Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/323

 2?z THE HISTOtY ' Book i. of the tireft, who had carried on a long and a clofe correlpondence with the continent, and who muft have been acquainted, if any of the Britons were, with the continental improvements in the art, were therefore fond of the foreign ware and gave it a good vent in their country But the arrival of the Romans intro- duced all the refinements of Campania, and a pottery muft have been neceflarily ere&ed at every ftationary town in the kingdom. In the Mancunian pottery, as I have demonftrated before, were fbme excellent artifts engaged. And in it, under the dire&ion of a Roman or Roman-Frifian mafter, the Mancunians learnt to model their veffels with a latfoe, to give them the foft polifh of a glazing, and to flourifli them with carvings and embois them with figures 7. Nor were the primiseval Britons uninftru&ed in the bufinefs of the turner and the employ of the carpenter. They were con- verfant with both, forming their fhields either in circles or in lozenges, tapering the fhafts of their fpears and arrows, and rounding the axles of their chariots 8. Such a degree of mecha- nical knowledge could fcarcely be unknown to any nation, and was abfolutely neceffary to a military one. And this would ha- tu rally lead them to the formation of many domeftic utenfils of wood. Such were moft probably the firft domeftic implements of man in general, the block of the maple or the beech being firft fcooped into an unwieldy unlhapely veflel, the knife after- wards pruning off the excrefcencies and correcting the form, the lathe rounding it next into neatnefs, and the graver carving it at laft into elegance. And with thefe implements or wood the primaeval Britons muft have had trenfluirs, trenchers, or wooden. plates, wooden cadrs or chairs, and all the wooden furniture of the brewery. The chairs we fee reprefented upon the coins df Cunobeline„a winged figure being placed with an helmet and trow* fers in one of them,and the king's minter being feated in another*. In this refpe& the Britons were more polifhed than the Gauls, the latter even after the conqueft of them by the Romans fitting conftantly upon the ground at their entertainments, and having <}iuly