Ireland is rich in these quadrilateral flanked edifices. There is Enniscorthy guarding the bridge of the Slaney in Wexford, and Dunmore in Meath, one of the most entire and regular specimens, if we may judge by the representation of Grose, who, to do him justice, never idealises. It is one of the many castles attributed to De Lacey, the governor of Meath. Another of them, Kilkea, continued long to raise its flanking round towers after it had laughed at the ferocious raids of the O’Moors and O’Dempsies in the English pale. Two of the best specimens, Lea, in Queen’s county, and Ferns in Wexford, were attacked and taken in the romantic inroad of Edward Bruce, who thought that, as his brother had, by one gallant achievement, wrested a crown in Scotland from the encroaching Norman, he might as well endeavour to take one in Ireland. Grandison Castle, with two beautiful specimens of the bell-shaped round tower, is attributed to the reign of James I.; but, though it is not the peculiar defect of Irish antiquities to be post-dated, this portion must, we think, belong to the Norman period. There are fine specimens of the round tower at Ballylachan and Ballynafad, whence the M‘Donoughs were driven forth, and the utterly un-Norman names of these buildings do not exclude them from identification as the work of the courtly invaders. In Ireland, however, this sort of work never ceased. There were ever O’Shauchnessies, O’Donahues, O’Rourkes, or O’Dempsies, keeping the Norman or the Saxon at work in making fortresses; and perhaps the latest specimen of it is a relic of the ’48, which we saw the other day in an antiquarian rummage in ancient and ruiniferous Cashel, being a large iron box with loopholes projecting out from the barrack where it was placed, to rake the street into which it projected with musketry from the loopholes. In Scotland, the Anglo-Norman origin of the earliest true baronial fortresses is attested with remarkable precision. In the first place, there is not a vestige in Scotland of the earlier kind of square keep, such as might have been raised in the days of the Conqueror, or of William Rufus, with its semicircular arches and dog-toothed decorations. The pointed architecture and the Edwardian baronial had come into use ere any of the fortresses of which we possess remains were erected. Hence, the oldest of the Scottish castles were evidently built by Edward to secure his conquest. They may be enumerated as those of Caerlaverock, Bothwell, Dirleton, Kildrummie, and Lochindorb. These names at once excite recollections of the war of independence, when these castles were taken and retaken, and were surrounded by the most interesting and enduring associations of that majestic conflict.