“Now, Julius Cæsar tells you in his Commentaries ‘De Bello Gallico,’ lib. v. cap. xxi. that ‘a British town was nothing more than a thick wood, fortified with a ditch and rampart, to serve as a place of retreat against the incursions of their enemies.’ Here, then, stood our good old city, upon the best ’vantage ground of the Forest of Middlesex; the small hive-shaped dwellings of the Britons, formed of bark, or boughs, or reeds from the rushy sides of these broad waters, being interspersed between the trees; whilst their little mountain metropolis, the ‘locum reperit egregiè naturâ, atque opere munitum,’ a place which appeared extremely strong, both by art and nature,—as the same matchless classic called those primitive defences,—was guarded on the North by a dark wood, that might have daunted even the Roman Cohorts; and to the South, where there was no wilderness, morasses, covered with fat weeds, and divided by such streams as the Wall-brook, the Shareburn, the Fleta, and others of less note, stretched downward to the Thames. As Cæsar and his Legions marched straight from the coast, worthy old Bagford was certainly in the right, when, in a letter to his brother-antiquary Hearne, he said, that the Roman invader came along the rich marshy ground now supporting Kent Street,—in truth very unlike the road of a splendid conqueror,—and, entering the Thames as the tide was just turning, his army made a wide angle, and was driven on shore by the current close to yonder Cement Wharf, at Dowgate Dock. This you find prefixed to Tom Hearne’s edition of Leland’s ‘Collectanea de Rebus Britannicis,’ London, 1774, 8vo., volume i. pp. lviii. lix.: and many an honest man, since ‘the hook-nosed fellow of Rome,’ before a bridge carried him over the waters dry-shod, has tried the same route, in preference to going up to the Mill-ford, in the Strand, or York-ford which lay still higher. In good time, however, the Romans, to commemorate their own successful landing there, built a Trajectus, or Ferry, to convey passengers to their famous military road which led to Dover. But history is not wholly without the mention of a Bridge over the Thames near London, even still earlier than this period; for, when Dion Cassius is recording the invasion of Britain by the Emperor Claudius I., A. D. 44, he says,—‘The Britons having betaken themselves to the River Thames, where it discharges itself into the Sea, easily passed over it, being perfectly acquainted with its depths and shallows: while the Romans, pursuing them, were thereby brought into great danger. The Gauls, however, again setting sail, and some of them having passed over by the Bridge, higher up the River, they set upon the Britons on all sides with great slaughter; until, rashly pursuing those that escaped, many of them perished in the bogs and marshes.’ This passage, which it must be owned, however, is not very satisfactory, is to be found in the best edition of the ‘Historiæ Romanæ,’ by Fabricius and Reimar, Hamburgh, 1750-52, folio, volume ii. page 958; in the 60th Book and 20th Section. The Greek text begins, ‘Ἀναχωρησάντων δ’ ἐντεῦθεν τῶν Βρεττανῶν ἐπὶ τὸν Ταμέσαν ποταμὸν,’ &c.; and the Latin—‘Inde se Britanni ad fluvium Tamesin.’ I have only to remind you that Dion Cassius flourished about A. D. 230. Before we finally quit Roman London, however, I must make one more historical remark. The inscription on the monument which I quoted from Pannier Alley, is dated August the 27th, 1688; and if even at that period,—through all the mutations of the soil, and more than sixteen centuries after the Roman Invasion,—the ground still retained its original altitude, it yet further proves on how admirable a site our ancient London was originally erected:—well worthy, indeed, to be the metropolis of the world. This also is remarked by honest Bagford, in his work already cited, where, at page lxxii., he says,—‘For many of our ancient kings and nobility took delight in the situation of the old Roman buildings, which were always very fine and pleasant, the Romans being very circumspect in regard to their settlements, having always an eye to some river, spring, wood, &c. for the convenience of life, particularly an wholesome air. And this no doubt occasioned the old Monks, Knights Templars, and, after them, the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, as also the Friars, to settle in most of the Roman buildings, as well private as public, which thing, if duly considered, will be found to be a main reason why we have so few remains of them.’
“As I have always considered that the Romans had no more to do with Britain, than Joe the waiter here would have in a Conclave of Cardinals, I will not trouble you with any sketch of the dress or manners of the ferryman and his customers, during their government. Indeed, as a native of London, I always lament over it as the time of our captivity; and so I shall hasten on to the tenth century, when our Runic Ancestors from Gothland were settled in Britain;—when courage was the chiefest virtue, and the rudest hospitality——”
“Have pity upon me, my excellent Mr. Postern,” interrupted I, “for I am naturally impatient at reflections; if you love me, then, give me scenery without meditations, and history without a moral.”
“Truly, Sir,” said he, “I was oblivious, for I’d got upon a favourite topic of mine, the worth of our Saxon fore-fathers; but we’ll cut them off short by another draught of the sack-posset, and take up again with the establishment of a ferry by one Master Audery, in the year nine hundred and ninety——Ah! see now, my memory has left me for the precise year, but nevertheless, Mr. Geoffrey Barbican, my service to you.” When he had passed me the tankard, after what I considered a very reasonable draught, Mr. Postern thus continued.
“I hold it right, my friend, to mix these convivialia with our antiquarian discussions, because I know that they are not only ancient, but in a manner peculiar to this part of the water-side; for we find Stephanides, Stephanus ab Stephano, as I may jocularly call him, whom I before quoted, saying at folio 32, ‘Præterea est in Londonia super ripam fluminis,’ &c. but we’ll give the quotation in plain English. ‘And moreover, on the banks of the river, besides the wine sold in ships’—that is to say, foreign wines of Anjou, Auxere, and Gascoigne, though even then we had some Saxon and Rhenish wines well worth the drinking,—‘besides the wines sold in ships and vaults, there is a public eating-house, or cook’s shop. Here, according to the season, you may find victuals of all kinds, roasted, baked, fried, or boiled. Fish, large and small, with coarse viands for the poorer sort, and more delicate ones for the rich, such as venison, fowls, and small birds. In case a friend should arrive at a Citizen’s house, much wearied with his journey, and chuses not to wait, an-hungered as he is, for the buying and cooking of meat,
The water’s served, the bread’s in baskets brought,
Virg. Æn. i. 705.
and recourse is immediately had to the bank above-mentioned, where every thing desirable is instantly procured. No number so great, of knights or strangers, can either enter the city at any hour of day or night, or leave it, but all may be supplied with provisions, so that those have no occasion to fast too long, nor these to depart the city without their dinner. To this place, if they be so disposed, they resort, and there they regale themselves, every man according to his abilities. Those who have a mind to indulge, need not to hanker after sturgeon, nor a guinea-fowl, nor a gelinote de bois,’—which some call red-game, and others a godwit—‘for there are delicacies enough to gratify their palates. It is a public eating-house, and is both highly convenient and useful to the city, and is a clear proof of its civilization.’
“Thus speaks Fitz-Stephen of the time of Henry II. between the years 1170 and 1182; and if you look but two centuries later, you shall find that John Holland, Duke of Exeter, held his Inn here at Cold Harbour, and gave to his half-brother, King Richard the Second, a sumptuous dinner, in 1397. Then too, when this spot became the property of the merry Henry Plantagenet, Prince of Wales, by the gift of Henry the Fourth, the same King filled his cellars with ‘twenty casks and one pipe of red wine of Gascoigne, free of duty.’ This you have on the authority of John Stow, on the one part, in his ‘Survey of London,’ the best edition by John Strype, &c. London, 1754, folio, volume i. page 523; and of Master Thomas Pennant, on the other, in his ‘Account of London,’ 2nd edition, London, 1791, 4to, page 330.”
“Aye, Master Postern,” said I, “and that same Cold Harbour is not the less dear to me, forasmuch as Stow noteth, in the very place which you have just now cited, that Richard the Third gave the Messuage, and all its appurtenances, to John Wrythe, Garter Principal King of Arms, and the rest of the Royal Heralds and Pursuivants, in 1485.”—“True, Mr. Geoffrey, true,” answered my visitor; “and you may remember that here also, in these very Shades, did King Charles the merry, regale incognito; and here, too, came Addison and his galaxy of wits to finish a social evening. Then, but a little above to the North, was the famous market of East Cheap; of which our own Stow speaks in his book before cited, page 503, quoting the very rare ballad of ‘London Lickpenny,’ composed by Dan John Lydgate, of which a copy in the old chronicler’s own hand writing, is yet extant in the Harleian Manuscripts, No. 542, article 17, folio 102, of which stanza 12 says,—