treated to a hill-fort, but were themselves alike the abode of luxurious ease in time of peace, and of resistance and fierce contest in time of war. Perhaps we may best comprehend how original was the idea of the union of fortress and house, or palace, in one, by observing how few are the vestiges of such a combination having existed elsewhere before the establishment of the feudal system. Towns undoubtedly seem to have been fortified from the beginning of town life: and of the extent to which the system was carried, let us take, once for all, the account which honest old Heredotus gives of Babylon, with its walls two hundred cubits high, on which a chariot could be driven with four horses abreast, and its hundred gates of brass. But, of any thing of the nature of a domestic fortress, in which people lived in their ordinary manner during peace, and defended themselves in war, we remember but few vestiges.

applicable, would be still more difficult. But I when it was reported in England, as it was about seventy years ago, that there were some ancient hill-forts in Scotland made of glass, the antiquaries, not having a prescience of the Crystal Palace before their eyes, turned from puzzling themselves about the earthen mounds in England, to burst forth in scornful laughter about the glass fortresses of Scotland. But the people who have had much experience in the ways of this world, learn how the same word may, without the slightest misapplication, be used for very different things. The dingy, slag-like lumps, with a vitreous fracture, found in the heather of some Scottish fortified hills, has undoubtedly a claim to the vitreous character, perhaps as strong as the glittering, diaphanous squares which are to let in all the sun, and exclude the wind and rain, at Sydenham. That they were the creation of fire is certain; and though the geologists sought at first to make out a case of volcano, yet it became evident that it was administered by the hand of man; for the materials, which had been calcined and vitrified so as to resemble in a considerable degree the scoria of a glasshouse, were built into walls round the summits of steep, circular hills; those with which we are acquainted have much the appearance, from their extreme steepness and regularity, of having been scarped. And then come the questions-were the vitrified masses-built one thousand years after the Romans produced by some accident, such as the burning of a stronghold? or were they a deliberate method of cementing stones together by fusion? or, perchance, were they the wide circuits within which might be consumed some whole forest of trees, cut down and piled together within a ring of stone, whether as a vast beacon, reddening the sky from the Tweed to Cape Wrath, or a sacrifice to the ancient god of fire?-Questions, these, which we respectfully decline taking the responsibility of answering.

-

The step from such rude Titanic works as these to the Norman fortress is great--and perhaps a word or two on other forms of places of strength may be suitable, as showing distinctly that the feudal castles were the combination of the rude strength of the primitive fortress with domiciliary comfort that they brought the defensive strength, supposed to reside only in inaccessible mountain regions or swamps, into the midst of rich agriculture and smiling abundance—that they no longer rendered necessary a retreat to the place of strength, as one may suppose the

Separate buildings like towers there probably have been in many times and places, and they may have been used as fortresses. Along the Roman Wall were the square towers called mile-castles, which are interesting, not only as the best remains of the arrangements made by the great aggressors for the protection of their frontier, but as the models on which the ancient inhabitants would probably build their castles-if they built any. It is singular enough that the Border peel-towers

had abandoned Britain to her fate-have, in their compact squareness, more resemblance to these castella, than any type of earlier British castellated architecture possesses. Since the publication of Mr. Bruce's book on the Roman Wall, to which we lately had occasion to refer, no one need remain ignorant of any feature, however minute, which, now existing, attests what these mile-castles originally were. Mr. Bruce tells us, in a summary description, that "they derive their modern name from the circumstance of their being usually placed at the distance of a Roman mile from each other. They were quadrangular buildings, differing somewhat in size, but usually measuring from sixty to seventy feet in each direction. With two exceptions, they have been placed against the southern face of the wall; the castle of Portgate, every trace of which is now obliterated, and another near Æsica, the foundations of which may with some difficulty still be traced, seem to have projected equally to the north and south of the wall. Though generally placed about seven furlongs from each other the

4

flush from the edge of the precipice. But it was precisely the force with which these apparent conditions of a fortified character were conveyed, that showed the utter want of them in the others scattered throughout the valley. What could they have defended? Whom could they have resisted?

Primitive fortresses are places where considerable armies or large numbers of people go for protection from besieging enemies. Now, though the outside circle of these burghs is considerable, yet, from the thickness of the galleried wall, they only contain an inner area of from twenty to thirty feetthe size of a moderate dining-room. And, while the numbers they could have held were thus few, they possessed no means like the medieval castles for assault, and could have been easily pulled to pieces by an enemy. Nor, if they were places of strength, can it be easily conceived why there should be a whole cluster of them in a place like Glen Beg, and no others in the neighboring dis

tricts.

quality of such theories. It is well known that, when the Scots, under Kenneth M'Alpine, conquered the Picts, they saved from death just two inhabitants of that devoted race-a father and son; their disinterested object in this clemency was, to find out how the Picts got their beer. It seems that they possessed a precious and much-coveted secret in the means of brewing heather-ale. The Scots offered to spare the lives of the captives, if they would reveal the secret. The father promised to do so if they would, in the first place, comply with his request-a very odd one for a father to make in such circumstances--to put to death his son. They did so; and then the father uttered a loud yell of triumph-the secret of the beer would be for ever hidden in his bloody grave. He could not trust to the firmness of his son; he could entirely rely on his own, and he was ready to bear all tortures rather than make the revelation. Now, why not suppose that these mysterious buildings were just breweries of heather-ale, and that, in the various galleries, decreasing as they ascend until they become mere pigeon-holes, the brewsts of the different years were binned for the use of hospitable, dinner-giving Picts? No one can disprove the theory; and this is more than can be said of many another.

The notion, indeed, of their being strongholds, seems to have been grasped at once by their striking resemblance in structure and dimensions to the Norman flanking round towers. But the Norman towers were only outworks, to aid in defence of the central keep, and could have been of small service as The more they are examined, the more detached forts. There are many things which are the actual fortresses of Britain stripped have a warlike resemblance to this part of a of any pretensions to extreme antiquity, and feudal castle;-a windmill, as Don Quixote's brought within the Norman period. There chivalrous eye at once told him, possesses the are two leading objects of fortification-the character very decidedly-so does a modern protective, and the aggressive; and, accordblast-furnace. The columbarium lingeringing to the view we have been supporting, on the grounds of some old mansion, is often mistaken for a tower; and the prototype of the columbarium, the Roman tomb, eminently anticipated the form of the Norman tower. Of one of these Byron says:—

it has been the function of the Norman, in the development of European history, to be the inventor and propagator of the kind of works adapted to the latter objects. Fortresses of mere refuge are on the tops of hills, or in other inaccessible places. It does not suit the aggressor to go to the wilds; he must have his elements of strength in the very middle of the people whom he is to rule over. If a rock happens to be found bulging out of a fine alluvial district-as the plutonic upheavings of trap have supplied in Edinburgh, Stirling and Dumbarton-it is well; but, where there are no natural strengths, they must be artificially constructed-and art has in this department far outstripped nature, or has, rather, found in her own resources better means of defence against her instruments of destruction than nature provides.

The Saxons did not raise strongholds of

native districts; and, indeed, it is rather | fended from an enemy rea curious to observe that there is scarcely a sufficient number of men to feudal castle to be found in the Scandinavian and rush in by the breach. territories, whence issued the race who is, by outworks to keep the strewed all Europe with fortresses. Scott distance. The flanking tow speaks of Bamborough as "Ida's castle, huge this for the Norman fortres and square;" but there can now be little of a siege was not in those c doubt that it is a Norman edifice. If the tall, like what it now is, in ge gaunt tower of Conisborough retain its Saxon though the less destructive antiquity, yet it is evident that it must have weapons on either side made been a rude and feeble strength, standing affair. 16. los obienio alone without the outworks, which were the great achievement of Norman engineering. Some other bare towers of this character are supposed to be of ante-Norman origin, as the round tower of Trematon, in Cornwall, and that of Launceston, on the apex of a conical rock, round the base of which Norman works have been raised. Tom huc Scott is historically correct, as he almost ever is, when he thus describes the abode of Cedric the Saxon:--" A low, irregular building, containing several courtyards or inclosures, extending over a considerable space of ground; and which, though its size argued the inhabitant to be a person of wealth, differed entirely from the tall, turreted, and castellated buildings in which the Norman nobility resided, and which had become the universal style of architecture throughout England."

William the Norman found no castles to resist him. He resolved that any one who came after him should complain of no such omission, England proper immediately bristled with strongholds. They were afterwards extended to Wales and Ireland; and it is, perhaps, the most remarkable episode in the history of Norman fortification, as indicative of the systematic zeal with which the system was conducted, that during the brief tenure of Scotland, the opportunity was taken for dispersing throughout the country Edwardian castles.

The earliest Norman form was the vast square keep, such as Bamborough New Castle, or the Tower of London. The value of projecting angles seems soon to have been felt, but it does not appear that the noble flanking round towers, which make a perfect Norman fortress, were devised until the days of the Edwards. The central strength then consisted of a square work, with a round tower at each angle. When the work was very large, demi-towers might project here and there from its face. This was the leading principle of modern fortification-the protection of the face. It is understood that no plain wall-plate, however strong, can be de-l

There is room for consideral and even for abundant tech ture, among the besieging e fore the invention of gunpow mangona, or mangonel, was cable to ballistic engines, mov quick descending weights. the matafunda, the ribaud petrary, were special machin ing what the Americans call were the robinet, the espring colle, which discharged hug other miscellaneous mischievo oddest of all names to fin wicked and destructive agent a sentence by Grose, who sa gles, or bibles, were also engin large stones, as we learn f poem;" and he quotes as hi Romance of Claris, in the R Paris (No. 7534)..

"Et pierres, et les perriere Fit les bibles qui sont tro Gétent trop manuement. Besides the ram and the which every boy becomes ac plates to his Roman Antiqui instruments bearing the quad of the war-wolf, the cat, and t cattus or cat-house, gattus or instructive Grose," was a cov casionally fixed on wheels, and ering of soldiers employed in ditch, preparing the way for tower, or mining the wall. I cat because under it soldiers like a cat for its prey. Some had crenelles and chinks, from archers could discharge their a were called castellated cats. under this machine the besieg "** The so small kind of ram.' true Scotsmen of Black Agn jeering Salisbury with the far sow, when she toppled on its

* History of the English Arm

mass of rock, and beheld the mutilated sap-| pers crawling from beneath their shattered protector, like so many pigs. But the chief of all besieging works was the movable tower, brought up face to face with the defenders, and containing battering-rams below, with the various instruments already mentioned, employed in its several upper stories. To oppose such a formidable engine, which could only be applied by some commander of vast resources, the flanking round towers were of invaluable service, as the bastions and outworks are at the present day. The main difference in the projectile direction of the operations in the two is, that while the fire of a fort is chiefly horizontal, the assaults made by the Norman keep were vertical, and hence came the crest of machicolations and turrets which has given so picturesque a character to a whole school, of baronial architecture.

The instances of the Norman Castle, in its more perfect shape, still existing, are very interesting in a historical view. It may be observed, that in the settled districts of England there are specimens of the older and ruder style of Norman work; but that, in the Edwardian conquests, the fully developed form is the oldest of which vestiges are to

be found.

castles, in the same county, to belong to the same category.

The same characteristics do not so frequently occur in the southern English counties, though there is Pevensey in Sussex, Goodrich in Herefordshire, and Cowling in Kent, and there may be several other instances. They reappear on the Border, where they were connected with the Scottish wars; the forms may be seen in Prudho, Twizel, the outworks of Bamborough, and, in a modernized shape, at Alnwick.

Ireland is rich in these quadrilateral flanked edifices. There is Enniscorthy, guarding the bridge of the Slaney in Wexford, and Dunmore in Meath, one of the most entire and regular specimens, if we may judge by the representation of Grose, who, to do him justice, never idealizes. It is one of the many castles attributed to De Lacey, the governor of Meath. Another of them, Kilkea, continued long to raise its flanking round towers after it had laughed at the ferocious raids of the O'Moors and O'Dempsies in the English pale. Two of the best specimens, Lea, in Queen's county, and Ferns, in Wexford, were attacked and taken in the romantic inroad of Edward Bruce, who thought that, as his brother had, by one gallant achievement, wrested a crown in Scotland from the enAberconway, or Snowdon Castle, in Car- croaching Norman, he might as well endeavor narvonshire, must have been one of the most to take one in Ireland. Grandison Castle, formidable specimens, from the great extent with two beautiful specimens of the bellof its curtain walls, and its numerous round shaped round tower, is attributed to the reign towers. It was built, say authorities on of James I.; but, though it is not the pecuwhich we place no reliance, except in so far liar defect of Irish antiquities to be post-dated, as they correspond with the character of the this portion must, we think, belong to the edifice, in 1284; it served the purpose for Norman period. There are fine specimens which the strongest fortresses are required of the round tower at Ballylachan and Ballythat of a frontier defence. In Flintshire nafad, whence the M'Donoughs were driven there are Hawarden and Rhudland. Beau- forth; and the utterly un-Norman names of maris, in Anglesea, has some fine diminishing these buildings do not exclude them from towers. Carew, in Pembrokeshire, has a identification as the work of the courtly insort of angular buttresses, instead of the vaders. In Ireland, however, this sort of graceful increment towards the base, in the work never ceased. There were ever round towers; but it is a luxuriant and noble O'Schauchnessies, O'Donahues, O'Rourkes, specimen; and though Welsh tradition says or O'Dempsies, keeping the Norman and the it belonged to the princes of South Wales- Saxon at work in making fortresses; and no man can tell how many hundreds of years perhaps the latest specimen of it is a relic of before William or Rollo either-and was the '48, which we saw the other day in an given by Rhys ap Theodore, with his daugh- antiquarian rummage in ancient and ruiniferter Nest, as a marriage portion to Gerraldous Cashel, being a large iron box with de Carrio, yet we take the liberty of holding that it as clearly bears the mark of the invader of Wales, as any government-house in Canada or New Zealand bears evidence that it is not the work of the natives. We take Cilgarron, Haverford-west, and Mannorbeer

loopholes projecting out from the barrack where it was placed, to rake the street into which it projected, with musketry from the loopholes.

In Scotland, the Anglo-Norman origin of the earliest true baronial fortresses is attested