made it nine miles from Venta to Abona, which may be measured either from Sudbrook or Aust. If from the latter, we have five miles by water from Sudbrook to Aust, three to Severn Side, and six to Sea Mills: and thus the five apparently superfluous miles are accounted for.

I consider Mr. Seyer as mistaken in supposing there was no ancient passage near the present New Passage, but it might be sometimes so inundated, before the erection of the sea-banks, that travellers were compelled to go to Aust, and thence to Sudbrook, or Caldecot Pill. Mr. Harris asserts that Roman medals have been found at Aust, and conjectures that the name was derived from Legio secunda Augusta, commanded by Julius Frontinus, which seems very probable, as he says," the Britons at this day call the month of August, Mis Awst. I shall now give the whole as I take the true state of the case to have stood..

Thus I have endeavoured to fix the stations on this portion of the Via Julia without the transposition of a single station, or alteration of a single numeral, as well as to account for the five miles in Antoninus which seem superfluous. He makes but twenty-four miles from Aqua Solis to Venta Silurum, and Richard but twentythree, neither of which can be true even by the shortest cut. I take Aust, to have been the standard road, and that travellers went by Ad Sabrinam, when they were able, about a mile to the south of Chissel Pill, where, as

Mr. Seyer says, is a long bank of chissels, that is pebbles, which extends irregularly above and below the Passage House, for the space of a mile or more." These consequently would afford a landing place.

.. How well do these ancient roads agree with the description given by Isaiah, ch. lxii. 10. Prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones. Such investigations are amusing, and, by reflection may become profitable. We are all on a journey, and how anxious ought we to be that the terminus may be prosperous, for we cannot return.

Lought here to close; but I cannot help congratulating Mr. Seyer, on his proving to a demonstration, as appears to me, that the borders of the Wiccii extended to Bristol. This idea is confirmed by a passage in Salmon's New Survey of England, 8vo. 1731, p. 687. "Into these Wiccii is brought the entire ancient diocese of Worcester, all Gloucestershire, east of Severn, the city of Bristol.” &c. I shall add no more, but that I am, Mr. Editor, your sincere Friend,

Dighton Street, Bristol,
April 26, 1823.

ISAAC JAMES..

11.

BRISTOLIANA.

(Continued from p. 217.)

"At

METHODISM FOUNDED AT BRISTOL. Bristol the modern practice of field preaching begun; and the foundations of Methodism as a substantive and organized sect, existing independently of the Church, were now to be laid at Bristol. These are remarkable

}

events in the history of that city, one of the most ancient, most beautiful, and most interesting in England.

Southey's Life of Wesley, vol. I. p. 242.

12. St. STEPHEN'S TOWER. "More than half a century has now elapsed, since my observation was first directed to the singular beauty of Saint Stephen's tower, by one who well knew how to discriminate its excellence, and who fixed upon my young mind an indelible image of this paragon of Gothic architecture, as the pride of my native city. Since that period, I have wandered 'far and wide,' but in my occasional visits, I was never an hour in Bristol, before I took my original station, and refreshed my imagination by contemplating the fairest form ever effected by the taste and skill of the architects of the last Gothic school. I once more survey it— but with proportionate regret

The parapet of St. Stephen's has latticed battlements, and no finial placed between the pinnacles. It had, likewise, a single lattice, resembling the open mullions of a window, attached angularly to each pinnacle, and resting upon a gargoil or waterspout-the effect was very striking and beautiful, and almost unique.

When its decay was lately ascertained, after repeated damage, the idea of perfect restoration was abandoned, (I trust for a time only) and a mutilation* has taken place. Alas! the true admirers of the most beautiful, because the most graceful, tower in England, have now to contemplate it, as the Sun shorn of his beams!"" Dallaway's William Wyrcestre Redivivus.

13. CAP. SAMUEL PITTS. A Silver Monteith and Collar was sold by auction, by Mr. Harril, in this City

This mutilation was effected in 1822, during the Churchwardenship of James Gillet, Cutler, and Thomas Stone, Tea Dealer, ED.

on the 18th. December, 1821. It weighed 206 oz. 11 dwts. and was purchased by the Mayor, Abraham Hilhouse, Esq. for the Corporation, at 14s. per oz. which, with seven pence in the pound duty, amounted to £148 16s. It bore the following inscription :

"The Society of Merchts. Adventurers of the City of Bristol their Gift to Capt. Sam'. Pitts, for bravely Defending his Ship Kirtlington Gally, the 7th of June, 1628, against a Spanish Rover, in his passage from Jamaica to Bristol."

14. TWISS'S VISIT TO BRISTOL. "In Bristol I was entertained with the sight of a rib of a famous dun Cow, killed by Sir William Penn: this Knight and his rib are both deposited in the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe."

Tour in Ireland, in 1775, by Richard Twiss, p. 3. Mr. Twiss manufactured this story for the sake of the pun: there is no other authority for it, not even that of the Sexton. Of Sir Wm. Penn, whose merit and public services procured him the personal friendship of his Sovereign, he evidently knew nothing. It is strange that a sarcasm on the character of an eminent man should have been the only entertainment Mr. Twiss could find in Bristol. But the Women of Ireland took ample and appropriate revenge on Mr. Twiss for the calumnies contained in his book.

15. COLSTON'S SCHOOL. In the 9th. Vol. of the Antiquarian and Topographical Cabinet, published in 1811, an Engraving of the entrance to the City School, and of the adjoining house, in Christmas Street, is called "Colston's School," and is prefixed to a letter-press description of that Institution. The Artist who made the Drawing was, no doubt, a stranger in the City, and was misled by the ignorance of the person to whom he applied for information.

t

16. WILLIAM HOLDER, D. D. "In the troublesome times he was with his father-in-lawe, Wren,* at the garrison of Bristowe. After the surrender of it to the parliament, he lived.... years at Knowyll [in Wiltshire] with him." "He is a good poet. I have some very good verses in Latin on St. Vincent's rocks, and the hott well, néere Bristowe."

Aubrey's Lives, vol. II. part 2. pp. 397-8.

17. PAY DEMANDED BY MEMBERS FOR BRISTOL. "At the latter end of the last Year [1694 Nov. 28.] the King knighted-Sir Thomas Day, Mayor, and William Daines, Esq. one of the Sheriffs of Bristol; who were afterwards, for many years, Representatives in Parliament for that City. Sir Richard Hart, and Sir John Knight, who were Members for Bristol before them, being, besides their Disaffection to the Government, so poor in purse and in spirit, that they demanded the usual allowance for Citizens in Parliament, and threaten'd to sue the City for it."

Oldmixon's History of England, vol. III. p. 109. 18. BRISTOL TURNPIKES DESTROYED IN 1727. "On the 24th of April, 1727, His Majesty gave the Royal Assent to ten or a dozen Acts for repairing the Roads in several parts of the Kingdom, particularly, An Act for amending the Roads leading from the City of Bristol: the good effect of which was hinder'd by the insolence and mutiny of the Kingswood Colliers, and other rascally rabble, who broke down the Turnpikes, and Collector's stands, as fast as they were set up; and the Commissioners taken out of Somersetshire and Gloucestershire, disagreeing with the Commissioners taken out of the City of Bristol, the mutiny and inso

Dr. Christopher Wren, Dean of Windsor, Brother of Bishop Wren, and Father of Sir Christopher Wren. ED.