reckoned thirty market towns in this county, though in some of these the market is discontinued. The county town is Maidstone, where the assizes are always held, and the knights of the shire elected. Kent sends eighteen members to Parliament. The chief trade of Kent consists in the export of its agricultural productions; but much employment is afforded by means of its connection with the river Thames, and the navy. The dock yards and arsenals. at Deptford, Woolwich, Chatham, and Sheerness, keep a great number of men at work in all the branches of ship building, and the preparation of naval and military stores. Near London some branches of manufacture are carried on connected with the trade of the metropolis. At Maidstone linen thread is made; there are also large paper mills, and other works on the river and in this town. British spirits, denominated British Geneva, are also distilled in great quantities. Tunbridge has an elegant manufacture of turnery ware. The principal character of this county is agricultural; and it has long supported a considerable population, which the improved culture of its land, and the increasing business of its naval towns, have certainly not suffered to diminish. GAVELKIND is an antient tenure peculiar, among the English counties, to that of Kent; our description would be very incomplete without giving some account of this tenure; and therefore we present our readers with the following summary. This custom, which antiently obtained throughout England, is still in force in a great part of Kent, Urchenfield, in Herefordshire, and elsewhere, though with some dif ference: but by the statute 34 and 35 Henry VIII. c. 26. all gavelkind lands in Wales are made descendible to the heir, according to the course of common law; whereby it appears, that this tenure was also in that principality; and was probably of British original. In an antient book of records in Christchurch, Canterbury, of the time of Henry VIII. our Saxon ancestors are said to have held their lands either by writing, or without; the first was called Bockland, whose owners were men whom we now call Freeholders; the second was called Folk-land, the owners of which were of servile condition, and possessed at the will of their lord. The inheritance, or freehold, did not in those days descend to the eldest son, but to all alike; which in Saxon was called Landescyftan; and in Kent, to Shiftland, whence came the custom Gavelkind. And the reason why it was retained in Kent more than other places, was, that the people of Kent, upon the Norman invasion, could not be reduced to surrender to the Conqueror, but on these conditions, that they should retain their antient country customs without any infringement or diminution; and especially that of Gavelkind. In the reign of Henry VI. there were not above thirty or forty persons in the county of Kent, who held by any other tenure than this of Gavelkind; which was afterwards altered upon the petition of several Kentish gentlemen, with regard to great part of the land in this county, so as to be descendible to the eldest son, according to the common law: by 31 Hen. VIII. c. 3. Though the custom to devise Gavelkind still remains; and all lands in Kent shall be taken to be gavelkind, except those which are disgavelled by particular statutes, the distinguishing properties of this tenure are various; some of the principal are these; the lands held under this denomination of Gavelkind, which is an antient soccage tenure, descend equally, and are divided, share and share alike, among all the male children; and in defect of these, among the females. They are of age, or qualified to take the lands upon them, at fifteen; and may then give, vend, or alienate the same to any person, without the consent of any lord: and children here inherit their father's land, though convicted of felony, murder, &c. according to the maxim: The father to the bough The son to the plough. The tenants of Gavelkind are to do fealty, and to be in the tuition of the next a-kin, who is not next heir, to them, them, till fifteen years of age; and to pay acknowledgment to the lord for the lands, and various other customs The county of Kent is remarkable on many accounts. History informs us that it was the first county in England; and the men of Kent boasted their superior strength, courage, and valour, in the antient wars with the Danes, &c. The front of the battle was looked upon as belonging to them, as so many Triarii, who, among the Romans, were the strongest men, and on whour the stress of the battle lay; and on these accounts the nobility of Kent laid claim to honours of the first rank. This antient spirit they still boast of, but at the same time it is blended with humanity. William of Malmsbury writes, that "they retain a spirit above the rest of the English, being more ready to afford respect and kind entertainment to others, and less inclinable to revenge injuries." This just compliment to Kent has been also a theme of high poetic lore. The immortal Shakespeare thus expresses himself: Kent, in the Commentaries Cæsar writ, Is term'd the civil Place of all this isle; The people, liberal, valiant, active, wealthy. The inspired Drayton, also, in his Poly-Albion, thus exclaims; O famous Kent, What county hath this isle, that can compare with thee! Time, has not yet deprived this county of its antient name, but as Cæsar, and others, called it Cantium, so the Saxons named it Canepa-panic, i. e. the Kingdom of the Cantwari, People of Kent. * Encyclopædia. If the computation, already given, is accurate, there are not more than five counties superior to Kent in size: but, extensive as it is at present, it is supposed to have been of larger extent. The western quarter particularly, is thought to have included all the land lying on the north side the road from New Cross, through Peckham, and from thence to Lambeth Ferry. Subsequent even to the Norman Conquest, the inhabitants of Surrey seem to have encroached on the boundaries of Kent; the parish of Deptford having been wholly within the latter, though Surrey now claims that part in which are the manor of Bredinghurst, and the manor and seat of Hatcham. Bredinghurst, at Peckham Rye, is particularly recorded as being one of the knights fees in Kent; divers inquisitions also taken since the time of Henry II. have found Hatcham to be within the samet county. Hatcham lies at a little distance on the north side of the road. The old manor house was taken down but a few years since, and nearly on the same site is erected that large building, which can hardly fail of drawing the traveller's attention. Mr. Hasted, in his valuable History of this county, observes that the name Hatcham denotes its situation close to the confines of both counties; as KentHatch in Westerham points out its situation at the very cutside of Kent, and as a messuage, called Kent House," does its near neighbourhood to the boundaries of it between Beckenham and Croydon, in Surrey. At present, and certainly for several centuries, the entrance this way into the county is not far from New Cross. The reception of prisoners from the county of Surrey having been for a long space of time at New Cross, inclined several to be of opinion, that the limits of the county are upon that spot; but in this they are mistaken, for they extend to a small bridge, now concealed by the raising of the road beyond Hatcham, near the way to Bredinghurst +. dr After passing through the gate at New Cross, the road on the right hand leads to Lewisham, Bromley, Sevenoaks, and * Yorkshire, Devonshire, Lincolnshire, Hampshire, and Northum berland, + Hasted's Kent. VOL. V. No. 104. K Tunbridge, Tunbridge, in Kent; and to Rye and Hastings, two of the einque ports on the coast of Sussex. LEWISHAM is situated in the lath of Sutton, and on the river Ravensbourn. It is a pleasant village on the borders of Surrey. The manor, according to Dugdale's Monasticon, is said to have been given, with its ap-. pendages Greenwich and Comb, by Elthreda, niece to Alfred the Great, to the abbey of St. Peter, at Ghent, to which this place became a cell. The grant was confirmed. by king Edgar in 964, and in 1044 by Edward the Confessor, with many additional privileges. The manor, &c. are thus described in Domesday Book: In Grenviz hundred the abbot of Ghent holds Leveshamof the king, and he held it of king Edward the Confessor; and it then was, and now is taxed at 2 sulings. The arable land is 14 carucates. In demesne there are 2 carucates, and 50 villeins, with 9 bordars, who have between them 17 ploughs. There are 3 slaves and 11 mills, with the rent of the socmen, amounting to 87. 12s. Of the profit of the haven (of Greenwich) 40s. There are 30 acres of meadow, and of wood. Pannage for 50 hogs. The whole manor in the time of king Edward was worth 16 pounds, and afterwards 12 pounds, and now 30 pounds." The manor continued in the possession of the abbot and convent, till the dissolution of alien priories by Henry V. when it was granted by that monarch to his new founded. priory of Shene. Upon the general dissolution of monasteries, this manor became the property of the crown, and was bestowed on John earl of Warwick, eldest son of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland; on his attainder it reverted to the crown, and was bestowed by queen Elizabeth on his brother Sir Ambrose Dudley, who had been restored in blood by queen Mary, and, by Elizabeth, created lord L'Isle, and earl of Warwick. From this nobleman, after various changes, it came by purchase, with the rectory, &c, to George Legge, Esq. admiral of the royal navy, and afterwards earl of Dartmouth, in whose family it still continues, and constitutes the second title of the earldom, the eldest 2 |