Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/340

 jCtoprtX. OF .JIANCHE'STER. -309 .fhe people had a right of common kxthem. — "Pliny lib. xvi. c. 6. — ,4 Strabo p. 265. — ,s Qefar p. 88 Mediterraneis, and Strabo p. 265. — " Pliny liUxxxiv. c. 17 ultrd* — "Pliny lib.xxxiv. c.it., —- u PJiny ibid., and Diodorus p. 347. — x * Phil. Tranf. 1759, part J. p. i£. — "Ibid. — ." Pliay lib.xxxiv. c. 17.— ** Ibid. — w Ibid. — •♦ Ibid. Nunc adulterator.— x ' Phil. Tranf. 1 702 and 1703. N° 6.— - 16 Pliny ibid.— " Ibid. AT the period of Caefar's expedition into the ifland, the wild woods of the Britons were- replenifhed nearly with the fame varieties of timber as the fbrefts of the Gauls '.. Bu.t both re- ceived a confiderable addition of foreign trees from the Romans. The beech and the fir are aflerted by Caefar to have be^n both of them abfblute Grangers to Britain at that remarkable period This however the overweening fondnefs of antiquarianifm. has induced the generality of our critics tq difbelieve ; and they have /appealed againft it to the beech-covered hills of the Chifterjj, to, the fir-topt mountains of Scotland, and to the fir-apples di£ covered in the drainiug our Marton Mere *. But thefe arguments fiirely are not of fufficient moment. Caefer has explicitly aflertod the fa£t. Caefar appears in general to have gained vejcy accurate informations concerning the ifland. And if in fijeh caft'sf the credit of, cotemporary relations and die authority of peremptory additions wsre to be evacuated by hypothetical reafonings and problematical arguments, the faith Qf records would be deftroyed at once, and the authenticity of hiftory would be utterly an- nihilated. I cannot however fubfcribe entirely to the relation of Caefar. Other and more forceahle- arguments prefent themfelves to the inquifitive mind, that fuperfede the great authority of Cav- iar, and (hew one of the trees to be certainly a native of Britain, Among the many Roman- names for the fir in the Britifh lan- guage, there are three Which are purely and abfblute ly Britifh. The Scotch diftinguifh the fir by the Britifh appellation, of Gaits, the