ROMAN REMAINS AT PANCRAS. SIR,-In the ninetieth number of your Every-Day Book, (the present volume, col. 1197-1204,) a very interesting article appeared on the subject of the Roman remains near Pentonville, and thinking you may be inclined to acquaint your readers with "Caesar's Camp" at St. Pancras, situate near the old church, which are likely in the course of a short time to be entirely destroyed by the rage for improvement in that neighbourhood, I forward you the following particulars. The only part at present visible is the prætorium of Cæsar, which may be seen in the drawing that accompanies this, but the ditch is now nearly filled up. Í visited the spot about a week ago, and can therefore vouch for its existence up to that time, but every thing around it be gins to bear a very different aspect to what it did about two years back, when my attention was particularly called to the spot from having read Dr. Stakeley's remarks on the subject. At that time I was able to trace several other vestiges, which are entirely destroyed by the ground having been since dug up for the purpose of making bricks. The following extracts are taken from the second volume of Dr. Stukeley's "Itinerary." The plan of the camp is taken from the same work. I shall feel pleasure if you will call attention to it, as you have already to the Roman remains at Pentonville. When I came attentively to consider the situation of it, and the circumjacent ground, I easily discerned the traces of his whole camp. A great many ditches or divisions of the pastures retain footsteps of the plan of the camp, agreeable to their usual form, as in the plate engraved; and whenever I take a walk thither, I enjoy a visionary scene of the whole camp of Cæsar as described in the plate before us; a scene just as if beheld, and Cæsar present. His army consisted of forty thousand men. Four legions with his horse. The camp is in length five hundred paces-the thirty paces beyond, for the way between the tents and vallum, (where a vallum is made,) amounts to five hundred and sixty; so that the proportion of length to breadth is as three to two. This space of ground was sufficient for Caesar's army according to Roman discipline, for if he had forty thousand men, a third part of them were upon guard. The front of the camp is bounded by a spring with a little current of water running from the west, across the Brill, into the Fleet brook. This Brill was the occasion of the road directly from the city, originally going alongside the brook by Bagnigge; the way to Highgate being at first by Copenhagen-house, which is straight road thither from Gray's-inn-lane. This camp has the brook running quite through the middle of it: it arises from seven springs on the south side of the hill between Hampstead and Highgate by Caen wood, where it forms several large ponds, passes by here by the name of Fleet, washes the west side of the city of London, and gives name to Fleet-street. This brook was formerly called the river of wells, from the many springs above, which our ancestors called wells; and it may be thought to have been more considerable in former times than at present, for now the major part of its water is carried off in pipes to furnish Kentish-town, Paneras, and Tottenham-court; but even now in great rains the valley is covered over with water. Go a quarter of a mile higher towards Kentish-town and you may have a just notion of its appearance at that place, only with this difference, that it is there broader and deeper from the current of so many years. It must further be considered that the channel of this brook through so many centuries, and by its being made the public north road from London to Highgate, is very much lowered and widened since Cæsar's time. It was then no sort of embarrassment to the camp, but an admirable convenience for watering, being contained in narrow banks not deep. The breadth and length are made by long tract of time. The ancient road by Copenhagen wanting repair, induced passengers to make this gravelly valley become much larger than in Cæsar's time. The old division runs along that road between Finsbury and Holborn division, going in a straight line from Gray's-inn-lane to Highgate: its antiquity is shown in its name-Madan lane. The recovery of this noble antiquity will give pleasure to a British antiquary, especially an inhabitant of London, whereof it is a singular glory. It renders the walk over the beautiful fields to the Brill doubly agreeable, when at half a mile distance we can tread in the very steps of the Roman camp master, and of the greatest of the Roman generals. We need not wonder that the traces of this camp so near the metropolis are so nearly worn out; we may rather wonder that so much is left, when a proper sagacity in these matters may discern them, and be assured that somewhat more than three or four sorry houses are commemorated under the name of the Brill, (now called Brill-place-Terrace ;) nor is it unworthy of remark, as an evident confirmation of our system, that all the d:ches and fences now upon the ground, have a manifest respect to the principal members of the original plan of the camp. In this camp Cæsar made the two British kings friends--Casvelham and his nephew Mandubrace. I judge I have performed my promise in giving an account of this greatest curiosity, so illustrious a monument of the greatest of the Roman generals, which has withstood the waste of time for more than eighteen centuries, and passed unnoticed but half a mile off the metropolis. I shall only add this observation, that when I came to survey this plot of ground to make a map of it by pacing, I found every where even and great numbers, and what I have often formerly observed in Roman works; whence we may safely affirm the Roman camp master laid out his works by pacing.* With the hope that the preceding ar • Dr. Stukeley's Itinerary. ticle may draw attention to the subject, the editor defers remark till he has been favoured with communications from other hands. THE ANTIQUARY. The following lines were written by an old and particular friend of the erudite individual who received them : TO RICHARD GOUGH, ESQ. O tu severi Religio loci! In Nor less observed thy power presides Where plundered brasses crowd the floor, Hid by Confusion's puzzling door Or dog's-eared drawings burst their binding Beyond the reach of mortal finding. Each moulding edged by golden fillet, And breathe unvext by city smoke. Resolved the cares of life to push onGive me at least to pass my age At ease in some book-tapestried celi, Where I may turn the pictured page, Nor start at visitants' loud bell. October 23. ST. SURIN. St. Surin, or St. Severin, which is his proper name, is a saint held in grea veneration at Bordeaux; he is considered as one of the great patrons of the town. It was his native place, but he deserted it for a time to go and preach the gospel at Cologne. When he returned, St. Amand, then bishop of Bordeaux, went out with a solemn procession of the clergy to meet him, and, as he had been warned to do in a vision, resigned his bishopric to him, which St. Surin continued to enjoy Dr Forter's Perennial Calendar. as long as he lived. St. Amand continued at Bordeaux as a private person; but surviving St. Surin, he was a his death restored to the station from which he had descended with so much gentleness and resignation. It is among the traditions of the church of St. Surin at Bordeaux, that the cemetery belonging to it was "consecrated by Jesus Christ himself, accompanied by seven bishops, who were afterwards canonized, and were the founders of the principal churches in Aquitaine." On an oval marble in Egham church, Surrey, are the following lines written by David Garrick, to the memory of the Reverend Mr. Thomas Beighton who was vicar of that church forty-five years, and died on the 23d of October, 1771, aged 73. EPITAPH. Near half an age, with every good man's praise, He had no foe, and Camden was his friend. AN OCTOBER SUNDAY MORNING For the Every-Day Book. The "Mirror of the Months" seems to reflect every object to the reader's eye; but not having read more of that work than by extract, in the Every-Day Book, I think an addendum, par hazard, may not be without truth and interest. Rise early, be abroad,—and after you have inspired sufficient fog to keep you coughing all day, you will see Jewboys and girls with their fathers and mothers veering forth from the purlieus of Houndsditch with sweetmeats, "ten a penny!" which information is sung, or said, ten thousand times before sunset. Now Irishmen, (except there be a fight in Co penhagen fields,) and women, are hurrying to and from mass, and the poorest creatures sit near the chapels, with all their own infants, and those of others, to excite pity, and call down the morning smile of charity. Now newsboys come along the Strand with damp sheets of intelligence folded under their arms in a greasy, dirty piece of thick (once) brown paper, or a suitable envelope of leather. Now watercress women, or rather girls, with chubby babies hanging on one arm, and a flat basket suspended from the shoulder by a strap, stand at their station-post, near the pump, at a corner of the street. Now mechanics in aprons, with unshorn, unwashed faces, take their birds, dogs, and pipes, towards the fields, which, with difficulty, they find. Now the foot and horseguards are preparing for parade in the parks-coaches are being loaded by passengers, dressed for "a few miles out of town"-the doors of liquor-shops are in motion-prayers at St. Paul's and Westminster are responded by choristers,— crowds of the lower orders create discord by the interference of the officious streetkeeper-and the "Angel" and "Elephant and Castle" are surrounded by jaunty company, arriving and departing with horses reeking before the short and long stage coaches.-Now the pious missionary drops religious tracts in the local stands of hackney coachmen, and paths leading to the metropolis.-Now nuts and walnuts slip-shelled are heaped in a basket with some dozens of the finest cracked, placed at the top, as specimens of the whole :bullace, bilberries, sliced cocoa-nuts, apples, pears, damsons, blackberries, and oranges are glossed and piled for sale so imposingly, that no eye can escape them. -Now fruiterers' and druggists' windows, like six days' mourning, are half shuttered. Now the basket and bell pass your house with muffins and crumpets.* Placards are hung from newsvenders', at whose taking appearances, gossips stand to learn the fate of empires, during the lapse of hebdomadal warfare.-Now beggars carry the broom, and the great thoroughfares are in motion, and geese and game are sent to the rich, and the poor cheapen at the daring butcher's shop, for a scrag of mutton to keep company in the pot with the carrots and turnips.-Now the Israelites' little sheds are clothed with apparel, near which "a Jew's eye" is watching to catch the wants of the necessitous that purchase at second-hand.Now eels are sold in sand at the bridges, and steam-boats loiter about wharfs and stairs to take up stray people for Richmond and the Eel-pie house.-The pedestrian advocate now unbags his sticks and spreads them in array against a quiet, but public wall.-Chesnuts are just coming in, and biscuits and cordials are handed amongst the coldstreams relieving guard at Old Palace Yard, where the bands play favourite pieces enclosed by ranks and files of military men, and crowds of all classes and orders.-Now SHOES AND BUCKLES. The business of a shoemaker is of great antiquity. The instrument for cleaning hides, the shoemaker's bristles added to the twelfth century. He was accustomed the yarn, and his knife, were as early as to hawk his goods, and it is conjectured the bells are chiming for church,-dis- that there was a separate trade for ansenters and methodists are hastening to nexing the soles. The Romans in classiworship-baker's counters are being cocal times, wore cork soles in their shoes vered with laden dishes and plattersto secure the feet from water, especially quakers are silently seated in their meetin winter; and as high heels were no ings, and a few sailors are surveying the wished to appear taller than they had then introduced, the Roman ladies who stupendous dome of St. Paul's, under been formed by nature, put plenty of cork which the cathedral service is performing on the inside of closed iron gates.-Now under them. The streets of Rome in the the beadle searches public-houses with cobblers' stalls, which he therefore caused time of Domitian were blocked up by the blinds let down.-Now winter pat- to be removed. In the middle ages shoes terns, great coats, tippets, muffs, cloaks and pelisses are worn, and many a thinly- and oil, soap, and grease, were the substiwere cleaned by washing with a sponge; clad carmelite shivers along the streets. With many variations, the "Sunday Morn-in shoes in the fourteenth century. In an tutes for blacking. Buckles were worn ing" passes away; and then artizans are returning from their rustication, and servants are waiting with cloths on their arms for the treasures of the oven-people are In Bath, before Sally Lunns were so fashionable, Irish abbey a human skeleton was found with marks of buckles on the shoes. In England they became fashionable many years before the reign of queen Mary; the labouring people wore them of copper; other persons had them of silver, or (their origin 1 shall shortly acquaint you with) copper-gilt not long after shoe-roses muffins were cried with a song, beginning "Don't you know the muthin man? And don't you know the muffin-man I reply, yes, I did know him, and a facetious little came in.§ Buckles revived before the revolution of 1689, remained fashionable till after the French revolution in 1789; and finally.became extinct before the close of the eighteenth century. In Robert Hegg's "Legend of St Cuthbert," reprinted at the end of Mr. Dixon's "Historical and Descriptive View of the city of Durham and its Environs," we are told of St. Goodrick, that" in his younger age he was a pedlar, and carried his moveable shop from fair to fair upon his back," and used to visit Lindisfarne, "much delighting to heare the monkes tell wonders of St. Cuthbert; which soe enflamed his devotion, that he undertooke a pilgrimage to the holy sepulchre; and by the advice of St. Cuthbert in a dreame, repayred againe to the holy land, and washing his feete in Jordan, there left his shoes, with a vow to goe barefoot all his life after." TH Adertisement. He Creditors of King Charles, K. James, and K. William, having found out and discovered sufficient Funds for securing a perpetual Interest for 4 Millions, without burdening the people, clogging the Trade or impairing the Revenue; and all their debts not amounting to near that Sum; the more to strengthen their interest, and to find the greater favour with the Parliament, have agreed that the Army and Transports Debentures and other Parliament Debts may if they please, joyn with them, and it is not expected that any great Debts shall pay any Charge for carrying on this Act, until it be happily accomplished, and no more will be expected afterwards than what shall be readily agreed to before hand, neither shall any be hindered from taking any other measures, if there should be but a suspicion of miscarriage, which is impossible if they Unite their Interest. They continue to meet by the Parliament Stairs in Old Palace-yard, there is a Note on the Door, where daily attendance is given from 10 in the Morning till 7 at Night; if any are not apprehensive of the certainty of the Success, they may come and have full satisfaction, that they may have their Money if they will. NELSON The notice of the battle wherein this il illustrious admiral received his deathwound, (on the 21st,) might have been properly accompanied by the following quotation from a work which should be put into the chest of every boy on his going to sea. It is so delightfully written, as to rivet the attention of every reader whether mariner or landsman. "The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity: men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object o our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us; and it seemed as if we had never, till then, known how deeply we loved and reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval herothe greatest of our own, and of all former times-was scarcely taken into the account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he performed his part, that the maritime war, after the battle of Trafalgar, was considered at an end: the fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated, but destroyed: new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our shores could again be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him: the general sorrow was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that funeral ceremonies, public monuments, and posthumous rewards, were all which they could now bestow upon him, whom the king, the legislature, and the nation, would alike have delighted to honour; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose presence in every village through which he might have passed would have awakened the church bells, have given schoolboys a holiday, have drawn children from their sports to gaze upon him, and old men from the chimney corner to look upon Nelson, ere they died. The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were without joy; for such already was the |