singulatim in duas habitationes fuerunt dividenda, quarum una circa medium sit, altera circa extremum; & habitationis quidem ordo & ratio hunc in modum conformetur.—All this Plato learnt from the Jewish œconomy.

[137] It pleases me to inquire the names of these old things, however aukward. Quære, Whether it means the name of the person buried there, or the god worshipped there, _Baal_, _Belinus_; or that it signifies only an eminence, _bal_, _fal_?

[138] _Opus tessellatum_ found in the castle.

[139] Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren.—See Fuller’s Church History, and Usher.

[140] Mr. Terry of Lincoln tells me, at Tangham near Farnham, innumerable Roman coins, urns, and antiquities, are dug up every where in hedge-rows: vast quantities of them, which he got, he gave to Oxford. This perhaps was the site of _Calleva_. Many pillars, pilasters, capitals, bases, marble tables, &c. dug up there continually; many in possession of George Woodroff, esq. late owner of the estate: he had many pecks of coins found there.

[141] A large parcel of it, a quarter of a mile long, is still perfect to the east of the brook, where the powder mills are on Hounslow heath, where the common road goes southward to pass it.

[142] The _via Trinovantica_.

[143] November, 1731, a labourer dug up an urn full of silver Roman coin, at Turnham green, as repeated in the public prints.

[144] Stanes was fenced round with a ditch.

Transcriber’s Notes:

- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - Text enclosed by pluses is in small caps (+Small Caps+). - Text enclosed by asterisks is in blackletter font (*blackletter*). - A table of contents has been added. - Blank pages have been removed. - Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. - There is no plate #56. - Errata from Vol. II. have been applied.