LINCOLNSHIRE, an English maritime county. It is bounded on the north by Yorkshire, on the east by the German Ocean and Norfolk, on the south by Cambridge, Northampton, and Rutland shires, and on the west by Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire. Its greatest length is seventy-three miles, and its greatest breadth forty-eight. The area is 2814 square miles, or about 1,800,000 acres.

The county is divided into three districts or provinces. The largest of these, Lindsey, is more extensive than the other two, containing more than 1,000,000 acres, and stretching from the shores of the German Ocean to Nottinghamshire. It is rather an elevated tract of country, but the whole is so level as scarcely to contain a single hill. The north-eastern part of this division is a very extensive district of heathy land, generally very poor, especially the northern part of it, and denominated the Wolds. Though some parts of it have recently been brought into cultivation, yet a great portion has scarcely any other live stock than the numerous rabbits, which multiply in extended warrens. A small part, however, of this division, contains a rich tract of low land, formed by the rivers Trent, Dun, and Idle, where horned cattle are pastured, and some excellent flax is produced. The province of Lindsey is subdivided into fifteen hundreds and two sokes.

The province of Kcsteven extends along the western side of the county, from its middle to its southern extremity; in which latter part is a portion of the fens. Notwithstanding there arc many extensive heaths, especially near Lincoln and Ancaster; and though the soil and elevation are various, yet on the whole it may properly be described as a fertile country. Towards the west a ridge of hills, which forms an abrupt boundary, extends from Grantham nearly to Lincoln; but none of the points attains a great elevation. This province is subdivided into nine hundreds and three sokes.

The third province, Holland, contains the greater part of that unhealthy division of Lincolnshire usually called the Fens. It is subdivided into three hundreds, sometimes denominated sokes, sometimes wapentakes. The character of this province is similar to that of the province of the same name in the Netherlands, after which it has been called. Nearly the whole of it appears, at a remote period, to have been covered by the sea, and only brought into its present state of productiveness by the active and persevering labour of the inhabitants. The embankments and the draining have been expensive, perpetual, and progressive, and the soil that has been redeemed has conferred a most abundant remuneration. Excellent pasture land has been formed out of the swamps and bogs, and some of it produces extraordinary crops of corn, especially oats. Even in those parts that have not been reclaimed, the reeds, which abound, are converted into good covering for houses and barns, and they are well stocked with aquatic wild fowl. The taking of them is a profitable employment to many persons, and the markets of London are principally supplied from thence with those delicacies. The decoys in this district are more numerous than in any other part of England. They are commonly formed around quiet pools, to which pipes made of bent willows, and covered with nets, gradually enlarging as they approach the water, are conducted. Into the large orifice of the pipes the wild birds are enticed by tame ones trained for that business, and who conduct them into the funnel, when the appearance of a man or his dog behind drives them to the most contracted part, where they are taken. The quantity of birds taken in some seasons is prodigious, amounting to some hundreds of thousands. They usually consist of teal, widgeon, and wild ducks; but occasionally wild geese, godwits, coots, ruffs, and reeves and whimbrels, are caught. In these otherwise unproductive fens, the keeping of geese, principally for the sake of the feathers, is a considerable branch of rural industry, and supplies a large part of the demands of the kingdom, both for beds and for pens. The feathers are plucked from the birds at three, four, sometimes five different periods in the course of a year. This is thought a barbarous custom; but the charge of cruelty is denied by the breeders, who assert that, for their own profit, they pluck only those feathers which are so near falling off as to occasion little pain; those more firmly fixed, and which have some portion of blood at their end, being of very inferior value. The young ones are plucked as well as the old ones; experience having taught that, when plucked early, the future growth of the feathers becomes greater. During the breeding season, the birds are lodged in the [7:13:352]same houses as their owners, in wicker pens, which are arranged in rows, frequently in the bed chambers. A gooseherd in attendance on the flock leads them daily to water, and assists them, on their return, to get into their several cells. The attendants are acquainted with each individual goose in the flock, and can commonly distinguish them by the tones of their voices. Near Spalding there is a considerable heronry, and a smaller one near Surflet, where the herons, like rooks, build their nests on high trees.

The air in the fens is generally insalubrious, and the inhabitants suffer much from the nature of the water, which is generally of a brackish quality; and though they make reservoirs to preserve rain water, in dry summers they experience very great distress. In warm weather, vast swarms of insects add to the annoyances peculiar to this district.

The population, according to the returns at the four decennial enumerations, appear to have amounted in 1801 to 208,557, in 1811 to 237,891, in 1821 to 283,053, and in 1831 to 317,400. The annual value of the real property, as taken in 1815, amounted to L.2,061,830.

The burials, including both the registered and the unregistered, in the period from 1821 to 1831, appear to have been one in 53 of the whole number of inhabitants then living. The illegitimate births were one in nineteen of the whole born.

The occupations of the inhabitants, according to the returns arranged by Mr Rickman in 1831, were as follow:

Occupiers of land employing labourers 6,901 ∙

Occupiers of land not employing labourers 6,204

Labourers employed in agriculture 32,167

Labourers employed in manufactures 167

Employed in retail trade or handicraft 20,490

Capitalists, bankers, &c 2,734

Labourers not agricultural 5,855

Other males twenty years of age 3,886

Male servants 1,848

Female servants 16,011

The towns containing more than 2000 inhabitants, and their population in 1831, were—

Lincoln, city 11,892

Boston, town .' 11,240

Lowth 6,927

Gainsborough 6,658

Stamford 5,837

Grantham 4,590

Grimsby 4,225

Horncastle 3,988

FIolbeach 3,890

Long Sutton 3,510

Sleaford 2,450

Bourn 2,355

Crowland 2,268

The reform bill has left the city of Lincoln, and the boroughs of Boston, Stamford, and Grantham, with two members each, as before. It has left Grimsby with only one; and has divided the county into two districts, one called the Part of Lindsey, and the other the Part of Kesteven and Holland. The polling places for the former are Lincoln, Gainsborough, Epworth, Barton, Brigg, Market Rosin, Louth, Spilsby, and Horncastle; and for the latter, Sleaford, Boston, Holbeach, Bourn, Donington, Navenby, Spalding, and Grantham.

The capital of this pounty is the see of a bishop, whose jurisdiction is the largest of any in England, extending over the counties of Lincoln, Leicester, Huntingdon, Bedford, and Buckingham; over one half of Hertfordshire, and several portions of Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Rutlandshire, Northamptonshire, and Warwickshire; and including 1517 parishes, under the superintendence of six archdeacons.

The fens of Lincolnshire have running through them wide ditches, which serve to drain the water from the land, and which, when united and extended, become navigable, and highly beneficial as means of conveying the productions to the various markets. The Foss Dyke, the earliest canal made in Britain, was constructed in the year 1121, to form a connection between the city of Lincoln and the river Trent; and though, from the nature of the soil, it has been often obstructed, and the expense of keeping it in order has been great, it has continued to be used from that time to the present day. The river Trent, though rising in Staffordshire, may be considered as a Lincolnshire river, from the principal navigation upon it belonging to this county. It receives the Dun and the Ouse, and, before reaching the sea, unites with the Humber. It is navigable for large barges to Gainsborough. It has, upon the influx of the tide, a most extraordinary bore, or, as it is provincially termed, eager, when the waters run up resembling a wall with a rapidity that has no equal in any of our English rivers, except the Wye at Cĥipstow. The Witham rises within the county, about ten miles from Stamford. The early part of its course is through a beautiful district till it reaches the fen country, when its course becomes sluggish; but being navigable to Boston, it is highly beneficial both for draining and for commerce. The other rivers are the Ancholme, the Welland, the Glen, the Grant, and the Ouse. The Humber, indeed, is its boundary on part of the northern side; but is more commonly and properly considered as a Yorkshire than a Lincolnshire river, from Hull, its principal port, being in that county. Two small canals communicate with the river Witham, one from Horncastle, and the other from Sleaford.

The great bay or estuary into which the different rivers and dykes that drain the fens are disembogued, is very shallow, and filled with drifting sands, which render the approach to the shore highly dangerous. The rivers are constantly loaded with mud, and, in times of flood, encounter the tide, equally charged with its floating silt, which causes a stagnation and deposit that is constantly shifting its position, as the strength of the rivers or of the tides happens to be the more powerful.

The face of the country in the fens is generally uninteresting, exhibiting extensive plains, with nothing to break the continuity of the line of vision, and only rendered less monotonous by the vast numbers of cattle with which the green meadows are covered. On the wolds a more bleak and dreary prospect presents itself; but the western division of the country near Stamford and Grantham is variegated, woody, and undulating, and presents generally pleasing pictures.

The agriculture of the fens is of the simplest kind; for where nature has created such a productive soil, little remains to be done by the operations of man. In the more elevated parts of the county the cultivation is conducted with various, but, on the whole, good judgment; and the land produces ample crops of wheat, oats, barley, and beans, and in some parts hemp and flax. The attention, however, of the whole county is more turned to derive profit from cattle than from the use of the plough.

r ~ The oxen of Lincolnshire are proverbial for their goodness. The original race were of a great size, with large heads and short horns, thick in the bone, deep in the belly, short on the neck, high on the rump, and bare en the shoulders; but these have been improved by such various and judicious crossings of breeds, that their symmetry and excellent qualities render them the best in the island. Many cattle bred in other countries are fattened here on the rich natural pastures; but a portion of oil-cake is very commonly given, to fit them earlier for [7:13:353]the market of Smithfield, to which numerous droves are weekly despatched. This fattening of cattle for the supply of London is so advantageous that the dairy is almost everywhere considered as a secondary object.

The sheep of this county are almost peculiar to it. They are of a large size, have horns, and produce heavy fleeces of long wool, highly prized in the manufacture of stuffs and some kinds of baizes. The flesh is, however, rank in flavour, and, unless the animals are improved by crossing with other races, is not generally relished. As the foundation of an excellent breed, they were selected by the late judicious Mr Bakewell, who, from mixing them with other races, produced those excellent sheep known by the name of the new Leicesters. The fleeces of the pure Lincolnshire sheep in general weigh from ten to twelve pounds; but extraordinary instances have been known in which they have attained more than twenty pounds.

The live stock, in which this county exceeds every other, is rabbits, which the numerous warrens on the wolds produce in vast numbers. From their prodigious quantity, the flesh is of small value, and the sale of the skins for the use of the furriers and hatters is the principal source of profit. The number of warrens has considerably diminished of late years, and the land they occupied has been appropriated to tillage; but they are still very extensive.

Lincolnshire is not a manufacturing county. Before the extension of machinery, the spinning of their native wool gave occupation to the female part of the population; but that employment has been nearly discontinued of late years, and no other has yet been substituted in its place. In some parts the flax is spun for domestic use. The nature of its sea-shores operates to prevent foreign commerce; and there is little or no intercourse between Lincolnshire and the ports even of Holland and Germany, which are opposite to it. The county produces neither minerals nor coals.

The antiquities of Lincolnshire are numerous, Almost all the churches are fine specimens of ancient architecture, a singularity which distinguishes them from those in every other county of England. The remains of Crowland, founded in 716, the seat of a mitred abbot, and anciently a place of great fame, are still visited by every antiquary; and near them is the triangular bridge over three streams, in good preservation. It is, however, so lofty and precipitous, that it is only useful to horse and foot travellers, as carriages usually pass under it. The other most prominent antiquities are, Torksey Castle, at the junction of the Foss Dyke with the Trent; Thornton Abbey, near the Humber; Bardney Abbey, on the banks of the Witham; Tattershall Castle, on the same river; and Somerton Castle, in the parish of Boothby.

Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Burghley, Lord Bolingbroke, Stukeley the antiquarian, and Wesley, the founder of Methodism, were, amongst many other eminent men, natives of this county.

The most remarkable seats of noblemen and gentlemen are, Blankney, Charles Chaplin, Esq.; Brocklesby Park, Lord Yarborough; Coleby Hall, Earl Lindsey; Gautby, Robert Vener, Esq.; Grinsthorpe Castle, Lord Gwydir; Hanby Hall, Sir William Manners; Harmston, Samuel Thorold, Esq.; Hainton Park, G. Heneage, Esq.; Noc-ton Park, Earl of Ripon; Belton House, Lord Brownlow; Normanby Hall, Sir J. Sheffield; Reevesby Abbey, late Sir Joseph Banks; Subton, Sir Robert Heron; Summer Castle, Lady Wrey; Syston, Sir John Thorold; Thur-gunby, Lord Middleton.