Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/33

16 THE HISTORY Book h ■ • ftone is left greater for an additional ftrength. But the eye is made wider at the extremities than in the middle, that the handle may be faflened within it by little wedges of wood upon either fide. And the whole Celt, even without the handle, which muft certainly have been proportionable to it, is,iiot lefc than eight pounds and four ounces in weight f7 . The ufe of this, as of the military car-rhod, wheeled car, or chariot, muft have been derived to the Britons from their Gal- lic anceftors, and have been firft introduced into the ifland with the firft inhabiters of it. Nor had the Gauls at the firft invafion of Britain by the Romans entirely forgotten the ufe of the chariot. Some tribes ftill retained the car of their anceftors, and ufed it equally far the journey and the fight "V But itt Britain the ufe of it was univerfal at this period, and particu- larly difcriminated the tribes of the Britons from all the other, nations of Europe % Thefe chariots the Britons diilinguiflied by the two denominations of Efledom or feats and of Covini -coffins or vehicles 10 . And thefe chariots had their wheels- sfometimes furnilhed with fcythes, were always drawn by two: horfes, and carried fbmetimes two perfons, the driver and the* warrior, .and ibmetimes .only one *V ' Caesar p. 38. and Mdla lib. iii. c'6. — * Ptolemy, and^ Ttichard p. 27. Gabr makes Gabr-ant in the plural and Gabr- ant-ic in the relative adjeftive. — * Ptdlemy, and Richard p. 2^ . See alfc'b. i. ch. v. fe£t. 1.— 4 Notitia for Concangii. The. name is Con Cangii the head or chief feat of the Cangii. So Segontium is Se Cond Ty or the head abode. — * So Moorland in Staffordshire. — 6 Tacitus m Ann. lib. xii. c. $y, Dio p. 1280 ; - and Herodian lib. iiL c. 47. Oxon. 167U ; compared with Qflian's Poems p. 37, 5©, 51, 54, &c. {vol. I. -quarto), Pegge*s Coins of [ Cunobeline clafs 4. 2, Mela lib. iii. c. t>. GatticS Armati, and * Pegge's Coins clafs 4. c. clafs 5. 4. and clafs 6. 2. The Poems -of u Oflian carry in themfelves fufficient proofs of their own autfien- . . . • • *• ticity.