148 ROMANS AT YORK.
residence as early as the year 134, and it was the camp, the court, and the tomb of Severus. Here, about 272, Constantine the Great was born, and here, in the imperial palace, his son, Constantius, died. The footsteps of old Rome, upon this spot, are attested by altars, inscriptions, seals, and sepulchral vessels, which have been from age to age exhumed. Not more than thirty years since, some workmen, in digging the found ation of a house, struck, four feet below the surface, on a vault of stone, strongly arched with Roman bricks. It contained a coffin, enclosing a slender human skele ton, with the teeth entire, supposed to be a female of rank, who had lain there at least one thousand four hundred years. Near her head was a small glass lach rymatory, and not far from her place of repose was found an urn containing ashes and calcined bones of another body. Still more recently, the remains of a tessellated pavement, with other relics of great an tiquity, have been found and presented to the York shire Philosophical Society. Our own antiquarian tastes were easily and simply gratified, by finding, in various repositories, during our walks, slight utensils, such as boxes, vases, inkstands, and candlesticks, wrought and neatly polished from the charred beams of the venerable Minster.
It is impossible to explore the city of York, without reverting to the scenes which History has so indelibly traced, as almost to give them living existence among the objects that surround us. Imagination rekin dles, on the neighboring hills, the fires of the funeral
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