After enjoying these general effects, we proceeded to examine the apartments of the castle. These do not in any part seem of very remote erection, but appear to have been constructed at different periods between the ages of Henry the Fifth and Elizabeth; yet, though a disunion of style be visible to the Antiquary, no discordance of effect arises in any instance. Of the first court, the principal entrance, and a range of once elegant rooms, occupy the south side; the baronial hall, and some other noble apartments, fill up the western part of the court; the culinary and other domestic offices, with the servants habitations, appear to have occupied the north and east sides: at the angle of their junction, a pentagonal tower contained the kitchen, and a small projection on the past side was the oven. A broken flight of steps afforded us the means of ascent to the superior apartments, where we admired the works of our fore-fathers in some lightly-ornamented chimney-pieces and Gothic mouldings. The baronial hall has suffered less from time than from the pilfering attempts of the neighbourhood: some traces of its former grandeur may be seen in its stately dimensions; a prodigious fire-place; and a few remnants of ornament, including the stone-sculptured arms of the Marquis of Worcester, at one end of the hall: this place, once the scene of banqueting and splendour, is now used as a fives-court. Here a fresh instance might be collected of the fleeting state of sublunary greatness; but so many have been brought forward by the great geniusses of all ages, while every little one feels the truth without benefiting by the knowledge, that we will not stop to enlarge on so hopeless a subject; but proceed, where barons bold have often trod, through the western portal of the hall to the chapel. Few vestiges remain of this structure; but some of its springing arches, rising from grotesque heads, are imperfectly visible; and two whole-length figures, coarsely executed, appear through the thick-woven ivy. From this place we entered the area of the second court, once adorned with a marble fountain and an equestrian statue; but now planted with fruit-trees: this court is surrounded by a range of secondary yet capital apartments. The subterraneous appendages of the castle are uncommonly extensive, according with the great plan of the building; eastward of which is the grange and out-houses, now converted into a farming habitation.—Raglan Castle was one of the latest that held out for the royal cause against Cromwell; and the intrenchments raised for its defence, and against it, may be readily traced in the adjoining fields. {219} Returning from this interesting ruin, we passed Raglan church, a small Gothic building, containing a few mutilated monuments of the Beaufort and Worcester families; and proceeded on the turnpike-road to Chepstow.