46 Rev. J. W. Dunn 07i Warkworth. 



with the other estates, devolved to Algernon, Duke of Somer- 

 set, v^^ho was created Baron of Warkworth and Earl of North- 

 umberland, in 1722, with remainder to his son-in-law. Sir 

 Hugh Smithson, who in due course succeeded to the titles 

 and estates, and among the rest to the Castle and Barony of 

 Warkworth, and from whom the present best and noblest of 

 the representatives of the earls of Northumberland is de- 

 scended. 



The further history of the Castle of Warkworth is shortly 

 told. This stronghold of northern power, after its many 

 vicissitudes, appears to have fallen into decay about 1567. 

 In the year 1608 the lead was removed from the roof of the 

 towers, and in 1672 one Joseph Clarke, whom I have an evil 

 antiquarian pleasure in calling an unjust steward, obtained a 

 gift of the materials of the Keep from the then Countess of 

 Northumberland, and carried off the lead and timber by 

 " draughts " supplied to him by his order, by her '' ladi- 

 shipp's tenants in Warkworth and elsewhere " to build his 

 house at Chenton.* 



But we must now proceed to make a closer inspection. 



He amongst us who can remember his first introduction to 

 the wonders of Warkworth will remember also, I doubt not, 

 that he lost no time in climbing to the postern gate, before 

 whose gloomy entrance and around whose hoary precincts 

 it is, that the greatest of our poets has laid the scene of a 

 drama of world-wide renown. 



On entering within the quadrangle, the eye is at once 

 arrested by the vastness of the remains — in front, the traces 

 of an unfinished church with its cryptal arches — on the left 

 the donjon Keep frowning sternly over the scene — on the 

 right the Lion Tower with its strange heraldic monsters, and 

 further on, the principal entrance to the fortress with its 

 still easily traceable moat, and portcullis and machicolations, 

 and above all, with its grotesque old-world-like corbels, grin- 

 ning hardly and savagely beneath the battered moulding. 

 Oh ! if we could but mesmerize stones ! If we could by some 

 " cantrip slight " make those old heads give utterance — if 

 only those dry lips had language, what questions they could 

 answer, what stories they could reveal — what whisperings 



* " In regard they are like to be out three days ere they gett home, I shall 

 be content to allow every wayne half a crowne, and let me know who refuse to do 

 me they " 



Newcastle, 27 April, 1672. 



" To my loving friend William Milbourne, at his house at Birlinge." 



