The dock system of Liverpool, as we now find it, is very largely the work of the present century, and it separates readily into two divisions. For about thirty-six years (from 1824) the docks were laid out upon plans prepared by Mr. Jesse Hartley, assisted by his son, Mr. John B. Hartley. Since then the work has been conducted by Mr. G. F. Lyster, assisted by his son, Mr. A. G. Lyster. In the first instance the docks had to be constructed for sailing vessels. The many additions that have since been made have been almost wholly for the accommodation of steamships. But whether we take the docks that were constructed during the first half of the present century, or those that have been opened since then, they are engineering triumphs; and the world has no more wonderful sight of the kind than they, alike in their capacity, their admirable adaptation to tidal conditions and particular classes of goods, their warehouse and office arrangements, and the care that has been taken to provide ample quay and road space. The cost has been enormous, but it has been justified by the returns. By means of its docks Liverpool is able to meet any demand upon its shipping powers. The vessels that are at times housed within its protecting river chambers, if ranged side by side, would cover the banks of the Mersey along all its navigable length.

It is, of course, only a part, although the major part, of the tonnage of Liverpool that finds treatment in this way. There is a constantly moving flotilla. The goods and passenger traffic from one side of the Mersey to the other is scarcely ever at a standstill; but while this traffic passes to or from widely separated points on the Wirral Peninsula, it converges at Liverpool to that which is as much one of the sights of the city as the docks themselves—namely, the landing-stage. This is constructed on a series of enormous floating pontoons, about midway between the northern and southern lines of the docks. Formerly there were two such structures, and nominally there are still two—St. George’s and the Prince’s; but while they were for many years separated by a space of 500 feet to give access to the St. George’s basin, they are now continuous, and their unbroken length makes a stretch of over 2,400 feet. The landing-stage, which is connected with the quay wall by a succession of girder bridges, adapted for both passengers and vehicles, is at any period of the day a scene of unusual activity and bustle; but the official arrangements are admirable, and seldom is there any difficulty in dealing with the great crowds that gather and disperse here, either for lands across sea or on their way to inland towns. Here, if anywhere, the cosmopolitan character of the passenger traffic of Liverpool is seen in its fulness and variety. The landing-stage is, in fact, the temporary meeting-place of people of all nations, and belonging to all grades and conditions of life, from wretched stowaways to ambassadors with princely retinues.

Although called a stage, this landing-place is really a magnificent promenade, with ranges of official buildings and waiting and refreshment rooms. Until recently the passengers by the deep-sea liners were taken to and from the steamers in tenders. This arrangement often gave rise to serious inconvenience, and entailed also much loss of time. The latest addition to the stage was therefore contrived specially with the object of overcoming these drawbacks. Passengers may now pass direct from the stage to the largest vessels; and more than this has been done for them. They are now brought close to the stage itself by railway, so that they may book themselves and their luggage from London or from any of our large towns to any part of the world, and have no more trouble on arriving on the banks of the Mersey than is usually involved in a change of conveyance. To facilitate passenger traffic to and from the docks, an electric overhead railway running along the whole stretch of the six or seven miles comprising the city front, and into the districts beyond, has been in operation since February, 1893, when it was formally opened by Lord Salisbury. The line has since undergone extension, and it was carried as far as Dingle in December, 1896. It is now about eight miles long. The Dingle extension presents some notable engineering features. In one place it crosses the Dock Estate by girders 220 feet in length—an unusually large span; in another it is run through a tunnel arch said to be the largest of its kind in the world; while at Dingle the line belies its name, the terminal station being here considerably below the road level. The only dock entrance that runs inland sufficiently far to be crossed by the overhead railway is the Stanley, and here a swing-bridge has been erected, on the double-deck principle, so as to provide for the railway traffic overhead and the usual carriage and foot traffic underneath. This railway may be considered a part of the great work of dock development at Liverpool. A report laying out the scheme was presented by Mr. Lyster, the engineer to the Dock Board, in 1885, but for public and other reasons it was thought advisable to leave the work to private enterprise, and it was therefore undertaken by an incorporated company, Sir William Forwood being the chairman, and Mr. S. B. Cottrell the engineer and general manager. A railway under the Mersey from Birkenhead was opened in 1885 by the Prince and Princess of Wales, to meet the growing increase in the cross-river traffic, and this line, which passes for 2,100 yards under the river, has since been connected with main lines on each side.

Liverpool, with its great line of protected dockage and quayage, and the movement of vessels of every description and of every size along its water front, is seen in its finest panoramic effect from the Birkenhead side of the river; but the city reveals itself also in increasing multiplicity of architectural detail and business activity to the visitor whose first impressions of it are obtained as he stands on the vessel that carries him over the Mersey bar to the landing-stage. At the same time, the passenger by rail does not enter Liverpool by any back door. At the Lime Street terminus of the London and North Western Railway he looks out immediately on the municipal centre of the city; should he arrive at the Exchange Station of the Lancashire and Yorkshire and Midland lines, he is at once in the commercial heart of Liverpool, surrounded by noble and spacious buildings. Other lines land him in scenes of shipping activity, others in more residential quarters; but nowhere is he left in squalid surroundings.

The front of the Lime Street Station itself adds to the picturesqueness of the street it looks upon. Almost opposite, in isolated grandeur, is St. George’s Hall, and on one side of that building is the magnificent range of edifices of the classic order where are housed the Brown Free Library (including the Museum of Natural History, presented by the thirteenth Earl of Derby), the Mayer Museum of Antiquity, the Picton Reading Room, and the Walker Art Gallery—all alike monuments of the beneficence of merchants who in this way have enriched and adorned the city from which they drew their wealth. Even St. George’s Hall, the cost of which was £330,000, was in the nature of a gift, it being paid for by the Corporation out of the dock dues, which they controlled up to 1858, when the dues were transferred to the Dock Board. The fact, too, that the Corporation owned large estates makes the burden of taxation rest lightly on the citizens of Liverpool; and since the present century began, improvements have not ceased to be the order of the day in the city. The Town Hall is in Castle Street. It is in the Corinthian style, and is conspicuous for its dome and its raised portico; but a much more majestic building lies behind it in the Royal Exchange—a structure in the Flemish Renaissance style, with a noble façade, and wings that enclose a spacious quadrangle. Here on “the Flags,” when the weather is favourable, the merchants and brokers of Liverpool mingle together in animated colloquy and strike their bargains.

Education flourishes in Liverpool no less than commerce, and in all its branches has not been without liberal support. University College, although only inaugurated in 1882, has an endowment of over £125,000. It has a numerous staff of professors, technical and medical departments, and is affiliated to the Victoria University. There are several secondary schools of note, Schools of Art, and Nautical Training Institutions. The charitable societies of the city number over 100, the oldest in the medical sense being the Infirmary, which dates from 1748. Of open spaces there is nothing, of course, equal to the grand sweep of the estuary in front of the city. But there are ornamental grounds in the city itself, and in the outskirts recreation grounds and pleasure resorts, the largest and most picturesque being Sefton Park, which was purchased at a cost of over a quarter of a million. For water the city has gone into Mid-Wales and purchased the Vyrnwy Valley, and from the lake and the reservoirs there is able to draw an unfailing supply of some fifty million gallons daily. The bishopric dates from 1879, but Liverpool is without ancient churches. St. Peter’s, which serves as the pro-cathedral, is the oldest in structure but not in foundation (that distinction belongs to St. Nicholas’, near the Prince’s Dock), but this does not carry us further back than the beginning of the eighteenth century.

A long list could be made of eminent men connected with Liverpool, were this the place for it. But there are two names that ought not to be omitted—one is Francis Bacon, “the wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind,” who was member for Liverpool towards the close of the sixteenth century; the other is Mr. Gladstone, who is a citizen of Liverpool by birthright as well as by complimentary burgess ticket. It is interesting to add also that the Stanley (Derby) and the Molineux (Sefton) families are still closely identified with the town. They are no longer housed in the heart of Liverpool, but their Lancashire seats are close to its boundaries, and they rival one another in the active interest they take in the municipal, commercial, and educational progress of this great community.

It is the bottle-neck part of the estuary of the Mersey that runs between Liverpool and Birkenhead, but a good three-quarters of a mile of water separates the two places. They are divided also by county distinctions: otherwise they may be regarded as one, their interests being identical. Many business men of Liverpool make Birkenhead and its outskirts their home. Like the great city on the other side, Birkenhead has its landing-stages adapted to the rise and fall of the tide. Its range of docks has already been touched upon, and need only be referred to again to indicate that they do not run parallel with the river, like those on the other side, but pass inland. Behind them are the commodious water spaces known as the east and west “floats.” Nearly all the great liners find their way to the Liverpool side, but on the Birkenhead side great liners are built. Its shipbuilding yards are among the most extensive in the kingdom, and include the great establishment of the Laird Brothers, from which the Confederate cruiser, The Alabama, was turned out in 1862.

Proportionately, Birkenhead has made even greater progress during the century so soon to close than Liverpool. In 1800 its population numbered only about 100 persons. That figure may now be multiplied 1,000 times over and still be within the mark. Its tonnage is about one-tenth that of Liverpool. In 1861 the town was formed into a Parliamentary borough, with a single member, the gentleman who became its first representative being the late Mr. John Laird, of whom there is a statue in front of the Town Hall. Birkenhead has been a municipal borough since 1887. It did not, however, wait for corporate privileges to show public spirit and enterprise. It was one of the first towns of the kingdom, if not the very first, to introduce tramways, which it did on the suggestion of George Francis Train, who had previously established a similar mode of conveyance in New York. It has long had a public park, 180 acres in extent, laid out by Sir Joseph Paxton, and costing £140,000. Although a hundred years or so ago it consisted of less than a score of habitable houses, it can trace back its name for centuries, and the ruins may be seen of the Benedictine Priory of Byrkhead, founded here in the eleventh century, and whose monks in their simple way did the work that is now carried on by enormous steam ferries on the river, and by railway trains through a submarine tunnel.

All along the inner line of the Wirral Peninsula, which here bounds the Mersey, are pleasant residential suburbs, and at the extreme end lies New Brighton, beloved of Lancashire and Cheshire folk. Immediately to the north of New Brighton is one of the defences of the river in Rock Fort, and just beyond the fort is the Perch Rock Lighthouse. At this point, the visible shore-line of the Mersey on the west side comes to an end, but the channel of the river runs on over a well-buoyed line of route, some eight or nine miles further on, and for navigation purposes does not really cease till the bar is crossed. Directly to the north-west of the Wirral Peninsula are great sandbanks, but these as a rule are within the ken only of the mariner familiar with the ins and the outs of this great commercial highway. The total length of the river is about 70 miles. At least 12 miles of that, towards the mouth, is a vast basin, having an average width of about two and a half miles, and containing at high tide some 600,000,000 tons of water. To see the Mersey here at the flood is to agree with Drayton:—

W. S. CAMERON.

RIVERS OF LANCASHIRE AND LAKELAND.

The RIBBLE is one of the rivers which take their rise from the Ingleborough and Whernside heights. It is a babbling brook as it is seen by the railway traveller at Ribblehead, but the source must be sought in one of the rills that tumble down the shoulders of Wold Fell. The difficulty usually encountered in tracing a mountain-born river to the precise bubble of water that may without hesitation be pronounced its source is intensified here. So much depends upon circumstances in these matters. After a rainless month in summer, the wayfarer would note a waterless country; let the rains descend, or the snows melt, and every hill is silvered by tumbling cascades, the air is musical with the leap of a hundred rivulets. So it is that, for the Ribble’s source, old Craven maps select Gearstones, north-east of Settle; more recent local authorities are divided between Wold Fell and Cam Fell; and for the world at large Ribblehead serves the general purpose of identification.

The source of the Ribble, let the spot be where it may, makes it imperative to associate with its distinctions the great engineering triumph that ended in the awakening of its echoes by the railway train. From Settle—where Birkbeck, the founder of the Mechanics’ Institutions of our youth, was born—to Carlisle is only a matter of seventy miles, but it cost the invaders three millions sterling to overcome the obstacles of the stubborn Pennine chain, and the enterprise seemed to be well-nigh hopeless when they advanced into the Pen-y-gent region. The course of the young Ribble had hereabouts to be diverted by the blasting out of a new channel; but at length the line was safely laid a thousand feet above sea-level, and clear running for the trains was achieved by means of nineteen tunnels, thirteen embankments, and cuttings innumerable.

There are a few villages in the early stages of the Ribble, the first of any note being Horton-in-Ribblesdale, under the shadow of Pen-y-gent. The railway has little spoiled its primitive character, nor have the frequent expresses led to the disbandment of the beagles which still hunt the wild retreats of the mountain-side. There are ancient inhabitants in lonely farmhouses built of hard stone, and gleaming white from afar, who inherit the old traditions that portions of the mountain are honeycombed with giants’ graves. There have long been legends to that effect, but men of science explain that the wondrous bones unearthed from caverns, and what not, belonged, not to sons of Anak, but to huge animals now unknown. The dalesmen but slowly discard such beliefs, retaining them as of right, just as the shepherds on the fells, and the hard-headed farmers in the valleys, cling to the customs of their grandfathers. The high-road between Horton and Giggleswick—in whose grammar school Paley was educated—gives access to the heart of Upper Ribblesdale; and the tourist visiting the cascades near Stainforth will recognise the sturdy bridge in the illustration (page 272) as a favourite resting-place. The river is represented in its peaceful mood, in one of its romantic bends.

The country remains rich in its distinctive botany, and from no portion of the North do the great markets of Manchester and Leeds draw more of their supplies of whortleberry and mushroom in the early autumn months. At such junctions as Hellifield these natural products of the moorland may be seen stacked by the ton. It is almost the only indication of the gradual change that must come with the new era. Yet until comparatively recent times the peel-house at Hellifield stood witness to the remoteness of the district. So long back as the reign of Henry VI. a licence was granted to the Hamerton family to erect and keep as a place of defence the strong square peel which guarded the west; and around Gisburne Hall, the ancestral seat of the Listers, represented now by the Ribblesdale family, the wild cattle of the breed perpetuated chiefly at Chillingham roamed at large in the secluded woods of the high tract whence the feeder Stockbeck fitfully meanders to the valley of the Ribble.

The bracing bleakness of Bowland Forest is relieved for many a league by the Hodder, the Ribble’s largest and longest tributary, which is in part of its course a natural line of demarcation between the counties that gave title to princely houses when the realm was divided by the Wars of the Roses. Dense fringes of bush and brier proclaim its progress, and exquisitely sweet spots, like that of the oak-covered knoll on which stands the little chapel at Whitewell, occur in the district where, to the commanding eminence of ancient Brownsholm Hall, a curious relic found its way—the veritable Seal of the Commonwealth, with a Bible between two branches of palm as the centre, and the inscription, “Seal for the approbation of Ministers.”

The famous Roman Catholic College of Stonyhurst, south-west of Longridge Fell, is near the meeting of Hodder with Ribble. Beautiful is its situation, wooded valleys dipping in the east, and beyond them the substantial landmarks of Clitheroe and Pendle Hill. Stonyhurst, even to one who has no cognisance of its modern character, its origin, or the manner of its conversion from the mansion of the Sherburnes to the purpose which it has fulfilled with high distinction for more than a hundred years, has the appearance and atmosphere, even at a distance, of a place for study and retreat. It is wholly removed from the busy world, and all the surroundings give an involuntary impression of harmony and quiet. Stonyhurst was probably always a home of Catholics at heart, though the Sir Richard Sherburne who was one of Harry VIII.’s Commissioners at the dissolution of religious houses did contrive to be a favourite with young Edward, Mary, and, after her, Elizabeth. He it was who built part of the mansion on the site of an older baronial edifice; and the shapely west front, amongst other considerable portions of the present building, is his work. The Sherburnes, however, were not able to finish the structure; but Sir Nicholas, who was made a baronet, in whom the title became extinct, and who was a man of culture and travel, planned and laid out the gardens which no visitor to Stonyhurst is likely to forget. Through Cardinal Weld, to whose family the property fell, it was in 1794 devoted to the use of the Jesuits driven from Liège by the French Revolutionists. Since then it has gathered high renown as an educational agency amongst the Roman Catholic aristocracy.

In approaching Stonyhurst, even the simple village on its borders exercises its tranquillising influence upon the visitor; the cemetery and oratory, the trim lawn, the trees on either side of the drive, the sheet of water, and the glimpse of the inner seclusion through the gateway, claim a share of the admiration which is given without stint to the imposing two-towered building so finely situated. The gardens are an enchantment; and the fountain, the observatory with its Peter’s telescope, the summer-houses, the tall, deep dividing walls of ancient yew clipped square and pierced with archway exits and entrances, blend in strengthening the conviction that here we are removed from scenes of strife. The Tudor-Gothic church is the most notable of the additions made since Stonyhurst became a college eminent for the most perfect appliances for scientific study, for a well-furnished museum, and all that is best for students at work or play. In the Mitton area, which trends to a point where the two rivers mingle, may be found many interesting specimens of the well-preserved, half-timbered houses for which the two counties (each of which claims a part of Mitton) are celebrated. The well-known doggerel perpetrated in honour of this neighbourhood, may be quoted—not, however, as warranted by any climatic defects, but rather as showing the straits to which the author was put for a rhyme:

Into the Ribble, at no great distance below this ancient parish, protruding like a wedge into the County Palatine, flows the Calder, coming from the south-east, and from a district once as wild as Longridge Fell and Bowland Forest, but now reduced to modern uses by the cotton and worsted mills, calico works, and foundries of thriving Burnley, through which ran a Roman way once upon a time. It has an indirect relation with the Ribble, being placed on the Brun, the Calder intervening. Never had manufacturing town a finer “lung” than is furnished by Pendle Hill, which offers a climb of 1,800 feet above sea-level to the dwellers in a district which is in touch also (near or far) with Sawley Ruins, Blackstone Edge, and the Vale of Craven. Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, was so carried away with delight in his travels thereabouts that he declares he was moved by the Lord to go up to the top of Pendle Hill, and in the clear atmosphere saw the sea shining beyond the Lancashire coast.

Amongst many old houses of which Lancashire is proud is Towneley Hall, seat of a family one of whose ancestors was first dean of Whalley Abbey, the ruins of which are one of the most valued relics on the banks of the Calder. This takes us back to a century and a half before the Conquest; and it was one of this ilk who was the last of the deans. The original hall of the Towneleys appears to have partly stood somewhat south of the mansion which is the subject of one of the illustrations to this chapter (page 273). Whitaker, the great authority on Lancashire history, was unable to ascribe a date to the Hall, but it is evident to the modern observer that portions are of considerable antiquity. Many must have been the changes, however, since the six-feet walls were built. The work of Richard Towneley in 1628 is known, and the addition was by W. Towneley in 1741. A still later member of the family removed turrets, gateway, chapel, and sacristy to their present position, but the rebuilding had been begun a few years earlier. The portraits, as is often the case, tell in great measure what the Towneleys were in their day and generation: one died at Wigan Lane, another at Marston Moor; one was an eminent antiquary, another translated “Hudibras” into French, another collected art treasures, secured to the trustees of the British Museum by means of a Parliamentary grant.

Some of the most interesting of the old Towneley relics were believed to have been brought from Whalley Abbey, built upon a spot which, before streams were polluted by factories, yielded fish from the river, and feathered game from the woods and heather, whilst the forest and park around the old Hall furnished abundance of venison. Burnley then must have been a delightful town, lying in its hollow, environed by swelling moors and crystal streams. This is the country of which Philip Gilbert Hamerton often pathetically speaks in his “Autobiography,” though “the voice of Nature,” to which he refers in one of his poems, must even in his young days have been thickened here and there by the smoke of tall chimneys, and marred by the echo of raucous sounds from foundry and loom.

“Proud Preston” is an appellation which had its significance in another generation, and was indicative of the loyalty of the town to old traditions, to the Grown, to its own independence. The hundred in which it was situated was attached, in the reign of Athelstan, to the Cathedral Church of York: hence Priests’ Town, or Preston. This is evidence of a satisfactory old age; and in 1840 more was forthcoming from a rude box dug up from the alluvial soil on the banks of the Ribble, containing a precious store of coins, rings, and ingots, including nearly 3,000 Anglo-Saxon pieces. Higher up the stream was the still older settlement of Ribchester, the Roman station of Coccium, which declined into nothing as Preston increased in importance. The sweep of country surveyed from Red Scar, where the river curves into a horseshoe course under a precipitous bank, or from the popular point of look-out in Avenham Park, is studded with points around which history clings.

The lonesome moor where Cromwell routed Sir Marmaduke Langdale and his Royalists has become an open space for the recreation of the people; the Jacobite rebellions and the temporary sojourn of Charles Edward on that disastrous Derby campaign are remembrances dimmed by the remarkable rise of Preston in modern times as a manufacturing and commercial town. This is owing to its position at the head of the Ribble estuary. There are two things in the present century of which even “Proud Preston” need not be ashamed: it was here that the first total abstinence pledge was taken in England, the signatories being Joseph Livesey and half a dozen brother-abstainers; and it was here that the practical working of the vote by ballot was tested in 1872.

For more than thirty years the flourishing town, standing 120 feet above its river, has been undergoing improvements, carried out with great public spirit. Sir Gilbert Scott designed for it the French-Gothic Town Hall which rises gracefully above the other buildings; County Hall, Free Library, and Museum have been added; even the parish church has been rebuilt, and the once steepleless town now boasts, in St. Walburge’s Roman Catholic Church, the loftiest spire erected in England since the Reformation. An unbroken link with the past is the Guild-Merchants’ Festival, celebrated since 1397 (half a century before the first charter was granted); and for the last 400 years the “Preston Guild” has been observed with intense fervour every twenty years, the next coming due in 1902. The present writer was in Preston during, probably, the saddest circumstances under which such a celebration could occur. It was in 1862, when the cotton famine was sore in Lancashire; but the Prestonians threw themselves with energy into the traditional observance, and made it a memorable success. Rose festivals, morris dances, and other old English revelries retain their hold here, as in other parts of Lancashire, and are likely long to prevail.

It is as a port that Preston has recently claimed attention. The changes effected since the passing of the Ribble Navigation Act in 1883 have been striking. The marsh which kept the town apart from its river has been drained, and made fit for houses and streets. Woods that were familiar objects in the immediate landscape have disappeared, and the deepening of the channel of the tidal Ribble to admit ships of 1,700 tons has been but a natural result of Arkwright and his spinning-frame, and the cotton industry that superseded the linen-making of the previous century. The new dock, opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1892, with the Corporation as its owners, cost a million of money. The scheme made it necessary to divert the course of the Ribble below the town, and the prediction of the eminent engineer, Sir John Coode, that there would be no port in the country with so free a run to the sea, has been fulfilled. Even with the construction of docks, involving three miles’ length of permanent railway sidings, the old charm of the scene is not entirely lost. The brawny shoulders of Longridge Fell may be discerned in the north-east; cattle and sheep graze on the levels; the borders of the Fylde country are in view, and abrupt Rivington Pike is on the remote horizon.

Between the estuary of the Ribble and the south-eastern boundary of Lancaster Bay is the fertile Fylde district, the conformation of which is, roughly speaking, that of a foreshortened peninsula. The Margate and Ramsgate of Lancashire—if Lytham and Blackpool may be so-called—are on the outlying coast, but they are only of interest to us at the present moment from the arrival of the river WYRE at Fleetwood. This is a seaport and military station of what may, without offence, be termed upstart growth. It is but twenty-one miles north of Preston as the railway flies, and it has the double advantage of being a port and a watering-place. Within the memory of persons who heard about the coronation of Queen Victoria, the place where this important harbour is now situated, with its lighthouse ninety feet high and showing a glare that is visible for thirteen miles at sea, was a mere rabbit-warren, its one adornment a dilapidated limekiln. Its population now must be close upon 10,000, and from its docks lines of steamers ply to and from Belfast and the Isle of Man.

The river Wyre, rising near Brennand Fells, on the western side of the Bowland Forest of which previous mention has been made, takes in as a small tributary another river Calder, which rises on Bleasdale Moor, forming part of a ridge of country often exceeding 1,700 feet above sea-level. Wyresdale is noted for its striking combinations of wild and motley fells in recurring variations, alternating with copse and woodland. One of the earliest ecclesiastical sites in Lancashire is St. Michael’s, some miles below Garstang; and, at a point where the river nears the estuary, the Wyre for several miles is protected from the strength of its own current by a series of artificial banks. The old fashioned town of Poulton-le-Fylde overlooks the river where it expands into the salt expanse of Wyre Water, and the estuary, contrary to the usual custom, after broadening out considerably, contracts somewhat sharply at the mouth, at the western point of which is Fleetwood.

Our next river has been characterised by “Faërie Queene” Spenser as

As the poet was probably born near the Burnley which has been described on a previous page, he no doubt knew his Lancashire well, and spoke from the book when he claims that it gives name to the town and the county. The LUNE is what in the North-country is called a bonny river, and it rises, not on the edge of Richmondshire, as is sometimes stated, but at the upper extremity of a dale to the south-east of Wharton, in Westmorland. This is a portion of the upheaved Lancashire country, however, that stands something midway between sea-level and the summits of its best mountains. The uplands and highlands of the early course of the Lune range between 500 feet and 1,000 feet, and the lower half is below the smaller figure. The course, however, is through a section of valleys watered by innumerable creeks, and kept in bounds by the lonely fells. Sometimes, as at Howgill, there are fairy glens, and the occasional intervals of fertile pastures and wooded levels are a not ungrateful contrast. On one of the plains of the Lune is Kirkby Lonsdale, the capital of a vale which stretches away with Ingleborough in the distance. The river courses round a half-circle, and the scene, with its mountainous background in the east, is particularly beautiful.

It is a rare kind of panorama for this part of the country. The radiating valleys in the Lancashire portion of the Lune’s course bring in the Greta and the Wenning. The former must not be confounded with the other Greta that is born near Helvellyn, nor with the tributary of the Tees in the North Riding, at the bridge of which Nicholas Nickleby, old Squeers, and the wretched boys were put down from the coach en route to Dotheboys Hall. This Greta which is a tributary of the Lune is a rocky-bedded, brawling, rushing little stream, tumbling down from Whernside, and, between Ingleborough and Ingleton Fells, finding its way through a dale which is much visited for the sake of the roaring subterranean waterfall of Wethercote Cave, the charming surroundings of Ingleton village, and the caves and fells of Kingsdale valley.

The Wenning is the larger tributary, and its popular attractions are the subterranean grotto called Ingleborough Cave, in the gloomy Clapdale ravine, and Hornby Castle, conspicuously placed on a craggy height fringed with old trees. This interesting country is now traversed by a railway branching west from Settle, with a junction at Clapham for the aforesaid Ingleton, and affording to the traveller a sight of Giggleswick Scar and the geological curiosity of Craven Fault. The Hornby Castle referred to was built by one of the Normans on the site of a Roman villa, and the ruins near are those of a priory reared in the sixteenth century. The vale of Caton, within a five-mile walk of Lancaster, at the navigable limit of the Lune, moved the poet Gray to remarks which might fairly be applied to more than one spot in Lunedale. These are the words: “To see the view in perfection, you must go into a field on the left. Here Ingleborough, behind a variety of lesser mountains, makes the background of the prospect. On each hand, up the middle distance, rise two sloping hills, the left clothed with thick woods, the right with variegated rock and herbage. Between them, in the richest of valleys, the Lune serpentines for many a mile, and comes forth ample and clear, through a well-wooded and richly-pastured foreground.” For the last seven miles of its course the Lune runs almost parallel to and within a short distance of Morecambe Bay, and the narrow neck of land which it forms is distinguished by the designation of Little Fylde.

While Preston, as we have seen, has been rising into importance as a port, and the Ribble has been made worthy of vessels of considerable tonnage, Lancaster, though the county town, has declined very swiftly in maritime importance in the course of the last hundred years. No one looking at John of Gaunt’s old home in the present day, and upon the business transacted on the Lune, which passes by it, could guess that it was a very considerable emporium of commerce, being, indeed, ranked above Liverpool when Charles I. levied the ship-money which brought him to disaster. At that time Lancaster was assessed at £30 and Liverpool at £25. Even then the Lancaster ships sailed regularly to the West Indies and the Baltic. The sinuosity of the channel and the shallowness of the ancient ford near the town became a serious hindrance to navigation, but by dint of enterprising dredging Lancaster is still reckoned amongst the English ports, and at Glasson, where the little Conder flows into the estuary under the railway, there is a harbour and dock which may yet revive the prosperity of the town.

Lancaster is one of the many Roman settlements about whose name antiquaries are entitled to contend. A piece of brass money, found under one of the foundation-stones of the arch of a former Lancaster bridge, was described as Danish, and in the time of King John the Abbot of Furness had royal permission to get timber from the King’s forests of Lancaster for such of the repairs of the bridge as he was “liable to” for his fisheries. These fisheries, like those of the Ribble, were once of the first class, and were granted to the Abbot of Furness in the reign of Stephen. There were always disputes, however, and sometimes hot quarrels, as to the rights in both salmon and timber, and king after king, according to the necessity of those days, backed up the Church, while legal regulations from time to time controlled the fisheries. From this, coupled with the fact that its first charter was granted by Richard I., we may without more ado conclude that Lancaster is an ancient borough. Indeed, there are many curious evidences of this kept alive in surviving customs, the origin of which must be found in musty grants and charters.

Lancaster Castle, through whose time-honoured owner the county became a duchy, was strongest, perhaps, in the reign of Elizabeth, when the threat of a Spanish invasion led to the overhauling of all its points of defence. This, too, was the date of the strengthening of the great keep, the remnant of which is a treasured example of Norman architecture. From a mighty royal and baronial residence the castle has now become a gaol, and John of Gaunt’s Oven, as the mill and bakery of the fortress was termed, became the Record Office. There were five monastic establishments in Lancaster, with privilege of sanctuary. The time came when the privilege was of no avail. But the unfortunate rebels of 1715 entered Lancaster with flying colours, bravely marching, and mustering in the market-place to the skirl of the bagpipes. They proclaimed the Pretender King of England under the title of James III., and some of them, poor fellows, returned soon afterwards, not in search of the sanctuary they needed, but to be imprisoned in the castle, and to suffer the last penalty of the law as in their case made and provided. Even in the ’45 Charles Edward, at the head of his little band, must needs trouble Lancaster, but the invaders were only passing through on their way to Manchester and Derby. A second time they came here, and then they were in full retreat, heralds of a finally lost cause.

The situation of Lancaster on the flank of a hill is most favourable for an appreciation of its appearance, and the castle buildings on its summit give a remarkable panorama of the town, the valley of the Lune winding on its way to the sea through the lowland. The principal gateway of the castle is an ancient portcullised archway, flanked by octagonal towers, and in it are chambers to which far-off traditions refer, for the authorities assure us that the gateway belonged to “time-honoured Lancaster’s” tower, while in an apartment called the Pin Box Henry IV. gave audience to the King of Scotland and the French Ambassadors. The dungeon tower, demolished in 1818, became the penitentiary for women prisoners. “John of Gaunt’s Chair” is a turret at the top of the tower, and from this eminence of ninety feet superb views, which in clear weather comprise shadowy forms in the Lake-country, are to be obtained. Whewell, the Master of Trinity College, is one of the worthies of whom the town is proud, and all the more because he was a son of one of its carpenters. But for the accident of the lad attracting the attention of a kindly master, and the existence of a Grammar School, founded in 1483 by John Gardiner, the distinguished scholar might never have attained his eminence. Another pupil of the school was Sir Richard Owen, the great naturalist.