MR, DOWNING'S LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



KS I. vainly ciuleavored to make his escape, when he was a prisoner within 

 walls, two hundred j-ears ago, (1647.) I felt tempted to question the stone Avails around 

 mc, of the sad soliloquies which the}^ had heard uttered by that royal prisoner and his 

 children, confined here after him. But the stone looked silent and cold; the Ivy, howev- 

 er, so full of mingled life and health and antiquity, seemed full of the mysterious secrets 

 of the place, and would, doubtless, have unburdened itself to a willing ear, if any such 

 would linger here long enough to get into its confidence. I looked down into the vast well, 

 in the center of the castle, 300 feet deep, and still in excellent order — from which water is 

 drawn by an ass, walking his slow rounds inside a large windlass wheel. I clambered up 

 the 72 stone steps that led into the high old ruined keep, and found one of my compan- 

 ions, (who is a military man,) discoursing to a little group of tourists, who had made a 

 pic-nic on the ramparts, about the nature of the fortifications — breast works — and ba.s- 

 tions, which cover some fifteen or twenty acres under the castle walls. "While he was de- 

 monstrating how easily this ancient stronghold could be taken by a modern beseiger, I 

 speculated on the quiet way in which a few types and a printing press, are, at the present 

 moment, fixr more powerful restrainers of wayward sovereigns, and more able protectors of 

 the rights of the people, than the fierce battlements, and standing war dogs, of the old 

 castles of two centuries ago. The imagination is so excited by these strong old castles, 

 now fast crumbling into dust, that we wonder what the people of two hundred years 

 hence, will have, to be romantic and picturesque about, as emblems of power in a by-gone 

 age. An old printing press, or galvanic battery, perhaps! No — even they will be melted 

 up for their value, as old metal. 



We drove from Carisbrook, to the extreme end of the Island — saw the Needles, the 

 colored sands, and the white cliffs of Albion, and returned by the south side. What 

 pleased me more than even the sea views, and the bold bays, and snowy cliffs, (perhaps 

 from novelty,) were the Duivns — those long reaches of gently sloping surface, covered 

 with very short gras.s — as close and fine as the finest lawn. Thej^ are so smooth and 

 hard, and the air is so pure and exliilirating, the temperature so bracing and delightful, 

 that one is tempted into walking — or even running — miles and miles, upon them. Here 

 and there, mingled with the grass, on the breeziest parts of the Downs, I saw tufts of heath- 

 er, in full bloom, only two or three inches high — their purple bells embroidering, as with 

 the most delicate pattern, the fragrant turf. Herds of sheep graze upon these Downs, 

 and the flavor of the mutton, as you may suppose, is not despised by those who cannot 

 live upon air, however elastic and exliilirating. 



All over the Island, the roads, sometimes broad — but often mere narrow lanes — are bor- 

 dered by high hawthorn hedges— so that frequently you drive for a mile or more, with- 

 out getting a peep beyond these leafy walls of verdure. I could imagine that in May, 

 when these hedges are all white with blossoms, the whole Island must be a very gay land- 

 scape— but just now, they only served to confirm me in my opinion of the Englishman's 

 fondness for seclusion and privacy, in his own demesne. Just in proportion to the small- 

 ness of his place, his desire to shut out all the rest of the Avorld, increases — so that if he 

 only owns half an acre, his hedge shall be eight feet high, and the sanctity of the paradise 

 within, remains inviolate. The solid, high, well built stone wall around some of the little 

 cottage and villa places of half an acre, on the south side of the Island, astonished me, 

 and gave me a new understanding of the saying, that " every man's house is his castle." 

 Here, at least, I thought, it is clear that people understand what is meant by private 

 and intend to have them respected, 

 as not until I reached the pretty villages of Bowchurch, Shanklin, and Vent 



