Of the power of the castle an idea may be formed from the extent of the fosse, little less than half a mile in circumference.  The outline of the walls is irregularly oval, and the even front is interrupted by towers of various sizes, and placed at unequal distances.  On the northern side, where the hill is steepest, there are no towers; but the walls are still farther strengthened by square buttresses, so large that they indeed look like bastions, and with a projection so great as to indicate an origin posterior to the Norman aera.  The two towers which flank the western entrance, and the towers which stand behind each of the flanking towers in the retiring line of the wall, are much larger than any of the rest.  One of the latter towers is of so extraordinary a shape, that I consider it as a non-descript; but, as I should tire both you and myself by endeavoring to describe it, I think it most prudent to refer you to a sketch:  perhaps its angular parts may not be coeval with the rest of the building[21]:  on this it would be impossible to decide positively, so shattered, impaired, and defaced are the walls, and so evidently is their coating the work of different periods.  I fancied that in some parts I could discern a mode of construction, in layers of brick and stone, similar to that of Roman buildings in our own country, while many of the bricks, from their texture and shape, appear also to be Roman.  Tradition, if we follow that delusive guide, teaches us that we are contemplating a work of the middle of the eighth century, and of one of the sons of Charles Martel.  If we follow William of Jumieges, the Chronicle of St. Vandrille, and William of Poitiers, we ascribe it to the uncle and rival of the Conqueror; other writers tell us that the ruins arose under Henry IInd.  I dare not decide amongst such reverend authorities, but I think I may infer, without the least disrespect towards monks and chroniclers, that the Norman Arques now occupies the place of a far more early structure, and that a portion of the walls of this latter was actually left in existence.  Taken, however, as a whole, the castle is evidently a building of different aeras; and it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define the parts belonging to each.

[Illustration:  Tower of remarkable shape in Castle of Arques]

The principal entrance is to the west, between the two towers first mentioned, over a draw-bridge, whose piers still remain, and through three gateways, whose arches, though now torn and dislocated into shapeless rents, seem to have been circular, and probably of Norman erection.  One of the towers of the gate-way appears formerly to have been a chapel.  Hence you pass into a court, whose surface, uneven with the remains of foundations, marks it to have been originally filled with apartments, and, at the opposite end of this, through a square gate-house with high embattled walls, a place evidently of great strength, and leading