widow of Tekoah is not only a widow, but thinks it necessary to tell David that she is "a widow woman, and her husband is dead. Again, as an example of repetition in style, take this passage from Exodus xxxii. 15— * "The tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written." When, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Pistol uses the expression, "He hears with ears," Sir Hugh Evans indignantly exclaims, "The tevil and his tam! What phrase is this, 'He hears with ear'? Why, it is affectations." But, in point of fact, so far from being "affectations," it marks the pictorial redundancy of the earlier stages of language. Such pleonasms arrive from an instinctive desire to make everything even superfluously clear to the dimmest imagination and the least developed intelligence. Whilst speaking of redundancy, or syntactical repetition, I may notice a construction which classical grammarians call the cognate accusative, and which in English has been called the objective of kindred meaning. An intransitive verb may take as an object a noun having the same meaning or origin as itself; thus-"to live a life," "to die the death," "to run a race," "to fight the good fight." In these and many similar instances the idea is repeated, in order to strengthen or emphasise the expression. Everywhere I find the same causes, emphasis and a desire for intelligibility. I think I have now said sufficient to show that repetition is by no means an unimportant element in language, and should not be passed by unheeded. This, at any rate, I think I have proved. Whether the theory I have advanced, that emphasis and a desire for clear * Farrar. Families of Speech, p. 126. ness is the main cause of repetition, is, of course, open to question; still, I may venture to assert that very much may be said in favour of it. When we find inflections repeated, or a new one added to one which is partially losing its force; when the two halves of a word resemble each other wholly or in part; when, in the names of places, a new generation has added a syllable or word to one which is no longer readily intelligible; whenever words and phrases are heaped up in unnecessary profusion; in short, whenever the same idea is repeated, either in the same form or in varied forms, it seems very clear to me that emphasis and a desire for intelligibility has been the motive power. But, whether this theory be accepted or challenged, the facts and instances I have brought forward remain unaltered, and must show that in the greater number of languages, and notably in our own, repetition is very prevalent and very important. I have given many examples, and have had much to say on this subject, yet I cannot but feel how much remains unsaid; and I conclude, not because I have exhausted my subject, but lest what has been so full of interest to myself should in the end become wearisome to others. GLEANINGS IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF BY JOSEPH BOULT. CLAIMS for the respect usually conceded to ancient origin and long descent can be so easily advanced, and are so difficult of disproof, that they are usually received with distrust, and are apt to be hastily rejected. If I claim for Liverpool antiquity greater than that usually assigned, I hope to show that the grounds for the claim are good. It is generally conceded that the earliest mention of Liverpool, in any document now extant, is in a grant from King John, when Earl of Morton, confirming to Henry, the son of Warine de Lancaster, possession of Ravensmeols, Ainsdale, Up Litherland, Liverpool, and French Lea, with eight-pence in the borough of Preston. The date assigned to this document is about 1190; the original grant to Warine's father was by Henry II. The next historic record is the so-called Charter of King John, who is usually supposed to have acted towards Liverpool the part which Alexander the Great performed for the city he founded in Egypt, except that he withheld the honour of his name; a fortunate escape for the first seaport in the world from the appellation of Johnstown. The most recent historian of Liverpool* having declared that "there can be no question that King John was the real founder of the borough and port of Liverpool," I fear it may appear presumptuous to suggest that King John merely adopted the town, having the foresight to discern its eligibility as a base for his schemes of conquest, and for combining * Memorials of Liverpool, by J. A. Picton, F.S.A. I. 9. L the superintendence of military expeditions with the enjoyment of those feats of venery in which he so much delighted. I suppose there is not any doubt that Liverpool received its first recorded designation of borough from that king; but it seems to me unquestionable that the terms of the document expressly imply the existence of a town at the time it was issued; and the author above quoted partakes of this view, inasmuch as he says, "The burgages mentioned in the charter were tenements or dwellings, which must have been constructed by the king's order before the charter was granted." Of the erection of the houses at that time he does not adduce any evidence, though Baines mentions a tradition that the people dispossessed by the formation of Toxteth Park were removed to Liverpool.* The important words in the Charter, as translated, are as follows:-"Know ye that we have granted to all who shall take burgages at Liverpool, that they shall have all liberties and free customs in the town of Liverpool, which any free borough on the sea hath in our land. And we command you that, securely and in our peace, you may come there to receive and inhabit our burgages." The Charter is to all who may be willing to have burgages in Liverpool, and appears merely to concede burgage tenure, which was the equivalent in towns for the socage tenure of agricultural districts, and referred to the mere land upon which dwellings or other erections might be placed. Shortly before issuing this ordinance, the king had obtained Liverpool in exchange for English Lea, from that Warine de Lancaster whom he had recently confirmed in its possession; and having obtained it, for the reasons suggested • Liverpool, p. 84. above, or for others now unknown, he lost no time in improving his property, and making it as productive as possible. Therefore, he constituted Liverpool "a free borough on the sea"; and, important as was this concession, it seems to be the sole privilege or service which he designedly conferred upon it as a town, a "free borough" being one in which fixed and known services or customs were rendered by the holders of burgages. The date is uncertain at which the local sub-divisions of England were formed, which are now called counties, hundreds, parishes, and towns. It is usual to ascribe the arrangement to King Alfred, who, next to King Arthur, is the favourite hero of all those writers of romance which passes for history, but who is so overladen with wise and beneficent ascriptions that he appears almost as mythical as "good King Arthur" himself. It seems to me more probable that most of these local divisions are of much earlier date; but I must abstain on this occasion from adducing the reasons for that opinion, having already done so to some extent in the past session. I assume, then, that the township of Liverpool, when it passed to King John, like most, if not all other townships, possessed a bohr of some kind; and, looking to the nature of the site, I assume that the bohr was on the crest of the hill, which is now surmounted by the Town Hall, Exchange, and St. George's Church. This conjecture is confirmed by a reference to other places on the neighbouring margin of the sea, such as Everton, Kirkdale, Bootle, Crosby, and others, the original sites of which are all inland, though the sea forms one of the boundaries of their liberties. obtains additional confirmation from the usual practice of selecting eminences as sites for settlements, less for sanitary than for strategic considerations; a practice so usual as to have led to a confusion between the words bohr and -burg It |