which, in bone, was picked up in 1842, on Tiler's Hill." From this apartment they passed into another, where they completed the bath; then the aliptæ entered with towels and rubbing cloths. After them the metores, with oils, or unguents, which were then applied to the body from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet. It is doubtless, owing to these baths, says Mr. Crafter, that such vast quantities of fibula and pins, (vide pl. ii.,) have been exposed in Springhead gardens.

Until the death of Constantine, which occurred in the year 337, the town on the Ebbsfleet progressively increased in importance. A.D., 367, the Saxons, the most ferocious depredators that ever chose the waters for a home, sailed up the river Thames to London, and after pillaging it, carried off its inhabitants for slaves. In this predatory excursion, the town on the Ebbsfleet was partially destroyed. From this disaster it however soon recovered. Its principal ornaments at this period, were probably the baths, the markets, the temples of the Sun and of Esculapius, the palace of the Roman governor, and, perhaps, the country residence of Nectaridus the "Comes Saxonici Littoris" who was slain in 368. The dwellings of the commonalty and middle classes were principally built of wood on foundations of flint, or of alternate layers of tile and flint; interspersed with buildings or cottages of earth or clay, well moistened with water, mixed or beat up with the straw to make the parts cohere, and dried only in the

5

' G. P. Wollaston, esq. of Eltham, has a beautiful seal picked up near this spot, about the same time. Impression, a winged horse. 6 The Bustum opened in 1845, upon which a paper was read at the British Archaelogical Association, Winchester, developed an outer urn made of clay in the manner described above.-Vide Report of the Proceedings.

sun.

The public buildings were in such a style of magnificence as became a town of its size, (see pl vi.) For the whole of the traffic from the continent continued to traverse it ;-and, independently of its attractions as a fashionable watering place, the noble estuary by which it was bounded upon the north, was rarely without government vessels of war in commission, as cruizers, to protect the merchants' ships from the myriads of pirates that swarmed upon the seas. These combined circumstances alike tended to increase its celebrity, stability and importance; and trade, consequently, crowded its harbours and markets. The ships of war were commanded by an officer of high rank, who was styled "Archigubernis Classis Brit." or High Admiral of the British Fleet, whose duties occasionally compelled him to dwell in the neighbourhood; where also resided, in elegantly adorned villas, many of the opulent merchants whose capacious storehouses and wharves adjoined the docks. An evidence of the

wealth and luxurious habits of its inhabitants is clearly exhibited in the curious discoveries made in 1801, in Sole Field, described in the Archæologia by the Rev. Peter Rashleigh; and since cremation generally ceased after the close of the second century, it is probable that we may be correct in assigning the date of the mortuary deposit to that period.

7 In fact, the city on the banks of the Ebbsfleet, was in the third century to London, what Gravesend is, in the nineteenth. And should the reader be curious as to the condition of the Roman city present day-it is now a favorite resort where Gravesenders and Londoners flock to regale themselves with the fine water-cresses and strawberries for which the grounds are so deservedly celebrated.

The total destruction of the town, did not, however, occur till the commencement of the fifth century, when an adventurer, named Constantine, was raised to the command solely from the prestige attached to his name. But although he proved himself worthy of the appointment, unfortuately for Britain he was an ambitious man, and not satisfied with its sway, endeavoured to include Spain and Gaul in his rule. To accomplish this end, he raised a vast army, and, sanctioned by Honorius, attempted their conquest. Profiting by his absence, torrents of Saxons poured into Britain. The wretched islanders were not only harried with these marauding hordes, but were harassed beyond measure at the perpetual vexatious levies and taxes required to sustain the detested foreign invasions. At length, oppressed beyond endurance by the licentious and avaricious publicans, the Britons rose and entirely threw off the Roman domination, [A.D. 410,] and in its stead, for many a long year, drained to the dregs the bitter cup of civil dissensions.

During this period, one of the piratical bands of the Saxons, stimulated by rapine, having repelled the feeble resistance the inhabitants were able to offer, made good their landing at the town on the Ebbsfleet; and, after an unrelenting slaughter of its unhappy defenders, in the true spirit of barbarism, fired the town. The innumerable wooden buildings of the plebeian population crowded in close and narrow streets, supplied ample fuel for the flames, and the conflagration only ceased when the destruction of the city was completed. It is much to be regretted that the memory of the champions engaged in the defence of this ill-starred town should

be wrapped in oblivion-sharing precisely the fate of its nomenclature.

Fire having done its worst to the town, its antagonist element, shortly afterwards, to consummate the devastation of the spot, burst its barriers, and drowned the crops upon the plains of the adjoining country. For the ruin of the docks included that of the gates and embankments, which, till then, had restrained the Thames from inundating the valley, an event of frequent occurrence before their construction. The total destruction of the town, combined with the gradual depopulation creeping over the face of the land, consequent upon the drain, incidental to civil dissensions and foreign wars, aided perhaps by superstitious notions prevalent in the minds of the lower orders (with regard to the fall of the Druid Groves), prevented the wretched survivors of the Saxon foray resuming their ruined patrimonies, and no attempt was made at re-settlement. The artificial restrictions having disappeared the continual washing of the uncontrolled waters upon the unconsumed walls of the temples and public buil dings, soon undermined them, so that after a few centuries of exposure to the action of the atmosphere, all sank into the miasmatic morass, which thenceforward became only the resort of the otter and the heron, Thus perished the town in the valley, after an existence of almost four centuries.

UK readers may be gratified to have presented to their notice, SOME ACCOUNT OF THE SECOND RISE OF SPRINGHEAD, from an unwholesome swamp into a fashionable place of resort, after a lapse of almost fourteen hundred years.

Thorpe, in the Custumale Roffense, says, in the lands adjoining Springhead, now called Bark (Barque) Fields a great number of Roman coins, some of silver, and many of copper, have at times been turned up by the plough. The late Mr. Landon, who was rector of Nursted and Ifield, and many years curate of Southfleet, where he resided, had several: one was of the Empress Faustina, very fair, in silver. Mr. Pedder, a farmer, also, (1788), who then occupied the fields had likewise many of these coins in his possession; as had one Mr. Lane, who kept a public-house in Betsome. Mr. Landon also informed Mr. Thorpe that parched corn, (as wheat, &c.,) had been dug up where the coins were found, which shews that fire was the cause of the destruction of the town. Mr. Landon writes-" where the coins were found, some few years since, was discovered