402 RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 



which they range, they communicate a sort of higJwelief ef- 

 fect to the entire erection, " the exterior proportions and orna- 

 ments of which," says Sir Walter Scott, in his Journal, " are 

 very handsome." Though a roofless and broken ruin, with 

 the rank grass waving on its walls, it is still a piece of very 

 solid masonry, and must have been rather stiff working as a 

 quarry. Some painstaking burgher had, I found, made a des- 

 perate attempt on one of the huge chimney lintels of the great 

 hall of the erection, an apartment which Sir Walter greatly 

 admired, and in which he lays the scene in the " Pirate" be- 

 tween Cleveland and Jack Bunce ; but the lintel, a curious 

 example of what, in the exercise of a little Irish liberty, is 

 sometimes termed a rectilinear arch, defied his utmost efforts ; 

 and, after half-picking out the keystone, he had to give it up 

 in despair. The bishop's palace, of which a handsome old 

 tower still remains tolerably entire, also served for a quarry 

 in its day ; and I was scarce sufficiently distressed to learn, 

 that on almost the last occasion on which it had been wrought 

 for this purpose, one of the two men engaged in the employ- 

 ment suffered a stone, which he had loosed out of the wall, 

 to drop on the head of his companion, who stood watching 

 for it below, and killed him on the spot. 



