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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
WARWICK CASTLE.
The history of a fabric, so intimately connected with some of the most important events recorded in the chronicles of our country, as that of Warwick Castle, cannot fail to be alike interesting to the antiquary, the historian, and the man of letters. This noble edifice is also rendered the more attractive, as being one of the very few that have escaped the ravages of war, or have defied the mouldering hand of time; it having been inhabited from its first foundation up to the present time, a period of nearly one thousand years. Before, however, noticing the castle, it will be necessary to make a few remarks on the antiquity of the town of which it is the chief ornament.
"Warwickshire," p. 298, edit. 1661.
Vide Camden's "Britannia," by Bishop Gibson, vol. i. p. 603, edit. 1722.
The appearance of this town in the time of Leland is thus described by that celebrated writer:--"The town of Warwick hath been right strongly defended and waullid, having a compace of a good mile within the waul. The dike is most manifestly perceived from the castelle to the west gate, and there is a great crest of yearth that the waul stood on. Within the precincts of the toune is but one paroche chirche, dedicated to St. Mary, standing in the middle of the toune, faire and large. The toune standeth on a main rokki hill, rising from est to west. The beauty and glory of it is yn two streetes, whereof the hye street goes from est to west, having a righte goodely crosse in the middle of it, making a quadrivium, and goeth from north to south." Its present name is derived, according to Matthew Paris, from Warmund, the father of Offa, king of the Mercians, who rebuilt it, and called it after his own name, Warwick.
Few persons have made a greater figure in history than the earls of Warwick, from the renowned
Hardynge's "Chronicle," p, 211, edit. 1812.
ODE TO THE LONDON STONE.
Mound of antiquity's dark hidden ways, Though long thou'st slumber'd in thy holy niche, Now, the first time, a modern bard essays To crave thy primal use, the what and which! Speak! break my sorry ignorance asunder! City stone-henge, of aldermanic wonder.
Wert them a fragment of a Druid pile, Some glorious throne of early British art? Some trophy worthy of our rising isle, Soon from its dull obscurity to start. Wert thou an altar for a world's respect? Now the sole remnant of thy fame and sect.
Wert thou a churchyard ornament, to braid The charnel of putridity, and part The spot where what was mortal had been laid, With all thy native coldness in his heart? Thou sure wert not the stone--let critics cavil!-- Of quack M.D. who lectur'd on the gravel.
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