perty among private individuals, have rendered so oppressively necessary. To these valuable purposes the revenues of our Abbey were fully competent, for it possessed the advowsons of thirty-six parish churches in Leicester and its county, which, together with lands in various places, and rights in particular districts, produced annually for its disposal more than one thousand pbunds.

Quitting the Abbey Meadow, and passing the North Lock, we still continue our walk along pleasing rural scenes. The sweeps of the river which* here beautifully meanders, wash, almost closely, a large extent of town, affording an agreeable prospect on the left, and a slope finely diversified with groves and pasturage descends gently to the meadows on the right. Approaching the Bow Bridge, we pass a plot of ground insulated by the Soar, called the Black Friars, once the scite of a monastery belonging to the Augustine or Black Friars, of which no traces now remain. That arm of the river which flows under the West Bridge, is by some supposed, from its passing under the scite of the old Roman town, to be a canal formed by that people for the convenience of their dwellings. It is now called the New Soar, and whether it can authentically boast the honor of being a Roman work, the antiquary may perhaps endeavour in vain to decide. A tunnel, or Roman sewer, was discovered in 1793, at an equal distance between the

Roman ruin, called Jewry Wall, and the river, and in a direct line towards the latter, which contained some curious fragments of Roman pottery.

Though it be the leading purpose of this survey to point out existing objects, those who lament the loss of such ancient remains as were justly to be prized, will pardon a brief tribute to the memory of Bow Bridge. That single arch of stone, richly shadowed with ivy, spanned, at the corner of this island, the arm of the Soar. Its beautiful curve, unbroken 'either by parapet or hand-rail, well merited the name with which some antiquaries have graced it — the Rialto Bridge. On the top of the bow, feeding on the mould which time had accumulated upon the stony ridge, nourished a spreading hawthorn; this, with the stream below, when sparkling under the reflection of the western sun, the broken shrubby banks, and the distant swell of Eradgate Park hill, formed a picture which has often allured the eye; a picture that, as it repeatedly arrested the painter's hand, we can hardly say is now no more.

Of this bridge, the learned author of the Desiderata Curipsa, who has mistaken it for the adjoining one of four arches, has given a plate in which is represented a troop of horsemen with banners, carrying the dead body of Richard the Third, thrown upon a horse, over a bridge which never exceeded three feet; a width fully sufficient for the purpose for which it seems to have been constructed, that of affording a foot passage from the monastery of the Augustines to a spring of pure water some yards distant. This spring, till within 6. few years, was covered with a large circular stone, having an aperture in the centre, through which the monks let down their pitchers into the water, and retained the name of St. Austin's Well.

But though not over this bridge, yet over the ad-' joining one, known also, probably from its vicinity to the other, by the name of Bow Bridge, the monster Richard really passed, proud, angry, and threatening,' mounted on his charger, to meet Richmond; and over it, the day after the battle, his body was brought behind a pursuivant at arms, naked and disgraced, and after being exhibited in the Town Hall, then situated at the bottom of Blue Boar-Lane, was interred in the church of the Grey Friars, near St. Martin's.

The name of this king excites in the mind a sensation of horror; — and though it required the overwhelming evidence of human depravity furnished by the French revolution, to make the author of the "Historic Doubts," believe his crimes possible, the concurrent testimonies both of Lancastrian and Yorkist Chroniclers, too well demonstrate them. Though the latter may have endeavoured to soften the picture, and Shakespear may have thrown upon it the darkest shades by working up his deformity of body and mind into a picture of diabolical horror, the original, the undoubted traits are preserved by both parties; traits, which so far from being peculiar to Richard, marked likewise the other contending houses. Nor did he deviate widely from the manners of the times when he "waded through slaughter to a throne."

A pleasing woody road leads from Bow-Bridge to Danett's Hall, the seat of Edward Alexander, M. D. The ground here rising in a gentle slope obtains a command of the town, and that the dryness of the soil and agreeableness of the situation, mark it as a desirable spot for residence, even the taste of the ancient Romans may prove; for in the plot of ground known by the name of the "great cherry orchard," remains a relic of one of their houses. This is a fragment of a tessellated floor, discovered a few years ago, but covered over by a former possessor of the estate. It is composed of tessera? of various sizes, forming an elegant geometrical pattern, but how far it extends, has not yet been ascertained

Among the great number of these pavements found at Leicester, are three very pefect ones discovered in the ground belonging to the late Walter • Ruding, Esq. adjoining the old Vauxhall, near the West Bridge — they also are composed in curious and exact patterns, and form entire squares; but are now filled up. Of these, together with that in the great cherry orchard, very accurate plates are given in Nichols's Leicestershire. To the westward of Danett's Hall, and West Cotes, cester, who possess the privilege of here pasturing their cows till a certain period of the year.

This ample area was formerly used as a raceground, but that annual sport is now removed to the south side of the town, having been here frequently incommoded by the floods from the Soar.

The view to the northward is simply ornamented by the church and village of Belgrave, whose inhabitants in 1357, in consequence of a dispute, with the abbot concerning the boundaries of the Stocking Wood, blockaded the North Bridge and the Fosse/ with a determination of depriving the monks of their usual supply of provision from their grange, or farm at Stoughton. This view forms a pleasing contrast to the towering churches and close grouped houses of Leicester. The eye of taste will, however, soon turn from these objects, and dwell with greater pleasure on the noble ivied walls bounding the Abbey domains; it will proceed to contemplate the mingling angles of its ruins, and in the back ground, the rich tops of the woods in the neighbourhood of Beaumont Leys. Beaumont Leys belongs to Miss Lawrence, the proprietor of Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire. This scene, however, will not serve merely to amuse the eye, but will naturally lead the wellinformed visitor to interesting and affecting thoughts, while he contemplates the spot in which, in former times, were acted all the striking rites of the Romish Church, though he may lament the superstitious