sland, and upon the edge of a hostile kingdom, could
have little attraction for the high-born and powerful; especially as the
more open parts of the country furnished positions for castles and
houses of defence, sufficient to repel any of those sudden attacks,
which, in the then rude state of military knowledge, could be made upon
them. Accordingly, the more retired regions (and to such I am now
confining myself) must have been neglected or shunned even by the
persons whose baronial or signioral rights extended over them, and left,
doubtless, partly as a place of refuge for outlaws and robbers, and
partly granted out for the more settled habitation of a few vassals
following the employment of shepherds or woodlanders. Hence these lakes
and inner vallies are unadorned by any remains of ancient grandeur,
castles, or monastic edifices, which are only found upon the skirts of
the country, as Furness Abbey, Calder Abbey, the Priory of Lannercost,
Gleaston Castle,--long ago a residence of the Flemings,--and the
numerous ancient castles of the Cliffords, the Lucys, and the Dacres. On
the southern side of these mountains, (especially in that part known by
the name of Furness Fells, which is more remote from the borders,) the
state of society would necessarily be more settled; though it also was
fashioned, not a little, by its neighbourhood to a hostile kingdom. We
will, therefore, give a sketch of the economy of the Abbots in the
distribution of lands among their tenants, as similar plans were
doubtless adopted by other Lords, and as the consequences have affected
the face of the country materially to the present day, being, in fact,
one of the principal causes which give it such a striking superiority,
in beauty and interest, over all other parts of the island.

[56] It is not improbable that these circles were once numerous, and
that many of them may yet endure in a perfect state, under no very deep
covering of soil. A friend of the Author, while making a trench in a
level piece of ground, not far from the banks of the Emont, but in no
connection with that river, met with some stones which seemed to him
formally arranged; this excited his curiosity, and proceeding, he
uncovered a perfect circle of stones, from two to three or four feet
high, with a _sanctum sanctorum_,--the whole a complete place of
Druidical worship of small dimensions, having the same sort of relation
to Stonehenge, Long Meg and her Daughters near the river