Beyond the lake lay an extensive chase, full of red-deer, fallow-deer, roes, and every species of game, and abounding with lofty trees, from among which the extended front and massive towers of the castle were seen to rise in majesty and beauty.  We can not but add that of this lordly palace, where princes feasted and heroes fought, now in the bloody earnest of storm and siege, and now in the games of chivalry, where beauty dealt the prize which valor won, all is now desolate.  The bed of the lake is but a rushy swamp and the massive ruins of the castle only serve to show what their splendor once was, and to impress on the musing visitor the transitory value of human possessions, and the happiness of those who enjoy a humble lot in virtuous contentment.

Alnwick [Footnote:  From “Visits to Remarkable Places.”]

BY WILLIAM HOWITT

A visit to Alnwick is like going back into the old feudal times.  The town still retains the moderate dimensions and the quiet air of one that has grown up under the protection of the castle, and of the great family of the castle.  Other towns, that arose under the same circumstances, have caught the impulse of modern commerce and manufacture, and have grown into huge, bustling, and noisy cities, in which the old fortified walls and the old castle have either vanished, or have been swallowed up, and stand, as if in superannuated wonder, amid a race and a wilderness of buildings, with which they have nothing in common.  When, however, you enter Alnwick, you still feel that you are entering a feudal place.  It is as the abode of the Percys has presented itself to your imagination.  It is still, quaint, gray, and old-worldish....

In fact, the whole situation is fine, without being highly romantic, and worthy of its superb old fabric.  In the castle itself, without and within, I never saw one on English ground that more delighted me; because it more completely came up to the beau ideal of the feudal baronial mansion, and especially of that of the Percys, the great chieftains of the British Border—­the heroes of Otterburn and Chevy Chase.

Nothing can be more striking than the effect at first entering within the walls from the town; when, through a dark gloomy gateway of considerable length and depth, the eye suddenly emerges into one of the most splendid scenes that can be imagined; and is presented at once with the great body of the inner castle, surrounded with fair semi-circular towers, finely swelling to the eye, and gaily adorned with pinnacles, battlements, etc.  The impression is still further strengthened by the successive entrances into the second and third courts, through great massy towers, till you are landed in the inner court, in the very center of this great citadel.

An idea may be formed of the scale of this brave castle, when we state that it includes, within its outer walls, about five acres of ground; and that its walls are flanked with sixteen towers, which now afford a complete set of offices to the castle, and many of them retain not only their ancient names, but also their original uses.