476 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



if old, they are often modernized in so tasteless a manner as to des- 

 troy all sentiment of antiquity. Plate glass windows ill aecord with 

 antique casements, and Paris furniture and upholstery are not in 

 keeping with apartments of the time of Elizabeth. 



In Warwick Castle and all that belongs to it, I found none of 

 this. AL was entire harmony, and I lingered within and about it, 

 enjoying its absolue perfection, as if the whole were only conjured 

 up by an enchanter's spell, and would soon dissolve into thin air. 

 And yet, on the contrary, I knew that here was a building which is 

 more than nine hundred years old ; which has been the residence 

 of successive generations of the same family for centuries ; which 

 was the fortress of that mightiest of English subjects, WARWICK, 

 " the great king-maker," (who boasted that he had deposed three 

 English sovereigns and placed three in their vacant throne,) which, 

 long before the discovery of America, was the scene of wild jarring 

 and haughty chivalry, bloody prowess yes, and of gentle love and 

 sweet affections, but which, as if defying time, is still a castle, as 

 real in its character as a feudal stronghold, and yet as complete a 

 baronial residence, as the imagination can conceive. To an Ameri- 

 can, whose country is but two hundred years old, the bridging over 

 such a vast chasm of time by the domestic memorials of a single 

 family, when, as in this case, that family has so made its mark upon 

 the early annals of his own race, there is something that approaches 

 the sublime. 



The small town of Warwick, a quaint old place, which still 

 bears abundant traces of its Saxon origin, is situated nearly in the 

 centre of England, and lies on one side of the castle, to which it is 

 a mere dependency. It is placed on a rising hill or knoll, the castle 

 occupying the highest part, though mostly concealed from the town 

 by thick plantations. Around the other sides of the castle flows 

 the Avon, a lovely stream, whose poetical fame has not belied its 

 native charms ; and beyond it stretch away the broad lands which 

 belong to the castle. 



The finest approach for the stranger is from the pretty town of 

 Leamington, about two miles east of Warwick. At a turn, a few 

 hundred rods distant from the castle, the road crosses the Avon by 



