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LONDON PAST AND PRESENT: 

 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS AT KESWICK. 



By DAVID AINSWORTH, Esq. 



After the fullest enquiry, several antiquaries and historians hold 

 the opinion that London is of Roman formation, and no older 

 than the time of Claudius : but we need not necessarily dispute 

 the existence of a British London. There can be but little doubt 

 that the name of London had a Celtic origin. The place was 

 probably very small ; but it must have been chosen for its com- 

 manding position on the banks of a fine river; and there may be 

 some truth in the assertion that one Belinus formed a port or 

 haven on the site of the present Billingsgate. What a British town 

 was like we learn from Julius Caesar : " It was nothing more than 

 a thick wood fortified with a ditch and rampart, to serve as a place 

 of retreat against the incursions of their enemies." 



We may therefore imagine a clearing out of the great forest of 

 Middlesex, extending from St. Paul's Cathedral to the Bank of 

 England, with the dwellings of the Britons on the higher ground 

 overlooking the Thames. The late Mr. Thomas Lewin indicated 

 even the extent of a British London as situated on the hill 

 between the river Flete in the west, and "<NdX\brook on the east. 

 The western gate was Ludgate, and the eastern Dowgate — and 

 these two names are doubtless of British origin : but the origin of 

 London will probably always remain a subject of dispute, for want 

 of decisive facts. A negative fact is, that very few remains earlier 

 than the Roman occupation have been discovered. In 1867 



