Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. A YORKSHIRE FAMILY: THE MILNERS. The county of York is one of the features of England. It has the largest area and the greatest population. Since the development of its manufactures, and the influence of its population under a system of Parliamentary Reform, its political importance is augmented. It is inhabited by a hardy race, who have in their character, as in their dialect, traces of their Anglo-Saxon blood. It possesses every natural gift and appliance which can strengthen this character. To the north and north-west, it presents those limestone strata which form the boldest scenery; and the rivers which flow between its wolds and water its dales?the Swale, the Ure, the Wharfe, and the Nid?have been celebrated by the pencil of our greatest painter Turner; the wide sweep of these Yorkshire wolds, which enclose the most various natural beauties, and are adorned by castles, abbeys, and churches, was never seen by him without emotion. On the eastern side, her limestone mountains form high moors, and end in gigantic cliffs, which meet and defy the waves. Her bluff promontories stand the dashing of the German Ocean; and the wind which blew the Danish invaders to ourshores, spends itself still on those grand headlands which, from the Spurn to Flamborough Head, and northward from this to Whitby, line the picturesque coast. The rivers which flow through her rich valleys, and fertilize as well as beautify the soil, find a splendid embouchure in the estuary of the Humber. To the south-west are stored those mineral treasures which nature has given so largely to this favoured county, and these have collected dense masses of population, hives of industry, and stores of wealth. This part of Yorkshire is indeed covered thick with the smoke of towns; the intersecting course…
