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, which, in all ́ probability, was a Roman work ;* and a Roman Castrum, as Dr. Woodward has conjectured, may have been erected where the coins, bricks, &c. were found in St. George's Fields; yet that supposition is some

* "When the Britons," says the late venerable historian Whitaker, in a communication to the Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. LVII, p. 685, (Aug. 1787,) 66 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 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, soop 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

what 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.

ETYMOLOGY OF THE NAME OF LONDON.

The origin of the name of London is involved in as much uncertainty as the period of its foundation. Tacitus calls it Londinium, and Colonia Augusta.

spirit of embanking would naturally go 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 expense, 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.-The wonderful work of embanking the river, 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."

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 above 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 have been the case till the place became noted for its concourse of shipping.* Some prior appellation must therefore have been given to it, and that, according to the learned editor of the Welch Archæology, Dr. William Owen Pughe, F. A. S. was Llyn-Din, or the Town on the Lake.' Llyn being the British term for a broad expanse of water, or lake; and this appearance must have been strikingly exhibited when all the low grounds on the Surrey side of the river were overflowed, as well as those extending from Wapping Marsh to the Isle of Dogs, and still further for many miles along the Essex shore: the transition from Llyn-Din to London would be of easy growth. The name Augusta is evidently Roman; and although some antiquaries have stated it to have been conferred on this City in honour of Helena, mother to Constantine the Great, and others suppose it to have been acquired from the Legio Secunda Augusta, which is known to have been stationed in London, yet the more probable opi

* Pennant's London, p. 14.

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nion is, that it did not obtain the appellation Augusta, until it became the Capital of the British province, and in consequence only of its having become so..

LONDON IN THE ROMAN TIME.

The earliest mention of London by the Roman historians, occurs in the Annals of Tacitus; who expressly states that it was so called from its situation; but that it was designated Augusta from its magnificence. That nervous writer, in his account of the revolt of Boadicea, which broke out in the reign of Nero, about the year 61, describes the London of that day, as the chief residence of merchants, and the great mart of trade and commerce; though not dignified with the name of a colony.' This description may be adduced as an additional argument for the British origin of London; for it cannot be supposed, on rational grounds, that any place should be characterised as the great mart of trade and commerce, and the chief residence of merchants, the foundation of which was so recent as that of London must have been at this period, had it actually been indebted for its origin to the Romans. The expedition which subjected Britain to the Roman arms, was that under Aulus Plautius, in the year 43: scarcely eighteen years, therefore, had elapsed from this date to the time mentioned by Tacitus; and that was a term much too short to admit of such high prosperity. It is extremely improbable, also, that the Romans should not have bestowed the privileges of a municipium on a city founded by themselves; and as London was

then, and even long after, governed by præfects, and not by its own laws, and its own magistrates, the inference of the priority of its origin to their invasion can hardly be disputed.*

In the dire vengeance taken by the Iceni, under Boadicea, for Roman insults and Roman perfidy, Camulodunum, Verulamium, and Londinium, were all laid waste by fire and the sword.

From the conduct of Suetonius the Roman general, who found it requisite to abandon London, in order to secure the rest of the province," we may conclude that this city was not then either surrounded by walls, or particularly fortified. How soon it recovered from its late calamity is unknown; but in the time of the Emperor Severus, who reigned from 193 to 211, it was distinguished as a great and wealthy city;' and Tacitus describes it as "illustrious for the vast number of merchants who resorted to it, for its widely extended commerce, and for the abundance of every species of commodity which it could supply."†

The consequence which ancient London had acquired at this early period, may also be satisfactorily deduced from the celebrated Itinerary of Antoninus, from which it appears, that no fewer than seven of

* Pennant considers, that London, though only a Præfectura, was even then of such concourse and such vast trade, that the wise conquerors did not think fit to trust the inhabitants with the same privileges as other places, of which they had less reason to be jealous.

Annals, Lib. XIV. c. 33.