of the castle fortreffes of our country were wont to pass their time. The great caftle-builder provided his walls and his courts, his keep and his dungeons; but a chapel was no less indispensable alike to his station and his actual wants. Beleaguered or free, he must be able at all times to hear the daily mafs, or, more grateful still to lordly ears, the pious orison offered up for his own and his family's welfare; he must be able to fly to the chapel for fuccour when the “thick-coming fancies" of superstition press upon his imagination, and appal him by their mysterious influence, or when defeat or danger threatens; there too in the hour of triumph must he be found, his own voice mingling with the chant of prieft; at births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths, the facred doors must be ever at hand; the child faft growing up to man's eftate, who has spent his entire life within the castle, looks forward to the chapel as the scene that fhall usher him into a world of glory,-already he feels the touch of the golden fpurs, the fway of the lofty plumes, the thrill of the fair hands that gird on his maiden fword; already, with alternating hopes and fears, he anticipates his folitary midnight vigil within the chapel walls.

And truly fuch a night in fuch a place as this, to which we have defcended below the keep of Newcastle, was calculated to try the tone of the firmest nerves; for though beautifulexceedingly beautiful it is in all that refpects the architectural ftyle to which it belongs, and of which it is a rare examplethere are here no lofty pointed windows, with their storied panes, to admit the full broad beam of radiant fplendour, or to give

the idea of airinefs or elegance to the ftructure. All is maffive, great, and impreffively folemn.

The diftinctive features of the nineteenth century and the days of the feudal lords of England have feldom been more forcibly shown than by FitzGreene Halleck, an American, who a few years fince vifited Alnwick Castle, and penned the following:

Home of the Percy's high-born race,

Home of their beautiful and brave,

Alike their birth and burial-place,

Their cradle and their grave!

Still sternly o'er the castle gate
Their house's Lion stands in state,

As in his proud departed hours;
And warriors frown in stone on high,
And feudal banners "flout the sky"
Above his princely towers.

A gentle hill its side inclines,

Lovely in England's fadeless green,
To meet the quiet stream which winds
Through this romantic scene,

As silently and sweetly still,

As when at evening on that hill,

While summer's wind blew soft and low,

Seated by gallant Hotspur's side,

His Katherine was a happy bride,
A thousand years ago.

One solitary turret gray

Still tells in melancholy glory

The legend of the Cheviot day,

The Percy's proudest Border story.

That day its roof was triumph's arch;

Then rang from aisle to pictured dome The light step of the soldier's march,

The music of the trump and drum; And babe, and sire, the old, the young, And the monk's hymn and minstrel's song, And woman's pure kiss, sweet and long, Welcomed her warrior home.

Wild roses by the abbey towers

Are gay in their young bud and bloom; They were born of a race of funeral flowers That garlanded, in long-gone hours,

A Templar's knightly tomb.

He died, the sword in his mailed hand,

On the holiest spot of the Blessed Land;

Where the Cross was damp'd with his dying breath,

When blood ran free as festal wine,

And the sainted air of Palestine

Was thick with the darts of death.

Wise with the lore of centuries,

What tales, if there be "tongues in trees,"
Those giant oaks could tell,

Of beings born and buried here;
Tales of the peasant and the peer,

Tales of the bridal and the bier,
The welcome and farewell,
Since on their boughs the startled bird
First in her twilight slumbers heard

The Norman's curfew-bell.

ARLY in England's hiftory, teudal lords, in their castle homes, were right merry at their feftive boards. Mailed barons, grim of afpect, who dared to show their power in the prefence of crowned defpots, and to draw their fwords in defence of English liberties, or against threatened invafion of their rights and privileges, ofttimes laid afide their armour, and difpenfed a rude but genuine hofpitality to all comers. Rough and ready were those English barons to meet a worthy foeman on the field, or receive a trusty knight at their tables; ready were they in their moated and embattled homes to bid the warder found defiance from their walls, or flourish a glad welcome to the traveller to his well-spread board. When wars in foreign climes, as at Creffy or Agincourt; on their native foil, as at Towton and Evesham; or, later, on the hard-fought fields of Bosworth or Nafeby, claimed no military service at their hands,—

Then all was jollity,

Feasting and mirth, light wantonness and laughter,
Piping and playing, minstrelsies and smoking,

Till life fled from us like an idle dream.

In fancy we can hear fome baron who has led back his retainers, worn and wafted by a long campaign, entering the maffive portals of his castle, telling to liftening knights and ladies what victories he had won; what hardships he and his trusty band had endured, and exclaiming

But now we will have bellowing of beeves,
Broaching of barrels, brandishing of spigots;
Blood shall flow freely, but it shall be gore

Of herds, flocks, and venison, poultry,

Join'd to the brave heart's blood of John-a-barleycorn.

And then would follow fuch a scene as that which Scott has fo graphically defcribed in "The Lay of the Laft Minstrel:"

'T was now the merry hour of noon,
And in the lofty arched hall
Was spread the gorgeous festival.
Steward and squire with heedful haste
Marshall'd the rank of every guest;
Pages, with ready blades, were there,
The mighty meal to carve and share.
O'er capon, heronshrew, and crane,
And princely peacock's gilded train;
And o'er the boar-head garnish'd brave,

And cygnet from St. Mary's wave;

O'er ptarmigan and venison,

The priest had spoke his benison.

S