The civil divisions of England are those of counties, hundreds, and parishes. The county divisions, like several of our national improvements, take date from the reign" of Alfred, and though subsequently in creased by the acquisition of the three northern coun ties from the Scots, have not, in other respects, ex perienced much alteration since his time.
The 12 counties of Wales, added to the 40 coun ties of England, make a total of 52. The name of " County corporate" is given to most of the cities of England, and to some of the towns; this distinction, little attended to by the public, and seldom mention ed but in law-papers, implies that the district in ques tion is governed by its own sheriffs and other magi*. Crates, to the exclusion of the officers of the county at large.
The division into hundreds must have originated in a reference to the existing population, and have implied a district containing either a hundred able bodied men, or a hundred families. As population increased very differently in different situations, great inequality ensued in regard to these divisions, and, in the reign of Henry VIII., many of the larger hundreds were partitioned into smaller districts. Hundreds were farther subdivided in the time of Alfred into tithings, or associations of ten men, for the purpose of mutual defence. But both these sub• divisions were unknown in our northern counties, from their not having been subject to the Saxon le gislator: these counties, on their subsequent annex*• tion to the crown of England, were divided into " wards" and " wapentakes ;" terms sufficiently ex pressive of the warlike character of the age, and of the exposed situation of a frontier province.
The ecclesiastical division of England is into two archbishoprics and twenty-four bishoprics. The archbishopric, or " province" of York, though by much the smaller of the two, comprises Northumber land, Durham, Westmoreland, Cumberland, Cheshire, Lancashire, the chief part of Yorkshire, and the Isle of Man: eanterbury extends over all the rest of the kingdom, including even Jersey and Guernsey. The bishoprics are very different in extent of jurisdiction as well as in annual emolument. The Encyclopat.
dia contains a list of the dioceses, and of their re. spective revenues, as entered in the king's books; but their present incomes are greatly increased, in consequence of the rise in the value of land. The third and most familiar of the ecclesiastical divisions of England is into parishes. This mode of division seems to have existed from a very remote period, and to have continued during the last five centuries on the same footing, with very slight variation, as at present. The total number of parishes in England and Wales is 10,674.
We have already noticed the great navigable rivers of England. In regard to seaports, after London, which is perhaps the most capacious and happily si tuated in Europe, the principal are Liverpool, Hull, and Bristol. Liverpool and Hull are situate on great inlets of the sea, while Bristol stands on a compara tively small river, and, though long a seat of com merce, is indebted for its present magnitude to recent improvements.
Liverpool gave the first example of wet-clocks, ori ginally on a small, afterwards on an extensive, scale. Hull followed the example, her first dock dating from 1774, her second from 1803. Meantime the metro polis opened successively the West India, London, and East India docks; and in 1805, Bristol com menced a great work of the same description. Con siderable extensions of the wet-docks of Liverpool and Hull are going on at present (1819).
The chief sea-ports of England, after the fourjust mentioned, are Shields (for Newcastle), Sunder land, Whitby, Scarborough, Grymsby, Lynn, Yar mouth, Harwich, Sheerness, Chatham and Rams gate, on the east coast ; Portsmouth, Southampton, Poole, Weymouth, Dartmouth, Plymouth, and Fal mouth, on the south ; with Swansea, Milfordhaven, Chester, Lancaster, and Whitehaven on the west. In the English Channel, the depth and capacious ness of a number of harbours on our side form a striking contrast to the French side, where there are only St. Maloes, Cherburg, and Havre de Grace, none of which are convenient stations. Our great naval stations, such as Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Chatham, have been already described under DOCK-. YARDS.