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have Roman mouldings. The present castle is built in the Saxon style, with all the modes and ornaments of that age: the battlements are crowded with figures, according to the taste of the Normans, representing men in different attitudes, offensive and defensive, with such arms as were then used. The building is of free-stone, in chisseled work: its form is singular, being composed of a cluster of semi-circular and angular bastions.

Alnwick Castle contains about five acres of ground within its outer walls; which are flanked with sixteen towers and turrets, affording a complete set of offices to the castle, and most of them retaining their original names and uses. The Castle properly consists of three courts, or divisions; the entrance into which was defended with the same number of gates; each in a high embattled tower, furnished with a portcullis, and the outward gate with a drawbridge also. Each gate had a porter's lodge, and a strong prison: beneath this was a deep, dark dungeon, into which the more refractory prisoners were let down with cords, through a trap-door in the floor. That of the inner ward is still remaining, in all its original horrors.

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The effect on first entering within the walls, from the town, is very striking. After passing through a long, gloomy gateway, the eye is presented, at once, with the great body of the inner castle, surrounded with semi-circular towers, finely adorned with pinnacles, figures, and battlements. The impression is heightened by the successive entrances into the second and third courts, through massy towers, till you arrive in the inner court. The entrance into the body of the castle is by a large staircase, of a very singular form, expanding like a fan, forty-six

ACCOUNT OF ALNWICK CASTLE.

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feet long, thirty-five wide, and forty-three high. Turning to the left, the first room you enter is the saloon, an apartment in the most elegant style of Gothic architecture, forty-two feet long, thirty-seven wide, and twenty high. The next is the drawingroom, consisting of one large oval, with a semi-circular projection, or bow window: it is forty-six feet long, thirty-five wide, and twenty-one high. From this you enter the dining-room, which may be considered as a noble model of a great Baron's hall: it is fiftythree feet long, twenty-one wide, and twenty-six high; exclusive of a circular recess, nineteen feet in diameter. From the dining-room, you pass a circular staircase, and are conducted into a Gothic apartment, used for a breakfast or supper-room, thirty-eight feet long, twenty wide, and sixteen high. You next proceed to the library, a very fine room, sixty-four feet long, twenty-three wide, and sixteen high. It is well filled with books, and ornamented with stuccowork in the Gothic style. This apartment leads to the chapel, which exhibits a display of Gothic ornaments in the greatest perfection. The several parts of the chapel have been designed after the best models. The great east window is in the style of the finest window in York Minster: the ceiling is borrowed. from that of King's College, Cambridge: the mouldings and stucco-work are gilt, and painted after the great church at Milan: and the windows of painted glass are remarkable for their lightness and elegance. Exclusive of a recess, the chapel is fifty feet long, twenty-one wide, and twenty-two high. There are two state bed-chambers, with other rooms of miner importance, but all as conformable as possible to the general style of the Castle.

Before the Norman Conquest, this Castle, together with the Barony of Alnwick, belonged to GILBERT TYSON, who was slain fighting along with HAROLD. His son, WILLIAM, had an only daughter, whom the Conqueror gave in marriage to one of his Norman chieftains, named IvO DE VESCY, together with all the inheritance of her house. The castle and barony of Alnwick continued in the possession of the LORDS DE VESCY till the 25th year of EDWARD I., A. D. 1297, when the last Baron of this family died without issue, and left his property to ANTHONY BEC, Bishop of Durham. The Bishop kept possession of it twelve years, and then sold it to LORD HENRY PERCY. The grant was confirmed by King EdWARD II., at Sheene, in the year 1310. From that period Alnwick Castle became the baronial seat of the LORDS DE PERCY, and of their successors, the EARLS and DUKES OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

HISTORY OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH.
(Continued from page 160.)

ZEDEKIAH, the last king of Judah, was a weak and wicked prince. Faithful to no engagements either human or divine, after eight years' constrained submission to the yoke of Babylon, he entered into a confederacy with Egypt, and renouncing his allegiance to the former Power, provoked that war, which ended in his ruin, and in the desolation of the kingdom over which he reigned.

Warned by the Prophet of the foolishness and danger of confiding in the strength of Egypt, ZEDEKIAH had too soon occasion to regret that weak credulity which led him to rely upon a broken reed. His new confederate was, like himself, devoid of

HISTORY OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH.

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probity, and even, though possessed of greater virtue, was yet unable to defend him from the potent fury of the Eagle of the North. No sooner was the news of his revolt received in Babylon, than NEBUCHADNEZZAR, with a powerful army, flew to satiate his vengeance in the blood of that perfidious people, who had again provoked him by their treachery. Before their feeble policy could calculate upon the means of opposition, his forces occupied the cities of Judea, and were advancing rapidly towards Jerusalem.

Terrified at movements so impetuous, and apprehensive of the horrors of a siege, a sudden feeling of compunction seized the inhabitants of that dévoted city, and led them to reflect with shame upon the violations of their covenant with GOD. In the first moments of their terror, they resorted therefore to those acts of humiliation, which they thought most likely to restore them to the favour and protection of JEHOVAH; Conscious, like other sinners in the prospect of immediate danger, that it is vain to look elsewhere for aid. For the attainment of this object, they released their brethren, who, in violation of the law of Moses, had been detained in servitude beyond the period of six years; but, suddenly, on a supposed removal of the apprehended evil, they proved the insincerity of their repentance, and the baseness of. their dispositions, by reclaiming those to whom they had so lately given their liberty.

These transient and presumptuous expectations were excited by the tidings that an Egyptian army was advancing to the succour of Jerusalem; by whom, it was supposed, the King of Babylon would be com➡ pelled to quit the siege. This hope was strengthened, by his retiring from the city on the news of their

approach; prompted, however, by a different motive than fear of meeting with the rival power. In order that his purposes of vengeance might be executed without interruption, he resolved to meet the force of Egypt before it reached Judea; which so intimi dated the Egyptians, that they immediately retired; not daring to encounter the long-disciplined and warlike troops of Babylon, who, by repeated conquests, had now become the terror of the world. Thus, by the treachery of that power who had seduced him to the violation of engagements the most sacred, was ZEDEKIAH left alone, to bear the weight of that resentment, which, in his pride and folly, he had ventured to provoke.

Meanwhile the Prophet JEREMIAH, in addition to his share in the distresses of his country, was greatly exercised by personal afflictions, endured in the discharge of his important duties as a messenger of GOD. At the commencement of the siege, he was com manded to tell ZEDEKIAH, that Jerusalem should certainly be taken, and reduced to ashes by the Conqueror, that he himself should be made prisoner, and sent to end his days in Babylon. By these unwelcome tidings the unhappy Monarch was so greatly irritated, that he ordered JEREMIAH to be put in prison, where, however, he was comforted by a renewed assurance, that the desolations of his country should continue but for an appointed time.

The departure of the Babylonish army, to meet the forces of the King of Egypt, led ZEDEKIAH and his people to imagine that the siege was finally relinquished. They therefore made no scruple of immediately returning to those sins, which, through the influence of fear, they had abandoned for a time.

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