his soul during a certain space, for which a stipend was left, as appears by the will of Robert Wolsey, the father of the famous Cardinal*. From what has been said concerning chauntries, it is evident there might have been several founded in the church, though but the vestiges of one or two altars yet remain; from the subjection of whose officiants to the curate they might have assisted him in many duties, as, with his licence, in hearing confessions, which must have been very laborious at certain times of the year, particularly at Shrift or Shrove Tuesday, when it was the custom to begin Lent with this duty. And though they were generally prohibited from receiving the Eucharist more than once on the same day, yet they might assist in solemn massest, as deacon or subdeacon; as also in the choir, probably in the place of its rectors, &c. Nor can this be brought as an argument that there were sufficient numbers established in every parish to fill each stall in the chancel of its church, as has been hinted at in its proper place.

1787, Aug.

INDAGATOR.

CVIII. On the Original Embankment of the Thames.

London, June 13.

MR. URBAN, ALL persons here, who have read the account of the embankment and improvement of Martin Mear, in Mr. Young's "Annals of Agriculture," No. XXXI. are astonished at the greatness of the attempt, and much more so at the successful execution of it. This work excites the curiosity of the ingenious, who look for any instance of a similar undertaking, but can find none to be compared with it in this island, but the embankment of the river Thames: and, what is very singular, there does not seem to be any record or trace in history, when, or by whom, the Thames was embanked. As there is not any person who is so knowing as Mr. Whitaker in the early state of this country, so no person can give so satisfactory an account of this matter. If Mr. Urban would please to request Mr. Whitaker to give his opinion on this subject, he would give much pleasure to a constant reader of your useful collection of general information, and I dare also say to all your readers.

Fiddes's Life of Wolsey, Collect. p. 1.
Gibs. Codex, 471.

The embankment of the river Thames must appear to have been a very great work indeed, if we consider that it reaches from the Nore almost to Richmond in Surrey, on one side or the other of the river, as the land lay. Some judgment may be formed of it by the difficulty and expence of repairing Dagenham breach in Essex. The embankment of the Thames evidently shews, that the inhabitants of this island were very early possessed of great skill and perseverance in whatever they undertook. There is another instance of their industry, the atchievement of an astonishing work, I mean the Maiden Castle in Dorsetshire. Many people now-a-days give the Romans the honour of whatever surpasses what they think themselves could execute, without inquiring into the probability of such an opinion. Dorsetshire was a Roman station, of which vestiges still remain in the town, and an amphitheatre near it. But at the Maiden Castle no vestige of Roman work, such as bricks, coins, &c. have been found. The ramparts are made only of earth, and the entry into it is defended in a manner different from the ruins of Roman camp now remaining. When, standing on the ramparts, one looks around, the whole horizon is full of tumuli or barrows. These are, undoubtedly, the burying places of people at a very distant period, and probably of the same period with the building of Maiden Castle. There are, in that country, many remains of Druidical worship. It would hence pear, that the Maiden Castle was cast up when that worship existed. The area of the Maiden Castle is so extensive, that it is probable it was intended not only for a defence of the inhabitants in case of an attack by a powerful enemy, but also of their flocks and herds.

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May I not mention Stone-henge as another remain of the labour of the inhabitants prior to any tradition, and probably prior to the arrival of the Romans, who had acquired a taste in architecture, of which no trace is to be found in Stone-henge? There is in Dorsetshire a large altar remaining, which has retained its original name Cromleach, a Celtic word, implying bending the body in adoration of the deity worshipped by the Druids.

1787, June.

MR. URBAN,

IN compliance with yours and your correspondent's request, which I did not see until a few days ago, I take up ny pen, to give you and him all the little information that I

can give, upon so obscure a subject as the embankment of the Thames. We have no written authorities concerning it. There is not a hint, or the shadow of a hint, in any of the Roman authors respecting it. And we can only fix a date upon that memorable work from reasoning and remains united.

When the Britons were the sole lords of this island, their rivers, we may be sure, strayed at liberty over the adjacent country, confined by no artificial barriers, and having no other limits to their overflow than what nature itself 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 then roamed over al 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 range, 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. Under their management, London 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 as naturally exert itself to recover them from the waters. The low grounds of 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 gradually go on along both the sides of the river; and, in nearly four centuries of the Roman residence here, would erect those thick and strong ramparts against the tide, which are so very remarkable along the Essex side of the river, and a breach in which, at Dagenham, was with so much difficulty, and at so great an expence, closed even in our own age.

Such works are plainly the production of a refined period. They are therefore the production either of these later ages of refinement, or of some period of equal refinement in antiquity. Yet they have not been formed in any period to which our records reach. Their existence is antecedent to all our records. They are the operation of a remoter age. And then they can be ascribed only to the Romans, who began an æra of refinement in this island, that was terminated by the Saxons, and that did not return till three or four centuries ago.

But let me confirm my reasoning with a few facts. It is well known, that a dispute was formerly maintained between Dr. Gale and others, concerning the real position of the Roman London; whether it was on the northern or on the southern side of the river. The dispute was a very frivolous one. London undoubtedly was then, as it is now, upon the northern. But I mean to turn the dispute into its right channel; and I can demonstrate, I think, the embankment " of the Thames to be a work of the Romans, from some incidents that came out in the course of it.

"It can hardly be supposed," says an antagonist of Dr. Gale's, who has considered the ground more attentively than any other author, "that the sagacious Romans would 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, 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 higher on the east 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*.”

This gives us sufficient evidences, that naturally and originally the large level, which we denominate St. George's Fields, was, previously to the embankment of the Thames, all covered with the spreading waters of the tide, at every spring. Yet this very strand of the sea appears to have been actually used by the Romans. The Romans had houses upon it: the Romans had burying-grounds within it. "In his Campis quos Sancti Georgii plebs vocat," says Dr. Gale for another purpose, "multa Romanorum numismata, opera

VOL. L

* Maitland's Hist. of Lond. p. 8.
D d

tesselata," the fine floors of Roman parlours, "lateres, et rudera, subinde deprehensa sunt. Ipse urnam majusculam, ossibus refertam, nuper redemi a fossoribus, qui, non procul ab hoc Burgo,". Southwark, "ad Austrum, multas alias simul eruerunt*.'

This argument may be pursued still further, carried over the very site of Southwark itself, and extended up to Deptford, and Blackheath beyond. All these are a part of the original marshes of the Thames. Southwark even stands upon what is properly a part of St. George's Fields. Yet Southwark is expressly mentioned so early as 1052; and began, undoubtedly with the bridge, which is noticed so early as 1016 beforet. And, as Dr. Woodward remarks in opposition to Dr. Gale's discoveries in St. George's Fields, there have been other like antiquities discovered, from that place onwards for some miles eastward, near the lock, in the gardens along the south side of Deptford road, a little beyond Deptford, on Blackheath, &c.—I have now in my custody 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 Mr. Cole's Gardens by the [Deptford] road mentioned above. 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 hath been very lately a great number of urns, and other things, discovered on Blackheath‡."

These are decisive evidences, that the wonderful work of embanking the river was projected and executed by the Romans. It was the natural operation of that magnificent spirit which intersected the surface of the earth with so many raised ramparts for roads. The Romans first began it in St. George's Fields probably. They then continued it along the adjoining, and equally shallow, marshes of the river. And they finally consummated it, I apprehend, in constructing the grand sea-wall along the deep fens of Essex.

To what I have thus said, I can add only one thing more. There is, I remember, in Wren's Parentalia, a passage upon

* Antonini Itin. p. 65.

+ Florentius Wigorn. 413.

cum sua classe Godwinus Comes, adverses cursum Thamesis fluminis directus,ad Suthweorer venit," &c. edit. 1592; and Saxon Chron. 1016 for the bridge.

Leland's Itin. edit. 3d. vol. VIII. at the end, in a letter to Mr. Hearue, written in 1711, and preface to it, p. 7.