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titles and offices to those of the imperial court of Rome'. A striking similarity between the plan of the religious houses and that of the Roman villa is to be found in the cloisters or covered walks about the monastery, for the better communication from one place to another. At St. Albans, the site of the Roman Verulam, the cloisters were fenced with grating or lattice-work, and the middle plot enclosed

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1 Bishopric implies the dominion of a bishop,-ric signifying sovereign authority. The appurtenances are all of princely denomination: he has his palace and his throne: his chancellor, his treasurer, &c., are offices alike in name and power with those in the court of an emperor. In the number of domestics, the ancient prelates were not less ostentatious: Cardinal Wolsey had about five hundred persons in his household, according to his chequer roll.-Cavendish.

2 Thomas de Marlborough, who erected the cloister at Evesham, is said in a contemporary account to have given it the form of a corridor. He likewise made a bath in the cloister before the gate of the monastery. The monk who recorded this fact also mentions that the same abbot renewed an inscription on the great altar without looking into a book-sine libro.-Tindal's Hist. and Antiq. of the Abbey of Evesham, p. 29.

a shrubbery; they were all built with oak, and covered with shingles'. The cloisters of this rich and powerful convent were at a later period glazed with painted glass, the pictures representing a series of scriptural subjects with verses attachedR.

At Ashridge, also a convent in Buckinghamshire, there is mention of an ambulatory or paradise; and lord Orford, after a visit to Newstead Abbey, writes, "The monks formerly were the only sensible people that had really good mansions'.'

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The Romans first landed in Britain fifty-five

Newcombe's History of the Abbey of St. Albans, p. 121. Dr. Stukeley fancied the Rows at Chester to be a remain of the Roman porticos.-Itinerarium Curiosum, p. 56.

2 Newcombe's History, &c., p. 369. A copy of all these subjects is to be seen in the Bodleian library at Oxford, MS. Laud. E. 4. This practice of adorning the walls with verses, &c., had begun in the time of Abbot de la Mare, who presided in the reign of Edward III. Painting is the first mode of instruction, and writing is an additional improvement.

3 Walpole's Correspondence; -Letter to the Earl of Strafford, vol. ii. p. 179.

years before the Christian era; but it was not till long after, that they made any permanent settlement in this country, or had even penetrated into the interior, which probably did not happen till the reign of Claudius, A.D. 41. From the first invasion by Julius Cæsar, the Romans continued in Britain four hundred and seventy-five years, and during the greater part of this time they remained in a state of peace and tranquillity'.

1 The memory of the Romans is preserved in England by many local traditions. Norwich is an instance, being supposed to have risen after the fall of Castor, a Roman station. Castor was a city when Norwich was none; Norwich was built of Castor's stone.

At Ribchester in Lancashire, the Rerigonium of Antoninus's Itinerary, a Roman station of considerable magnitude, where many altars, coins, &c. have been found, is preserved a tradition in lame verse:

It is written upon a wall at Rome,

Ribchester, rich as any town in Christendom.

The stations and garrisons of the Roman legions prove very often the foundation of towns and cities in other provinces as well as Britain.

A colony so fertile, and abounding in beautiful situations, it can hardly be doubted, was in course of time inhabited by many Roman adventurers, who migrated hither with their families, and built villas or country seats, where they lived in some degree of elegance. The Romanized Britons also built houses', temples, courts and market-places in their towns, and adorned them with porticos and baths, with mosaic pavements, and with every Roman improvement.

The late Samuel Lysons, Esq. F.S.A., whose personal exertions in the discovery of Roman remains entitle him to great respect as an authority, infers, from various ancient authors, that the Romans erected magnificent edifices in this country, very considerable remains of

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Agricola, the Roman governor of Britain, very early introduced architecture. Tacitus relates that he built porticos and baths in this island. Ch. xxi.

2 See History of the Anglo-Saxons. Mr. Sharon Turner illustrates this part of his subject on the authority of Eumenius the orator. Vol. i. p. 223.

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which he concludes existed so late as the reign of Henry II. Girald of Wales, chaplain to that monarch, and whom Camden quotes as an author of credit, speaks of very magnificent remains existing in his time at Caerleon in Monmouthshire, once the metropolis of Wales, and the Isca Silurum of the Romans'.

The extensive discoveries made by Mr. Lysons at Woodchester, near Stroud in Gloucestershire, are sufficient to show that the ancient authors were perfectly correct; and there can be little doubt that the plans, at least, of many Roman residences might yet be traced, although the superstructures have been more completely effaced in England than in other provinces of the Roman empire. The greatest part of them were destroyed for the

1 Itinerarium Cambria, lib. i. cap. 5. Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Bart., in 1806 published the Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales, A.D. 1188, by Girald de Barri, translated into English and illustrated with views, annotations and a life of Giraldus Cambrensis. Sir Richard regards him as one of the brightest luminaries that adorned the annals of the twelfth century.

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