once the largest and most respectable town in North-Wales. Walking over
the ruins of the castle, I recurred, by a natural association of ideas,
to the times, when the Parliament-house, the balls, and courts echoed
with the voices of those, who have long since been swept from the earth,
by the unerring hand of death. One solitary Gothic window is now only
remaining, to distinguish the old Parliament-house, where Edward the
First instituted that famous code of laws, under the title of the
_Statute of Rhuddlan_, from a neighbouring barn; and, what once contained
the Parliament of England, now contains nothing but bark for the supply
of a tan-yard.
The old castle is built of red stone; it consists of a square area,
strongly fortified with a wall: this court we entered through the grand
gate-way, between two round towers: the opposite side corresponds. The
whole is encircled by a deep entrenchment, faced with stone on the river
side, with two square towers, one of which still remains.