of wood, the supply for their hearths, and for this privilege, paying at the West bridge, their toll of brïgg silver to their feudal Baron. To this picture he will oppose the present scene of pasturage, flocks, and free husbandmen, cultivating the earth under the protection of just and equal laws. The slightest glance at past ages is a moral study, that renders us not only satisfied but grateful.
We cannot pass West-cotes, without noticing an object in the possession of Mr. Ruding, highly interesting to the admirers of the fine Arts. This is a picture in painted glass, representing Mutius Scævola affording Porsena an astonishing proof of his resolution by burning that hand which had assassinated the secretary instead of the king. The exquisite finish, and perfect preservation of this small
piece bespeak it of the antient Flemish school, whose artists according to Guicciardini, invented the mode of burning their colours into the glass so as to secure them from the corrosion of water, wind, or even time. There is no department of the delightful art of painting that so much excites wonder as this. When, in examining this piece, it is considered that every tint and demi-tint of the highly relieved drapery, every stroke of the distant tents and towers, was laid on in a fusile state; that delicate command of skill which could prevent the shades from liquefying into each other, and arrest every touch in its assigned place, so as to produce the effects of the most finished oil painting, cannot be sufficiently admired.
Entering the town we pass the
Braunston Gate, to the bridge of the same name, crossing the old Soar, and soon arrive at the West bridge, which crosses the new Soar. From hence the canal, taking the name of Union Canal, proceeds toward Market Harborough. On the corner of an old house upon the bridge, is an antient wooden bracket, which formerly supported a bell, by some supposed to have been used by the mendicant brothers of the neighbouring monastery of St. Augustine, who here took their station to beg alms, or, which is more probable, it might have been the bell belonging to the porter of the gate which stood here.
The street called Apple-gate, that leads us to the church of St. Nicholas, will not be passed without interest by those who recollect that on this spot, where the ground rises in a
gentle ascent from the river, the Legions of Rome established their town; and we are now arrived at an object which brings them more forcibly to remembrance, a massy arched wall, commonly termed, from its bounding the quarter antiently inhabited by the Jews, the Jewry Wall.
This ruin, so minutely described by many Antiquaries, will afford to curious and learned observers, a valuable specimen of the mode of building practised by the Romans, but the uses for which it was designed, will, most probably, for ever elude their researches. They will not however, forbear their conjectures concerning it; of these, two have obtained most credit; one, that it was a temple of the Roman Janus; and the other, the Janua, or great Gate-way, of the Roman town. The latter seems
chiefly supported by the assertion of the learned Leman, that the line of the Fosse, having joined the Via Devana, runs thro’ this spot. But whoever minutely examines the arches, will not easily overcome the objections which the work affords to oppose this opinion; or assign a reason why a city no larger than our Ratæ should have a Gateway with so many openings; nor does any satisfactory answer occur to the query why a gate should be placed in what seems to have been the central part of the antient city. And perhaps all the evidence for the other opinion rests upon the dark sooty coat that encrusts the interior of the arches; an appearance which the smoak of the town would easily produce in one century. Indeed, little, it seems, can be concluded
from the present outside of the work; for as we cannot conceive that the Romans would have elected so rough an edifice, it must be supposed that the present remains were originally coated with workmanship more worthy of such polished builders. If, however we must indulge a conjecture, we shall be led to imagine, from the slight remain of ornament, which is only the fragment of a niche, that this wall was either part of a Roman temple or bath. Still however such an opinion rests, and must rest, on nothing but conjecture, since the remains are too scanty to afford sufficient data for a settled opinion. Thus may we take our leave of this remarkable object, which, tho’ incontrovertibly of Roman origin, and likely to exist when the church built with its stolen spoils shall be no more,