One of the purest and most exemplary monarchs that ever existed, a female without vanity, a bigot without intolerance, possessed of a mind imbued with the deepest superstition, yet receiving no impressions except what promoted the happiness of those under its influence; a being exercising in the most active and able manner despotic power, not merely with sincere humility, but under the severest moral restraint that a strict conscience can impose upon human action. And all this combined with the greatest indulgence for the weakness and faults of others.[397]
[397] Sir John Malcolm’s Central India.
UXBRIDGE
AND
THE TREATY HOUSE.
Remarkable Cooking Fountain, &c.
For the Table Book.
Uxbridge, the most considerable market town in the county of Middlesex, is distant from London about fifteen miles on the north-west. It consists of one long street, which is neatly paved, and its situation on the road to Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven, is productive of much benefit to the inhabitants, while it imparts a constant air of bustle and vivacity to the main thoroughfare.[398] The name of this place was anciently spelt Oxebruge; and in more modern records Woxebrugge, or Woxebruge.[399] The derivation seems easily discovered:—the place was noted in distant ages for the passage of oxen from the adjacent fields in Buckinghamshire, and a bridge was constructed over the river Colne, which flows near the town.
Speed asserts that a monastery was founded here, dedicated to St. Mary; but it is neither mentioned by any other writer, nor is any trace of it now to be met with.