in the Household, an officer who arranges on the table the dishes of a king or nobleman.

Sewer is also a passage or gutter made to carry water into the sea or a river, whereby to preserve the land, &c. from inundations and other annoyances.

Court of Commissioners of Sewers in England, a temporary tribunal, erected by virtue of a commission under the great seal; which formerly used to be granted pro re nata at the pleasure of the crown, but now at the discretion and nomination of the lord chancellor, lord treasurer, and chief justices, pursuant to the statute 23 Hen. VIII. c. 5. Their jurisdiction is to overlook the repairs of sea-banks and sea-walls, and the cleansing of rivers, public streams, ditches, and other conduits, whereby any waters are carried off; and is confined to such county or particular district as the commission shall expressly name. The commissioners are a court of record, and may fine and imprison for contempts; and in the execution of their duty may proceed by jury, or upon their own view, and may take order for the removal of any annoyances, or the safeguard and conservation of the sewers within their commission, either according to the laws and customs of Romney-marsh, or otherwise at their own discretion. They may also assess such rates or scots upon the owners of lands within their district as they shall judge necessary; and if any person refuses to pay them, the commissioners may levy the

(a) These are little rolls of tobacco which the Spaniards smoke without a pipe. the same by distress of his goods and chattels; or they may, by statute 23 Hen. VIII. c. 5, sell his freehold-lands (and by the 7 Ann. c. 10, his copyhold also), in order to pay such fees or assessments. But their conduct is under the control of the court of King's-bench, which will prevent or punish any illegal or tyrannical proceedings. And yet in the reign of King James I. (8th Nov. 1616.), the privy-council took upon them to order, that no action or complaint should be prosecuted against the commissioners unless before that board; and committed several to prison who had brought such actions at common law, till they should release the same; and one of the reasons for discharging Sir Edward Coke from his office of lord chief justice, was for countenancing those legal proceedings. The pretence for these arbitrary measures was no other than the tyrant's plea of the necessity of unlimited powers in works of evident utility to the public, "the supreme reason above all reasons, which is the salvation of the king's lands and people." But now it is clearly held, that this (as well as all other inferior jurisdictions) is subject to the discretionary coercion of his majesty's court of King's-bench.

Common sewers, in Rome, were executed at a great expense. It was proposed that they should be of sufficient dimensions to admit a waggon loaded with hay. When these common sewers came to be obstructed, or out of repair, under the republic, the censors contracted to pay a thousand talents, or about 193,000l. for clearing and repairing them. They were again in disrepair at the accession of Augustus Caesar, and the re-inflating them is mentioned among the great works of Agrippa. He is said to have turned the course of seven rivers into these subterraneous passages, to have made them navigable, and to have actually passed in barges under the streets and buildings of Rome. These works are still supposed to remain; but as they exceed the power and resources of the present city to keep them in repair, they are quite concealed, except at one or two places. They were in the midst of the Roman greatness, and still are, reckoned among the wonders of the world; and yet they are said to have been works of the elder Tarquin, a prince whose territory did not extend, in any direction, above 16 miles; and, on this supposition, they must have been made to accommodate a city that was calculated chiefly for the reception of cattle, herdsmen, and banditti. Rude nations sometimes execute works of great magnificence, as fortresses and temples, for the purposes of war and superstition; but seldom palaces, and still more seldom works of mere convenience and cleanliness, in which for the most part they are very defective. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to question the authority of tradition in respect to this singular monument of antiquity, which so greatly exceeds what the best accommodated city of modern Europe could undertake for its own conveniency. And as those works are still entire, and may continue so for thousands of years, it may be suspected that they were even prior to the settlement of Romulus, and may have been the remains of a more ancient city, on the ruins of which the followers of Romulus settled, as the Arabs now hut or encamp on the ruins of Palmyra and Balbeck. Livy owns, that the common sewers were not accommodated to the plan of Rome, as it was laid out in his time; they were carried in directions across the streets, and passed under buildings of the greatest antiquity. This derangement indeed he imputes to the hasty rebuilding of the city after its destruction by the Gauls; but hasty, it is probable, would have determined the people to build on their old foundations, or at least not to change them so much as to cross the direction of former streets.