LIVERPOOL.

On the eastern bank of the estuary of the Mersey stands the important and flourishing town of Liverpool, in the county of Lancaster, and in the hundred of West Derby. It would be a profitless expenditure of time to join in the argument respecting the etymology of its name, which, after all the disputation on the subject, remains still a matter of doubt. The object of "The Book of the Railway" is principally to describe things and places as they at present exist; and in regard to the three great towns which it embraces, to present such a guide as may lead the traveller satisfactorily, and economically as to time, to the objects most likely to interest his attention.

Liverpool is 97 miles from Birmingham, and 207 from London 220 from Glasgow; 80 by sea, and 100 by land, from Holyhead; 120 from Dublin; and 75 from the Isle of Man. It is a borough and corporation town, contains about 200,000 inhabitants, and sends two members to Parliament. It is not without a name in ancient records; nor was it in early times without those means of defence which the unsettled state of the kingdom required, as is set forth in the following extract from Kenion's veracious Manuscripts :

"Roger de Poictou, Earl of Lancaster, prudently stationed his barons in the most vulnerable places to preserve his earldom in quiet. He built a castle at Liverpool against the passage over the water from Chesshire, and there placed his trusty friend, Vivian Molyneux, to be governor and castellanus to the utmost limits of his earldom."

All vestiges, however, of a barbarous antiquity have disappeared, and modern Liverpool, in its splendour and extent, is the creation of concurring circumstances, the enlightened perception and wise application of its peculiar situation,—and the ingenuity, industry, and capital of its enterprising inhabitants. Leland, our favourite historian, says, that "Lyrpoole," as he writes it," is a paved towne, and hath but a chapel. At Lyrpoole is small custume payid, that causeth merchaunts to resorte thereto." This fact, so simply told, exhibits one of the circumstances which have contributed to the welfare and advancement of this place. Another, and an important one, may be found in the accommodation afforded to shipping by the formation of wet docks, of which the first in the nation was made here as early as 1708,-with, at the present time, a total area of ninety acres of water. Its central situation in the kingdom, and its proximity to the Irish coast, mark it out as the great Entrepôt for the products of the two countries; while its local neighbourhood to Manchester and the great clothing districts, for which it imports the cotton of the eastern and western hemispheres, and from which again it receives the manufactured fabrics that fill the markets of the world, combines to give to its port the incessant activity for which it is characterised, and to increase the enormous capital of its merchants.

The docks at Liverpool, as they are objects of the greatest consequence to the inhabitants, are those also of the greatest interest to strangers. They are probably in magnificence and commodiousness equal to any in the kingdom, and in extent of area, superior. They are not pressed upon, as in other ports, by warehouses and buildings brought to the very edge, but present a wide unembarrassed space, into which the leading commercial streets flow. Capacious sheds on each side protect the merchandise and employés from the effects of the weather,—and the lading and unlading of vessels goes on without interruption. The docks form an extensive line at the river's brink, with a quay space of nearly eight miles, and a dock room of one hundred and eleven acres. The river wall stretches itself for nearly three miles, and affords a most delightful marine promenade.

As the visitor approaches the docks his attention is first caught by a sight of the innumerable masts, with flying pendants-green, blue, yellow, and white, peering above all the surrounding objects; and when he enters, he is struck with astonishment at the huge structure of the vessels, their graceful forms, and the fanciful, and sometimes grotesque, figures which ornament their bows. His admiration is excited by the precision and exactness with which they take up their stations, side by side, in the closely-thronged dock; and "his wonder grows" to think how they