contemplated the scene, is reduced to a lonely ruin--thus apostrophized
by the muse of Bloomfield:--
“Majestic Raglan! harvests wave
Where thundering hosts their watchword gave;
When cavaliers, with downcast eye,
Struck the last flag of loyalty!”
<g>The Cellars.</g>--These subterranean receptacles are of vast extent; and, in
massive strength and proportions--like a crypt under a cathedral--are
worthy of the noble edifice that covers them. In times of danger, and
particularly during the siege, they appear to have served the manifold
purposes of cellars, storehouses, larders, magazines, and muniments of
war, with provisions for a numerous garrison and household.
At the north-eastern part of the court, the buildings were nearly all
mutilated, or thrown down by the enemy’s batteries, which, from a rising
ground in the line of his approach, played with destructive force upon
this portion of the walls. Fragments, however, still remain to show the
predominant features of the Castle--its strength and beauty. From this
point, we are told, communication with the citadel was secured by means
of a sumptuous arched bridge, with a gate to correspond. But of these no
distinct vestiges are left. The “sumptuous bridge” is replaced by a
rustic structure of wood; the moat it spans is half filled with decayed
vegetables and debris; and the water, that formerly enclosed the Keep
like a wall of crystal, is now covered with a sluggish green surface,
that exhibits a very different kind of life.
In other parts of the moat, however, it is deep and transparent, mostly
so at the south corner, where masses of verdure--with a particularly old
and very picturesque tree, as shown in the illustration--are reflected
as if in a mirror. This is probably the most interesting point of view
in the whole Castle. Of a still summer evening, about sunset, the
outline of the gray towers and battlements, with all their contrasted
features of light and shade, beauty and decay--here fringed with wood,
and there displaying honourable scars--sleeps on the face of the water
like an inverted picture. The scene, with all its singular
accompaniments, has then a dreaminess of romance about it, similar to
that which the Fata Morgana conjures up on the Straits of Messina--but
with this important difference, that the scenery here, however romantic,
is real and substantial; that all we behold is the work of Art, over
which Nature has only thrown her splendid illusion of cloud, sunshine,
and exuberant vegetation.
<g>Tower of Gwent.</g>--This tall and massive structure, built as if to defy
the united force of time and violence, forms the Citadel or Donjon-Tower
of the fortress; and points very expressively to those remote times,
when the peace of a great man’s household depended on the strength of
his walls, and the number and courage of his retainers. In a direct
line with this Castle were three gates; the first of brick, from which,
at the distance of one hundred and eighty feet, and with an ascent of
many steps, was the White Gate, built of square stone. At some distance
on the left stands the <g>Melin y Gwent</g>, or Yellow Tower of Gwent, which
for strength, height, and workmanship, surpassed most other towers, if
not every other, in England or Wales. It had six sides, each thirty-two
feet wide, and ten feet thick, built of square stone, and in height five
stories. Its battlements, never meant to resist cannon shot, are only
eight inches thick; but so symmetrical and compactly set, that they
appear as if cut out of a solid block. During the siege--hereafter to be
described--this portion was soon demolished by the batteries directed
against it by Fairfax; but his heaviest guns, eighteen and twenty
pounders, took no more effect on the body of the tower, than if they had
opened upon a solid rock.[237] Our ancestors appear to have been
particularly well skilled in the composition of their cement, which in
Raglan is now nearly as hard as the stones it holds together. When the
Goths and Vandals of the country--the blind instruments of Fairfax--were
summoned to demolish with their pickaxes what the besiegers’ cannon had
spared, their republican zeal was attended with little success; for
“after battering of the top,” they were obliged, as we shall see, to
desist from that method as fruitless, and adopt other means for its
destruction.[238]
This Tower communicated with the Castle by means of an elegant arched
bridge encircled by an outer wall, with six arched and embattled
turrets, all of square stone. Adjoining this was a deep moat, thirty
feet broad, and supplied by a clear running stream, from which the
water-works, so much the fashion in those days, threw up columns of
water as high as the Castle battlements. Along the edge of the moat, was
a commodious sunken walk, embellished with grotto-work, statues of the
Twelve Cæsars, and otherwise ornamented with the choicest productions of
Nature and Art. This was the walk to which the family could resort at
all seasons, whether for exercise or meditation. Within the walls and
the green adjoining--then the bowling-green, and twelve feet higher than
the walk--was a garden plat, the size of which was proportioned to the
tower. Next to this plat--as shown in the accompanying
ground-plan--stood the Barn.
In casting the eye over the whole circuit of these buildings, the mind
is astonished at the immense labour which must have been exerted to
collect together such a quantity of materials of various descriptions.
And here it may
[Illustration: _The Moat._