Itinerarium curiosum (centuria I) : $b or, an account of the antiquities, and remarkable curiosities in nature or art, observed in travels through Great BritainStukeley, William
History
Itinerarium curiosum (centuria I) : $b or, an account of the antiquities, and remarkable curiosities in nature or art, observed in travels through Great Britain
Stukeley, William
Great Britain -- Antiquities -- Early works to 1800; Great Britain -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
espaliers, and visto’s to diverse remarkable objects that offer
themselves in the circumjacent country. Over the pediment of this
front of the house is a curious busto in marble of the French king,
bigger than life, taken from the gate of the citadel of Tournay. The
orangery is a pretty room. At the entrance hither from the town, her
grace has erected a noble triumphal arch to the memory of the duke, and
has projected a vast obelisk to be set in the principal avenue in the
park, whereon is to be inscribed an account of his great actions and
ability in council, and in war. Near the gate is the house where our
famous Chaucer was born: methinks there was somewhat poetical in the
ground that first gave him birth, and produced these verses, which I
ask pardon for inserting, upon a subject which his genius only could be
equal to:
_Fame, like the optic artist, wont to swell
The object larger to the armed eye,
Sing on, and mighty Marlborough’s actions tell:
Secure from flattery in words abound,
And let thy trumpet diapasons sound;
Speak but enough of him, ’tis all reality._
[Sidenote: +Stunsfield+, Ro. _town_.]
Through the park we crossed again the Akeman-street, which runs all
along with a perfect ridge made of stone, dug every where near the
surface: it bears between north-east and east: it is a foot-path still
through the park with a stile, and a road beyond it by which it passes
to Stunsfield, where are marks of an intrenched work, once a Roman
station: and in the place they found (the 25th Jan. 1712.) a most
curious tesselated pavement, for bulk and beauty the most considerable
one we know of: it was a parallelogram of thirty-five foot long and
twenty foot wide, a noble room, and no doubt designed for feasting and
jollity: in one of the circular works was Bacchus represented in stones
properly coloured, with a tiger, a _thyrsus_ in his hand enwrapped with
vine leaves. This admirable curiosity deserved a better owner; for the
landlord and tenant quarreling about sharing the profits of showing
it, the latter maliciously tore it in pieces. When the earth was first
laid open upon its discovery, they found it covered a foot thick with
burnt wheat, barley and pease: so that we may guess upon some enemy’s
approach it was covered with those matters to prevent its being
injured, or was turned into a barn and burnt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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