PENRITH, an ancient town of the county of Cumberland in England, seated under a hill called Penrith-Fell, near the rivers Eamont and Lowther. It is a great thoroughfare for travellers; but has little other trade, except tanning, and a small manufacture of checks. Formerly it had a castle, but it is now in ruins. In the church-yard is a monument of great antiquity, consisting of two stone-pillars 11 feet 6 inches high, and 5 in circumference in the lower part, which is rounded; the upper is square, and tapers to a point; in the square part is some fret-work, and the relievo of a cross; and on the interior side of one is the faint representation of some animal. But these stones are mortified at their lower part into a round one: they are about 15 feet asunder, and the space between them is inclosed on each side with two very large but thin semicircular stones; so that there is left between pillar and pillar a walk of two feet in breadth. Two of these lesser stones are plain, the others have certain figures, at present scarce intelligible. Not far from these pillars is another called the giant's thumb, five feet eight inches high, with an expanded head, perforated on both sides; from the middle the stone rises again into a lesser head, rounded at top; but no part has a tendency to the figure of a cross, being in no part mutilated. The pillars are said to have been set up in memory of Sir Owen Cæfarius, a famous warrior buried here, who killed so many wild bears, which much infested this county, that the figures of bears, cut out in stone, on each side of his grave, were set there in remembrance of the execution he made among those beasts; and it is likewise said his body extended from one pillar to the other. In the market-place there is a town-house of wood, beautified with bears climbing up a ragged staff. There is a memorandum on the north side of the vestry without, that, in 1598, 2266 persons died here of the plague. There is a charity-school in this place for 20 boys, and another for 30 girls, maintained by 551.2 year, by the sacrament-money and parish stock. In 1715 the Scotch
Highlanders entered this town, and quartered in it for a night, in their way to Preston, without doing much harm; but in the last rebellion, in 1745, they were, it is said, very rapacious and cruel. Its handsome spacious church has been lately rebuilt, and the roof supported by pillars, whose shafts are of one entire reddish stone, dug out of a neighbouring quarry. On the east part of the parish, upon the north bank of the river Eamont, there are two caves or grottoes, dug out of the solid rock, and sufficient to contain 100 men. The passage to them is very narrow and dangerous; and it is possible that its perilous access may have given it the name of Isis Parla; though the vulgar tell strange stories of one Isis, a giant, who lived there in former times, and, like Cæcus of old, used to seize men and cattle, and draw them into his den to devour them. But it is highly probable, that these subterraneous chambers were made for a secure retreat in time of sudden danger; and the iron gates, which were taken away not long ago, seem to confirm that supposition. W. Long. 3. 16. N. Lat. 54. 35.