"Si monumentum videas, circumspice."

Bamburgh Castle continued in the hands of the crown till the reign of James I., who granted it to John Forster, Esq. Nathaniel, Lord Crewe, of Stene, in Northamptonshire, and Bishop of Durham, having married Dorothy, daughter of Sir William Forster, of Bamburgh, purchased this estate, which in 1720 his lordship devised to trustees for various munificent and charitable purposes. The sunken rocks and shifting sands of this coast had been a terror to the mariner for ages; but, under his lordship's will, Dr. Sharp, then Archdeacon of Durham, fitted up the Keep of the Castle, a fabric of vast strength and magnitude, for the reception of suffering seamen, and of property which might be rescued from the fury of the deep. Regulations were also adopted, both to prevent accidents on the coast, and to alleviate misfortunes when they had occurred. A ninepounder, placed at the bottom of the great tower, gives signals to ships in distress, and in case of a wreck, announces the same to the Custom-House officers and their servants, who hasten to prevent the wreck being plundered. In addition to which, during a storm, horsemen patrol the coast, and rewards are paid for the earliest intelligence of vessels in distress. A flag is always hoisted when any ship is seen in distress on the Fern Islands, or Staples; or a rocket thrown up at night, which gives notice to the Holy Island fishermen, who can put off to the spot when no boat from the main land can get over the breakers. Life-boats have been added to the establishment:

"And pity, at the dark and stormy hour
Of midnight, when the moon is hid on high,
Keeps her lone watch upon the topmost tower,
And turns her ear to each expiring cry."

A boundless view of the ocean presents itself to the east from Bamburgh Castle, spotted with small islands, having Coquet Island on the south, and Holy Island on the north.

NOTE 17, P. 35, L. 23.

The Ferns are near.

The Fern Islands form two groups to the number of seventeen, and are said in a popular legend to be "as void of men as full of devils." They excite fearful and singular interest, being remarkable for the dangers they occasion to seamen, and, as Owen observes, "the deadly doctrine they preach to their winter audience." The largest is memorable from being the situation which St. Cuthbert selected to pass the last years of his life in a solitary cell. He procured from the niggard soil a sustenance by his own industry, and "caused the desert rock to rejoice and be glad, and the solitary wilderness to blossom as a rose."

NOTE 18, p. 35, L. 26.

"The sea volcano pour'd its smoke."

The Rumble Churn.

Vide Lewis's Sir Guy. At this place, in the calmest weather, is heard a subterraneous noise, caused by the flowing of the sea through the aperture of a hollow rock; but when the water is agitated, and impelled by wind and tide into this

medium, its operations are most magnificent, sending up to a vast height a prodigious body of foam, which flies off in streams of feathery spray in all directions at a certain elevation. There is a similar phenomenon, called 'the Devil's Bellows,' in Cornwall; and another at Bosherston Meer in Pembrokeshire.

NOTE 19, P. 39, L. 17.

Of Cuthbert beads and native pearl.

A name given to the Encrinites, which are found in great abundance among the rocks at Holy Island, and sold to strangers as the attributed workmanship of the saint. According to popular tradition, this holy man often visits the shores of Lindisfern in the night, and sitting on one rock, uses another as his anvil, on which he forges and fashions these beads. "Saint Cuthbert sits and toils to frame

The sea-born beads that bear his name."

Brockett's Glossary.

NOTE 20, P. 38, L. 29.

His speaking eye on Lindisfern.

Lindisfern or Holy Island is situated about two miles from the main land, and is divided from it only during the time of high water, and can therefore be considered as an island but twice every twenty-four hours.

With the ebb and flow its style
Varies from continent to isle;

Dry-shod o'er sands, twice every day,
The pilgrims to the shrine find way;
Twice every day the waves efface
Of staves and sandall'd feet the trace.

The name of Lindisfern is derived from its being opposite to the small brook Lindis. It is also called Holy Island from the supposed sanctity of the monks who occupied its monastery, the ruins of which denote great antiquity. The arches are of the Saxon order, and are supported upon short and massy pillars. Some of the windows are pointed, and thus indicate that they had been placed in the building long after its original foundation. Sir Walter Scott has thus happily described its supposed appearance, when the hooded fraternity brooded within its walls:

In Saxon strength that abbey frown'd,
With massive arches broad and round,
That rose alternate, row on row,
On ponderous columns, short and low,
Built ere the art was known,
By pointed aisle and shafted stalk,
The arcades of an alley'd walk
To emulate in stone.

Lindisfern was the episcopal seat of the See of Durham during the early ages of Christianity, and had the title of "St. Cuthbert's Patrimony" bestowed upon it, on account of the fame of Cuthbert, the sixth Bishop, who was placed in the calendar on account of his superior holiness. After his death in the hermitage at the Fern islands, his body was interred here, where it slept in peace till the Danes, in the year 763, made a descent upon the island, and nearly destroyed the monastery. The body of the saint was carried off by the monks, to whom it indicated the places at which it chose to rest; which it finally did

at Durham, and where of consequence the See was established.

It is owing to the circumstance of Holy Island having been once an episcopal see, that the countypalatine of Durham is found so curiously to dove-tail itself with Northumberland, even to the gates of Berwick. A legal jurisdiction still remains with the count-palatine over lands which formerly belonged to the patrimony of St. Cuthbert.-Vide Border Tour. NOTE 21, P. 41, L. 26.

Sapphire with topaz rich inlaid.

Oriental topaz, emerald, and amethyst, are only varieties of sapphire. Amethyst is a native of Northumberland; a brilliant crystal called Dunstanborough diamond is frequently found there. One great end of these attempted illustrations is to prove that traditions in general, however clothed in the language of fiction, are vehicles of important truths. The traditions of Northumberland, like those of Germany, very frequently point to the extreme value of her mineral productions under the symbol of treasure buried in the earth. The black corby crow, that guards the hoards of silver, under the rocks of Tynemouth, very ingeniously indicates the presence of coal and its inestimable worth.