On turning towards the West, the lover of contrast may for a moment call to his imagination the dark, heavy, and almost impenetrable forest which covered these lands in the twelfth century, and depicture figures of the inhabitants of Leicester bearing from thence their allowed load of wood, the supply for their hearths, and for this privilege, paying at the West bridge, their toll of _brigg silver_ to their feudal Baron. To this picture he will oppose the present scene of pasturage, flocks, and free husbandmen, cultivating the earth under the protection of just and equal laws. The slightest glance at past ages is a moral study, that renders us not only satisfied but grateful. We cannot pass West-cotes, without noticing an object in the possession of Mr. Ruding, highly interesting to the admirers of the fine Arts. This is a picture in painted glass, representing Mutius Scaevola affording Porsena an astonishing proof of his resolution by burning that hand which had assassinated the secretary instead of the king. The exquisite finish, and perfect preservation of this small piece bespeak it of the antient Flemish school, whose artists according to Guicciardini, invented the mode of burning their colours into the glass so as to secure them from the corrosion of water, wind, or even time. There is no department of the delightful art of painting that so much excites wonder as this. When, in examining this piece, it is considered that every tint and demi-tint of the highly relieved drapery, every stroke of the distant tents and towers, was laid on in a fusile state; that delicate command of skill which could prevent the shades from liquefying into each other, and arrest every touch in its assigned place, so as to produce the effects of the most finished oil painting, cannot be sufficiently admired. Entering the town we pass the Braunston Gate, to the bridge of the same name, crossing the old Soar, and soon arrive at the West bridge, which crosses the new Soar. From hence the canal, taking the name of Union Canal, proceeds toward Market Harborough. On the corner of an old house upon the bridge, is an antient wooden bracket, which formerly supported a bell, by some supposed to have been used by the mendicant brothers of the neighbouring monastery of St. Augustine, who here took their station to beg alms, or, which is more probable, it might have been the bell belonging to the porter of the gate which stood here. The street called Apple-gate, that leads us to the church of St. Nicholas, will not be passed without interest by those who recollect that on this spot, where the ground rises in a gentle ascent from the river, the Legions of Rome established their town; and we are now arrived at an object which brings them more forcibly to remembrance, a massy arched wall, commonly termed, from its bounding the quarter antiently inhabited by the Jews, the _Jewry Wall_.