rved the original customs of the Romans. But the
question must still hang in a balance whether the Raw Dykes were the
scene of Roman games, or

_The massy mound, the rampart once_
_Of iron war in antient barbarous times_.

From the Infirmary, if the visitor wishes to close his walk, he may enter
the town by the Hotel; if he feel inclined to extend it, he will find
himself recompensed by the pleasure his eye may receive from a lengthened
stroll up the public promenade, called the _New Walk_. This walk three
quarters of a mile long, and twenty feet wide, was made by public
subscription in 1785; the ground the gift of the corporation.

Following the ascent of the walk, we gain on the left a pleasing peep up
a vale watered by the Soar, where the smooth green of the meadows is
contrasted and broken by woody lines and formed into a picture by the
church and village of Aylestone, and the distant tufted eminances
decorated by the tower of Narborough. A little imagination might give
the scene a trait of the picturesque, by placing among the meadows near
Aylestone, the white tents and streaming banners of king Charles' camp,
there pitched a few days before his attack on the garrison of Leicester;
or it might advance the royal army a little nearer to its station in St.
Mary's field, from whence the batteries against the town were first
opened. Still continuing to ascend, the walk affords along its curving
line many stations from which the town with its churches appears in
several pleasing points of view.

Returning by the London toll-gate if the traveller wishes to obtain a
full view of a fine prospect, he will turn aside from the road, and mount
the steps of one of the neighbouring mills. From such a station the
clustered buildings of the town extend before the eye in full unbroken
sweep; beyond it the grounds near Beaumont Leys varied in their tints by
tufted hedge-rows, and streaky cultivated fields, blend into the grey
softness overspreading those beautiful slopes of hill into which the
eminences of Charnwood forest, Brown-rig, Hunter's hill, Bradgate park,
Bardon and Markfield knoll, rise and fall. These hills, running from
hence, in a northern direction compose the first part of the chain or
ridge, that, from the easy irregularity and elegant line it here displays
rises at length into the more grand and picturesque hills that form the
peak of Derbyshire. The abbey and the adjacent villages pleasingly vary