gratified, by finding in various repositories during our walks slight utensils, such as boxes, vases, inkstands, and candlesticks, wrought and neatly polished from the charred beams of the venerable Minster.
It is impossible to explore the city of York, without reverting to the scenery of the past, which History has so indelibly traced, as almost to give it existence among the objects that surround us. Imagination rekindles on the neighboring hill the fires of the funeral pile of Severus, or recalls the tumult of the sanguinary battles of Towton and Marston Moor, fought in the vicinity, one of which terminated the bitter wars of the Roses, and the other, through the imprudence of Prince Rupert, crushed the hopes of the Royalists. We fancy that we listen to the chimes of the first Christmas, as it was here celebrated by Prince Arthur, or gather traits of its more splendid observance, under Henry the Third or Edward the Second, from the pages of the old Chroniclers. Still following the annals of war, we perceive the blood of Scot, Pict, and Dane, Roman, Saxon, and Norman, mingling beneath these walls. Sack and siege darken the picture. William the Conqueror, flushed with success and domination, held his armies for six months before these walls, until famine compelled capitulation, and then satiated his vengeful cruelty by the slaughter of the nobility and gentry, and the devastation of the whole country between York and Durham.
In the wars under Charles the First, a siege by the
