portal, surmounted with the armorial bearings of the great families so long the masters of its halls; that noble one, with the elevated dais, the antlered stag and the savage boar; its dark chambers, where" Belted Willie," the terrible warder of the western marshes, confined his prisoners-not confined long, poor fellows, for it was a short journey generally from the raid spot to the gallows. Some deep cells, however, there are, where it seems probable the victims were suffocated, for "Willie" was remorseless in punishment, and his dungeons more than his gallows made his name terrible through all the borders; the headsman's axe and the block, too, were as frequently in use as the rope; every thing at Naworth is associated with legends of the energetic lord warden, the very type of a feudal lord, while in his library is still retained a curious MSS., perhaps one of the most curious in England-a sort of heraldic and genealogical essay, in which the descent of the Howard family is traced with most minute exactness from Noah or from Adam, we do not well remember which. There is no doubt, that although small, Naworth conveys a perfect ideal of the castle of its epoch, for the age of castles has nevertheless its various periods, and in a larger work than this they might be, and should be, minutely defined; at present we may just say that Conigsburg, Rochester, and Caerphilly, Arundel, and Naworth, all represent distinct stages of society and of feudal strength and manners.

• Lord William Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk.

"To what base uses may we turn, Horatio !"

The strong old feudal castle, and the residences and tombs, too, of the old barons-how they change their appropriation, and submit to the dominion of the old king with the forelock and the scythe. I shall not soon forget the day when, with several friends, on the 22nd of June, 1846, I started on a pleasant route, from Bridlington to Flamboro, and I saw a variety of things that pleased and instructed me. But one thing I saw more pleasing and instructive than all. In Flamboro' church, an old building of the time of William the Conqueror, the children of the village are taught in a little crypt or chapel connected with the church; and a mournful-looking place it is, to be sure, to teach children in. School-rooms should be places of light, and large enough for free young blood, and young gay thoughts. I dare say all this would sound like so much abominable heterodoxy to our old friend, the schoolmaster of the place I refer to. There he is-I think I see him now- cane in hand, a kind of " I'm monarch of all I survey" sort of a gentleman. The place in which he taught, this crypt, it seemed was still used as a place of sepulchre; some vaults had been opened not long before, that the dead might go down to their last long home. Here old barons lay, old Danes, Saxons, Normans-likely the lords, in their turn, of the country round about. There was the monument of old Sir Marmaduke Constable, a knight who fought in France, under the ban

ners of Edward IV. and Henry VIII.; and there the vaults of others less famous, of a more remote day-so remote that the dusts and rusts of time had obscured the record: but what struck me as very appropriate was, that the tomb of this very old Sir Marmaduke, and the tombs of other more recent, and perhaps not so warlike barons and knights, were used as desks for children to write upon. While my friends were looking round the building and listening to the tales of the old schoolmaster, I was thinking what the surprise of the grim old lords would be, if they could stir themselves from their leaden coffins beneath, and look at the children of those serfs who had trembled at their word or nod, carelessly standing, and doing what those old barons, in all their strength, could not perform-writing, and that upon their very tombs. I began to inquire why the power of the baron had decreased amongst us, and the answer came readily-it was because the children of the serf had begun to learn. A most significant figure this; and, for my part, bating that the places where those queer old fellows, the barons, lie, are cold, and that their bones are not always the most wholesome, it were worth a consideration whether their tombs could possibly be applied to a nobler purpose than making desks for the coming generation. We have, indeed, got the old feudal lord beneath our feet the age of knowledge has superseded the age of force: children using the pen possess more power, and are, in reality, far greater than the old soldiers who could do

naught but use the sword. I am fond of visiting the stone monuments of old warriors: the study of the works of the antique-admiration of the heedless, but quiet conquests of that most grim of all the feudal monarchs, "Old King Time," leads me there; but truly can I say, that I never think of, or behold the knightly helmet, the golden spurs, the chained and linked mail, and the shield, without thinking also how amusing and delightful it would be, to hear the surly old thief, who wore all those pretty toys, or ugly combustibles, (call them by which name you please, reader,) conversing with a boy taken from one of our Sabbath, or British and Foreign schools.-How the old savage would grin, pluck his beard, and elevate his shaggy brows; and when the boy wrote his name, and requested our ugly old friend to write his-Ha! ha! ha ha! strange enough would be the grimace with which he would receive the pen, and make his mark. Yes, yes, again we would say, bating the unhealthiness of the spot, we may transform our feudal tombs into schools as quickly as we will; the schoolmaster's pen has completely put the knight's lance out of

rest.

Why the old gloomy rooms of Bambourgh castle, through whose loop-holes the sun could scarcely penetrate, have been converted into school-rooms: boys are daily taught, and twenty poor girls are lodged, clothed, educated, and fitted for service. Glorious! And the old war-turrets are now signal-stations

light-houses to warn the sailor of the Fern Island rocks. Glorious! glorious! again we

say.

Education is peace. The age of warfare is always the age of the savage or the semi-civilized. Armies are composed, for the most part, of those who have little refinement or knowledge to boast of. We may derive great lessons from the old tombs and hatchments of the noisy and the chivalrous of other times. While we stand by them, we shall not, with Burke, mourn that the age of chivalry has gone; we shall be glad that war, that the tournament, that the field are gone; and that all that we generally include under the term chivalry—the high-minded and truly heroic spirit-endurance and refinement have succeeded. Instead of guiding our children to be the pages and esquires of knights, we will lead them to their grand old tombs, and make them feel that the age of knowledge only is the age of strength; we will bid them stand upon their graves, and rejoice that the lordship of the sword has passed away. It was in such a mood that, when I came from Flamborough, I penned the following little lyric:

The warrior's reign is over-never more

Shall England quail before the plunderer's power:
Gone are the false prais'd splendours of that hour

When Glory slaked her plumes in human gore.

The reign of violence and fraud is o'er,

And children walk the cockatrice's den;

The sword is shiver'd by the peaceful pen;