[ 83 ]
landscapes of Salvator, where she dwells in awful magnificence admidst rocks and cataracts, amidst images of destruction, and scenes of uncontroulable fury.
On quitting Nunnery, we soon dropped again into the vale of Eden, which now opened into a broad expanse, bearing on its bosom rural dwellings and distant villages. In the midst of this peaceful scene we found the village of Kirkoswald, which now has either to lament or rejoice at its extinguished greatness, according as human grandeur may or may not be considered as the true constituent of human happiness. The castle, an Anglo-Norman structure, exhibits a small tower and some gloomy vaults; the only remains of that "fairest fabric (according to Sandford) that eye ever looked upon;" the hall of which measured three hundred feet in length; ornamented with those paintings of kings and nobles now to be seen in Naworth-Castle. The Morvilles anciently possessed the fortress; and in it was deposited for many years the sacrilegious weapon with which Hugh Morville, its then lord, (one of the murderers of Berket) dispatched that prelate at the altar. The Featherstonhaughs, to whom the manor now belongs, have a good house in the neighbourhood of the village.
