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NEW BRIDGE D DORCHESTER จ

OXON.

Mr. URBAN,

Do

July 1. ORCHESTER, in Oxfordshire, gives name to the Hundred in which it is situated, and is 49 miles distant from London, and 9 from Oxford. Though now chiefly known by the road to Oxford, Worcester, Gloucester, S. Wales, &c. passing through it, it was antiently a place of great importance, being an Episcopal see of unusual magnitude and splendour from the time of St. Birinus until the latter part of the eleventh century, when it was removed to Lincoln by Remigius. It does not appear, however, to have possessed any Bridge over the river Thame, although it stood on its banks, before the reign of Edward III.; but about that period a Bridge was erected here, which absorbed much of the traffick of those days from the Town and Bridge of Wallingford, over which the main road to the Western parts of the Kingdom had previously passed.

This structure had all the characteristicks of the infancy of the science of constructing Bridges, as small openings for the water, and wide piers with angular projections, as well to divide and throw off the force of the current, as to enable foot-passengers to avoid the danger which threatened them upon the passage of carriages, horsemen, &c. Low, narrow, inconvenient, and dangerous, this Bridge was long the subject of complaint, and few strangers crossed it without some unpleasant sensations; as many of your Readers, Mr. Urban, no doubt can testify. The attention of those in whom the cognizance of this grievance properly rested, was not withheld; and after a thorough investigation, the plan of widening and effectually improving the old Bridge was found impracticable, and foundations for a new one were immediately laid, which, under the auspices of the County Magistrates, was erected upon a liberal scale, and opened for carriages in the month of July 1815. The stone found at Headington Quarry in the same county was chiefly used in this structure, which was built from a design by Mr. Sands, and unites to great utility much strength, simplicity, and beauty: it crosses the Thame a little above the site of the old Bridge, and with an easy and elegant curve avoids a very abrupt and dangerous angle of the old road. Its GENT. MAG. October, 1816.

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length is a quarter of a mile wanting 8 yards, its breadth 30 feet: part of this length is in summer apparently useless, as the ample centre arch is then capacious enough to admit the whole of the stream; but the winter rains swell this stream to a considerable river, which, overflowing its banks, inundates the meadows on -each side its channel. The completion of the new Bridge was the signal 'for removing the old one, which was effected so rapidly, that in December last scarce a vestige remained.

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In the View annexed (which was taken from the old Bridge in Sept. 1815), the Church appears over the new Bridge.

The Thame falls into the Isis within a mile from this Bridge, and their united waters forms the Thames. Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

X.

Lowestoft, Aug. 3. SOME few years since, there was an inquiry in your Publication after NATHANIEL BACON, the author of a book upon Government. A few notes which I then wrote down, partly from my own papers, I now trouble you with.

In the quarto edition he is said to be of Gray's Inn; and probably a reference to the books of that Body would satisfy your Correspondent.— In the time of Oliver Cromwell, the period of Bacon's publication, a Nathaniel Bacon was Recorder of the Borough of Ipswich; at the same time, a Nathaniel Bacon, Esq. lived at Freston, near Saxmundham, in Suffolk: I am inclined to think these were one person. Nathaniel, the son of the last, married against his father's consent, who violently marked his disapprobation, to Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Sir Edward, sister to Sir Johu Duke, of Benhilllodge, near Saxmundham. They af terwards went to Virginia, where he died in Oct. 1676. (His widow afterwards married there to Mr. Jarvis, a merchant; and thirdly, to Mr. Mole.) This was about the period when, as Beverley in his History of Virginia tells us, a Rebellion was raised in that Colony by Capt. Nathaniel Bacon, a young man, who wrested the Government from the lands of the Lord Berkeley, and died of a brain-fever. There can be little doubt these were the same person.

Ray,

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Ray, who set out upon his travels into foreign parts in 1663, says he was accompanied by Mr. Willoughby, Sir Philip Skippon, and Mr. Nathaniel Bacon, a hopeful young gentleman. One of your late Correspondents is anxious to benefit the situation of our brave Sailors in some points. The easy and frequent forgeries of the wills of Sailors is as much a National disgrace, as it is one of the severest evils in their service. It appears a check might be put to it, if every Captain of a Ship was appointed to keep a register of the wills of his sailors; and that no alteration of a will, when lodged with him, should be valid, unless made in his presence, or of some one specified officer. Some difficulties may arise in such an arrangement, but none to much extent; while the benefit would be very great, which might also be extended.

Mr. URBAN,

TH

R. S.

Sept. 18.

HE Friend to whom the follow ing Letter from the benevolent Howard was addressed, was many years Minister of Carter-Lane, near St. Paul's, where Mr. Howard attended when in Town. The person mentioned with so much affection was Mr. Howard's second wife, a Miss Leeds. Mrs. Pickard thought Mr. Howard absented himself too much from his sou and friends in England, and had expressed herself pretty freely on that subject. F. C.

To the Rev. Mr. PICKARD,

Bow-lane-yard, London. "Dear Sir, Though I shew you what a rambling disposition I have; yet amidst my many faults, I hope, no distance alienates my affection from my friends. Since I have left England, I have been travelling about France, Flanders, Holland, Switzerland, and Italy.

"Naples I spent some little time ata fine city, admirable for views; the most remarkable, Mount Vesuvius. I ascended about three parts of the mountain, when I found by my thermometer the earth some what hotter than the atmosphere, which continually increased till I got to the top, when my thermometer was 218°. I then, after I got the better of the smoke, in a quarter of an hour descended into the mouth, when, by repeated experiments, I found it raised my glass to 240, which is near

30 degrees hotter than boiling water. I would have fain went further, but my Guides said they durst not; and indeed it was so very hot, I breathed fire, and not air.

"I have been about three weeks at this once famous city [Rome]; the ruins of its antient grandeur, with the innumerable gardens now within the walls, the beautiful Campania and villas, make the finest views in Nature. I visit all the statues, palaces, churches, pictures, &c. that are in the first and second class; but amidst all the elegance of Nature and cost, one daily sees a lazy, idle, vicious people, and were it not for the constant raree-shows of processions, &c. to divert the lower people, the oppres sion would be insupportable. present Pope, a worthy good man, economical, not enriching his family in that enormous manner his predecessors have done, only allows 15s. for his own table per diem: I almost daily see him; very affable indeed, very politely smiled, and blessed me yesterday. As I never kneel (as I should tremble to pay him that adoration that I have seen others do), so it was more kind and obliging.

The

"The Pretender I meet in the street; looks very stupid, bends double, quite altered since I saw him at Paris 20 years ago. I think of leaving this City next week for Loretto, Bologna, and Venice. Very hot we are here, especially the nights. No Country in every view like our own. I long to see my boy and friends; but no getting on this hot weather: a lassitude by the great perspiration; I am now almost in a bath, though only writing at 9 and 10 o'clock in the morning: the thermometer 77° in the shade.

“Thus, dear Sir, though conscious nothing I can write can be any entertainment, but that friendship you have ever shewn both to me and that person whose memory I revere, demands the most grateful acknowledgment. I beg my best respects to Mrs. Pickard, who, I know, condemns me. A great pleasure to hear of your welfare. Hope to be in Holland (at Rotterdam) the latter end of September, as I intend going through Germany from Venice. With my ardent wishes, and, permit me to say, a desire of an interest in your prayers, I am, dear Sir, affectionately yours, J. HOWARD. "Rome, June 16, 1770."

Mr.

Mr. URBAN,

Μ'

Sept. 18.

There are not wanting, however, authorities to shew that the words Britannia, Britanni, and Brito, were antiently spelt sometimes with a single and sometimes with a double t.

Lucretius, 1. 6, v. 1104, in the following line,

Ireland, when our Sovereign first asUCH objection has been raised ́sumed the title of Britanniarum Rex against the Inscription on the instead of Magna Britanniæ, &c. Rex, new Silver Coins now fabricating at there is an obvious propriety in the the Royal Mint. This inscription of legend on the new Coins exhibiting BRITT. REX, is found fault with as an abbreviation, which appears to be not warranted by precedent, and the the more peculiar symbol of the one cause of complaint exists in the re- title, rather than that which is the duplication of the letter T in the common representative of both. word Britt. The Gentlemen who raise this objection are just wise enough to discover that Britt. is meant to be an abbreviation for Britanniarum ; and that is all the credit which can be allowed them. With their Ainsworth in their hands, they fancy that they have ascertained as an indisputable fact, that although it was usual with the Romans to double the final letter of an abbreviated word as a token of the plural number, in the instances of the names of individuals or of offices, yet that the usage did not extend to the names of places. This position they lay down, only because it happens that Ainsworth, in a table relative to these matters subjoined to his Dictionary, does not give any instance of such an abbreviation applied to a place. This omission, on his part, may be easily. accounted for, from the circumstance

that the instances of abbreviations of the latter sort are comparatively rare. They could only occur where the name of the place abbreviated chanced to be of the plural number, which was very seldom the case aniong the Romans, though it more frequently occurred with the Greeks. And, again, these objectors should be informed, that it was by no means usual with the Romans, in their inscriptions, to abbreviate in this way the plural number. On the contrary, although the word shortened was of the plural number, the final letter was much oftener single than double, in all instances, whether of names of persons, offices, or places. Thus the common words on Roman inscriptions of Numinibus Augustorum were much more frequently represented by NVM. AVG. than by NVM. AVGG.; and Cos. and coNss. or coss. indifferently mean Consules. There is not a doubt, therefore, but that Brit. Rez would have been sufficient to denote Britanniarum Rex, but it would equally have served for Britanniæ Rex; and when we recollect that the present is the first coinage after the Union with

Nam quid Britannis cœlum differre putamus,

makes the first syllable long, from which some learned Commentators on the passage have inferred, that the word may be written with a double t. This conjecture is confirmed by an inscription in Gruter, p. 493, "O. M. F. Cl. Prisco Junio Italico Legato Augustorum Pr. Pr. Prov. Cappatanniæ," &c. In the same book, in dociæ Leg. Aug. Pr. Pr. Prov. Britanother inscription, p. 569, occur these words, "M. Ulpio Justo vix.' annos XLV, natione Britto." Again, tiana, p. 1169, is this verse, barbain an Epitaph under the title Chrisrous enough to be sure:

Sedavitque etiam Brittonum sæpe su

surros.

It is curious also, that that learned and accurate Antiquary Dr. Pegge, whose researches so often used to enrich your Magazine, in a description of a Roman pig of lead, which bore the letters TI. CL. TR. IVT. BR. EX. ARG. Archæol. vol, IX. p. 48, thus expresses himself: "If it be thought that Brittannicus above is not well founded, we may substitute Brittannia;," although he had before spelled, in the same memoir, these words with a single t. The variance was perhaps accidental, but it is material only as it adds his authority to that of those persons who, on the strength of antient inscriptions, are of opinion, that the words in question may at pleasure be expressed with either a double or a single t. See Dr. Stukeley's Hist. of Carausius, I. p. 268, where he refers the Britte on two stones in Cannigieter de Brittenburgo, p. 21, to Britain. See also Roman Coins passim.

Sometimes

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