Gents Mag 1851 part 2 p.383
|
|
|
|
|
introduction | ||
|
|
list, 3rd qtr 19th century | ||
|
Gentleman's Magazine 1851 part 2 p.383
|
|||
|
Hadrian's Wall Charles Roach Smith |
|||
|
A Tour along The
Wall
NOTES OF A TOUR ALONG THE ROMAN WALL. BY CHARLES ROACH SMITH, F.S.A. MR. URBAN, AS the Roman Wall has been lately brought before your readers in a review of the Rev. J. C. Bruce's volume on that remarkable work, and as the subject is one of real national importance, invested with novel interest by the popular manner in which it has been treated by the author of the book referred to, I venture to offer you the result of a tour I have recently made along the line of the remains, in company of the Rev. Mr. Bruce and Mr. E. B. Price. Although the brief space of one week was all the time I could afford to an investigation which would well have repaid a much more extended survey, I was enabled practically to test the accuracy of Mr. Bruce's examination, to derive the greatest assistance from his labours (taking his book as my guide), and to concur with him in the conclusions to which his researches have led, as to the period at which this gigantic fortification was constructed. Much is due to Mr. Bruce for the honest and earnest manner in which he has collated the testimony of preceding writers, and compared it with existing remains, following the wall step by step, and only diverging when it was necessary to seek in private collections inscriptions and monuments which had in past times been discovered in the district, and which so materially serve in support of his main argument, which is that the wall and the great earthworks, running parallel on the north and south, were not constructed, as has generally been supposed, at different times, but that they were conceived and executed at one and the same period, namely, during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. Camden, Stukeley, Horsley, Hodgson, and others who have preceded Mr. Bruce, have zealously laboured on this classic ground. To the last mentioned historian belongs the credit of smoothing the path of the present generation of antiquaries, and of guiding them along the entire line of the wall, by easy stages, from Wallsend to Bowness. Such an index as his book was wanted; for, although the student by his fireside could read and study the inscriptions collected by Horsley and others, the tourist must necessarily have passed by many interesting localities, and many portions of the wall itself, and have been ignorant of the whereabouts of numerous remains, which have luckily been preserved in private mansions, had he not been furnished with the details given by Mr. Bruce. Now, with this book in his pocket, with time at his command, and a moderate share of strength of constitution, he may study, as it can only properly be studied, the grandest and most valuable in the entire range of our ancient national monuments. It is quite impossible to convey by the most elaborate description a correct notion of this stupendous undertaking. The mere wall itself, extending from sixty to seventy miles, of the width of from ten to twelve feet, and of the probable height of from fifteen to twenty feet, forms only a portion of the picture which the mind has to frame of the work in its original state. |
|||
|
|
next page | ||
|
gazetteer links
|
|||
|
|
-- "Roman Wall, The" -- Hadrian's Wall | ||
|
|
|||
Lakes Guides menu.