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 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 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 era 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

YOL. I.

* 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.

66

+ Florentius Wigorn. 413. cum sna classe Godwinus Comes, adversos 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. Hearne, written in 1711, and preface to it, p. 7..

this very subject, containing the opinion of Sir Christopher Wren respecting it. There Sir Christopher, if I remember right, extends the overflow of the tide considerably more into the land than I have done. But he attributes the embankment, as I do, to the Romans; though he has not appealed to that striking demonstration of the opinion, the British state of St. George's Fields, &c. contrasted with the Roman condition of them.

1787, Aug.

Yours, &c.

J. W.

CIX. On the Office of Aulnager.

MR. URBAN,

AULNAGER is derived from ulna and gerens, and is the name of an officer under the king, established about the year 1350, whose business it was to measure all English woollen cloths before they were brought into market, and then to affix an impression of his seal. This measure was to be the government between the buyer and seller, and to prevent all disputes about short measure. It is now obsolete. The first statute made for it is 25 Edward III. wherein it is enacted, that all cloths shall be measured by the king's aulnager; and that every buyer of cloth, after the price is agreed in the halls or markets, shall have it measur ed by the king's aulnager, who shall put his stamp thereon, and the piece of cloth shall stand for that length. And it was further enacted, that, to prevent the aulnager's tumbling or defoiling them when he measured them, he was to provide himself with a string of the length of seven yards, and the piece was to measure four times the length of that string, and he was to measure it at the creased edge. 27 Edward III. ordains the following fees to the aulnager: for every piece of cloth of ray (or white cloth,) 28 yards long and 6 quarters wide, one halfpenny, and no more, and every half-piece one farthing, and no more; to be paid by the seller.

N. B. The best cloth then yielding about 2s. per yard, amounts to about 4d. per piece, on a modern superfine of 16s. per yard, 28 yards long. Many other statutes were made on this head, viz. 17 Rich. II. 7 Hen. IV. 11 Hen. IV. 11 Hen. VI. 4 Edw. IV. 17 Edw. IV. 5 Edw. VI. and others.

In 11 Henry IV. all the aulnagers' seals were called in, and new ones were delivered out.

In the year 1437 Sir Walter Lord Hungerford, for his services at the relief of the siege of Calais, had a pension granted him*, out of the aulnage of cloth for Wiltshire, of one hundred marks per annum; by which we may judge there was a considerable quantity of cloth manufactured in Wiltshire in those early times. But I think one hundred marks, divided into halfpence, is too large a number to be probable, especially when we consider that hardly a century had passed since Edward III. brought over the Flemish artificers. However, I find, that in 27 Edw. III. besides the aulnage, parliament granted a subsidy, to maintain the French war, of 4d. per annum, to be collected also by the aulnager, 6d. if a scarlet in grain, and 5d. if bastard, or half-scarlet. If, therefore, this subsidy was continued or revived (as is very probable, we having for some time been engaged in a very expensive war with France,) the whole might very easily and naturally be called the aulnage of cloth. therefore, there was granted a pension of 100 marks out of this fund, there were also many other expences to be provided for, the salary of the aulnager, &c. so that I think we may conclude the pension would not have been more than half the fund; which therefore would have been about 200 marks per annum. To produce which, at 44d. per piece (aulaage and subsidy,) there must have been manufactured annually in the county of Wilts seven thousand one hundred and eleven pieces of broad cloth, containing one hundred and ninety-nine thousand yards, or thereabouts. 1787, Nov. P. Q

As

CX.

On the Cities which have formerly been the Capital of
England.

Winchester, Nov. 7.

MR. URBAN, THAT London is the present metropolis of England, we presume the most ignorant of its inhabitants are informed; but how long London has enjoyed this prerogative, and what cities have preceded her in this dignity, are points which the most learned do not appear to have hitherto ascertained.

* Dugdale.