During the late war the fortifications were greatly strengthened, the old towers on the walls repaired, and additional quarters for soldiers constructed, in order that the garrison, in the event of invasion, might be able to withstand a regular siege. [Illustration: SANDWICH. (Kent.)] SANDWICH, KENT. Her walls are crumbling down--the gate, Through which her merchants wont to pour Is all dismantled: adverse fate Has cast a blight upon her shore. Her streets and shipless haven show The tenure of all things below. The history of Sandwich, as one of the Cinque Ports, presents a striking example of the fluctuation of trade, and the uncertain tenure by which all mercantile property is held, when supported by merely human ingenuity and enterprise. A very slight operation of nature is sufficient to paralyse the hand of ambition, and to strike the once productive landscape with sterility. Harbours, where our forefathers have counted the thickly crowded masts of stately merchantmen, are now deserted or forgotten. Many of the channels through which riches were once poured into this county, have been gradually dried up; while new ports and harbours have been opened on various parts of the coast, where commercial enterprise has fixed her abode. But, like their predecessors, these also may be deserted in their turn, and silently co-operate in that ever-progressive scheme of nature, by which, as the old and familiar scenes of our youth become changed or obliterated, others are called forth to take their place. The existence of a shoal, or the shifting of a sand-bank, may mar or diminish the prosperity of a city; and to the great local changes which this part of the Kentish coast has undergone, the decay of Sandwich, as a harbour, is chiefly to be ascribed. Where fleets of merchantmen once rode in safety; where the busy scenes of lading and unlading once offered pictures of maritime prosperity, the fishing-craft of the place can hardly find anchorage, and all the characteristics of a flourishing port have disappeared; so that it may be affirmed, with a truth too evident, that-- "The balance has shifted--prosperity's ray No longer enlivens her harbour and bay."