gation of its river, from the northern collieries, which branch of commerce forms a principal nursery for feamen, independ ent of foreign trade; and is a very diftinguifhed fource of its naval fuperiority. The principal ftreets are open and airy, and furpafs all others in Europe in their convenience for trade, and the accommodation of paffengers of every description; they are paved in the middle for carriages, with large ftones in a very compact manner, forming a fmall convexity to pafs the water off by channels; and on each fide is a broad level path, formed of flag-ftones, raised a little above the centre, for the convenience of foot paffengers. Underneath the pavements are large vaulted channels called fewers, which communicate with each houfe by smaller ones, and with every ftreet, by convenient openings and gratings, to carry off all filth that can be conveyed in that manner into the river. All mud or other rubbish that accumulates, is taken away by perfons employed by the public for that purpose. Moft of the great streets appropriated to fhops for retail trade, have an unrivalled afpect of wealth and fplendour. The fhops themfelves are handfomely fitted up, and decorated with taste; but the manufactures with which they are ftored form their chief ornament. Most of the houses in London are built on an uniform plan. Water is conveyed three times a week into almost every houfe, by leaden pipes, and preferved in citterns or tubs, in fuch quantities that the inhabitants have a conflant and even lavish fupply. ·

In confidering the metropolis, the city of London properly fo called will firft be noticed, then Westminster and Southwark in a general way, and afterwards fome feparate or miscellaneous particulars relating to them all.

It would be foreign to the purpofe of this work, to investigate the ancient hiftory of London, nor could any thing fatisfactory be derived from the authors who have treated on the subject, formed as their accounts are of grofs fictions, and uncertain conjectures. In the reign of Nero, Anno Domini 61, authentic mention is made of this city by Tacitus, and he speaks of it as a place already well established, and in the enjoyment of a confiderable trade. The exports at that time were cattle, hides and corn; dogs made a fmall article; and flaves were a confiderable object. Our internal parts were on a level with the African flave coafts; and wars among the petty monarchs were promoted for the fake of that traffic. The imports were at first falt, earthen-ware, and works in brafs, polished bits of bone emulating ivory, horfe collars, toys of amber, and glasses, and other articles of the fame material. When the Romans became masters of London, they enlarged the precincts, and altered their form. The city extended in length from Ludgate

hill, to a spot a little beyond the Tower. The breadth was not half equal to the length, and at each end grew confiderably narrower. Maitland suspects that the walls were not built till a very late period of the empire, and that it was an open town; because the city happened to be furprized, in the days of Dioclefian and Maximilian, by a party of banditti, who were cut off by a band of Roman foldiers, who fortunately had, at the very time they were engaged in the plunder, come up the river in a fog. The time in which the wall was built is very uncertain. Some afcribe the work to Conftantine the Great. Maitland, to Theodofius, governor of Britain in 369. As to the last, we know no more, than that, after he had cleared the country of the barbarians, he redreffed grievances, ftrengthened the garrifons, and repaired the cities and forts which had been damaged. If London was among those, it certainly implies a prior fortification. Poffibly the founder of the walls might have been Conftantine, as numbers of coins of his mother, Helena, have been discovered under them, placed in compliment to her. This conjecture is strengthened by the obfervation, that in honour of this emprefs, the city, about that time, received from her the title of Augufta; which for fome time fuperfeded the ancient one of Londinium. Long before this period, it was fully romanized, and the customs, manners, buildings, and arts of the conquerors adopted. The commerce of the empire flowed in regularly; came in a direct channel from feveral parts then known, not as in the earlier days (when described by Strabo) by the intervention of other nations; for till the fettlement of the Roman conqueft, nothing could come immediately from Italy. The. ancient course of the walls was as follows:-It began with a fort near the prefent fite of the Tower, was continued along the Minories, and the back of Houndfditch, across Bishopfgate-ftreet, in a straight line by London-wall to Cripplegate, then returned fouthward by Crowder's Well-alley, (where feveral remnants of lofty towers were lately to be feen,) to Alderfgate; thence along the back of Bull-and-Mouth-ftreet to Newgate, and again along the back of the houses in the Old Bailey to Ludgate; foon after which it probably finished with another fort, where the house, late the king's printing-houfe, in Blackfriars, now ftands from hence another wall ran near the river fide, along Thames-ftreet, quite to the fort on the eastern extremity. The walls were three miles, a hundred and fixty-five feet in circumference, guarded at proper diftances, on the land-fide, with fifteen lofty towers; fome of them were remaining within these few years and poffibly may ftill. Maitland mentions one, twenty-fix feet high near Gravel-lane, on the weft-fide of Houndfditch; another, about eighty paces fouth-eaft towards Ff 2

Ald

Aldgate; but fince his publication, they have been demolished, fo that there is not a trace left. The walls, when perfect, are fuppofed to have been twenty-two feet high, the towers forty. Thefe, with the remnants of the wall, were proved to be of Roman ftructure, by the tiles and difpofition of the mafonry. London-wall, near Moorfields, is now the most entire part left of that ancient precinct. The gates, which received the great military roads, were four. The Prætorian way, the Saxon Watlingftreet, paffed under one, on the fite of the late Newgate; veftiges having been discovered of the road in digging above Holborn-bridge: it turned down to Dowgate, or more properly Dur-gate, or Water-gate, where there was a Trajectus or Ferry, to join it to the Watling-ftreet, which was continued to Dover. The Hermin-street paffed under Cripplegate; and a vicinal way went under Aldgate, by Bethnal-green, towards Oldford, a pafs over the river Lee to Durfleiton, the modern Leyton, in Effex.

When the Romans quitted Britain, the Britons maintained poffeffion of London against the Saxons for at least nine years; during the heptarchy, it became the capital of the kingdom of Effex, and the emporium of many nations, and Sebert, the first Christian king of Effex, founded a church, which he dedicated to St. Paul. Alfred made it the capital of all England, as it has ever fince continued, its profperity fluctuating according to the variations of early times, but on the whole generally advancing.

CHARTERS. William the Conqueror, foon after his acceffion, granted to the citizens of London, that all laws relating to them, which were in force in the time of Edward the Confeffor fhould be confirmed; that the fons of the citizens fhould inherit the effects of their fathers and no one do wrong. This grant, Dr. Brady obferves, if it can properly be called a charter, is the earlieft charter of incorporation exifting; but he confiders it rather as an inftrument of protection than a charter. It has however been generally confidered as a charter, for it has been referred to and renewed in many fubfequent charters, down to the reign of Charles II. who in general terms granted a full renewal of all the charters and privileges bestowed by his predeceffors from the days of William of Normandy. The different monarchs who fo favoured this city, granted to the citizens many rights and immunities, the most important of which are in full force at this day.

GOVERNMENT. At the time of the conqueft, the chief officer of London was called the port-reeve, or port-grave, from two Saxon words, fignifying chief governor of a harbour; the title was at that time not uncommon, and is

not

not now entirely out of ufe. In fubfequent times, he was called provost, being a name more conformable to the Roman idiom, and yet not altogether unlike that of portgrave; but in the reign of Henry II., the Norman title of maire was brought into use, and foon rendered English by fpelling it Mayor. In procefs of time, as the importance of the capital was more fenfibly felt, and the rights and privileges of the citizens better understood and confirmed, the mayor gained the title of lord, and the ftyle of right honourable, which he has ever fince retained. Under him the city is governed by its aldermen, recorder, fheriffs, chamberlain, and common ferjeant, with their proper officers.

LORD MAYOR. By virtue of an act of the common council, made in 1476, the lord mayor is annually chofen on Michaelmas day; for which purpose, the liverymen affemble in Guildhall, and by holding up of hands, choose two of the fenior aldermen below the chair, who being returned to the court of lord mayor and aldermen, the fenior alderman is commonly declared lord mayor elect. Soon afterwards he is prefented to the lord chancellor (as his majefty's reprefentative) for his approbation; and on the ninth of November following is fworn into the office of mayor at Guildhall, and before the barons of the Exchequer at Westminster. In the morning of of the faid day, the aldermen and sheriffs repair to the lord mayor's refidence, whence they attend him to Guildhall in a most magnificent proceffion. From Guildhall they go in coaches to Three Cranes-stairs, where they embark in fplendid barges for Westminster-hall, and return in the fame way to Blackfriars-bridge, whence they proceed in coaches to Guildhall, and are moft fumptuously feafted by the chief magiftrate; whofe entertainment is frequently honoured with the prefence of princes, nobles, minifters of state, foreign embaffadors, and other perfons of the highest diftinction. Although the office of lord mayor is elective, yet his authority does not ceafe on the demife or abdication of the king, as that of the commiffion officers does; and in such cases, the lord mayor of London is faid to be the principal officer of the kingdom. His power is very great; for he is not only the king's reprefentative in the civil government of the city, but likewife firft commiffioner of the lieutenancy, perpetual coroner and efcheator within the city and liberties of London, and borough of Southwark, chief justice of oyer and terminer, and gaol-delivery of Newgate, judge of the courts of wardmote at the election of aldermen; conservator of the rivers Thames and Medway, whereby he is empowered, if any citizen or apprentice of London be carried away, and by force

Ff3

detained

detained on fhipboard, by his warrant, to compel the maf ter of fuch fhip or veffel to release the faid citizen. The lord mayor, is alfo a perpetual commiffioner in all affairs relating to the river Lea, and chief butler of the kingdom at all coronations, having a fee for that fervice of a golden cup and cover, with a golden ewer. The lord mayor, upon all public occafions, is cloathed according to the feafon, either in fcarlet or purple robes richly furred, with a velvet hood and golden chain, or collar of S. S. with a rich jewel appendant; and when abroad, he is attended by a great number of his officers, before and on each fide; and when on foot, his train is fupported by a page, and the city fword and mace carried before him, attended by the fheriff. The officers belonging to the lord mayor, for the fupport of his dignity, are the fword-bearer, who for the expence of his table has a very confiderable annual allowance; the common hunt, common crier, and water bailiff, who have all liberal falaries, or perquifites, with each the title of efquire; together with the three ferjeant carvers, three ferjeants of the chamber, a ferjeant of the channel, two yeomen of the chamber, four yeomen of the water-fide, a yeoman of the channel, an under water bailiff, fix young men waiters, three meal weighers, two yeomen of the wood wharf, and the foreign-taker.

ALDERMEN. The title alderman is derived from the Saxon, in which language it was applied as a term of precedence, not denoting according to its liberal import, that the individual who bore it was the moft aged, but the most honourable person in his community. In London there are twenty-fix aldermen, correfponding with the number of wards into which the city is divided, each alderman having peculiar jurifdiction over one ward. The office of alderman was annual until the 17th Richard II., 1394, when it was enacted, that they should continue during life, or during good behaviour. The alder men of London having anciently become fo by purchase, occafioned great jealoufies and heart-burnings among the commonalty; for the allaying of which, and preventing the like for the future, it was in the year 1402 by the common council, enacted, that they fhould be elective; the manner of which election has feveral times varied. But in the year 1714, by the common council of the city, it was enacted, that from thenceforth in all elections of aldermen, there fhould be chofen only one citizen by the inhabitants of every ward destitute of an alderman, and the perfon fo elected, to be returned by the lord mayor (or other returning officer duly qualified to hold a court of wardmote) to the court of lord mayor and aldermen, by whom the perfon fo returned is to be admitted, and fworn