highly and extensively connected, not only with some of the first noble families of the kingdom, such as the Warwicks, Northumberlands, &c.; but even with the Royal Houses of England and Scotland; and tradition records them to have lived in a style corresponding with their rank and opulence."

"Then this ancient fortress, whose ruins we are now contemplating," remarked Hoel, "owes its dilapidated state to so late a period as that of the unhappy contest between Charles and his deluded subjects."

"It was after the sanguinary battle of MarstonMoor, on the 2d July, 1644," rejoined Edward, "that Sir Thomas, afterwards Lord Fairfax, taking advantage of a decisive victory which he had obtained on that fatal day, marched directly on the city of York; and having captured that important place on the 15th of the same month, it was thought necessary, towards the subjugation of the north, that a station of so much strength as was then the castle of Helmsley, should be also in the hands of the parliamentary army; and, accordingly, Fairfax, in the September following, sate down before it, and, after a

siege of some length, secured its possession. The attempt, however, had nearly cost him his life; for, whilst engaged in directing the attack, he received a dangerous shot in one of his shoulders, and was carried to York in a state which rendered his recovery for some time a matter of considerable doubt."

"And this was the Lord Fairfax, I presume," said Hoel," to whom the present Duke of Buckingham, having secured the affection of the daughter, was indebted for the restoration of his property."

"It is now but seventeen years since the decease of this celebrated general,” rejoined Edward, "who died repentant of the part which he had taken in the rebellion, and beloved for his many private virtues. He was, towards the close of his life, a martyr to the most painful of distempers; and absolutely confined to his chair, in which he is said to have 'sat like an old Roman, his manly countenance striking awe and reverence into all that beheld him; while it was mixed with as much modesty and sweetness, as were ever represented in the

figure of mortal man.'* So impressive, indeed, was the influence of his character on all around him, that it extorted, even from the present Lord of Helmsley, the noblest lines which ever issued from his pen. They form a kind of Pindaric epitaph, and do so much honour to the memory of the man whom they commemorate that I cannot refrain, situated as we now are, on the very spot where he once fought and bled, from repeating to you a few of the most emphatic passages.

Under this stone doth lie

One born for victory,

Fairfax the valiant, and the only He
Whoe'er for that alone a conqueror would be.

Both sex's virtues were in him combin'd,
He had the fierceness of the manliest mind,
And all the meekness too of woman-kind.

He never knew what envy was, nor hate;
His soul was fill'd with worth and honesty,

* From a paper extracted from an original manuscript by Dr. Bryan Fairfax, Vide Chalmer's Biographical Dictionary, vol. xiv. p. 72, note.

And with another thing quite out of date,
Call'd modesty.-

He neither wealth nor places sought;

For others, not himself, he fought.

He was content to know,

For he had found it so,

That when he pleased to conquer, he was able, And left the spoil and plunder to the rabble.

He might have been a king,

But that he understood

How much it is a meaner thing

To be unjustly great, than honourably good.

"How much is it to be deplored," observed Hoel, "that he who could thus so well panegyrise the virtues of others, should himself be destitute of what he must have known could alone secure him the approbation of his own heart, and the plaudit of posterity. In yonder splen. did suite of apartments, I suppose, which range along the western side of these ruins, resides this unhappy man, the victim of his own ungoverned passions and licentious appetites." "It is in yonder mansion, indeed, that he

endeavours to forget, in the shouts of forced revelry and mirth, the reproaches of his conscience, and the ridicule of his contemporaries. But turning from this abode of luxury and guilt, and which, as a modern structure of so late an age as the reign of James the First, merits little of our attention, let us now enter the Castle of Robert, or as he was surnamed, Fursan De Roos, to whom, about the commencement of the thirteenth century, it is probable that we are to ascribe, if not the foundation, yet the improvement of the fortress on such a scale as to have rendered it, in fact, a striking proof of the military power and architectural skill of our ancestors."

As Edward said this, they approached the grand entrance to the castle facing the south, and immediately opposite the Rye. The effect on passing beneath this noble arch-way, defended as it is by double gates, and flanked by two towers of massy strength, was necessarily highly solemn and impressive; and such, indeed, was its influence on the susceptible character of Hoel, that he involuntarily shuddered from a mingled emotion of delight and awe. Edward