Lancashire has not inaptly been styled the workshop of England. This honorable distinction, though little flattering to the vanity of some, is one which has been slowly earned by the inhabitants of the extended circuit to which it is applied, and more especially by that section of the population whose history is about to be traced.
Manchester, the manufacturing metropolis of the north, was originally a dense forest, the domain of birds and beasts. Gradually, Celtic emigrants from the continent spread northward, and, covering districts now familiarly known to us, reached at length the banks of the river Medlock, and planted a station there about the time (parvis componere magna) of Darius' great expedition to Greece and the establishment of the Consulate at Rome. These early occupants of the forest were in course of time supplanted by or mingled with the Brigantes of York and Durham, who felt or fancied a necessity to discharge their overgrown population, and sent them to seek their fortune among the wilds of Lancashire and Westmoreland. The unwarlike trader of our day will have difficulty in picturing to himself these early tenants of the "country of waters," who led a roaming life among the densely-wooded plains of Lancashire; spurning all control, and despising every exercise save that of the chase or the battle-field. The threatenings of unquiet neighbours rendered necessary the adoption of some means of defence, and thence arose those numerous places of refuge of which the en