Chapter XXIX (2)

The lover of antiquity may well lament when he sees our ancient fortresses nearly levelled to the ground; but the friend of rational freedom will rejoice, when he reflects on the design for which such works were erected, and on the many calamities to which they have given occasion. Amongst the existing but dismantled and ruined fortresses connecting the present with the sanguinary scene of strife and bloodshed of the past, is the famous castle of Pontefract, in Yorkshire, which sustained two memorable sieges by Cromwell’s soldiery. This celebrated edifice is supposed to be of Saxon origin; and the site of it is perfectly agreeable to their mode of fortification. While the Romans formed their camps on a plain or on the level ground, and defended them by a fosse and a vallum, the Saxons raised the area of their camps and castles, if the ground was level, or selected hills as places best adapted for defence and security. The elevated rock on which the castle is built stands wholly insulated, forming a site which, without much trouble or expense, might soon be converted into a stronghold. In support of the theory as to its Saxon origin, it may be mentioned that, since the demolition of the castle, it has been found that the great round tower stood upon a raised hill of stiff hard clay, of which material the Saxons usually made their foundations.

After the Conquest, Ilbert de Lacy received a grant of the place, and about 1076, all his vast possessions being confirmed to him, he soon after began to erect the castle. This noble structure cost immense expense and labour, and no one, unless in possession of a princely revenue, could have completed it. This formidable structure and magnificent palace was carried forward for the space of twelve years with unremitting attention. Ilbert de Lacy, when he laid the foundation stone of the castle, gave it the name of Pontfrete, because the situation, as he conceived, resembled the place so called in Normandy where he was born. Historians, however, have differed much respecting the origin of the name. Thomas de Castleford, who was bred a Benedictine monk, and who wrote the history of this place, accounts for it by the following miracle. William, Archbishop of York, and son of the sister of King Stephen, returning from Rome, was met by such crowds of people desirous to see him and receive his blessing, that a wooden bridge over the river Aire, near to this place, gave way and broke down, by which accident vast numbers fell into the river. The bishop, affected at the danger of so many persons, is said to have prayed with such fervour and success that no one perished. To perpetuate so striking and so signal a miracle, the pious Normans, says Thomas, gave the name of Pontefract or Broken-bridge to this place.

The tower of York minster, distant upwards of twenty miles, is distinctly visible from this elevated rock. The situation of the castle contributed greatly to its strength, and rendered it almost impregnable. It was not surrounded by any contiguous hills, and the only way it could be taken was by blockade. The staterooms of the castle were large, and accommodated with offices suitable for the residence of a prince. The style of the building shows it to be Norman; though it has received various additions and improvements of a later date.

The barbican was situated on the west side of the outer yard beyond the mainguard. Barbicans were watch-towers, meant for the accommodation of the outer guard and for the protection of the main entrance to the castle. They were sometimes advanced beyond the ditch, to which they were joined by drawbridges. The north side of the barbican area was formed by the south wall of the ballium or castle-yard, in the centre of which was the porter’s lodge, the grand entrance into the yard of the castle. The whole of this area was sometimes called the barbican, and within it stood the king’s stables and a large barn. A deep moat was cut on the west side of the castle. Within the wall of the ballium or great castle-yard were the lodgings and barracks for the garrison and artificers, the chapel of St Clement, and the magazine. The magazine is cut out of a rock, the descent to which is by a passage four feet wide, with forty-three steps to the bottom. Near this place was a large dungeon, the entrance to which was at the seventeenth step of the passage, and was a yard in breadth; but it is now stopped up by the falling-in of the ruins. The wall, as you descend these steps, is inscribed with many names. The entrance into the ballium was usually through a strong machicolated and embattled gate between the two towers, secured by a herse or portcullis. Over this were the rooms intended for the porter of the castle. The towers served for the _corps de garde_. On an eminence at the western extremity of the ballium stood the keep or donjon, called the Round Tower. It was the citadel or last retreat of the garrison. The walls of this edifice were always of an extraordinary thickness, and having in consequence withstood the united injuries of time and weather, now remain more perfect than any other part of the castle. Here on the second story were the staterooms for the governor. The lights were admitted by small chinks, which answered the double purpose of windows, and served for embrasures whence the defenders might shoot with long and cross bows. The different stories were frequently vaulted and divided by strong arches; on the top was generally a platform with an embattled parapet, whence the garrison could see and command the exterior works.

Tradition says Richard II. was confined and murdered here by a blow with a battleaxe from Sir Piers Exton. Fabian and Rapin inform us ‘that on Richard’s arrival at Pontefract Castle, Sir Piers Exton is related to have murdered the king in the following manner. On the king’s arrival at the castle, he was closely confined in the great tower. Soon after, Sir Piers Exton, a domestic of Henry’s, was sent down with eight ruffians to imbrue their hands with the blood of this unfortunate king. On the day of their arrival, Richard perceived at dinner that the victuals were not tasted as usual. He asked the reason of the taster; and upon his telling him that Exton had brought an order against it, the king took up a knife and struck him on the face. Exton with his eight attendants entered his chamber at that instant, and shutting the door, attempted to lay hold of Richard. He immediately perceived their fatal errand, and knew he was a lost man. With a noble resolution, he snatched a halbert or poleaxe from the foremost of them and defended himself so bravely that he slew four of his assailants. Whilst combating with the rest of the murderers, Exton got upon a chair behind him, and, with a poleaxe, discharged such a blow on his head as laid him down at his feet, where the miserable king ended his calamities.’ Stow says ‘that the most probable opinion is that he was starved to death by order of King Henry IV., suffering the most unheard-of cruelties, keeping him for fifteen days together in hunger, thirst, and cold, before he reached the end of his miseries.’

Henry IV., after his accession to the throne, and during the whole of his reign, honoured the castle at Pontefract, the paternal residence of his family, by his frequent residence. Many state documents were dated from this castle. After the battle of Shrewsbury, in which fell the valiant Hotspur and near six thousand of the rebels, the king marched to Pontefract, to watch the motions of the Scots and the Earl of Northumberland. He granted full power to certain persons to treat with the king of Scotland, in a document which is dated at Pontefract Castle, August 6, 1403. These and other similar acts of the king and many of his successors originated in this celebrated castle. Lord Rivers, Sir Richard Grey, and Sir Thomas Vaughan, were executed in this fortress in the reign of Edward V.

The castle of Pontefract was the only one that held out against the parliament in the reign of Charles I. The garrison long and obstinately maintained themselves against the overwhelming numbers of the besieging army under Fairfax, until famine and reduced numbers compelled them to capitulate. Great and numerous were the deeds of heroism and daring displayed in their sallies against their foes, who in more than one encounter were put to rout. The besiegers, seeing no prospects of taking the castle by the breach they had made, began to mine, in order to blow up some of the towers. On the discovery of this, the garrison sank several pits within the castle, and commenced their mines from them. The number of pits within and without the castle is said to have been above a hundred. No great advance was made against the brave defenders, even by the arrival of Cromwell himself, who adopted every measure to compel them to surrender the fortress. On the 30th of January 1649, Charles was beheaded. The news of this event had no sooner reached the garrison, than they loyally proclaimed his son, Charles II. But the want of provisions and the hopelessness of relief were stronger than the enemy, and towards the end of March the garrison walked out of the castle. In compliance with an order, the fortress was dismantled, and rendered wholly untenable for the future. General Lambert, to whom the execution of this order was intrusted, soon rendered this stately and princely stronghold a heap of ruins. The buildings were unroofed, and all the valuable materials sold.

Thus fell this castle, which had successively been the stronghold of the brave and warlike Saxons, the residence of a proud and imperious Norman conqueror, the turreted seat of the high aspiring Dukes of Lancaster, the palace of princes and of kings, at some periods a nest of treachery and rebellion, and at others the last hope of vanquished royalty.

SOME SIMILES.

‘The child of the past and the parent of the future,’ is not an unhappy simile for the—present. Happiness has been likened to a ghost; all talk about it, but few, if any, have ever seen it. Ambition’s ladder rests against a star, remarks a clever writer, who also tells us that a proverb is a short truth sandwiched between wit and wisdom.

Eloquence is a coat of many colours judiciously blended. No one thing will make a man eloquent. Flattery has been termed a kind of bad money to which our vanity gives currency. Society, like shaded silk, must be viewed in all situations, or its colours will deceive us. Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together; and charity is an angel breathing on riches; while graves have been poetically called the footsteps of angels.

Language is a slippery thing to deal with, as some may find when selecting their similes. Says a writer: ‘Speak of a man’s marble brow, and he will glow with conscious pride; but allude to his wooden head, and he’s mad in a minute.’ The young lecturer’s ‘similes were gathered in a heap’ when he expressed the whole body of his argument on Deceit in the following: ‘O my brethren, the snowiest shirt-front may conceal an aching bosom, and the stiffest of all collars encircle a throat that has many a bitter pill to swallow.’

Plagiarists are a species of purloiners who filch the fruit that others have gathered, and then throw away or attempt to destroy the basket.

It has been truly said that the abilities of man must fall short on one side or other, like too scanty a blanket when you are in bed: if you pull it upon your shoulders, you leave your feet bare; if you thrust it down upon your feet, your shoulders are uncovered. The man, we are told, who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors, is like a potato—the only good belonging to him being underground.

A man at a dinner in evening dress has been likened to a conundrum: you can’t tell whether he is a waiter or a guest. A Yankee, describing a lean opponent, said: ‘That man doesn’t amount to a sum in arithmetic; add him up, and there’s nothing to carry.’ An American critic in reviewing a poem, said: ‘The rhythm sounds like turnips rolling over a barn-floor, while some lines appear to have been measured with a yard-stick, and others with a ten-foot pole.’

An amusing illustration was given by a parent when asked by his boy, ‘What is understood by experimental and natural philosophy?’ The answer was: ‘If any one wants to borrow money, that is experimental philosophy. If the other man knocks him down, that is natural philosophy.’ Curious and comical illustrations seem natural to many children. A little girl, suffering from the mumps, declared she felt as though a headache had slipped down into her neck. ‘Mamma,’ said another youngster, alluding to a man whose neck was a series of great rolls of flesh, ‘that man’s got a double-chin on the back of his neck.’ A little three-year-old, in admiring her baby brother, is said to have exclaimed: ‘He’s got a boiled head, like papa.’

Talking of curious similes—among the southern languages of India is the Teloogoo or Telinga, so rough in pronunciation that a traveller of the nation speaking it before a ruler of Bokhara, admitted that its sound resembled ‘the tossing of a lot of pebbles in a sack.’ A simile for scarlet stockings is firehose—laughter is the sound you hear when your hat blows off—and trying to do business without advertising is said to be ‘like winking at a girl in the dark.’ An unpoetical Yankee has described ladies’ lips as the glowing gateway of beans, pork, sauer-kraut, and potatoes. This would provoke Marryat’s exclamation of, ‘Such a metaphor I never _met afore_.’ Much more complimentary was the old darkey’s neat reply to a beautiful young lady whom he offered to lift over the gutter, and who insisted she was too heavy. ‘Lor, missy,’ said he, ‘I’se used to lifting barrels of sugar.’ Wit from a man’s mouth is like a mouse in a hole; you may watch the hole all day, and no mouse come out; but by-and-by, when no one is looking for it, out pops the mouse and streams across the parlour.

Marrying a woman for her money, says a philosopher, is very much like setting a rat-trap and baiting it with your own finger.

An American writer says: ‘A man with one idea always puts me in mind of an old goose trying to hatch out a paving-stone.’ An editor’s simile of man’s career is summed up in the lines: ‘Man’s a vapour full of woes, starts a paper, busts, and goes.’

We all recollect how the Bath waters were associated in Weller’s mind with the ‘flavour of warm flat-irons.’ The humorist who created that character was often reminded of a printer’s parenthesis by the appearance of a bow-legged child; and the elongated pupils of a cat’s eyes before a bright light were likened by him to ‘two notes of admiration.’

Just as children call a locomotive ‘a puff-puff,’ savages will use sounding similes to supply the lack of language. The war-rockets sent amongst the Ashantees soon became known as ‘shoo-shoos,’ to describe their hissing; and we have heard that a fieldpiece firing shell was referred to by some of the Zulus as a ‘boom—byby;’ the first representing the report of the gun, the second the explosion of the projectile.

To touch on the poetic and romantic style of similes. Moore, if we rightly recollect, sings of ‘rose-leaves steeped in milk’ as a simile for a beautiful complexion. One of the gallant poets of France wrote of Mary Queen of Scots that her complexion was ‘clear as a white egg with a blush on it;’ and it certainly is probable that Elizabeth was as jealous of Mary’s wonderful complexion as of her claims to the English throne. Beauty has been called a solitary kingdom. Another writer says: ‘The red, white, and blue—the red cheeks, white teeth, and blue eyes of a lovely girl are as good a flag as a young soldier in the battle of life can fight for.’ A German poet refers to a fishing-rod as being typical of a young girl. He says: ‘The eyes are the hooks, the smile the bait, the lover the gudgeon, and marriage the butter in which he is fried.’ Matrimony has been well likened to a barque in which two souls venture forth upon life’s stormy sea with only their own frail help to aid them; the well-doing of their craft rests with themselves.

A French wit of a post-office turn of mind evolves the following: ‘A married woman is a letter which has reached its address. A young girl is a letter not yet addressed.’

Home has been described as the rainbow of life. A laughing philosopher once, in a moral lecture, compared human life to a table pierced with a number of holes, each of which has a peg made exactly to fit it, but which pegs, being stuck in hastily and without selection, chance leads inevitably to the most awkward mistakes; ‘for how often do we see,’ the orator pathetically concluded—‘how often do we see the round man stuck in the three-cornered hole!’ Sir Walter Scott, who alludes to this simile, says: ‘This new illustration of the vagaries of fortune set the audience into convulsions of laughter, excepting one fat alderman, who seemed to make the case his own, and insisted that it was no jesting matter.’

PROCESSIONARY CATERPILLARS.

In the month of February, these ‘processionary caterpillars’—as they have come to be called—are seen in large numbers both at Arcachon and Biarritz. Sometimes chains of two and three hundred may be observed marching in solemn procession either on the _plage_ or on the roads. It is clearly seen that they choose the smooth paths of life, as they are rarely, if ever, seen to perambulate the sandy, uneven forest, from which they emerge throughout the whole day. Not unfrequently, they mount the steps of a villa, to take a peep at the interior, to the dismay of invalids unaccustomed to such extraordinary, though perfectly harmless callers. On such occasions, they divide into small detachments, as if conscious that the presence of a whole battalion might prove inconvenient; for at other times, whatever be the length of the chain, or how oft soever divided, they invariably unite, and the one who starts as leader retains the post, as if by common consent, until their return to the nests they have left in the early morning. Alas! for the fruit-trees that fall in their way on what may be termed their foraging expeditions. They halt many times to regale themselves on succulent leaves, and when fully satisfied, return to their nests in the evening. These nests are longitudinal in form, similar to those of wasps, but smaller. They are composed of the dry needle-points of the pine, divided into minute particles; and are ingeniously woven together by gossamer threads as fine as those of the spider, but in appearance so silky as to resemble the work of the silkworm. As it covers the whole nest, the intention is evidently to keep the fabric together. Should any one, impelled by curiosity, attempt to pull the nest to pieces, to discover more of this texture, and afterwards touch his own eyes, inflammation may set in, and even death ensue. This enables us to understand how injurious so virulent a poison must be to the young trees. Many of large growth in the forest of Arcachon have been completely destroyed by these insects. They are never seen during the great heat of summer. In mid-winter, they leave the nests by shoals, unite, and burrow in the earth. There, underground, the long chain forms itself into a ball, and many of the caterpillars die. After a time, the rest emerge from their cocoon existence, and return to the trees, where they make fresh nests on the deserted ones of the preceding year.

BY THE RIVER.

We met at morning by the willowed river,
Long years ago, when both our hearts were young!
We met to watch the lights and shadows quiver,
And listen to the song the waters sung.
But deeper than the music of its flowing,
The tide of love flowed on from mind to mind;
While overhead the elder blooms were blowing,
And dewy fragrance filled the wooing wind.

We stand beside the waters of the river,
But now the moaning of the sea is near!
Far off the beacons ’mid the dimness quiver,
And rolling breakers fill our hearts with fear.
No longer choristers of morning greet us,
Or blossoms of the May-time droop above;
But shadows of the twilight rise to meet us,
And cloud the golden harvesting of love.

Ah! listen to the rushing of the river
Towards its haven in the restless sea,
While like a leaf upon its tide for ever
Our life flows onward to Eternity.
Oh, ’mid its eager tumult and commotion,
The whirl of waters, and the dash of foam,
May Love, the beacon, shining o’er the ocean,
Lead us together to our Father’s home!

ARTHUR L. SALMON.

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