1O4 
queft, nothing could come imme- 
diately from Italy. ‘The antient 
courfe of the walls was as follows’: 
—IJt began with a fort near the 
prefent fite of the Tower, was con- 
_ tinued along the Minories, and the 
back of Houndfditch, acrofs Bi- 
Shopfgate-ftreet, in a ftrait‘line: by 
London-wall to Cripplegate; then 
returned fouthward by Crowder’s 
Well Alley, (where feveral rem- 
nants of lofty towers were lately 
to be feen) to Alderfgate; thence 
along the back of Bull-and-mouth- 
ftreet to Newgate, and again-along 
the back of the houfes in the Old 
- Bailey to Ludgate; foon after which 
it probably finifhed with another 
fort, where the houfe, late the king’s 
printing houfe, in Black Friars, 
now ftands: from hence another 
wall ran near the river-fide, along 
Thames-ftreet, quite ‘to the fort on 
the eaftern extremity. In another 
place I fhall have occafion to men- 
tion that the river at prefent is 
moved confiderably more to the 
Youth, than it was in the times in 
queftion. 
That the Romans had a fort on 
the {pot at prefent occupied by the 
Tower, isnow paft doubt, fince the 
difcovery of a filver ingot, and 
three golden coins; one of the em- 
peror Honorius, the others of Ar- 
cadius. Its weight is ten ounces 
eight grains of the troy pound. In 
- the middle is ftruck, in Roman let- 
ters, 
EX, OF FIC- 
HONORII i 
This is fuppofed to have 'come from 
the royal mint, then at Conftantino- 
* See the learned dean Milles’s effa 
gt, tab. xxv, 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1790. 
y on thefe fubjeéts in the Archaelogia, v. p. | 
ple, and intended to afcertain the 
‘purity of the filver coin, that might 
have been fent over with it, Hono- 
rius reigning over the empire of 
-the weft, as Arcadius did over that 
of the eaft.. This was at the expi-" 
ration of the Roman power in Bri- 
-tain, The coins were fuppofed to 
have been part of the money fent 
to pay the laft legion which was 
-ever fent to the affiftance of the 
-Britons. The Tower was the trea- 
fury in which the public money ~ 
was depofited. The coins are in 
fine prefervation. On the reverfe 
isan armed man treading ona cap- 7] 
-tive, with the legend VICTORIA 
-AV GGG, and at the bottom 
CONOB. The firit alludes to the 
fuccefs of the legion againft the 7 
CONOB. may 7 
Piéts and Scots. 
-internd Conftantinopoli obfignata*. 
The walls were three miles a 
hundred and fixty-five feet in cir- 
cumference, guarded at proper dif- 
tances, on the land fide, with fifteen 
lofty towers; fome of them were — 
remaining ' within thefe few years, © 
and poflibly may fill. Maitland 
mentions one, twenty-fix feet high, 7 
near Gravel-lane, on the weft fide of 
Houndfditch ; another, about eighty 
paces fouth-eaft towards Aldgate; 1) 
and the bafes of another, fupport- — 
ing a modern houfe, at the lower ~ 
end of the ftreet called the Vine- 
yard, fouth of Aldgate. But fince 
his publication, they have been de- 
molifhed, fo that these is not a 
trace left. The walls, when per- 
feé&t, are fuppofed to have been | 
twenty-two teet high, the towers, j] 
forty. Thefe, with the remnants | 
of the wall, proved the Roman 
ftruture, by the tiles and difpofition 
of 
