force of

have been eternal, if the irresistible ages had not demonstrated the contrary. Amidst these mementos of past grandeur and present decay, the eye would find some repose by lighting on the bushes, those children of chance and nature, which grew in the midst of the crevices; on the trees, whose roots had laid hold of the mortar, which time had converted into a vegetative soil, and whose verdant tops shaded the cornices, and decorated the loftiest parts; and also on the tough and long-lived ivy, whose thick foliage and nervous branches overspread a great part of the surface, and served as a prop to those ancient structures. Where any part was entirely overthrown, it was difficult to make way through the scattered fragments which strewed the ground they once proudly overlooked: where any part was still standing, it appeared to brave

B 2

brave both time and seasons, and to yield only after a most desperate conflict. At one spot, were roofs sinking under their own weight, whose wormeaten rafters, and iron-work consumed by rust, announced at once their antiquity and decay; at another, stood insulated masses, unshaken, on their bases, which seemed as durable as the Egyptian pyramids; further on, had been an edifice, of which some pilasters and other fragments only remained, sufficient to shew that it had been a chapel. The outer area was separated from the inner one by a broad ditch; over this there had been a drawbridge, which had long since disappeared, except the posterns; the ditch itself was nearly filled up, by the falling masses of the adjacent ramparts, and the bushy willows which ranged through it. The front of the tower, against which the draw

bridge

bridge had stood, was covered with saxifrage, whose seeds, borne by the winds, attach to the smallest intervals; their vagrant stalks grew even in the midst of the bas reliefs, arms, and trophies, which formed the crown-work, and of which some vestiges still remained.

On all sides, the spectator was menaced by accumulated wreck and tottering ruins; his path was, at times, overhung by the watch-turrets, which jutted out from the tops of the loftiest towers, where they appeared as if they were suspended in the air. In spite of the combined assaults of wind, rain, frost, and the decomposing power of time, they were still entire; but, since the destruction of the staircase leading to them had rendered them inaccessible to man, they served for retreats to several species of the winged creation. B 3 Flocks

Flocks of jackdaws occupied the pinnacles and the holes whence stones had been detached; and no sooner was a new cavity formed, than a new family took possession of it. They were continually cutting the air in the environs, where, out of danger of the murdering gun, they enjoyed happiness and liberty. Swarms of owls and bats occupied the interior and inferior parts.

Here the ivy, which delights in solitary and umbrageous places, might be said to hold its domain. Like the mournful yew and funereal cypress, those companions of silence and death, it frequents cemetries, and clothes their ancient and venerable inclosures. Sometimes its tortuous and flexible branches conceal the unmerited and forgotten epitaphs of the rich; at others, they embrace, from top to bottom, those ancient crosses, or rude stones, which

the

the hands of the indigent have consecrated to the memory of a relative or friend, without a flattering inscription :: whatever begins to be lost in the distance of time, or is remote from the sight and destructive hands of man, it claims for its own-the mutilated gateway, on which some legends denote its Gothic origin-the elliptic sweeps, the chefs d'œuvre of the twelfth century -the tottering pillars, which still sustain some arched fragments-all these it usurps, as well as the deserted cottage. Does the weight of years destroy the roof of an edifice, rot its timbers, or crack an arch, instantly the ivy appears in the midst of the ruins, traverses them in every part, and embracing them with its bands, its branches creep up and fasten to the summit of the walls. Do any crevices, or the void of a casement, present themselves in its passage,