Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/509

 [ fr 1 THE CONCLUSION, tTT E have now purfued the Hiftory of Manchefter to that eonfolidation of its five provinces into one empire, and the defcent of the Saxons on the whole. We have feen the ex- tenfive circuit of the parifh of Manchefter one wild unfrequented range of woodland, inhabited only by the boar the bull and the wolf, the hereditary proprietors of this fylvan domain, and tra- verfed only by the hunters of the neighbouring country in their occafional purfuits after them. We have feen the fhades of this Arden fele&ed by the monarch of Lancashire for the feat of a ftation in the woods, and a ftation a&uall'y planted in the center of it. This-was the firft early period of the population of the parifh. This was the firft early commencement of a town within it. The rude outlines of a town began, the faint principle of population- commenced, about fifty years; before the Chriftian aera, and within the compafs of the Caftle-field. And £he Foreft of Arden affumed a new life and colourina; from it. The death- like filence aud the dread folitude that had regularly prevailed before were now greatly interrupted by the occafional retort of foldiers to the fortrefsof Mancenion, by the occafional excurfions of hunters from the Caftle-field, and by the. hollow hum and the dying murmurs of the garrifon regularly converfing at the center on the banks of the Medlock. But that warlike tribe of Latium which from a little affemblage of outlaws on the heiphts of the Tiber had amazingly become the lords of Italy, the mafters of Gaul, and the conquerors of half the globe, no'v land upon
 * * great important epocha in the annals of the ifland, the