[Footnote 1: The distance of Chertsey (Surrey) from London is about nineteen miles. Here, says Camden, Julius Cæsar crossed the Thames when he first attempted the conquest of Britain; but Mr. Gough, in his addition to the "Britannia," has advanced some arguments against this opinion. The passage some believe to have been effected at Coway Stakes, about a quarter of a mile below Chertsey Bridge, where Julius Cæsar crossed the Thames when he led the Roman army into the kingdom of Cassivellaunus, who had encamped his forces on the opposite shore. The Britons did everything in their power to prevent the Romans from crossing by driving stakes into the bed of the river and fencing the banks with wooden palisades. Obstacles of this kind were lightly estimated by the bold legionaries. The cavalry at once entered the river; the infantry crossed with their heads only above water, and panic-struck at the sight of Roman intrepidity, the barbarian warriors fled from their post without an effort to maintain it. Bede, who lived in the beginning of the eighth century, tells us, that some of the stakes were then to be seen, and were as big as a man's thigh. Mr. Milner says some of these stakes have been found at a recent period, hard as ebony, each being the body of a young oak tree.] We would suggest that the next Monolith brought to this country from the land of the Ptolemys or Cæsars be erected on this spot, similar to that of Cleopatra's Needle on the Victoria Embankment. Watermen and others who navigate the river have observed how very shallow the water is at this spot. Sir Richard Phillips says "the event was pregnant with such consequences to the fortune of these Islands, that the spot deserves the record of a monument; which ought to be preserved from age to age, as long as the veneration due to antiquity is cherished among us. Who could then have contemplated that the folly of Roman ambition would be the means of introducing arts among the semi-barbarous Britons, which in eighteen hundred and forty years or after the lapse of nearly sixty generations, would qualify Britain to become mistress of Imperial Rome; while one country would become as exalted, and the other be so debased, that the event would excite little attention, and be deemed but of secondary importance? Possibly after another sixty generations, the posterity of the savage tribes near Sierra-Leone, or New Holland may arbitrate the fate of London, or of Britain, as an affair of equal indifference."[1] [Footnote 1: "A Morning's Walk from London to Kew," by Sir Richard Phillips, pp. 26-27, published 1817.]