ted upon the stony
ridge, flourished a spreading hawthorn; this with the stream below, when
sparkling under the reflection of the western sun, the broken shrubby
banks, and the distant swell of Brad-gate Park hill, formed a picture
which has often allured the eye; a picture, that, as it repeatedly
arrested the painter's hand, we can hardly say is now no more.

Of this Bridge, the learned author of the _Desiderata Curiosa_, who has
mistaken it for the adjoining one of four arches, has given a plate in
which is represented a troop of horsemen with banners, carrying the dead
body of Richard the third, thrown upon a horse, over a bridge which never
exceeded three feet; a width fully sufficient for the purpose for which
it seems to have been constructed, that of affording a foot passage from
the monastery of the Augustines to a spring of pure water some yards
distant. This spring till within a few years, was covered with a large
circular stone, having an aperture in the centre, thro' which the monks
let down their pitchers into the water, and retained the name of _St.
Austin's Well_.

But tho' not over this bridge, yet over the adjoining one, known also,
probably from its vicinity to the other, by the name of _Bow-Bridge_, the
monster Richard really passed, proud, angry, and threatening, mounted on
his charger to meet Richmond; and over it, the day after the battle, his
body was brought behind a pursuivant at arms, naked and disgraced, and
after being exhibited in the Town-Hall, then situated at the bottom of
Blue-Boar Lane, was interred in the church of the Grey-Friars near St.
Martins.

The name of this king excites in the mind a sensation of horror;--and
tho' it required the overwhelming evidence of human depravity furnished
by the French revolution, to make the author of the "Historic Doubts,"
believe his crimes possible, the concurrent testimonies both of
Lancastrian and Yorkist Chroniclers, too well demonstrate them. Tho' the
latter may have endeavoured to soften the picture, and Shakespear may
have thrown upon it the darkest shades by working up his deformity of
body and mind into a picture of diabolical horror, the original, the
undoubted traits are preserved by both parties; traits, which so far from
being peculiar to Richard, marked likewise the other characters of the
contending houses. Nor did he deviate widely from the manners of the
times when he "_waded thro' slaughter to a throne_."

A pleasing woody r