The history and antiquities of Boston, and the villages of Skirbeck, Fishtoft, Freiston, Butterwick, Benington, Leverton, Leake, and Wrangle; comprising the hundred of Skirbeck, in the county of Lincoln. Including also a history of the East, West, and Wildmore fens, and copious notices of the Holland or Haut-Huntre fen ... sketches of the geology, natural history, botany, and agriculture of the district; a very extensive collection of archaisms and provincial words, local dialect, phrases, proverbs, omens, superstitions, etc. By Pishey Thompson. Illustrated with one hundred engravings.

CONTENTS.
Division I.-Early History.
Probable first inhabitants of England, p. 2. Condition of the neighbourhood of Boston
at the time of the Roman Invasion, 4. Hills, tumuli, or barrows in the neighbourhood, 5.
Early state of the Witham, 6. Ancient Britons, 7. Introduction of Christianity, 7.
Alliance of the Coritani (ancient inhabitants of Lincolnshire) with the Romans, 8. Roman
works of drainage, 9. Roman banks, stations, 10. Roads, 12. Examination of the supposition that Boston was the Roman Causennwe, 14. Roman fort at Boston, 17.
Division II.-Anglo-Saxons, Danes, &c.
Anglo-Saxon invasion of England, 19. Kingdom of Mercia, 20. Danish incursions, 21.
Battle of Threckingham, or Laundon, 21. Danish Camp at Swineshead, 22. Saxon and
Danish history, 23. Boston, the Saxon Icanhoe, 26. Boston not mentioned in Domesday
Book, 27. Danes in Lincolnshire, 28. Lincolnshire at the Norman Conquest, 31. The
Girvii or Fenmen, 32.
Division III. —Norman Conquest, &c.
Lincolnshire at the Norman Conquest, 33. Three of the principal families never submitted to the Conqueror, 35. Took part with the Empress Maud, 36. Cloth manufactory
at Boston (1201), 37. High commercial importance, 38. Paved roads or causeways leading
north and south from Boston, 12, 63, &c., 40. Crimes and punishments in 13th century,
42. Boston a walled town, 1285, 43. Schedule of tolls to repair the walls, 43. Small agricultural produce of the neighbourhood(1295),45. Boston included in Skirbeck (1300),46. Subsidies,assessments, and levies, 47. Bostonmade a stapletown (1369), 55. Degraded condition
of the people of England, 57. Curious circumstances attending the levying a poll-tax (1381), 58.
Dissolution of the Boston religious houses, 61. Henry VIII.'s charters to Boston, 64. Erection Lands granted (1554), 66. First lottery in England (1567), 67. First attempt to procure
a supply of water for Boston, 67. Decayed state of the town (1571), 69. Waytes or town musicians appointed, 69. Licenses to export corn first granted, 69. Dutch fishermen settled in
Boston by royal license, 70. Pirates in Boston Deeps, 71. The plague in Boston, 74.
Patent monopoly for making salt granted, 75. The town assessed for ship-money, and
ordered to be fortified, 78. Quo warranto inquiry, 79. Boston during the contest between
Charles I. and the Parliament, and during the Commonwealth, 80. Women accused of
witchcraft (1649), 91. Remodelling of the Corporation by Charles II., 93. Surrender
of the charters, grant of new ones, and the old ones restored, 94. Supply of water, and
boring for it in the market-place, 96. Inclosure of Holland Fen, 98. Of the East, West,
and Wildmore Fens, 99. Great tide of 1810; 100. Toll-case, Reform Bill, &c., 101.
Water-works at Miningsby, 102. Income and expenditure of the Town Council, &c., 103.
Area, population, &c., 104. Baptisms, marriages, and burials, firom 1560, 105. Sanitary
position of Boston as compared with other parts of the kingdom, 106, 107.