The inside measurement of the keep is twenty feet square; the walls are ten feet thick, and so slight has been the touch, so far, of the "effacing fingers," that they seem assured of another long seven centuries. The chapel was under the protection of the monks of Whalley Abbey. Not a vestige of it now remains; every stone, after the dismantling of the castle in 1649, having been carried away, as in so many other instances, and used in the building of cottages and walls. After four generations, or in little more than a hundred years, the line of the De Lacys became extinct. Do we think often enough, and with commensurate thankfulness, of the immense service they and the other old Norman lords rendered our country during their lifetimes? The Normans, like the Romans, were scribes, architects, reclaimers of the waste, instruments of civilisation--all the most artistic and interesting relics of the Norman age Old England possesses bear Norman impress. How voiceful, to go no further, their cathedrals--Hereford, Peterborough, Durham, Gloucester! Contemplating their castles, few things more touch the imagination than the presence, abreast of the aged stones, of the shrubs and flowers of countries they never heard of. Here, for instance, sheltering at the knee of old Clitheroe Castle Keep, perchance in the identical spot where a plumed De Lacy once leaned, rejoicing in the sunshine, there is a vigorous young Nepalese cotoneaster. Surely it is the gardener, perpetuator of the earliest of ennobling professions, who, by transfer of plants and fruits from one country to another, shows that art and taste co-operating, as at Clitheroe, do most literally "make the whole world kin." How welcome will be the volume which some day will be devoted to thorough survey of the benevolent work! From whatever point approached, the ancient keep salutes the eye long before we can possibly reach it: no one who may seek it will pronounce the visit unrewarded. [Illustration: CLITHEROE CASTLE]