of thought and reverence than from frequency of sight. "A thing of beauty," a thing of interest "is a joy for ever" to the refined, the intellectual, but like the famous potter, Peter Bell, of whom it is written that
"A primrose on a river's brim,
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more. "
many of us in this old city of Carlisle are apt, we fear, to look upon our ancient castle simply as a castle, and nothing more; either forgetful or uninformed of all its strange brave histories, and its equally strange and striking perils and pageantries and long silenced sorrows. In these days we read so much history that its truth—its vivid living realities almost escape us: we do not hear the rush and push and struggle of the brave, or see the tears and terrors which in far off homes, or subsequently, in nearer dungeons, were often their tragic accompaniment.
But coming out of the obliquity of the accustomed flow of house and street life, and standing as we stood on a bright November afternoon lately, in cells where the chained captive must often have sighed for death—thought returns, the imagination clears, and the wonderful panorama of the past rushes on and on before the excited mind in all the vivid hues of restless, changing, struggling, suffering human life. Sir Walter Scott said that "There are few cities in England which have been the scene of more momentous and more interesting events than Carlisle;" and what is true of the city is true also of the castle, whose history is in reality the history of the city, and which has ample
