Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/263

 k * ■232 THE HISTORY Book 1. 'high, anil affected the luxury of an airy faunter in a walk of '.ftate l, ; Thcfe however are ftriking evidences of the (peedy growth of •civility and the rapid progrefs of politenefs among the nativeb of the north ; of a civility which muft have been more and more widely diffufed, and of a politenefs which muft have been •more and more greatly refined, through the courfe of the fubfe- quent ages. And in all thefe improvements the mind muft ne- cefTarily have lhared. The fbns of the chiefs were now taught to expand their views beyond the little circle of an hunting life and the recent details of a traditionary hiftory, and to en-, large their minds with acquisitions of knowledge* Their con- -ne&ion with the* Romans now put into their hands the great vo- lume of human literature, the hiftory of man and the aflem- 4)lage of the fcienccs; and they determined to read it. The difficulties of the Roman language gradually funk before them, •and the unknown worlds of fcience lay open to their view. ♦They entered, fcized the literary treafures of antiquity, and, north. Nor did they reft here. The luxury of ftudy and the pride of intellect foon led thefe new votaries of learning from the ufeful and the inftru&ive to the ornamental and the plead- ing branches of Literature. They invaded the fairy regions of ^laffical tafte. They ft u died the purity of the Roman language. And they cultivated the graces of the Roman compofitions 3 1 Honoris emulatio pro neceflitate erat. Agric. Vit c. 21,-— Strabo p. 305, Dio p. 1003, Diodorus p. 351, and Caefijr ip. 89.-— *CaBfar p. 89, and OfTiafa vol* II. p. 15 Sec. — 3 R. I. ch. xi. f. ii~- 4 Caefar p. 891 Diodorus p f 353* (peaking of forac <5auls that ftill continued to fight naked ; the general Account* of Hiftorians reduced to a confiftency 5 and Herodiau lib. iii. c. .47. The ouftom. of fighting naked among the Britons was fo far retained by their defcendants the Highlanders of Scotland, that even as late as the battle of Killicranky the latter threw off J . their plaida and fhort coats and fought in their fhirts (Macpher- . . . fon's
 * for the firft time, introduced them into the regions of the