Should not clergymen, Dissenting ministers, and employers, all combine to enforce these things upon the thoughtless artizan? Let lectures be given in popular forms, and frequent illustrations be adopted, and every encouragement afforded to those who need to make such provisions; and who, without them, ever hang over an abyss of poverty and suffering, both in their own persons and in those of their innocent families, from which every good man ought to seek to warn them by every method and measure within his reach.

III.

"BY THE RIVER'S SIDE."

HERE, beside Westminster Bridge, this bright May morning, it is pleasant to watch the crowds passing and repassing above, and the well-laden steamers gliding underneath, and the busy workmen pulling down the old bridge on the one side, building up on the other side the new, and all the while that human tide pouring so unceasingly along; and pleasant is it to look on that broad current below, spanned now by so many bridges, and bordered by so many lines of building-graced, too, by that truly royal structure that rises so queen-like on the very site of the old Palace of Westminster-and think over the changes of only three or four hundred years. It is a place to dream of the past in, although modern buildings are around us; for yonder are the old towers of Lambeth Palace, and not a stone's-throw from us that shrine of historical recollections, the Abbey; while, as though compelled to yield to the presiding genius of the place, even that stately New Palace is true, from base to turret and topmost pinnacle, to the traditions and the architecture of the "olden times.'

Pleasant is it to picture to oneself this "silent highway," as Charles Knight rather affectedly calls it-inappropriate enough is the title now-when it bore the gilded barges, with their dainty freight of beauty, from the gardens that bordered its northern bank to the gallant tournaments of our later Plantagenets, or the quaint jousts of the days of Elizabeth in the Tilt-yard, when Lambeth was still little more than a mere wide tract of marsh-land, and the stately swans sailed forth in snowy fleets from their reedy coverts, fair and graceful as the "fayre damsels who glided by ;—or that earlier day, when the Old Palace of Westminster arose on the water's edge, and the Abbey lands were half-submerged during the rainy season, but when high festival was held each Christmas, and Pasch, and Pentecostide, and the King summoned "all good men

and true," with herald-call and trumpet-blast, to feast right merrily "at our royal Palace of Westminster;" and the solemn procession, with the monarch crowned and sceptred, swept along each day in gorgeous state to the Abbey close by, welcomed by the Abbot and his train with chant and incense, taper and banner. Yes, many changes has that old river seen, and many have been its changes, since that far earlier day-not the apocryphal one of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who tells how, some two thousand nine hundred years ago, Brutus wandered by "the silver Thames," and chose the site of his city Troynouvant, but some eighteen or nineteen centuries ago,--when "the city of the waters-Llyndun," a mere collection of wattled huts, the giant cromlech probably crowning the green eminence on which it stood-was first gazed upon by the masters of the world, who afterwards named it, in unconscious prophecy, "Londinum Augusta."

And this river, world-famed now- -did it flow on then, bearing on its swelling current the carved and gilded galleys of the Roman legions? Few are aware of the changes our ancient Thames has passed through, for few are aware of the changes which, even within the limits of the historic period, have passed over our land. Tradition records-in Brittany as well as in Cornwall-that the whole space between St. Michael's Mount and the Scilly Isles was once a fertile territory; they named it the district of the Lyonese, and told how that, in King Arthur's day, it boasted many a fair church and strong castle: this is unlikely enough, but that the Scilly Islands formerly joined the mainland, is a fact accepted by every geologist. That the Goodwin Sands extended over land once, both cultivated and inhabited, has also been asserted by tradition, and also been assented to by geologists, who consider that, at a comparatively recent date, the district through which the Thames flows was a great basin, "confined on the southern side by the range of the Surrey Hills, and on the north by those high lands of which Highgate forms one of the highest northerly ridges”—a wide estuary, in fact, subsiding into bog and morass.

Strange enough does this appear to us; and strange enough would this view appear to our forefathers even five or six hundred years ago, when they were almost as proud of their river as they were of their ancient city. But there are many incidental facts which corroborate it-facts which have never received the attention they deserve, inasmuch as, while learned dissertations enough have been written upon rivers of" classic fame," it has been thought a task only worthy of some dull, plodding, London antiquary, to trace the history of that noble stream which bathes the metropolis of the world. Now, we have seen that the name of the city-the original Celtic name," Llyndun "-is, "city or town of the waters;" ari we find that the name of the river-Celtic, too—" Tam-Ise," meats "a collection of waters:" a name that obviously could not have been given to a river, but characteristic enough of the alternate marsh and lake which subsiding waters would form. Indeed, we

may remark that Ptolemy, the first writer who mentions the Thames at all, and who flourished in the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, expressly terms our modern river "Tamessa estuarium." It is by Tacitus that Londinum is first described, and he notices it as a flourishing city, celebrated even then for its wealth and its mercantile importance; but he, as well as later writers, is silent as to any water-way, and we know that merchandise, even until the twelfth century, was conveyed along the direct road from Dover to London.

A goodly city was Londinum Augusta, exceeding in extent any other Roman town in the kingdom, and, from a period very early in the second century, unquestionably the capital of the rich and fertile province of Britain; a fair city, too, with stately buildingstemple, and palace, and forum; and adorned with noble statuary, and rich with tesselated pavements, in which glass tessere were mixed with the coarser material, and decked profusely with paintings which, from the small fragments Mr. Roach Smith has preserved, show to what high perfection art-culture had arrived, even in the capital of a remote province of the Roman empire. But while Roman London was thus flourishing, and her redundant population extending into Southwark, where the remains of many richly-decorated houses have been found, it is strange that we do not find the name of a single place for miles round bearing either Roman or Celtic designation, save "Isel-dun." All the villages that cluster round London-many now actually forming her suburbs-have strictly Saxon names. May we not, therefore, believe that during the five hundred years and more of Roman domination, the accumulated waters were gradually subsiding, leaving tracts ere long to be inhabited; and that the noble river, probably as yet almost tideless, was slowly shaping out its future course? That at this period, and centuries after, the Thames encroached largely on its present boundaries, seem proved by the name assigned by our Saxon forefathers to the road now at some distance from the northern bank, "the Strand." It would be difficult to account for the application of such a name, unless the Saxons, on their first arrival, viewed the Thames as an arm of the sea. The name they gave, too, to that portion of the river, below bridge, and which is still retained, "the Pool," is utterly unintelligible as applied to a swift flowing river, for "pool" is the Saxon for lake; but, ere the alluvial deposits that form the headlands on either side of that part of the river were formed, the wide, tideless, accumulation of waters there must have spread out, just below Londinum Augusta, in a broad lake-like expanse and, doubtless, thence the name.

How much there is that it would be pleasant to know about Roman London! Many thanks to Mr. Roach Smith for all he has done; but, after all, how very fragmentary and disjointed are its scanty records! During the later period of her history the walls were built. Tradition has assigned their erection to the Empress Helena, herself an Englishwoman; and perhaps in this instance, as

in many others, the tradition may be correct. Stout and strong, fitted to endure for many a long century, were these walls; built, doubtless, for protection against the rude tribes who, during the decline of the Roman power, were attracted by the wealth and treasures of the chief city. But strange is it to find that a wall, though of a somewhat later construction, extended along the riverside. Fitzstephen, in the twelfth century, refers to it, although then no longer standing; but many antiquaries have disbelieved his statement. The careful researches of Mr. Roach Smith have, however, shown that a wall of considerable strength-from eight to ten feet thick-certainly did extend along the river-side; for portions of it, far below the ground, still exist. It is curious to find that this wall, although strong, had been built up in many parts with sculptured stones-some of them portions of friezes-as though the inhabitants, unable to procure fresh materials, and perhaps in immediate apprehension of danger on the southern side, constructed it from the remains of buildings close at hand. Such a wall could never have been built-indeed, could scarcely have been neededhad the Thames then flowed with the vigorous current of aftertimes.

But while we can obtain only very scanty notices respecting Roman London, her history, from the decline of Roman power even to the days when the kingdom of Mercia received its name and its wide heritage of English ground, might be written in a few lines. Who subjugated Roman London? How did it fall? By sudden attack of fierce, resistless barbarians; or did its wealth purchase, from time to time, a temporary respite, and its inhabitants, impoverished, diminished by continual exile, by war-perhaps by pestilence, too—at length became merged in the new dynasty? Probably the latter; for there is neither tradition nor history to show that the inhabitants of London, like those of Anderida, sustained a long siege, and eventually were put to the sword, and the whole city burnt; and we find notices, too-would that they had been more specific!— even in middle-age writers, which seem to prove that many remains of Roman magnificence were even yet to be seen; just as the stately forum and gilded tiles of her palaces were seen at Caerleon by Giraldus, even in the twelfth century. It is suggestive, too, that Aldhelm, in his curious Latin poem addressed to the conventmaidens of the newly-founded convent of Barking-he died in the year 709-alludes to luxurious habits of living, to costly jewellery, and varied and splendid apparel, as though London, in the seventh century, still contained-in part, at least-a highly civilized population.

Up to this period, whatever might have been the appearance of the Thames below London, it seems, westward of the city, to have been a mere collection of shallow pools, except in the rainy seas (2. when it flooded the low lands and extended far over Lambeth and Westminster. The legend of Thorney Island proves that this was the case; and, silly as is the story, it is worthy of preserva tion for its topographical details.

Long had the fisherman lingered beside his boat and his nets, for not a single fish had rewarded his toils, and the night was far spent, when a venerable old man suddenly appeared, and asked to be rowed over to Thorney Island. The legend tells us a church had been lately erected there by Sebert, King of the East Saxons, and it was now awaiting consecration. Much marvelling, therefore, what the aged man's errand could be, the fisherman rowed him over to the island-so called from the thorns and briars that overran it-and saw him enter the lowly church. But, behold the miracle! A blaze of light surrounded that aged man, in whom the awe-struck fisherman at once recognized St. Peter; angels filled the church, angelic voices sang the service; and thus, by no mortal hands, and amidst the songs, not of an earthly choir, but a heavenly, was the minster of St. Peter consecrated. The saint, his duty over, was rowed back again to land--he might as well, we heretically think, have descended on the island at once, and saved himself the trouble of being rowed over-and then he bade the fisherman cast his net. It was filled with the finest Thames salmon; and the saint, bidding the wellpleased fisherman go to the King and detail the wondrous events of the night, bidding him also never fail to pay tithe of salmon at his high altar-an injunction dutifully complied with by the Thames fishermen even until the sixteenth century-vanished from sight.

This legend contains the first notice we have of the Thames salmon-a fish which, in after-times, divided with its swans the admiration of medieval London. We may remark, ere passing, that, although this goodly legend professes to refer to the seventh century, there is no doubt that it is a fabrication of later date; for, although there was a church, and probably an abbey, on Thorney Island toward the close of the eighth century, it scarcely received even a passing notice until Edward the Confessor laid the foundation of the new abbey-church-the first erected in the Norman style, and "with courses of hewn-stone so neatly fitted that the joints are scarcely visible," as William of Malmesbury admiringly records. From that proud time the monks, no longer of the Thorney Island, but of the royally-endowed Abbey of Westminster, manufactured legends, and forged charters, and indited marvellous chronicles, to the praise and glory indeed of St. Peter and King Edward, but also for the special emolument of themselves. Indignant enough were the Dean and Canons of St. Paul's at the honours bestowed on the rival church of St. Peter, and a most pious warfare commenced between them. Talk of rival sects, of "opposition chapels" in a country town! the feuds of these holy men would make the bitterest contest ever waged between such appear as merest child's play. The St. Paul's party, however, were certainly the least to blame, and so thought their fellow-citizens; for, while the monks of Westminster were always boasting of "royal gifts" and "royal favour," the Canons of St. Paul's held to the popular side, and welcomed every triumph of the popular cause; sang Te Deum with heartiest goodwill when the Great Charter was wrested from John, and joined