292 History of the English Landed Interest. 



necessity everyone was a warrior and every house a fort. The 

 adjoining county of Cumberland, though considered cold, was 

 said " to smile upon its beholders." Its mountains standing 

 thick together " were rich in metals, and in its valleys were 

 great meeres stored with all kindes of wildfowle." Here and 

 there occurred "pretty hills good for sheep pasturage," and 

 beneath them " goodly plaines, yielding corne sufHciently." 

 Among the fells hemming in the river Derwent w^ere copper 

 mines and supposedly veins of gold and silver, the false dis- 

 covery of which caused a famous lawsuit between Queen 

 Elizabeth by right of her prerogative and Earl Percy by right 

 of his lordship which, like the supposed ores, resulted in 

 nothing. Not so, however, the discovery of black lead, that 

 "hardened ghttering stone" which was soon to replace silver 

 point among English artists. Not lingering to expatiate on 

 the unfruitfulness of Westmorland, we may pass on into 

 Durham, whose clammy kind of clay, supposed by Camden to 

 have been hardened by heat, yielded a smell of bitumen, 

 burnt vehemently when besprinkled with water, and was 

 hard, bright, light, and easily cloven into flakes. The author 

 was no doubt right in identifying it with the " canole coal " of 

 other parts. Other counties had their mining industries. 

 Thus there were coal pits at Ashby in Leicestershire ; copper 

 mines as early as Richard III. at Wenlock, and a fountain of 

 bitumen at Pickford, both Shropshire towns. The Peak 

 country yielded lead, iron, and coal, Sussex resounded with 

 the water-driven hammer mills and crackling wood fires of 

 the ironfounder. The neighbourhood of Birmingham was 

 even then disturbed by the incessant clank of hammer on 

 anvil. Salt springs had already been discovered and worked 

 in the vicinity of Nantwich. Beer had early selected the 

 centre of England as its future home, since the Derby of 

 Camden's age was celebrated for its " nappie ale." 



The Essex coast, which had supplied the Roman kitchens of 

 Pliny's time with 03'sters, was then as now celebrated for the 

 excellence of its native bivalves. Norfolk, as yet without the 

 turnip, was more renowned for its breed of lawyers than its 

 husbandry, who, according to Camden, " could fetch contro- 



