the beautiful suspension bridge lately erected there.* A branch once passed from Littleport to Elm, and joined the river at Wisbech; but this is now nearly filled up.

Besides these primitive rivers of the Fens: there are many subordinate streams, such as the Lark, the lesser Ouse or Brandon river, which with the navigable drains, all serve to transport the produce of the country to the different ports of Boston, Wisbech, and Lynn.†

* In mentioning this Bridge in his History of the Bedford Level, Mr. Wells makes an erroneous statement, which we, from unquestionable authority, beg to correct. He states that 'prior to the erection of the Suspension Bridge, there was a Ferry across the Hundred-Foot River, the profits of which belonged to the Bedford Level Corporation.' This it appears was not the case. The Ferry was originally a boat, belonging to a farm, on the border of the River, through which farm the parish had a right of road; but this being at once inconvenient to the proprietor of the farm, and the parish, the former paid a compromise to get rid of it. A direct line of road was afterwards obtained by the parish, and a Ferry established by subscription; which was the Ferry used prior to the building of the Bridge by the Rev. W. G. Townley; who has a lease on it for 99 years, at the quit rent of 5s. the tolls of which were fixed by the Corporation.

† For an account of the ancient course of the principal rivers of the Fens, see Col. Armstrong's History of Lynn Navigation, Folio Edition, 1725. For the present course see Wells' History, from which the above sketch has been chiefly taken.

M

HISTORY OF WISBECH.

CHAPTER III.

Ancient History of Wisbech.

WISBECH is situated in the northern part of the

county of Cambridge, at a point verging upon Norfolk; being, on every side surrounded by the Fen lands of the Bedford Level and Marshland. The river Nene runs through the town, dividing it into two parts, and empties itself into the sea at the distance of about ten miles.

The first investigation of the local historian is commonly that of tracing the origin of the name, distinguishing the place of which he has to treat. Mankind, in their earliest condition, we are told formed a language by imitating the sounds or some peculiar property of the object they meant to describe, and this principle has continued, in some measure, to the present day. Many of our towns have thus gained their appellation, and among the rest the name of Wisbech appears to have been derived from its situation, its etymology portending it to be a town situated on the beach of the River Wys or Ouse. The Ouse formerly, our readers will remember,

made its way to the sea through this town, and Wys is conjectured as an ancient name of that river, which flowed up to the banks, whose remains are still an object of interest in the vicinity of the town, and therefore beach would very naturally apply to its shores. Some have contended, and it appears to us with greater authority, that beach is but a corruption of the Saxon word bec, (signifying water) and as it is called Wisebech in Domesday Book, and subsequently Wisebeche and Wysbeche, we have little doubt that the latter is the true derivation, and that Wisbech, as it is at present generally written, is the original name.

The art of printing, an invention of incalculable benefit to mankind, has so multiplied his resources, that the historian of a future age will never, like that of the present, have to complain of disjointed and unsatisfactory materials, whilst he is engaged in compiling the events of the past; but every thing, prior to the propagation of that art, is involved with some degree of unsurmountable perplexity. The History of this country, previous to the conquest, very often assumes the character of a wild romance; every chronicle being unsubstantial, and every record dubious. The most populous towns of the kingdom were founded during this unsettled period; but their first aspect, the date of their foundation, and the circumstances attending it, are alike unrecorded. We may be certain however that at whatever time this part of the country was peopled, and the foundation of its towns and cities laid; it was not with precipitancy; but that they proceeded from hut to cottage, from cottage to village, and from village to town, during the slow and gradual progress of years.

The foundation of Wisbech seems to us to have been laid, during those middle ages, when the savage barbarians and merciless hordes of the North, were stripping the fields of Europe, and deluging them with blood. The soldiers of Rome had, as we have before related, raised their embankments and thus limited the power of the ocean over this low and perilous part of England, and it was not likely that such people would perform a work so stupendous, so laborious, and so enduring, and then abandon the country to the desolation in which they found it. We may suppose, and our supposition is not entirely imaginary, that in some high and conspicuous parts, which then rose like islands above the level marshes, a few persons would at first fix their residences, probably the fisherman or an encampment of soldiers. The roving maurauders of Saxony and Denmark who were distracting the Roman forces by land were not entirely ignorant of the sea, and of the fertility of these uncultivated shores, and we therefore find that before this time they had launched their boats (the mean vessels in which they sailed were worthy of no better name) and commenced their savage warfare of descent and plunder upon the coast. The Romans, to secure their possessions as much as possible, erected stations and forts at the mouths of the most important rivers, and Wisbech may have owed its origin to one of these rude defences, Such is the opinion of Dr. Stukeley the Antiquarian, and we readily yield to so high an authority. The river Nene, which was then a vast and powerful stream branching into two parts, and circulating through the heart of the kingdom in a western and southern direction, here fell

into the ocean which would be another inducement to settlement, as such a situation is for various reasons favorable to an enterprising people, or we may again suppose, with much apparent truth, that the earliest inhabitants of this town, and the country around it, consisted principally of colonists from Belgium, as we are informed that the Romans introduced these people to superintend the embankment of the country, and direct the languid efforts of the Britons in its prosecution. However this may be, we have proof of the existence of Wisbech in the time of the Saxons, for in the early part of the eleventh century it was given, with other large domains, by Oswy and Leoflede to the convent of Ely, on the admission of their son Alwyn, into that monastery. With the exception, however, of this memorial, we have nothing that throws the least light upon the character, extent, or appearance of the town, prior to the subjugation of the kingdom by William the 1st. During the reign of this monarch, we have seen that this Fen was brought more particularly into notice in consequence of its giving shelter to the disaffected nobles and their followers, and that Wisbech was distinguished from the circumstance of William having built a castle there to defend the country, and prevent the recurrence of rebellion in this suspicious and naturally fortified province.

In the History of Col. Watson, we find the date of the erection of the castle to be 1086, which is twenty years after William's usurpation of the English throne. This scarcely reconciles the fact of the surrender of the isle, and the building of the castle after a seven years' siege of the country, as history leads us to place the