Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/24

Chap. I. OF MANCHESTER. 7 this period therefore the county of Lancafter in general, and the parifli of Manchefter in particular, had certainly received a co- lony of the Celt**. And they could not have received one rery long before it. The gradual progreffion of the Celtae along the broad baft of the triangle which the ifland forms, • and afterwards acrofs the wide plane to the tapering fommit of it, muft have been the labour of many ages* The population of England was com- pleated before the abovementioned sera : and it could not have been complcated long before it. Had the inhabitants of Gallo- way in particular been ieated in that country for a considerable time before the Belgae arrived on the fouthern coaft of England, fo very near as the coaft of Ireland was to them, they could not have left the firft plantation of that ifland to their brethren of the South ' And that they did leave it is as ftrong an argu- ment as we can have, that the fettlement of the fouthern regions of Scotland had not been long compleated at the arrival of the Belgze. The county of Lancafter therefore in general, and the parifli of Manchester in particular, muft have been firft planted about one hundred and fifty years before that arrival, and about _ » five hundred before die Chriftian computation, about the acra of Darius*s expedition into Greece, the reftoration of the demo- cracy at Athens, and the inftitution of the confulate at Rome. 1 Thus fettled in the woody region of Lancafhire, the colonifts received the appropriate name of Setantii, Siftantii, or Siftuntii, as the fettlers who took pofl'diion of Cumberland and Weftmore- land received the appropriate title of Voluntii or Volantii. The name of the former was expreffive of their maritime iituation. It is compounded of SE, TAN, TILT or S, IS, TAN, TILT, figni- fies either (imply The Country of Water or difcriminately The Inferiovr ani> Southerly CotrNTRY ot Water, and' expreffes the particular ppfition of Lancafhire with refpeft to the Volantii and the fea. Setantii muft have been the original ap- pellation of the original colonifts ; and Siftantii or Siftuntii muft have been afterwards conferred upon then^ when new colonifts had taken pofieffion of Cumberland and Wefbnordajad, and ' .5 ' • when.