Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/326

 Chap. IX. OF MANCHESTER, 295 And the arrival of the Romans muft have little improved this curious manufa&ory of Britain, as they univerfally preferred fil- ver and gold to glafs for the compofition of their drinking-vef- fels * They made indeed great improvements in their own at Rome during the government of Nero. The bowls and cups of this metal then rivalled the bowls of porcelain in their dear- nefsv and then equalled the cups of chryftal in their cleamefs ". But thefe were infinitely too coftly for general ufe. Thefe un- doubtedly were never attempted in Britain, and never made their appearance in the ifland. And the common glafles of the Ro- mans and Roman-Britons muft have been infinitely inferior in goodnefs, and from the few fragments that have been difcovered at the ftations of the former or the ftationary towns of the latter appear to have generally confifted of a clear but greenly t indued . metal. Native amber, once the fubjed of fabulous abfurdities and the occafion of ridiculous contentions, is the exfudation of the gumn&y trees .which . formerly lined all the northern coaft of Germany, and remain in various places upon the margin of the Baltic at prefent. This beauteous diftiliation,. dropping from its parent boughs, often fell dire&ly into the fea, was often carried from the fhore.by the retreat of the tide, and was. often fwept from the banks by the defceat of the rivers a Y It muft therefore have been frequently found, as it is fometimes difcovered to the prefent period, along the margin of our eaftern coaft x And the primaeval Britons appear to have poflcfled very confiderable quantities of it. This they flattened into fquarea and molded into circles, and their females ftrung them as beads and wore them as necklaces **. Nor was this peculiar to the wives and daughters of the Britons. The Gallic women in the north of Italy did the fame as late as the aera of Agricola* s expedition into Lancafhire t5. And the Britons formed their amber into feveral domeftic veflels * In this ftate of their amber-manur factory were they fobbed by the Romans, and nearly in this ftate they muft have continued under them; the Romans only teaching