Such is the inscription on this _milliare_, which our industrious antiquaries seem faithfully to have extracted from among the ruins of time and the injuries of accident; an object, which exhibits a curious instance of the civilization introduced by the Roman arms into this island; for the erection of marks to denote the distance from place to place, is an accommodation, at least to the travelling stranger, which unpolished nations never devised; and which the inhabitants of Britain never generally enjoyed from the final departure of the Roman legions, till the last century, when mile-stones were again erected along our principal turnpike roads. The unlearned visitor, it is confessed, will be apt to view, with some degree of disappointment, the object of which we are speaking, and about which much busy conjecture, and learned antiquarian research has been employed; for indeed, its appearance is neither singular nor striking, the engraving being but slight, and the letters rudely formed. But the ingenious observer will esteem it a valuable curiosity; not only because it clears up the long doubted question, whether the RATAE of Antoninus's Itinerary was the present Leicester, but because it is one of those objects which assist the reflecting mind in connecting the past with the present; and, by confirming from sensible evidence the records of history, give greater weight and effect to the lessons she may teach. The situation in which this stone is at present placed, has often been thought improper; for it is undoubtedly exposed to injuries from the wantonness of play, and is so little conspicuous from its place in the obelisk, that nothing appears necessarily to attract the attention of the stranger. A situation more private, though not wholly so, would be more proper; such a one as the garden of the Infirmary would afford: it would there have all the publicity the curious could wish, and all the security the antiquary could desire. Our visitor, continuing his walk along this street, which, as he probably will know, is on the great road from the metropolis to the north-west part of the kingdom, arrives at a scene of busy traffic. Here, among numbers of newly-erected dwellings (proofs of the increasing population of the town) is the public and principal wharf on the navigable canal, near which is an iron foundery. This canal was formed, in consequence of a bill passed in 1791, for the purpose of opening a communication with the Loughborough canal, and through that, with the various navigations, united to the Trent. The line of the canal from Leicester to Loughborough is near sixteen miles in extent, and serves to supply Leicester with coal, lime, and the greater part of all the other heavy articles, which the consumption of a place, containing sixteen thousand inhabitants, requires. The rates of tonnage, according to the act, from Loughborough to Leicester, are--