20 PAPEKS, KTC. 



its beautiful towers, between which and the spectator the 

 Thone winds its slow course towards the Parret, through a 

 narrow level of fertile and verdant meadows. But at tlie 

 beginning of the eighth Century this beautiful vale must 

 have been occupied in great measure by the primteval 

 Forest of elm, on which the Saxon husbandman was only 

 beginning to make Impression. Here and there might 

 be seen the ruins of earlier civilization, the broken walla 

 of Roman villas, and Spaces cleared for cultivation, by those 

 whom the barbarous invaders had exterminated or reduced 

 to slavery. The Thone unti*ammeled by lock or weir, was 

 then a rapid and shallow stream, which, beginning to lose 

 the speed with which it had hurried from the western hüls, 

 pursued a more winding and deeper course as it passed 

 between the thickets of alder and willow, which then 

 covered the western part of the marsh. At the confluence 

 of a small stream, flowing from the south with the river, a 

 little to the right of the spectator, was a small space of 

 ground, slightly elevated above the marshy level, affording 

 a dry and firm Situation for the intended Castle ; protected 

 on the north and west by the river and stream, and at a 

 distance from the higher ground sufficient, in those days, to 

 prevent its fortifications from being dangerously over- 

 looked. Here it was that Ina built bis castle, consti'ucted, 

 no doubt, like other Saxon strongholds, chiefly, if not 

 entirely of wood, and consisting of little more than a streng 

 palisade of wooden beams, surrounded by a moat, and con- 

 taining the hall and other buildings which the simple habits 

 of those days required to form a residence fit for a warlike 

 monarch. Here he is said frequently to have resided ; 

 and here it is not improbable that he compiled that code 

 of laws which has done more to render his name illustrious 

 than either his wars or his pious libeiality, though the 



