dale-a district equally interesting to the antiquary and the lover of the picturesque. The Swale, having received an addition to its waters in the Wiske, flows

RICHMOND.

Yorkshire occupies a circuit of not less than four hundred and sixty square miles; and its dales and rivers are unsurpassed for the beauty of the one and the fertility of the other. It extends one hundred and thirty miles from east to west, and ninety miles from north to south. On the east its coast is washed by the German Ocean, from the Humber to the Tees; on the south, the former river separates it from Lincolnshire; on the west it is bounded by Cheshire and Lancashire; and on the north by Westmoreland and the county of Durham. It is not our purpose to give more than a glance at its physical features and its historical associations; therefore we need only mention that its political divisions are the North, East, and West Ridings.

By following the course of its principal rivers we shall best arrive at the most characteristic feature of Yorkshire-namely, its Dales and Dalesmen. The Tees is the most northerly of the Yorkshire rivers; rising in the mountains of Westmoreland, it flows in an easterly direction, bounding the North Riding in its whole extent, a distance of eighty-three miles. A tract of country along the sea-coast is known as the Vale of Cleveland, celebrated for its fertility, and formerly for its breed of horses. This vale is slightly sprinkled with hills, and the soil a loamy clay. From the summit of one of these hills-Rosebury Topping-a magnificent view is obtained, which is thus described by the historian of the district, the Rev. J. Graves :

"After a tedious labour of nearly an hour up the steep ascent, we reached the rocky summit, from whence the most enchanting prospect opened to our view. Before us lay extended the beautiful Vale of Cleveland, with the county of Durham-woods, meadows, and cornfields, interspersed with views of rural villages, farms, and country seats. The river Tees is seen winding through the valley, with stately vessels gliding on its bosom. To the north and north-east we have our first view of the sea, covered with ships whose glittering sails, now fully loosened to the wind, now eddying to the breeze, contrast delightfully in the sunbeams. To the south the prospect is bounded by a chain of hills, rising behind each other in towering height, vying with lofty majesty with that on which we stand."

Another important river is the Swale, which takes its rise in the western part of the same Riding, and waters the romantic tract of country called Swale

Swaledale is more celebrated for its rich grazing ground and its great extent than for its beauty, still more for the beautiful market-town of Richmond, which is situated on its banks. This town is small, but its situation is delightful, and its houses lofty and well built. The country round Richmond is extremely picturesque; the Valley of the Swale being skirted in many places with perpendicular rocks, almost covered with trees and shrubs. From the hills to the northwest side of the town the eye is regaled with the most magnificent prospects of Richmond and its Castle, though seated on a precipitous hill more than a hundred feet above the bed of the river. When seen from some of these elevations, the eye ranges over the adjacent country as far as the Tees, with Cleveland and the Vale of York; even the Cathedral, at a distance of fortyfour miles, is said to be visible on a bright day. Richmond, indeed, is the admired of all beholders for its remarkable beauties, which are not unassociated, at the same time, with grandeur and sublimity.

There are few districts in England, or indeed in any country, which abound more in memorials of the past, and in delightful scenery, than Richmondshire, as it is sometimes called, of which the old town of Richmond is the capital. It stands on a lofty eminence boldly rising from the river Swale, which winds round the town and the castle in a semicircular direction. It is greatly admired by tourists for its romantic beauties; being marked with picturesque grandeur. The peculiar position and features of this town and neighbourhood are well shown in Mr. Warren's drawing.

Richmond is said to have been a place of good trade for three centuries after the Conquest; but many causes have contributed to its decay; among these may be mentioned the charters granted for holding markets in neighbouring towns, and the want of water communication, which is entirely precluded by the rocky bed of the Swale, and the sudden and violent floods to which the river is subject from the heavy rains that fall on the moors. This drawback has been recently remedied by the construction of a branch railroad from the York, Newcastle, and Berwick Railway to Richmond. The copper and lead mines of Whitcliffe have, from an early period, been leased by the corporation to various persons up to the present century; but they are discontinued for lack of ore.

There is a bridge over the Swale at Richmond; it stands at the end of the street called Bargate, and was built in 1789. The bridge constructed by the railway company is seen in our engraving.

The parish church, a gothic building, consisting of a nave, chancel, and aisles, with a tower at the west end, is situated on the declivity of the hill in Frenchgate,

and the peculiarity of the place causes the walls to be unusually high, and the windows appear disproportionally elevated. This church was confirmed to the monastery of St. Mary, at York, in the Norman period. There is a massive monument, but certainly of no remarkable beauty, in the chancel, to Sir Timothy Hutton, of Marske, who "departed this life" in 1629, and contains the effigies of himself, his wife, and several children. His own name is expressed in Greek words, and his wife's is played upon in divers fantastic ways. A bear is pierced by twelve arrows, representing the children, eight whole, and four broken, meaning that they died in infancy. At the east end of the north aisle is the monument of George Cuitto, a landscape artist of some local fame, a native of Moulton, near Richmond, who died in 1818, at the ripe age ef seventyfive. He studied his art principally at Rome, under the auspices of Sir Lawrence Dundas. On the south side of the church, to the west of the steps, is a very old flat monument of freestone, without inscription, but believed by tradition to cover--a leg. How a mere leg, although a most honourable member," came to have this distinction conferred upon it, we will briefly tell:-In the year of grace 1606, one Master Robert Willance was journeying, in company with several others, towards Richmond, when his horse leapt down the frightful precipice of Whitcliffe Scar. To the great

surprise of his comrades he was taken up alive, having received no other injury than a broken leg, which was soon afterwards amputated, and was here committed to its kindred dust.

We have now to give the reader some idea of one of the most stupendous fortresses of the Middle Ages. It is now in ruins, but

-Time has been, that lifts the low,
And level lays the haughty brow,
Has seen this broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state.

A few centuries since, and these now ruined battlements stood in all the pride of a strength which it might have seemed neither time nor storm should subdue. Crowned with their martial warriors, tall plumes and brilliant pennons received the rays now falling upon the wild flowers; and spirit-stirring echoes were awakened by the trumpet, where now is heard only the sound of aërial music, as it plays amid the ruins.

Again and again returns the "delicate-footed spring," and the blossoms are called by the lark and the cuckoo to awake from their winter sleep, and deck afresh the hoary walls; but never more shall the ruins arise to renewed vigour.

Richmond Castle was built by the first Earl Alan Rufus, son of Hoel, Count of Bretagne. Alan the Red, who was a near kinsman of William, Duke of Normandy,

accompanied that warlike prince in his expedition to England, and was rewarded for his prowess at Hastings with the lands of the Saxon Earl, "beautiful Edwin," which consisted of no less than two hundred manors and townships. This magnificent donation was made A.D. 1070, at the time when the Conqueror was employed in the siege of York, which the said Edwin, Earl of Chester, and the Northumbrian Earls Morcar and Waltherf, bravely, but unsuccessfully, defended against him.

The Conqueror conferred on Alan the Red another mark of his gracious favour, in giving him Hawise, his daughter, in marriage. Alan, being thus loaded with riches and honours, built the Castle of Richmond for the security of his new possessions against the disinherited and outlawed Englishmen in those parts.

During the reigns of our Norman Kings, the Earldom of Richmond was possessed by several different families, some of whom were allied to the blood royal both of England and France. It is unnecessary to mention them, even by name, for

"The knights are dust,

And their good swords are rust,

Their souls are with the saints, we trust."

town; and this is the only side on which it could have been accessible to an enemy.

From the time that the Conquest began to prosper, says M. Thierry, not young soldiers and warlike chiefs alone, but whole families, men, women, and children, emigrated from every remote district of Gaul, to seek their fortunes in England. To the people on the other side of the Channel, this land was like a land newly discovered, to which the colonists repair, and which is appropriated by the first or by every comer. Our neighbours, in fact, came over wholesale; all ranks and orders of society locating themselves together.

"William de Cognisby

Came out of Brittany,
With his wife Tiffany,
And his maid Maufras,
And his dogge Hardigras."

So writes the Saxon rhymer in bitter pleasantry.

The Norman Earls of Richmond brought into Richmondshire people from their own estates, and hence traces of the Norman language may still be observed in every village within the limits of that Yorkshire district. Eight centuries have impressed a stamp and credit upon phrases originally Norman still in use. Let any one go through the quiet, rural villages of Richmondshire, especially those parts of it which are strictly in Teesdale

Edward III. gave it to his third son, John of Gaunt, who restored it for other lands in exchange; and the King conferred this Earldom on John, Earl of Montford and Duke of Bretagne, surnamed the Valiant, to whom he also gave one of his daughters in marriage. It afterwards passed into the hands of different powerful families, till at last it was erected into a duchy by Henry VIII. in favour of his natural son, Henry Fitzroy, who was the first Duke of Richmond, and died in 1535, without issue. In the reign of Charles II. the honours and titles of this duchy were given to Charles Lennox, the natural son of the King by the Duchess of Portsmouth, and in his family they still remain.

Richmond Castle is on the south side of the town of Richmond, overlooking the Swale, which runs in a deep valley beneath. Between the river-one of the loveliest streams which Yorkshire can produce amid her thousand rivulets—and the site of the Castle, is a walk of eight or nine feet in breadth, about sixty perpendicular above the bed of the river, and presenting to the eye a precipice of great abruptness. The ground on which the Castle stands is elevated forty or fifty feet above this walk, and is faced on that side with massy stones, resembling a natural rock. The eastern side of the castleyard is also skirted by the Swale; but here the descent instead of being precipitous, as on the south, slopes down for the space of forty or fifty yards to the river. The west side of this once almost impregnable fortress is faced with a deep valley, the ascent from which to the Castle is exceedingly steep. On the north the site of the Castle is very little elevated above that of the

ningham, Wycliffe, Gilling with its dependencies, and so downwards to the mouth of the Tees, and he will find words and phrases, if he should happen to possess a taste for genuine provincialisms, which will, owing to their originality, surprise and interest him. In this district, if anywhere, lingers the genuine old language of the time of Wycliffe. We have heard it remarked by a gentleman, that he once read aloud to an old woman in the parish of Wycliffe, utterly uneducated, a chapter from John Wycliffe's translation of the New Testament, and, perhaps because entirely uninformed, she understood, without question, every word as he proceeded, and expressed her delight at hearing the tongue in which she had been nurtured, read from a printed book. She said that it was universal in her younger days, "before folks became so fine."

The great strength of the once magnificent Castle of Richmond probably deterred besiegers; for it plays but a very insignificant part in recorded warfare. In 1174, William the Lion, King of Scotland, entered the north of England; and the importance of this Castle is shown in the metrical romance of Jordan Fantosme, by Henry II. anxiously inquiring, when the defection of one powerful baron after another was reported-" Is Ranulf de Glanville in Richemunt?" And when Brian, the messenger of that ever-to-be-remembered statesman and lawyer, arrived at London, to announce to his monarch the defeat of the Scots, Henry asks the servant, "Has the King of Scotland entered Richemunt?" Glanville had attacked the Lion, as he was tilting in a meadow near Alnwick Castle, with only sixty Scottish lords near him, made the whole party