Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/130

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Rotherham, and Birmingham. Coals are the great import; and a languid manufacture of cotton and flax is carried on just without the town.

The fertility of the country between Ulverstone and Furness-Abbey, whose ruins naturally at- tracted our notice, enables the former to send a large quantity of wheat to the less productive parts of the kingdom; and one wide scene of luxuriant har- vest gladdened our eye and hearts with the antici- pation of future plenty for seven miles, the dis- tance of our ride.

On passing through Dalton in cur way, we could not but recollect that it had heretofore been the capital of Furness, and so much the resort of all ranks of people in consequence of the venerable Abbey being in its neighbourhood, that Ulverstone, its unsuccessful rival, having obtained a charter for a weekly market, could not seduce a sufficient number of people from Dalton to enable it to form one. Its loftily-situated church, and the tower of its castle, corroborate the accounts tradition hands down to us of its former dignity. The ruins of this monastery, founded by King Stephen Avhen Earl of Mortaign and Bulloign, in 1127, are as beautiful as a peaceful valley situation, a night of woods around them, and sheets of ivy gracefully thrown over the vails, can render them.

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