till the
whole club is supplied; after which, the clockmaker and landlord cast
about for another set, who are chiefly composed of young house-keepers.
Hence the beginner ornaments his premises with furniture, the artist
finds employment and profit, and the publican empties his barrel.

Thus we have taken a transient survey of this rising colony of arts,
uniting observation with fact: We have seen her dark manufactures, in
darker times: We have attended her through her commercial, religious,
political, and pleasurable walks: Have viewed her in many points of
light, but never in decline; 'till we have now set her in the fair
sunshine of the present day.

Perhaps I shall not be charged with prolixity, that unpardonable sin
against the reader, when it is considered, that three thousand years are
deposited in the compass of one hundred and forty little pages.

Some other circumstances deserve attention, which could not be
introduced without breaking the thread of history: But as that thread is
now drawn to an end, I must, before I resume it, step back into the
recesses of time, and slumber through the long ages of seventeen hundred
years; if the active reader, therefore, has no inclination for a nod of
that length, or, in simple phrase, no relish for antiquity, I advise him
to pass over the five ensuing chapters.

IKENIELD STREET.

About five furlongs North of the Navigation Bridge, in Great Charles
street, which is the boundary of the present buildings, runs the
Ikenield-street; one of those famous pretorian roads which mark the
Romans with conquest, and the Britons with slavery.

By that time a century had elapsed, from the first landing of Caesar in
Britain the victorious Romans had carried their arms through the
southern part of the isle. They therefore endeavoured to secure the
conquered provinces by opening four roads, which should each rise in the
shore, communicate with, and cross each other, form different angles,
extend over the island several ways, and terminate in the opposite sea.

These are the Watling-street, which rises near Dover, and running
North-west through London, Atherstone, and Shropshire, in the
neighbourhood of Chester, ends in the Irish sea.

The Foss begins in Devonshlre, extends South-east through
Leicestershire, continuing its course through Lincolnshire, to the verge
of the German ocean.

These two roads, crossing each other at right angles, form a figure
resembling the letter X,