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CRICKLADE.

Malmsbury, the view is equally varied and extensive. To the north-west, the high country about Tetbury is the distant object, and to the north is seen the tower of Cirencester, with the Oakley woods, backed by the extending sweep of the Cotswold hills. The interval is composed of rich, woody lowlands, where the village and the spire vary the scene; and through which, though the water is not visible, the early course of the Thames is marked by the meandering range of willows on its banks, by the misty exhalation that floats above it, or by some other half distinguishable, vapoury circumstance, which the eye can scarce discern, and language cannot describe. To the east and south-east, the prospect is still more extensive. Cricklade, with its stately tower, is seen in the bottom. The Wiltshire hills, blending with those of Berkshire, form an high waving boundary to the right, and force the eye onwards over a rich country to Letchlade steeple, the town of Highworth, rising in the view, and Faringdon hill, which breaks the line of a remote horizon. A spot of ground planted with trees, on the north-east part of the common, is just sufficient to divide the extensive prospect in these distinct pictures, which contain the leading features, or character of the country, through which the Thames flows from its source to Faringdon.

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INGLESHAM LOCK,

WITH THE THAMES AND SEVERN CANAL.

IN the year 1782, Mr. Robert Whitworth, a very able engineer was employed by several very opulent and publicspirited gentlemen, chiefly merchants of London, to form a plan and estimate of a canal that would form a junction between the Thames and the Severn; and in the following year an act passed to carry this beneficial project into execution.

This canal was executed in a most complete and masterly manner in the space of seven years. Warehouses are also constructed in every requisite station on its banks, with all the machinery for lading and unlading vessels, and a system of lock-work, to remedy the various levels of the country through which it takes its course.

On the 19th of November, 1789, the first vessel passed from the Severn to the Thames in the presence of a vast concourse of people, who came from every part of the adjacent country to croud the banks and hail its passage, as the commencement of a benefit, whose present advantages and remote effects they did not attempt to calculate.

This important junction is formed very near, but a little below the village of Inglesham, about a mile above Lechlade, whose spire is seen in the picture. A round tower as a dwelling- and wharf-house has been erected as a deposit for coals brought by the canal, in case the navigation should at any time or by any cause receive a temporary obstruction. Thus is the Severn brought as it were to the Metropolis; and Thames introduced into all the ports of the Severn, with that of Bristol, and the range of them on the coast of Wales: a splendid enlargement of the interior commerce of the kingdom.

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