a time an emotion of real pleasure is imparted by surveying, even under a wintry sky, the scenery of Northumberland, rendered picturesque by their combination of austerity, and agricultural verdure, by the ruins of the Roman wall, and the natural barrier of those Cheviot mountains, which confining vegetation to their feet, edge the horizon with the undulating seniorities of their barren

crests.

Newcastle, in its present state, reveals, on the first approach, the constant perils of its situation in the times of reciprocal pillage on the northern border.

Its fortifications were especially requisite to a town so adjacent to the hardy clans of the Scotch marauders, who one night surprised and carried off one of the townsmen, while asleep in his bed. As soon as, by means of a ransom, the captive had recovered liberty, he persuaded his fellow townsmen that ramparts were their only security, and Newcastle became one of the best fortified towns on the borders. At the same time, with more celerity than its manufactures, those numerous convents were seen to rise, which have since become hospitals, infirmaries, or edifices appropriated to the meetings of many a scientific and philanthropic body. The thoughts of the Newcastle citizens are not entirely absorbed in mercantile speculations; a very spirited taste for letters is to be found in the city, combined with great amenity of manners, and very little of the pedantry which usually characterises the provincial half learned.

It was, however in one of the old monastic foundations of the place, that the famous Doctor Dunscotus resided, surnamed the subtle doctor in the schools, one of those outrageous ergoteurs, who are always ready to argue de omnibus rebus, et quibusdam aliis.

Among all the religious monuments of Newcastle, the belfry of St. Anne's Church is one of the most singular creations of Gothic architecture. No description can convey an idea of it: and accordingly Ben Jonson amused himself by describing it in an enigma. It is surmounted by a kind of tiara, formed by the intersection at right angles of four arcs of a circle, supporting a turret, which is transpierced by sculptures, and which is crowned by a pinnacle of a perfectly original character.

The manufactures of Newcastle deserve a detailed description; and my philosopher, who interrogates the merchants, while I interrogate the doctors and the literati, might supply me with valuable notes: but I am impatient to convey you to Scotland. We rapidly traversed Morpeth, where we had some difficulty in obtaining a passage through the herds of cattle which were going to a market held several times per month. Nor did we make longer stay at Warkworth, notwithstanding the magnificent castle of the Duke of Northumberland, the dungeon keep of which is one of the most perfect models of the military architecture of the middle ages. From the top of its battlements we had a coup d'ail view of the German Ocean: a little vessel entering the river

Coquet, reminded us of the old Abbess of St. Hilda, and her five pretty nuns, to whom the meeting of the haughty Marmion at Edinburgh had nearly proved so fatal. The charming ballad of Percy induced us to pay a momentary visit to the hermitage, where the unfortunate Bertram shed such bitter tears of grief for his blind jealousy, after having shed the blood of a brother, who had devoted himself to the task of delivering his captive mistress. From this asylum, the silence and solitude of which inspire a contemplative melancholy, we took the road to Alnwick, and admiringly surveyed that singular fortress, which still seems to threaten a storm of stones and javelins to the enemies of the name of Percy. In fact, a garrison, immoveable at its post, continually mans the ramparts by day and night. Those faithful bands, wounded though some of them are, are always ready, part to overwhelm you with fragments of rock, others to tranfix you with their arrows; and the rest to despatch with their battle-axes, the first audacious besiegers who may venture a scalade. Beneath these walls formerly perished Malcolm and his son William the Lion; another king of Scotland was made prisoner there. Approach, notwithstanding-those warriors are only stone statues. Remembering the tale of Perrault, or The Bridal of Triermain, you are half induced to enquire, if this vast fortress has been enchanted by a fairy, and if it be not occupied by some beauty, who for a hundred years has slept there with all her court, and with all her knights, surprised like her

self, and turned to stone, at the moment they were seizing their arms for her defence.*

We now lost sight of the useful improvements of industry harmonizing with modern civilization, the lugubrious mines of Newcastle, the low huts of the working classes, the commodious mansions of the wealthy manufacturer, and the kilns, with the black vapours vomited from their fiery throats. Warkworth, Alnwick and Bamborough, reconcile us to the poetry of the chivalrous age. Walter Scott's heroes have received hospitality in these castles, or have menaced their ramparts; and his minstrels have caused their ceilings to echo with their songs. We are upon enchanted ground. Alnwick, alternately with Berwick and Norham, was the fortress devoted to the residence of the Governor or Warden of the English borders. These officers who held their place from the crown, were charged with the function of maintaining order to the best of their power, in the counties subjected to their jurisdiction, of repressing the Scottish marauders, and inflicting severe reprisals on the inhabitants of the other side of the Tweed. The manners of the borderers of the two nations exhibit a singular alliance of chivalrous spirit and brigandage, of religion and ferocity. The Lay of the Last Minstrel is a faithful picture of the life led by the Scotch and English marauders. We shall return to the sub

We were told that the apartments of Alnwick Castle are worthy of the splendour of the noble dukes of Northumberland; but we merely passed.

ject for we have not yet set foot on the Scottish territory. But lest poetical allusion should induce me to paint the manners of antiquity in too favourable colours, I hasten to express my concurrence with the critics of the Edinburgh Review, in their opinion that the feudal system was hostile to agriculture and industry, and that general welfare has been the definitive result of its abolition.

It is not in the part of Northumberland where we now are, that a reasoner would be induced to deny the advantage of this definitive result of the new order of things. Escaping in some measure from its roads, blackened as they are with the traces of pit coal, and breathing a freer air than the gaseous atmosphere of Sunderland and Newcastle, we now cast an agreeably surprised glance over fields cultivated according to that agricultural system, of which the Northumberland farmers have reason to be proud. But even while suppressing some more direct objections, which I might now oppose to the existing system, it may be permitted me to observe, that the transition from vassalage to the state of modern improvement was originally in this county, as well as in Scotland, more fatal to the people than might at first be imagined. The feudal system tended to increase population, in dividing and sub-dividing the domains among the greatest possible number of tenants. When this system was abolished, the reformation at the same time closed, or delivered into the hands of greedy courtiers, the monasteries, which assembled and