The Icening-street derives its name not from beginning, but ending, at the Iceni, _via ad Icenos_. They say hereabouts it was cast up in a night’s time by the devil, referring to a supernatural agent the effect of Roman wisdom and industry. It enters the city of Dorchester by the north of Winterburn at West-gate. In divers places they have mended it where wore out, by a small slip of chalk and flints, with a shameful and degenerate carelessness; so that we may well pronounce the Romans worked with shovels, the moderns with tea-spoons: besides, it is mostly inclosed and obstructed with perpetual gates across it, to the great hindrance of travellers, to whom public ways ought to be laid open and free; and the authors of such nusances may well be declared sacrilegious. An endless fund of Celtic as well as Roman inquiries hereabouts, and no where less regarded. [Sidenote: +Durnovaria.+] [Sidenote: TAB. LXXVII.] [Sidenote: TAB. LXXVIII.] Dorchester, the Roman _Durnovaria_, meaning the passage over the river, is a good regular town, standing conformable to the four cardinal points, with the river on its north side: it had four gates in the middle of each side, was encompassed with a strong wall and ditch, if not two; for so it seems, though now levelled into arable, to which the inhabitants hereabout are extremely prone. On the west side great part of the old Roman wall is standing, twelve foot thick, made of rag-stone, laid side by side and obliquely, then covered over with very strong mortar: the next course generally leans the contrary way: now and then three horizontal ones for binding, for much flint is used withal. I saw the foundation of it in a saw-pit laid upon the solid chalk: it is yet twelve foot high, broke through and battered every where, as if the sight of it was obnoxious: this is a strong manner of building, and very expeditious. Much more of this wall remained within memory. It would surprise one to think why the very ruins of it should be pulled down, which must be done with great labour, and frequently a mud wall erected in its place. The foundations appear quite round the town; but eastward a street is built upon it, and the ditch filled up: it is still called The Walls; for that way the town is swelled out into a considerable village, with a church and handsome tower, called Fordington, corruptly Farington. Here are three churches in the town beside it. On the south and west side, without the walls, a handsome walk of trees is planted, looking pleasantly into the fields; but the sort of them being common sycamores, are incommodious by harbouring flies. The winding of the river on the north spoils the square of the town that way; and there is an _area_ of a castle, out of the ruins of which the grey friers built their convent: but now all the works are wholly obliterated, religious and military. The banks of the river here are steep, for the town stands on high ground. Beyond the river are meadows and warm sandy lands; on