DRAINAGE. 61 



tant overflowings of the river with banks and trenches, and 

 drained a great part of the adjacent country ; and that this 

 was the cornucopia which the poets made to be the emblem 

 of plenty." We will not drag our readers through the 

 Pompeian Marshes, the Fossa Mariana, or the Fucine 

 Lake. Suffice it to say, that the alternate reclamations 

 and re-floodings of these and other Italian swamps are 

 faithfully recorded, from the consulate of L. A. Gallus and 

 M. C. Cethegus unto the reign of Theodoricus. For all 

 this we have the usual medley of authorities, commencing 

 with Livy, Pliny, and minor Latin annalists, and ending 

 with the Odyssey, the Iter ad Brundusium, and some 

 inscriptions from a temple at Terracina. We are reminded, 

 moreover, that a Roman consul, who had reduced his pro- 

 vinces to a state of tranquillity, was ordered by the senate, 

 " ne in otio militem haberent," to employ his legions in 

 winning lands from the sea on the coast of Latium; 

 " neither is the employment thought too mean for the 

 legions, though consisting of freemen :" a very natural re- 

 flection for Norroy King of Arms, being himself a practical 

 drainer, and which he specially commends to the notice of 

 the authorities at the Horse Guards. 



For the drainages in the Belgic region our author claims 

 no higher antiquity than A.D. 863. He assures us, on the 

 authority of Kilianus, "the learned Euredius," Sermundus, 

 and the edicts of the Pistensian synod, that, in 863, Bald- 

 win the First, son-in-law of the Emperor Charles the 

 Bald, commenced the works about Bruges. These works 

 appear to have endured till the year 1 1 69, when a breach 

 having occurred, " the which the Flemings could by no 

 means fill up, neither with wood, nor any other matter, 

 for that all sunk as in a gulf without any bottom " by 

 agreement between Floris, earl of Holland, and Philip, 

 earl of Flanders, a thousand men, expert in making of 

 dykes, were sent to stop the breach : " who being come to 

 the place, they found a great hole near unto this dam, and 

 at the entrance thereof a sea-dog, that, for six days toge- 



