appurtenances, to be settled inalienably in the Crown, for the purpose of erecting there an office to be called or known by the name of the Excise Office." "For this paltry consideration," says Mr. Burgon, in his 'Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham,' "was Gresham College annihilated; nay, the very site of it parted with for ever." He adds :-"Will it be believed, that the City and the Mercers' Company further agreed to pay conjointly, out of their respective shares of the Gresham estate, £1,800 to the Commissioners of his Majesty's Excise, towards the charge of pulling down the College and building an Excise Office." The dismantling of the College was begun on the 8th of August, 1768. Mr. Edward Taylor, the present Gresham Professor of Music, thus speaks of this nefarious transaction: "Gresham College was levelled with the ground, and every trace of its beauty and grandeur obliterated by an act of the Legislature. I believe this act of ruthless and wanton barbarism to be without a parallel in the history of civilised man. Even conquerors have respected the sanctity of seats of learning, and armies in the mad career of victory have spared the halls of science. It certainly stands in disgraceful contrast to the acts of other European governments. Education is, or ought to be, one of the cares-the most important cares of a state. It is upon this principle that we see some of the continental governments

(even the most despotic) acting towards their subjects. In Prussia, for example, I have seen education provided for every child; each parish having its school, and every province its university. I have seen the palaces of princes converted into temples of learning, and professors occupying the seats which nobles had voluntarily resigned. To convert a College into an Excise Office, was reserved for the government of free and enlightened England; and that not in an obscure and distant province, but in its mighty metropolis."

The Excise Office is plain in design, but of most commanding aspect. The merits of this edifice are known far less extensively than many others of inferior character. There are architects of the present day who state, that, for grandeur of mass and greatness of manner, combined with simplicity, it is not surpassed by any building in the metropolis. It consists of two ranges, one of stone, the other of brick, separated from each other by a large court, which, during the re-building of the Royal Exchange, has been temporarily used by the mercantile and shipping interests as an Exchange. The entrance to each structure is by a staircase in the centre, which leads by a long passage to the various apartments of the Commissioners and Clerks. The architect of the Excise Office was Mr. James Gandon. (Cut, No. 5.)

Ir we take Weymouth Bridge as a centre, and draw around it a circle of about eight miles radius, we shall find within that circle many striking contrasts. We shall have the thoughts drawn back to a period when the ancient Britons, or their priests, built mounds and earthworks, which-whether intended for defences, as some think, or rude temples, as others deem more probable-have remained to this day a marvel both to archæologist and to peasant. We shall find the Roman period pictured to us, by the amphitheatre which has withstood all changes. We shall see, in the old town of Dorchester, evidence of a spot which has known Romans, Saxons, and Normans, in succession, and still remains one of our southern cities. We shall see how, in Weymouth, by a dexterous adaptation of natural advantages, a small fishing village has become a fashionable watering-place. We shall obtain, in the Isle of Portland, an epitome of certain remarkable geological changes, and a glance at the mode in which buildingstones are obtained from the Quarries. We shall have proof how inviting a harbour Nature seems to have formed, between Portland and the main coast, and how splendid a haven of refuge this will become, when the projected Breakwater is completed. Lastly, we shall witness the strange sight of the bustling busy locomotive, rushing close past the Roman earthworks in one spot, and tunnelling beneath the British tumuli in another a race, a contest, between time-enduring works and time-annihilating machines. All these features are to be met with in the circle whose limits are marked above.

Tracing out the district on a map, we shall find that Dorchester is about as far to the north, as the "Bill of Portland" is to the south, of the bridge which separates the town of Weymouth from its sister town of Melcombe Regis; while, westward and south-westward of Weymouth, is that most extraordinary ridge of pebbles, Chesil Bank, the like of which is scarcely to be met with in any other part of the world; and intermediate between these various points are the relics of antiquity to which allusion has been made.

This district has been lately thrown open to the gaze of Londoners and other strangers to the county, by the same kind of agency which is rendering similar service in so many quarters-a Railway. Until the Southampton and Dorchester line was opened, the mode of obtaining access to South Dorsetshire was not easy. Southampton and Salisbury were the two nearest railway termini; and a long coach ride was necessary from either of those towns to Dorchester and Weymouth. But now, we measure the distance by hours, not miles; and Dorsetshire will be a better known county than it has ever yet been.

When turmoil marked the whole railway proceedings of the country, and when everybody seemed to wish to make railways from everywhere to everywhere else, two schemes were started for Dorchester and Wey

mouth: the one proceeding in a south-western direction from Salisbury, and the other nearly in a westerly direction from Southampton. The latter received the sanction of the legislature; and a few months back the line was opened. This new medium of communication between the east and the west starts from Southampton, where a junction with the older or London line has been effected; and after passing by a tunnel under some of the high ground northward of the town, it reaches the low, muddy, uninteresting banks of the northern part of Southampton Water, along which it passes to Millbrook and Redbridge. Every railway traveller feels that the sooner he quits this region the better, for it is "stale, flat, and unprofitable;" but almost immediately on losing sight of this upper end of the Southampton Water, we find ourselves in the New Forest, a district presenting much. more that is striking and interesting. The railway follows a very tortuous course, near Ashurst, Lyndhurst, Brockenhurst, Burley, to Ringwood, where it is about eight miles distant from Christchurch on the south, and six miles from Fordingbridge on the north. Throughout the greater part of the distance, from Ashurst to Ringwood, we have the New Forest on the right and left of us; sometimes a line has been cut, just wide enough to admit the railway, through a dense mass of trees; while at other spots the trees are more distant; but, in both cases, towns and villages are few and far between.

On our railway run towards Dorchester, after having quitted the New Forest, we very soon enter Dorsetshire, two or three miles westward of Ringwood, and proceed south-west towards Wimborn Minster. This town takes its name from the fine old Minster, or Collegiate Church, which has withstood the storms of many centuries, and is one of the most venerable of our ecclesiastical antiquities. Farther south-westward, again, we come to a singular intermixture of land and water near Poole. If we look at a map of the eastern part of Dorset, we find a bold and deep inlet of the sea, between Christchurch and Purbeck Isle. This deep inlet, which has a very narrow entrance between two projecting points of land, with the island of Brownsea, facing the entrance, forms Poole Harbour, a large and valuable receptacle for shipping. On the north side of this harbour, close to the town of Poole, is the narrow entrance of another and still more deeply embayed sheet of water, Holes Bay. Farther to the west, another narrow passage gives entrance from Poole Harbour to Wareham Harbour. This last-named harbour extends at its south-western end nearly to the town of Wareham; while on its northern shore is another bay or inlet extending nearly to Lytchet Minster. Were it not for a sand-bar near the external mouth of Poole Harbour, this series of land-locked bays and harbours would be exceedingly valuable to shipping. The Railway Company, wishing to approach

as near as practicable to the towns of Poole and Wareham, resolved to carry their line right across one of the innermost of these bays. The bay is too shallow to be of much service to boats, and was on that account more readily crossed by the railway works. The engineer has selected the narrowest part of the bay, and the works appear to have been tolerably easy; yet it has an odd effect to the railway traveller, who finds himself lifted but a few feet from a wide expanse of water. After sending off a branch to Poole, two or three miles in length, and passing close to Wareham, the railway changes its course, and proceeds pretty nearly in a western direction to Dorchester, through a country somewhat bare of attraction. A barrier of hills extends uninterruptedly from Corfe Castle to Bridport, shutting out the sea from the view of the railway traveller. On approaching Dorchester, we find the town on the right or north, and the ancient Roman amphitheatre on the left, or south, of the station. It is said that, had it not been for the urgent remonstrance of some who deserve to he honoured for their zeal, this amphitheatre would have fallen a victim to the railway excavators; but that the engineer contrived that his works should pass the spot without damaging it. Had it been otherwise we should, indeed, have thought that the country was to be handed over to a new barbarism. How strange does it appear, to stand on the edge of this amphitheatre, and look down upon the hissing, snorting, steaming locomotive! Turn the face to the south, and we see an oval spot of ground, as utterly free from all buildings and signs of industry as it could have been when the Romans formed it: turn to the north, and we see one of the latest stages and advancements of civilization—a railway-station with all its appurte

nances.

This amphitheatre differed from most of those constructed by the Romans. It was customary to erect a lofty stone or brick structure, such as the Colosseum at Rome, for the exhibition of the gladiators and competitors; but this one at Dorchester is a mere earthwork. It is an oval, about 218 feet in its longest diameter, by 163 in the shorter. There is a central area, sunk somewhat below the level of the surrounding plain; while the sides or rim of the oval basin, formed of solid chalk, are elevated about thirty feet above it. The entrance is at the north-east end of the oval, opposite to which is a kind of staircase, or sloping pathway, ascending to the top of the superstructure, having beneath what appears to have been a cave, or subterraneous apartment. Commencing near the entrance, and gradually ascending on each side till it attains the middle row of seats, whence it declines to the opposite end of the oval, is a passage or terrace, more nearly of a circular form than the higher superstructure which bounds it. On the top of (what were once) the rows of seats is a terrace, about twelve feet broad, divided from the seats by a parapet. Between this upper terrace and the middle terrace were rows of seats, excavated in the chalk, and appropriated to the humbler spectators; while below the middle ter

race were the seats for persons of higher rank; and on a podium, or broad platform, immediately contiguous to the arena, were the seats for the senators and nobles. The dimensions given above are those of the arena itself: the external boundary, very nearly circular in form, measures about 340 feet each way; and from the great thickness of the rampart or edge, on the east and west sides, it is conjectured that there may have been in those parts dens for the reception of the wild beasts.

It is computed, from an estimate of the area and the form of the enclosure, that 12,000 persons could have been seated to witness the sports and contests going on in the interior. Dr. Stukeley thought that the amphitheatre was formed by order and in the time of Titus; but there is no sufficient evidence to settle this point. Whatever may have been the date of its construction, it seems to have escaped any subsequent adaptation to other purposes, if we except a partial and rude tillage of the interior area. At the present time both the area itself, and the sloping sides of the boundary, are covered with long, rank, coarse grass. The last and most strange and saddening purpose, so far as is recorded, to which this amphitheatre has been appropriated, occured in 1705, when a woman was first strangled and then burned, by judicial sentence, in this arena, before an assemblage of ten thousand persons. She was convicted of the murder of her husband, but maintained to her dying breath innocence of the charge.

Leaving this amphitheatre and its associations, and rambling a little to the north, we come to the town of Dorchester; to the inhabitants of which town the amphitheatre forms a pleasant country spot, diversified, under the new order of things, by all the excitement incident to the vicinity of a railway-station and its world of bustle.

Dorchester is one of those nice comely old towns, with a goodly avenue running through them from north to south, and another from east to west: the two meeting in the centre of the town, near the Town-hall, the principal church, and other buildings. These four approaches to Dorchester are among the finest kind of our public roads, lined with trees on both sides to a great distance from the town, and thereby forming lines of communication which catch the eye from afar, when the roads themselves would not otherwise be visible. That Dorchester is a city of high antiquity there are many proofs to be adduced. It is believed to have been a settlement of the ancient Britons, under the name of Dunium, the capital of the Durotiges. None of our antiquaries venture to surmise much as to the origin or history or institutions of these Durotiges; but Mr. Savage, in his ' History of Dorchester,' dwells at some length on an invasion of this county by the Celts from Gaul, many centuries before the Christian era; and, indeed, many of the singular earthworks and ditches still existing in Dorset and Wilts, such as Wansdyke, Woodyates, Coombsditch, &c., are believed by some writers to have been fortifications during the Celtic wars in those counties. But to come

down to periods when a little more of the light of history can be thrown on such matters. The conquest of Dorchester was reckoned an important one by the Romans; the town was fortified by them, and they made an excellent road right through it. In 1841, a beautiful piece of Roman tessellated pavement was discovered in a garden; and numerous other specimens, as well as small bronze figures, and coins of Antoninus, Vespasian, Constantine, Julian, Theodosius, Marcus Aurelius, and Valerian, have been discovered. I

In later times Dorchester was much devastated during the wars between the Saxons and the Danes; and the barrows and tumuli, which are so numerous in this vicinity, are by some writers believed to be the burying-places of those slain in these contests. During the last thousand years, from the Danish times to our own, Dorchester has shared pretty fairly in the various commotions, changes, and advancements that have marked other towns in the south of England. It had, at one time, a rich priory. It had also a castle, the governors of which were notable men in the times of King John and Henry III. It took a very resolute part against Charles I. during the civil war; and it was the scene of some of Judge Jefferies' worst acts of cruelty, later in the same century.

The approach to the centre of Dorchester from the railway is not that by which the stage coaches used to reach the same point. The station is almost exactly southward of the town; and a portion of the Roman road from Weymouth to Dorchester has to be traversed in getting to the inhabited streets of the latter. There are not many streets, but such as there are-are mostly long, quiet, and clean. There is a slight declivity towards the river Frome on the north; and from the banks of this river many beautiful views are to be obtained. Not among the least pleasing of the features of Dorchester are the fine walks, surrounding the town on the south, east, and west, and following the line of the ancient Roman wall; being planted with lime, chesnut, and sycamore trees, they have most of the beauty of park avenues. The buildings of the town are not so numerous or so interesting as to demand a long gaze from the rambler. St. Peter's Church is certainly the most venerable: its turretted and battlemented tower, and its effigies of warriors and nobles, bespeak for it a respectable antiquity. The other churches and chapels are modern, and so are the various municipal buildings. Truth to tell, Dorchester is not a very lively or bustling place: the manufacture of broadcloth and serges, once possessed by it, has entirely decayed-the West Riding of Yorkshire has eclipsed the south-west counties in all such matters. No other manufacture has sprung up to supply its place —unless we may speak of the manufacture of mutton; the sheep reared on the extensive pastures in the neighbourhood are extremely numerous.

The amphitheatre is not the only remarkable ancient earthwork in the immediate vicinity of Dorchester. At the western margin of the town, and approached by one of the pretty avenues before alluded to, is Pound

bury, an ancient enclosure, bordered by the river Frome on the north. The area of ground here enclosed is larger than the amphitheatre. It is above a thousand feet long from east to west, and upwards of four hundred from north to south. The ground on which it stands is elevated, and it is bounded by a raised barrier or earthwork. Hence have arisen two opinions; the one, that a hill was cut down to the present level; the other, that a boundary of earthwork was erected on a slightly elevated plot of ground. The form of the enclosure is an irregular oblong, with a rounding off at the south-east and south-west angles. The principal entrance is from the east, through a breach or opening in the boundary. There are three other similar, but smaller, openings, in different parts of the enclosure. Near the south-west corner is a small round hillock, rising above the general level of the place. The whole place, including boundary, hillock, and enclosed space, is clothed with verdure, and seems to have been unchanged for ages.

What is this Poundbury? That the Dorsetshire antiquaries should have set about solving this question, is no matter for wonder: whether they have succeeded, is another matter. The prevailing opinion seems to be, that this was a place of public meeting in the time of the Britons, where the chieftain or leader harangued the people he, standing on the hillock, or rostrum, and they, standing on the flat arena around. This is, however, by no means, the only explanation offered of its use and object. Dr. Stukeley supposed it to be a camp made by Vespasian, when he was employed in the conquest of the Belgæ; and the hillock before spoken of, instead of being a rostrum, was a tumulus. Coker, Camden, and Speed, prefer to consider it as a Danish work, raised by Sweno of Denmark, when he besieged Dorchester in 1002. The Britons, the Romans, and the Danes, have therefore to settle their disputed claim to the structure as best they may.

When we start from Dorchester, on the way to Weymouth, we have still further proof that Britons, or Romans, or both, have left memorials of their industry, in roads, barrows, and fortified holds. There seems no doubt whatever that the high road between the two towns is of Roman formation. It proceeds, in the Roman manner, nearly straight from the one town to the other. The hills are a little lowered, the valleys are a little filled up, so as to render the road passable for vehicles. Yet the ascents are often severe, especially on either side of the hilly ridge (South Downs) which intersects Dorsetshire from east to west.

The time is not far distant, when this route will be traversed by railway. The Dorchester and Weymouth portion of the Wilts, Somerset, and Weymouth Railway is rapidly progressing; and when this is completed we may expect-as takes place elsewhere-that the present coach intercourse between the two towns will nearly cease. As matters are at present, we see, while travelling by coach, the nearly finished railway eastward of us in one part; then a range of hills through which a tunnel is being bored; then a gallery carried