f their kind to be neglected, and in time forgotten. The
first regularly defined paths were probably footways--the first
carriages broad-wheeled. No record remains of what materials were used
for filling up the ruts; so it is likely, in those simple times when
enclosure acts were unknown, that the cart was seldom taken in the same
track. As houses were built, and something in the shape of streets began
to be established, the access to them must have been more attended to. A
mere smoothing of the inequalities of the surface over which the oxen
had to be driven, that brought the grain home on the enormous _plaustra_
of the husbandman, was the first idea of a street, whose very name is
derived from _stratum_, levelled. As experience advanced, steps would be
taken to prevent the softness of the road from interrupting the draught.
A narrow rim of stone, just wide enough to sustain the wheel, would, in
all probability, be the next improvement; and only when the gentle
operations of the farm were exchanged for war, and the charger had to be
hurried to the fight, with all the equipments necessary for an army,
great roads were laid open, and covered with hard materials to sustain
the wear and tear of men and animals. Roads were found to be no less
necessary to retain a conquest than to make it; and the first true proof
of the greatness of Rome was found in the long lines of military ways,
by which she maintained her hold upon the provinces. You may depend on
it, that no expense was spared in keeping the glorious street that led
up her Triumphs to the Capitol in excellent repair. All the nations of
the _Orbis Antiquus_ ought to have trembled when they saw the beginning
of the Appian road. It led to Britain and Persia, to Carthage and the
White Sea. The Britons, however, in ancient days, seem to have been
about the stupidest and least enterprising of all the savages hitherto
discovered. After an intercourse of four hundred years with the most
polished people in the world, they continued so miserably benighted,
that they had not even acquired masonic knowledge enough to repair a
wall. The rampart raised by their Roman protectors between them and the
Picts and Scots, became in some places dilapidated. The unfortunate
natives had no idea how to mend the breach, and had to send once more
for their auxiliaries. If such their state in regard to masonry, we
cannot suppose that their skill in road-making was very great; and yet
we are told