This description, of course, applies to times long before the guns of Fairfax had made a breach in the Yellow Tower; and while the Castle, with all its regal appendages, was the cherished abode of its illustrious owner--a repertorium of the fine arts, and the seat of unbounded hospitality. At no period of its history, however--not even while it was inhabited by worth and beauty, enriched with the precious works of art, and seemed to enclose within its walls an earthly paradise--at no period did it ever present so many features to fascinate the mind and eye of Taste as at this moment. And “Why is it”--inquires one of the ablest writers of the day--“Why is it that we feel so poetical a sympathy with the great men of ages long past? Why do <g>castles</g> please most when they are dismantled, and palaces when they are in ruins? Why is an old battle-field rather improved than otherwise by a crop of standing corn? Because we can _imagine_ nobler things than we can _see_. Because the heroic deed, not vile flesh and blood, is the impersonation of the hero. We should be rather displeased at meeting the Iron Duke walking to a pedometer on the field of Waterloo. We would doubt whether on the plain of Marathon we could be reconciled even to the ghost of Miltiades. Greatness shines more brightly when it is abstracted from the man.” We will now, as proposed, take the building in detail, beginning with the grand entrance, and proceeding onward, until we have completed the circuit of the walls, the inner apartments, battlements, terraces, and outworks. On these prominent features we shall dilate with more or less minuteness according to the interest of the subject--but always directing the reader’s attention more especially to those portions which have been chosen as subjects of illustration. <g>Grand Entrance.</g>--Here a magnificent and imposing spectacle bursts upon the eye--three pentagonal towers, crowned with battlements, and bearing on their mutilated outline marks of the cannon-shot directed against it by the besiegers. These, however, are less defaced than any other portions of the ruin, and are now invested with a luxuriant mantle of ivy, lichen, and parasitical plants, as if Nature interposed to protect the venerable edifice from further outrage and decay. In the gateway are grooves for two portcullises. The two pentagonal towers on the right and left were appropriated to the inferior offices of the castle. Immediately behind these were rooms occupied by the garrison, or household troops. Adjoining these on the right, was the third pentagonal tower, called the Closet Tower; and on the left again were the officers’ apartments, which were demolished during the operations of the siege.