The North Wales Express

A SKETCH OF CARNARVON CASTLE. Wi th 'what sublime indifference and superiority does not the material man for the most part re- gard the antiquary! To him walls are a mere patchwork of bricks and plaster, and arches mere heaps of stone piled together in certain conven- tional shapes. A Saxon window has no charms for him, and the mystic B. S. H. M. is in his eyes a cypher, and nothing more. Ha cares for none of the enjoyments that spring from even the most superficial study of history, architecture, or natu- ral surroundings his thoughts are centred, per- haps, on a dinner prospect, or, more probably, on the self-satisfaction which he feels at having seen something, though what that something is it matters little. The antiquary's spectacles, again, are often the subject of derision; not only are they charged with possessing a pinkish hue, but even of being tinted with that brightest of all colours—imagi- nation. Still, what an additional amount of plea- sure do they not bestow upon their wearer They should, indeed, rather be said to consist of that sombre and dignified dark glass through which things are to be seen steadily, in their true aspect, and without the glare and dazzle of deceiving sunlight. Many an old building may be seen to advantage throught them; for they not only faci- litate a sketch of its contour, but are of immense use in reading the history and true life of the most ancient pile of bricks and mortar, and in imagining its past scenes and surroundings. Of all the Welsh castles to which the anti- quary's glasses may be applied with the greatest advantage, Carnarvoti is the most imposing and the most worthy a sketch, whether mental, or pictorial, or descriptive. There is so much to think about when we look at this mass of masonry surrounded by a glorious landscape, and rich with the legends of bards and warriors. A thought is but a sketch, and where the one is tossed off into the sketch-book or on to the can- vas, the other is painted, with the colours of im- pression, on the mind; so that the genuine anti- quary, who should have in him a touch of the poet and the artist as well as of the historian and the old-world lover, will have before him as good an opportunity for the contemplation of the land- scapes of art And the vistas of history, as of the angles of architecture and the mazes of romance. Viewed from various points—from the streets of the town itself, from the shore, and from the Menai Straits—the fortress of the Arvon presents an equally grand appearance. Externally in a most complete state, its ramparts and walls, with many towers and turrets, look as if they still had some of those duties to perform for which they were or iially intended. To take in the idea of the size of the building and the extent of ground it covers, a walk around its base, down the street that leads to the quay, and then round the. north side of the building, is sufficient. Though not possessing as much grace as Conway Castl-, and deprived of as favourable a situation, it never- theless surpasses it in stateliness, and may be taken as the best specimen of the Edwardian style of Gothic. The great difficulty in a building of this kind—the difficulty of giving beauty to massiveness, and useful decoration to so strong and vast a piece of military architecture—has been overcome in a masterly manner by the pen- tagonal, hexagonal, and octagonal turrets that surmount its towers, and by the irregularity of its plan, as well as by the grace of its windows, .vliose form, among many other things, was, no doubt, suggested to Edward I., it founder, on his travels to the Holy Land, where be much ad- mired the castles of other countries, and brought home fresh ideas which found expression" in the building of such fortresses as Beaumaris, Con- way, Harlech, and Carnarvon. Turning from the contemplation of the larger effects, to a sketch of the more prominent and noteworthy of the isolated bits for which the castle is famed, we take, for instance, the Eagle Tower, which our friend the antiquary would select at once as the most prominent feature of the building, and the most interesting point in hi. series of sketches. Viewed from the quay, it is to be seen to the best advantage; and the skill with which the architect has made such a mass of square stone appear light and graceful is espe- cially to be admired. This lightness is due to the three angular turrets that rise from the summit of the towers, and to the little statues of eagles that are placed here and there on the parapet, and give theirnamesto the edifice. Below, at its foot, is a small water-gate, and, breaking the line of square-cut stones that runs from the summit to the base of one of the angles, is a small group of fisher hamlets built up against the wall. On the ramparts are the stone heads of cross-bow- men, that look as if they were peeping over the parapets; a strange device for misleading ene- mies, and a detail in the building which, though strikingly out of place amid the dignity of its other surroundings, still recalls forcibly the cha- racter of the man who placed them there-a cha- racter in which sublimity of soul was blent with the cunning of the fox. Then, again, there is the Queen Eleanor's Gate, a handsome circular arch, which used, in all probability, to serve as an entrance or postern to some drawbridge, con- necting this portion of the castle with a row of outworks. It is seen at its best some distance off on the other side of the water, from which we also get a view of the expanse of the whole southern side of the building. This is the favou- rite view of Carnarvon Castle, and the one most aptly chosen by artists as conveying the best im- pression as well of the beauty and lightness as of the massiveness and strength of the building Among its rows of towers, pierced with long small windows and outlets, the Eleanor s Gate shows with wonderful effect on the eastern side, and seems to spring straight from the ground and rise to within some 20 feet or 30 feet from the sum- mit of the tower. The series of mental sketches that spring from the contemplation of these different points is al- most as varied as the string of natural details and art adornments that surround the building. We think of Edward the "Longshanks;" of his conquest of Wales; of the pride and valour of the conquered Welsh, whose devoted historians even to this day insist on tracing the pedigree of Victoria through Llewelyn the Great, Constantino the Great, Lud, King Lear, through JEneas of Troy, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, to Gomer, Japhet, and Noah, the foreiathers of the Cymry. We think of the beloved Eleanor in whose honour the gate is named, how she visited Carnarvon when the castle was being built, and of the cunning fraud of the king, who held his baby up before the Welsh princes, representing to them a lord who was born in Wales, who was innocent of all treason, and who could not speak a word of Eng- lish. Then, again, we glance at the tower on our left-the Dungeon Tower—where the redoubted author of the ilistrio-Mastrix was confined by the bigotry of Laud and Charles I., and whence he was borne amid the joy of vast multitudes, to London on the triumph of the Parliament, with the stigmata Laudis" branded on his cheeks. Or another historical side-light shows us the last of the Welsh heroes, so hardly handled by Shakspeare—Owen Glendower, for the last time calling to arms the hardy mountaineers of Wales, and by the fire of his eloquence and the greatness of his boasts igniting again the slumbering embers of hatred against the Saxon. The portion of the castle, however, which, from its structure, gave rise to the greatest amount of ill-feeling in the hearts of the conquered nation was probably the entrance tower and whereas in former days the Welsh people made the statue of Edward I., which surmounts the gateway, the ob- ject of their hatred and their theme for calling each other to arms, so in our own times, now that the expression of the statue has faded, and the meaning of its position been defaced by age, the Welsh antiquaries keep up the quarrel witti one another as to whether the king is triumphant or menacing, gentle or conciliatory. But even if the features are somewhat faded by age, the rest of the grand entrance remains complete, and the work of Henri de Elreton is here to be seen at its best. Dallaway, who affirms that this portion of the castle is the most handsome structure of the age of Edward in the kingdom, describes it as at Ijast 100 feet high; and the gateway, of very remarkable depth, is formed by a succession of ribbed arches, sharply pointed.' So we wander on, recalling picture after picture, and jotting down sketch after sketch whether it be a fragment of an arch shrouded by drapery of trailing creeper, or the relic of an old stone eagle, famous for the quarrels of antiquaries whether it be wandering through old halls of which tife walls have long Grumbled or climbing up<m the ramp irts and among the towers to see below us the life of to-day. On the summit of t. Eayie towers we see beneath us the lovely laud "of Wales before us, the Menai Straits ail4 the Me of Anglesey; to the north-east lies Bangol- and to the south, as far as the eye can reach, rise the lofty peaks of Snowdon and Moel Shabod, with the noble range of hills and valleys that surround them-lands rich with song and the wealth of overflowing romance while just beneath, at the foot of the castle, are a number of noisy school children let out fromfwork, playing among the sand and stones, and paddling with th-ir little bare feetin the water. Aii(I ttieii, somehow, then- spring up another thought, suggested by the words of Mr Ruskin in one of the late numbers of Fors Clavigera," concerning an incident at the school of Coniston. "And now, suppose," he says, that there were any squires' sons or daughters down here for Christmas, from Christchurch or Girton, who could and would accurately and explicitly tell these children all about' the Queen's arms what the Irish harp meant, and what a bard was, and ought to be; what the Scottish lion meant, and how he got caged by the treasure of Charlemagne, and who Charle- magne was; what the English leopards meant, and who the Black Prince was, and how ne reigned in Aquitaine would not all this be more useful, in all true sense, to the children, than being able, in two seconds quicker than the children outside, to say how much twenty-seven pounds of bacon comes to a 9id. a pound ?"-The Builder, Dec. 13th, 1884.

THE NORTH WALES COLLEGE. A meeting of the Statutes Committee was held at the Queen's Hotel, Chester, on Saturday. Present: Mr A. C. Humphreys Owen (chairman), Right Hon. G. Osborne Morgan. Q.C., M.P. Mr Morgan Lloyd, Q.C., M.P. Mr R. A. Jones, B.A.; Dr. Easterby, Mr William Evans, Principal Reichel, and Mr Cadwaladr Davies (secretary). The committee considered drafts prepared bv the chairman and Mr R. A. Jones, and, after a" long sitting, adjourned till Saturday, January 17tli.

THE CHARGE AGAINST A WELSH CAPTAIN. At the Liverpool City Sessions on Friday, be- fore the Recorder (Mr J. E. Aspiual. Q.C.). sen- tence was passed upon William Williams (24). who was found guilty on a previous day of having neglected to take proper measures to save from loss or damage a British ship called the Catherine and Alice, of which he was the master and owner, on the loth May. The Recorder re- marked that he could not doubt that when the prisoner and his crew abandoned the vessel there was ground for alarm, but not sufficient to induce a British seaman to yield to panic, and make such an absolute coward of himself as the oriso- ner had done. So long as he knew there were holes in the ship, whether made by him or not, then one could understand the panic he ¿"t into, and the prisoner might not be such a coward as he appeared. It was difficult to know exactly how to deal with the prisoner. Had the jury found him guilty of scuttling the ship he should have felt constrained to go to a very great length. As it was, the prisoner had been found guilty of the most disgraceful act of cowardice which a British seaman could be guilty (If. The consequence of abandoning the vessel might have been very serious, for had she floated oat in the channel she might have endangered the safety of other ships and done a great deal of danage. He wished to mark his sense of the prisener's cow- ardice by a sentence of eight months' imprison- ment with hard labour.

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