animating the garrison by her own spirit and lofty courage, withstood a long siege in behalf of Charles I., but forced at last to yield, the castle was blown up by orders of the Parliament. The gunpowder did its work too well, and made that havoc in the solid masonry which now, by lapse of years, has become picturesque. Huge masses lie about in wild confusion; some half-buried, with their jagged side upwards; others leaning over, as though still falling; or in great heaps, forming rude caverns, green with moss and grasses; while other fragments, of many tons' weight, have been hurled half-way down the hill, where, though firmly imbedded, they seem ready to topple over and roll down to the road. Here stands the half of a vaulted passage-there a segment of an arch, with flowers growing from the crevices-yonder, four walls enclosing a roofless chamber-evidences of the strength and extent of the ancient castle. They knew how to build in King Edgar's day, for the cement is still so hard that a heavy blow makes but little impression on it. Had it been softer, or had not stone been very abundant in the neighbourhood, the materials would doubtless have been carried away to build cottages, barns, and pigsties; the not uncommon fate of the strongholds of the barons.

But, conspicuous above all the rest is that solid corner buttress, some sixty feet high, completely covered with a thick, unbroken growth of ivy from base to The dark green foliage envelops it on every

crown.

side, the thick rugged stems visible below, and the thin tender shoots trembling in the breeze at the summit. Birds flit in and out continually, finding it, no doubt, a safe and pleasant abode; but in one place a chimney-like burrow, running half-way up within the leaves, shows where adventurous boys climb in search of nests. The foliage was in perfection; the new spring leaves having just reached their prime, no single one dusky or withered, made up a surface of matchless verdure. It is worth going far to see how Time, aided by rain, dew, and sunshine, can fling a mantle of beauty over bare stone and shattered masonry.

Besides the ruins you get a view for miles around, over bare hills, fields, and wastes. Straight to the south, about five miles distant, I should have seen St. Alban's Head and the sea, had they not been hid by a gray bank of ́mist. There runs the road to Swanage, there the road to Wareham; there is Wych Heath, and the Corfe river running across it, turning the wheel of Arcliffe Mill on its way to Wych Channel. Those bare patches of white, red, and yellow, are the clay diggings-an abundant source of wealth and industry in Purbeck. You stand, as it were, in a vast gateway, with a free outlook in two directions: the other two are closed by Challow Hill and Knowl Hill, which overtop even the highest summit of the ruins, and come so near together as to leave no more than room for the castle hill and a road between, and

a smaller hill beyond, on which is built the little town of Corfe. There is something in the aspect of the place so remarkable that your eye always returns to it. A few old, gray stone houses, which appear as if hewn out of the solid rock, clustered round an old church with a fine, tall tower-the central-and a striking object in the picture, and that is Corfe. Sloping away on two sides down to the little watercourse are the gardens of the inhabitants, crowded with vegetables and flowers, that betoken careful culture. I was looking down upon it from a nook in the old walls, locally known as the "courting corner," and had just remembered it was disfranchised by the Reform Bill, when a man in the dress of a well-to-do labourer who had strolled up, said, "It be a hard little place, Sur."

His adjective was not inappropriate; and after a few remarks had passed between us, its significance seemed the more evident. He was, he said, a clay-digger, earning two shillings a day, and nothing at all in rainy weather, for then labour is suspended; and hard work he finds it, even in the best of times, to eke out wages to the supply of wants. He gets a trifle now and then from "genelfolk" who come to see the castle, as he is one of two appointed to see that the caution anent mischief written on the notice-board is not disobeyed. But all are poor in Corfe: they have such "uncommon large families" that it is "wonderful" to see the children playing in the streets in the evenings.

My interlocutor himself confessed to fifteen children, and an expectation of another or two; and, judging from his description, Corfe must present scenes of overcrowding only to be paralleled in London lodginghouses. "A goodish few" were able to read and write; but the necessity for work was unfavourable to education; and if the "young 'uns didn't 'arn somethin', there'd never be 'taters enough for 'em to ate in the winter." Did none ever emigrate? Not many; by reason of want of money, and an unwillingness to leave the old place.

A stone bridge of four arches spans the deep dry ditch that separates the hill from the town, and crossing over you find yourself on a level with the market-place, amid the houses that looked so strange from the hilltop. The strangeness is not diminished by a nearer view. Some of them have that marked feature of antiquity, a square projecting chamber in front, which, supported on short wooden pillars, forms a portico to the door, so low as to remind you painfully of an Eastern Counties railway-carriage. One of these porticoed houses is the Greyhound-a modest hostelry, but possessed of satisfactory capabilities as regards the commissariat. A quiet breakfast at a little country inn is not the least among the enjoyments of travel. The unadulterated milk, the really new-laid eggs, the sweet, fresh butter, all inspire a confidence unfelt in cities, and you eat with unwonted satisfaction.

Breakfast over, I started for Lulworth Cove-twelve

miles distant. The shortest road runs along the very top of the hills, which extend nearly the whole of the distance, and in the general levelness of their summit remind you of the Hog's Back in Surrey. You leave Corfe by a narrow road, which descends rapidly to the foot of the castle hill, where you get a view along the ditch, and the tall arches of the bridge, and where the huge masses of the old towers that lie on the turf seem only waiting till you pass beneath to finish their tumble. Gradually the path rises up the side of Knowl, giving you a new aspect of the town and ruins, and soon you arrive at the top of the hill. Here faint wheel-ruts and sheep-tracks run along the soft green turf, nearly in the centre of the summit, which, with the width of about a hundred yards, stretches away farther than eye can see. Here and there luxuriant beds of thistles grow secure in their impunity, and send out stragglers in all directions among the patches and rounded hassocks of gorse, disputing possession of the soil. Everywhere sheep are grazing, or crouching in lairs hollowed out of the furze on the side which does not face the strong south-westerly gales; and the silly animals, though knowing where to seek the warmest quarters, give themselves a world of trouble to run bleating away whenever you pass near them.

The early morning's promise of fine weather had been more than once broken since I left the boat by a scud of watery mist flying off from the bank that lay to seaward; and I had not been long on the hill-top