A few yards from the station, on the N. side, is a place for the landing of cattle, sheep, &c. The line now enters the Olive Mount excavation, which is an immense chasm, cut in the solid rock, to the depth of from 50 to 70 feet, the precipitous rock forming a grand wall on either side. The village of Wavertree lies S. of the line, after emerging from the Olive Mount ravine; Spekelands, the residence of Mrs. Earle, lies also on the S., and on the N. is the residence of C. Lawrence, Esq. Here the Liverpool tunnels commence; one, for conveying passengers, &c., into the Company’s station-yard in Lime-street, turns off on the right hand, and is 2,230 yards long, 25 feet wide, and 17 feet high. The other, for the conveyance of goods, direct to the docks, in a straighter continuation of the line, is 2,250 yards long, 22 feet wide, and 16 feet high. Engines are stationed on each side of the line at this part, each of forty-horse power, to draw the trains up the inclined plane of the tunnel, in coming out of Liverpool, and let them down on their arrival from Birmingham. The locomotive engines being attached to and detached from the trains at this station.

“A Friend to Railways,” in a letter to the Editor of the Railway Magazine, May 1838, thus describes the mode of drawing the trains up the inclined plane:—

“At the upper end of the tunnel, which is 2,250 yards long, there is one pair of engines on each side of the road; it being found that a much more regular motion is given by this means to the carriages. The engines are high-pressure, with side-levers, similar to marine engines; the connecting-rods, however, are reversed, and work the crank downwards, and are connected to a horizontal shaft of great strength running across and under the road in a tunnel, upon which shaft a large drum-wheel is placed that works the rope. In each engine-house is a raised platform, upon which the man stands who works the engines; this platform leads to a balcony on the outside of the engine-house, from which the man can look down the mouth of the tunnel; a signal is given by means of an air-pipe running through the tunnel, so formed at the upper end as to produce a sound when the air is forced into it from the lower extremity. This, I believe, is the invention of Mr. King, of Liverpool. The engine-man on hearing the signal, opens the steam-cock, and the engines start instantly. This work was designed by Mr. Grantham, of the foundery of Messrs. Mather and Dickson, of Liverpool, where the machinery was constructed.”

Having now given an account of the whole journey, we must proceed to a brief history and memoir of Liverpool itself.

CHAPTER X.
LIVERPOOL.

Liverpool is an ancient sea-port, borough, and market town, 205 miles from London, containing 205,964 inhabitants, exclusive of 10,000 seamen.

Of its remote antiquity but little can be asserted, amidst the great contrariety of opinion which is held on this subject. Liverpool is not noticed in any of the Roman Itinera, neither does the name occur in the Norman survey. After the conquest it was granted by William, to Roger de Poictiers, together with all the land between the Ribble and the Mersey, and subsequently forfeited. It was thereupon granted to the Earls of Chester; and on forfeiture by their descendants, to Edmund, son of Henry III., as parcel of the honour of Lancaster; and it remained an integral part of the duchy possessions, until its alienation by Charles I., in 1628.

Various opinions have been hazarded regarding the etymology of the name, without reference to the most ancient documents in which it has been discovered. John, whilst Earl of Moreton, and in possession of the honour of Lancaster, confirmed a grant made by his father, Henry II., to Warin de Lancaster, of Liverpul, with other places, under a certain reddendum. In subsequent records it is written Lyrpul, Lythyrpul, &c., signifying, probably, in the ancient dialect of this country, the “lower pool.” Some deduce its etymology from a pool frequented by an aquatic fowl, called a “Liver,” or from a sea-weed of that name; others, and with much more reason, from the ancient British word Lir, “the sea,” and a spreading water or pool, viz., the sea pool, or sea-water pool.

Camden says the Castle was built by Roger de Poictiers, in 1089; it certainly was erected at a very early period. In October, 1323, Edward II. dates his orders, &c., from Liverpool Castle; and in April, 1358, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, resided there for a month. It was demolished by order of Parliament, during the commonwealth, and in 1715, its site was granted by Queen Anne, to the corporation, who built St. George’s Church upon it. On King John ascending the throne, at his brother’s death, he again came into possession of the honour of Lancaster, and granted a charter to the town of Liverpool, which Henry III., in 1229, confirmed, made the town a free borough, instituted a guild merchant, and granted additional privileges. These charters have been confirmed, and further ones granted by succeeding sovereigns. The several mandates for fitting-out and providing vessels for the royal service, addressed by Edward II. and III., and subsequent kings, afford proof of its then being a place of extensive trade at this early period; and the fact of the royal order for the prohibition of the export of grain, in the time of Richard III., being transmitted to Liverpool only, is also a proof of its then being the only shipping port in the country. Leland, in 1558, described it thus: “Lyrpole, alias Lyrpoole, a pavid towne, hath but a chapel, Walton, a iiii miles off, not far from the se, is paroche chirche. The king hath a castell there, and the Earle of Darbe hath a stone house there. Irisch marchants cum much thither, as to a good haven. After that Mersey water cumming towards Runcorne in Cheshire liseth among the commune people the name, and is Lyrpole. At Lyrpole is smaule costume payid that causith merchants to resorte. Good marchaundis at Lyrpole, and much Irisch yarn that Manchester men do by ther.” Liverpool appears to have declined, probably from the baneful influences of the wars of York and Lancaster, until the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, when, in a petition from the inhabitants to the Queen, it is described as “Her Majesty’s poor decayed town of Liverpool.” Its poverty may be understood from the fact, that when Charles I. levied his iniquitous and despotic tax of ship money, this town was rated at £26 only, while Bristol was rated at £1,000. In the civil war Liverpool was alternately held by the Parliamentarians, taken by Prince Rupert, and retaken by the Parliament. In the reign of William III., that monarch, with part of his train, embarked at this port for Ireland, previously to the battle of the Boyne; and regiments and privateer vessels were here equipped against the Pretender and the French.

Times and manners are somewhat changed here since 1617, when one of the orders of the common-council demanded, “that every council-man shall come to council clean-shaved, and in his long clothes.” Slander and gossip were very severely punished by the civic dignitaries, it being a law, “that if any man speak ill of the mayor, he shall lose his freedom.”

The most important feature in the history of this place, is the extraordinary rapidity with which it has risen into a degree of splendour and importance, without example in the history of any commercial country. Among the causes which have produced its elevation to a rank but partially inferior to the metropolis, are, its situation on the shore of a noble river, which expands into a wide estuary; its proximity to the Irish coast; its central position with respect to the United Kingdom; its intimate connexion with the principal manufacturing districts, and with every part of the kingdom, by numerous rivers, canals, and railroads, and the persevering industry and enterprising spirit of its inhabitants. Without the romance, we may see among them the reality of the merchant-nobles of Genoa and Venice; and the grandeur which pervades the modern buildings of our English port may scarcely be outvied in stateliness, and certainly not in fitness and utility, by any palace-city of the past.

As we passed along the busy quays of these crowded docks, and thought of the wealth conveyed by the winged couriers of the ocean there congregated, the following gorgeous lines in Marlow’s Jew of Malta, occurred to us: perhaps the expectant owners of argosies bound hitherward, deal not quite so largely as the poet’s Croesus, in jewelled treasures; but we cannot very honestly change amethysts into tobacco, nor bags of fiery opals into bales of cotton wool; the circumstances of the case may therefore be allowed to vary a little, without our transposing the terms:—

“As for those Samnites, and the men of Uzz,
That bought my Spanish oils, and wines of Greece,
Here have I purst their paltry silverlings,
Fie! what a trouble ’tis to count this trash!
Give me the merchants of the Indian mines,
That trade in metal of the purest gold;
The wealthy Moor, that in the eastern rocks
Without control can pick his riches up,
And in his house keep pearls like pebble stones;
Receive them free, and sell them by the weight:
Bags of fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts,
Jacinths, hard topaz, grass-green emeralds,
Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds,
And seld’ seen costly stones of so great price,
As one of them, indifferently rated,
And of a caract of this quality
May serve, in peril of calamity
To rescue great kings from captivity.
This is the ware wherein consists my wealth,
And thus methinks, should men of judgment frame
Their means of traffic from the vulgar trade,
And as their wealth increaseth, so inclose
Infinite riches in a little room.
But now—how stands the wind?
Into what corner peers my halcyon’s bill?
Ha! to east? yes:—see how stands the vane?
East and by south, why then I hope my ships
I sent from Egypt, and the bordering isles,
Are gotten up by Nilus’ winding banks:
Mine argosies from Alexandria,
Loaden with spice and silks, now under sail
Are smoothly gliding down by Candy shore
To Malta, through our Mediterranean sea.”