Saxon fibula, or sword found elsewhere, may pass into the hands of the private individual, and be his through purchase; but abstractedly considered, and, indeed, in any enlarged view of right, they are national, or rather incorporate property, and as such should be alone held and preserved. Hence, when we find the public and domestic antiquities of London sown broadcast here, there, everywhere, and owing their preservation only to the intelligence and patriotism of private individuals, it is a matter of infinite regret that there is no general receptacle to which the seller or presenter of such heir-looms might resort with confidence.

THE stranger in London, or its thought- | statue, dredged from the Thames; the ful resident, who may be willing to pass into pleasant stillness from the throngs of Cheapside, and spend a little while with profit-though attached to it there be a regret more than transient-should turn down King street into the most interesting old porchway of the Guildhall of the city of London. Here, to the right, a modern doorway and staircase will lead him up into a small room containing the few antiquities possessed by the Corporation of London; thence some winding stairs will conduct him into the reading-room of the City Library, where the most urbane and kindly of librarians will take pleasure in showing him what is preserved as corporate property of the prolific riches which research, excavation, or accident, has given up from the generations of the past to those of the present. We use the word regret advisedly, and the feeling is shared by hundreds of the intellectual classes, who conceive, with us, that the museum of the corporate body of London should be a splendid and truly national thing, worthy alike the first city in the world, and of the relics of the mighty races who have lived, labored, and died upon its soil. The amphora, dug up in Cheapside; the bronze

The re-building of the Royal Exchange and London Bridge opened two great storehouses to the antiquarian collector. From the latter, Mr. Roach Smith procured some of the chief riches in his remarkable collection; the former gave the objects of interest we are about to describe.

The reader may recollect that the old Royal Exchange, built after the Great Fire, and immortalized by the pamphlets and pillory of the illustrious Defoe, was burnt down in January, 1838. Upon tak

ing measures for its re-building, the Gresham committee, with whom the matter rested, wisely specified in their contract of work, that all antiquities brought to light should be preserved, and considered as the property of the corporation. But this specification seems only to have been partially carried out, as many relics found were dispersed, and are now to be found in private collections.

then a considerable stream, to the west of this vast rubbish-pit, could have admitted no more than scattered surburban dwellings. From the date of the coins found, it seems probable that the pit was built over about sixty-five years before the Roman power ceased in Britain.

The pottery, which we now proceed to look at, is, with scarcely an exception, fragmentary. The remnants of two amThe first excavations, which included phoræ are both of a very coarse and comthe eastern portion of the old Royal Ex- mon description; but a large mortariumchange, gave but few relics of antiquity- a vessel used for culinary purposes, and the spot having, as was evident, been al- shaped somewhat like a marble mortar of ready disturbed to the depth of the Roman the present day-is not only almost perlevel; and from tiles and fragments fect, but one of the most beautiful we have brought to light, buildings and walls had ever seen. Near its spout and across the already been removed. This might have channeled rim, the name of the potter is taken place on the first building of the stamped between two lines of leaves, and Exchange, 1566-1569, or, more probably, this stands out as freshly as the day it was on its re-building after the Great Fire, as impressed. Amongst the urns, vases, cups, Wren's foundations were generally laid as and pipkins, (ollula,) are some good forms; low as those of Roman London. In mak- and a few of the smaller vessels used for ing further progress, the soil was found pouring out unguents and perfumes in still more disturbed. Thirty-two cess-drops, are remarkable for the beauty of pools were opened, in which a few objects of curiosity were found. In April, 1841, in destroying the western wall of the merchants' area of the old Exchange, the workmen discovered that this had been erected partly on some small but interesting remains of a Roman building evidently still standing in situ, and resting on the native gravel. Amongst these remains were Roman bricks, and the bases of two large pedestals, one covered with stucco, and moulded, and still showing traces of coloring. Upon proceeding further, where these small remains of Roman work ceased to afford a support for the walls of the Exchange, outpiles and sleepers were found; beneath these, again, an older rubble-wall and foundations. On removal, this ancient work was discovered to be founded on what was considered a large pit or pond, sunk thirteen feet lower through the gravel, quite down to the clay. But it was much more likely to The specimens of Roman glass are likehave been the place of outfall for a large wise fragmentary. They are chiefly the sewer-the stercoraceous matter, the bro- remains of vessels of the common Aretian ken pottery, the remnants of leathern- manufacture, which was but little valued, work, and the vast mass of miscellaneous compared with the rare and costly crystal articles found therein, being a certain in-lina, made in, and brought from Egypt. dication. If it was not this, it must have Some of these fragments once belonged been one of those rubbish-pits so invariably to bottles of rectangular shape, which had found outside the walls of Roman towns; for Londinium proper did not extend northward beyond the line of the present Cheapside; and the flow of the Wallbrook,

the outpouring lip. The specimens of Samian ware are scanty, and all imperfect; but most of the fragments have the fine coralline hue of the true ware, and are varied and graceful in decoration. One specimen is remarkable, as yet exhibiting the leaden rivet with which the vessel was originally mended. The terra-cotta lamps are likewise mostly fragmentary. One, of pale-colored earth, is rare, for having been formed without a handle. It is impressed with the head of an empress; it was found in one of the old cess-pools referred to, and broken by the pick-axe during excavation. The lamps of darker hue wear a metallic look, as though originally gilded; but this has proceeded from their long inclosure in decomposing animal remains. Their most interesting feature is, that in all, the traces left by the wick in burning are as distinctly visible as though the flame had only died out yesterday.

usually low necks and short handles; others formed part of round flasks, with longer necks; others were like broad vases or basins, cast with thick flutes, or covered

with concentric circles; and others resem- | domestic knives in this and other collecble the phials of the middle ages. Most tions, still, owing to the imperfect knowof these specimens have the metallic and ledge the Romans had of manipulating iridescent appearance peculiar to ancient iron, or of converting it into steel, as the glass, and arising from its long interment. scoria of the Roman forges scattered over The rubbish-pit referred to gave up an Britain still show, there can be no doubt unusual amount of tablets and styles for that a Sheffield knife of the present day writing. Some of the former are very in- had no likeness in the widest domains of teresting. As they lie within the case as- the Cæsars. The pair of tongs, though signed to them, they look like cork, or black from time and rust, are, if Roman, some very dry wood. With the excep- great curiosities. They are about thirteen tion of the outer sides forming the covers, inches and a half in length, the bow being the wooden leaves have a border or mar- formed without a handle; and were progin averaging three eighths of an inch in bably used for the fires of the hypocausts, breadth; within this, the wood is slightly or warming apparatus. Our archæological channeled from top to bottom; this, of collections contain so few domestic implecourse, for the better retaining of the wax ments and utensils of the Roman period, on which the writing was made. Another as to make these unique. The remarkainteresting fact connected with several of ble collection of Mr. William Chaffers these tabellæ is, that the creases made by contains two bronze cooking-vessels or the strings which bound the leaves together pans, one with a long handle of beautiful are still distinctly visible. These tabellæ form; but the food of the Romans conwere all found thirty-one feet below the sisting principally of soups and stews, level of modern London. The styli, or pens, there can be little doubt that it was cooked are very various. The majority seem to in earthen vessels set on stoves. Some be made of iron, whilst there are others of of the mortaria in Mr. Roach Smith's colbrass and bronze. Some are good in form, lection still show distinct marks of the fire. the worn appearance of the erasing end showing how much they had been used. One shows where it had been mended; another, formed of brass, has the erasing end circular, and slightly concaved like a spoon, for collecting the wax from the surface of the tablet.

The miscellaneous antiquities embrace some curious things:-Fragments of Roman armor; fibulæ, or brooches; a portion of a spatula, or surgeon's plasterspreader, formed of bronze, the handle being well shaped, and terminating in a ring; brass eyelets, rings, and box-clamps; instruments for the bath; small-tooth combs formed of wood; pins in bronze and brass; knives; needles, pin-cases; weaving-bobbins; a bodkin of ivory; forceps, or rather tongs; salt-spoons; the remains of a steelyard-balance; and tesseræ, or dice. Of these, the fragments of the combs are clumsy; the centre of one is very thick, the teeth sloping off on each side, and, compared to what we use at present, more like lumps of wood than combs. If the Romans gave more elegance of form to many common things, we immeasurably excel them in many points of adaptation and utility this is especially the case with respect to knives. Though it must be admitted that time and long interment have done much to destroy the specimens of

Imbedded in the chalk-steening on the south side of this rich receptacle of the domestic remains of Roman London, was found a mason's gouge. Though somewhat corrugated, it is still well preserved and defined. It is more than ten inches in length, and of considerable thickness. Another gouge, broken and imperfect, was also found, as well as portions of both a saw and an auger; likewise a bolt-rivet, linchpins, and a large quantity of varioussized nails. One of the last is eight inches long; and all have larger heads than modern nails, the flange of one side usually standing out broader than the other.

The remains of leather-work, found principally on the western side of the great rubbish-pit, were considerable; so much so as to give rise to the idea at the time, that there had been shops in this vicinity, one of which was a taberna sutrina, or shop of a shoemaker. But this we think wholly improbable. The masses of leather-principally the remains of worn-out shoes and sandals-were amongst the natural accumulations of a rubbish-pit, or the outfall of a sewer. Though not so varied or so well preserved as Mr. Roach Smith's, this collection of leather-work has some interesting specimens. Amongst the soleæ, or sandals, are some still retaining a portion of the slight, sharp, yet broad-headed nails

by which the layers of soles were held to- | introduced into Britain in the sixteenth gether. A few of these, from their strength century; but the discovery of this relic in and workmanship, and the peculiarity of a place that had previousy remained closthe broad, protruding-headed nails, must ed for fourteen hundred and seventy years have been the sandals of soldiers; and carries back its growth to about three several specimens still retain a portion of centuries after the first recorded introducthe strap which passed between the great tion of the walnut into Europe. This fruit and second toes, and united with the fas- was brought into Europe from Syria tening round the ankle. These remnants about A.D. 37, and introduced by the Roof ancient leather-work are chiefly black, mans into Spain at a date not much later. and still retain considerable polish. The This transmission makes it probable that crepida, or latchet-shoes, have some ex- the legionaries effected the same result in quisite specimens; they have belonged to England, not only with the walnut, but females, and yet show where worn by the other fruits, and that the magnificent waltread of the foot, and the mark caused by nut-trees cherished round the great abthe fillet or tie which drew the latchets beys in the middle ages, were the offtogether. In fact so beautiful is this class spring of such as had borne fruit in Roof shoes, here, as in other collections, not man Britain. The ox-horns, like others. only in an artistic sense, but as suited to found on Roman sites, have belonged to the anatomy of the foot, that it might be the beautiful breed of cattle indigenous to well if modern shoemakers would look in Britain; and as we stoop to turn over the this direction. The majority of shoes, dusty cores, the imagination revisits those those of females especially, are so devoid dense forests which then encompassed of taste, and unsuited to the foot, that London in so extraordinary a degree, and a lesson might be taken from these, made the herds which roamed through their and worn some seventeen hundred years fastnesses. So dense was this woodland, ago. Viewed in this light, as well as in as in some places to be impervious to all countless others, we see the desirableness but the axe of the legionaries. Even cenof concentrating collections of this kind, as turies later, Mathew of Paris, in referring well as making them accessible, not only to to the road between London and St. Al the dilettante few, but to the less-lettered bans, used the strong expression, "the many, who, ignorant of esoteric principles, dread woods." or indifferent to historical inductions, would yet reap ideas for the improvement of the manipulative arts, that eventually might give new grace and form to the commonest of daily things.

From the vast mass of leather found in the excavations for the new Exchange, and on other sites of Londinium, and from the evident skill with which the skins had been prepared, there can be little doubt that the Romans were excellent tanners, used leather for a multitude of purposes we cannot now define, and had tanneries in several situations which were then out'side the walls. Traces of an extensive work of this kind were discovered in Bartholomew Lane some years since.

At a depth that must place their great antiquity beyond all cavil, several other things of much interest were found amongst them, the horns and antlers of deer, in fine preservation, ox-horns, shells, and fir-cones. But the most curious was the half of a small, smooth walnut-shell, found thirty-five feet in the lowest excavation of the works. Hitherto, it had been supposed that the walnut-tree was

The excavations for the new Royal Exchange brought to light a considerable number of coins of various periods, as well as earthenware of the middle ages, but none of the latter of any great value.

Another curious and somewhat important fact, as shedding much new light upon the early history of London, was ascertained by this and contemporary excavations

namely, that the marsh to the north of the city had been in a great measure artificially constructed, for the purpose of strengthening the defenses of the wall; and that at the Roman period, possibly throughout, the ground had been no otherwise marshy than with such dank places as lie in the hollows of all woodlands. This plan of military defense was, moreover, much more Danish or Saxon than Roman, and one natural to races originally inhabiting low-lying levels and seabords. The further discovery of a Roman sewer across London Wall, through ground perfectly dry, and with even the coarse grass lying yet unrotted amidst the mould, threw even stronger light upon

this induction as to the ancient condition | Museum is remodelled, still we must reof the site of London. Are not facts like collect that the centuries and area to be these worth all that has been handed down to us by fable-weaving monks and historians?

From Dickens' Household Words.

SC ROOBY.