Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/38

 and variety. Under the shelter of these elevations Glocester is situated in the long extended vale called by its name, and washed by the majestic Severn, who rolls his waters to the left of the city. Founded originally by the Romans, (for the boasted British town upon its scite consisted only of a few wattled cottages) it presents an example of those sensible and judicious principles upon which all the military towns of this sagacious people were constructed. The Quadrivium, or center of the parallelogram which the walls described, where the four principal streets diverged towards the cardinal points, was the highest ground of the inclosed area, from whence all the other parts of the city fell by a regular and gentle descent; a plan at once calculated to produce salubrity and pleasantness. The form and extent of the Roman Glevum (for thus the station was called) may still be plainly distinguished; for notwithstanding the large additions of suburbs in after-ages, its ancient walls have invariably continued to mark the limits of the city.

The strength of Glocester has always rendered it an object of importance to partizans in the different tumultuous scenes which civil convulsion has excited in this country; but at no period does its military history make so conspicuous and