“For the rich spoil of all the continents, The boast of art and nature, there was brought; Corinthian brass, Egyptian monuments, With hieroglyphic sculptures all inwrought; And Parian marbles, by Greek artists taught To counterfeit the forms of heroes old, And set before the eye of sober thought Lycurgus, Homer, and Alcides bold-- All these and many more that may not here be told.” But of all the artificial embellishments for which Raglan Castle was famed, its <g>Water-works</g>--on a most ingenious and expensive scale--are allowed to have formed a principal feature; and these Lord Herbert and the first Marquess appear to have brought to a degree of perfection previously unknown in this country. In their day--long before the name of Cromwell had inspired sentiments of either respect or alarm--Raglan Castle was probably as much distinguished in this respect amongst baronial mansions, as the “Palace of the Peak” among the aristocratic mansions of our own times. During the numerous fêtes celebrated within its gates in honour of the King’s visit, these water-works came in for a large share of royal admiration; and who can doubt that the rushing fountains of Raglan had, perhaps, as soothing an influence upon the distracted mind of the first <g>Charles</g>, as those of Tivoli are said to have had on that of Mecænas, whom the distracting cares of state, as tradition reports, had rendered sad and sleepless? Fresh from the field of Naseby, the sound of welcome that met King Charles at the gate of Raglan, must have been peculiarly grateful to _his_ ear, on which the shouts of loyalty were destined never to fall again with so much truth and fervour. As the equestrian group in the <g>Fountain Court</g> threw up its snowy column during the night, the spray may have reached the very casement of the King’s chamber, and invited that repose which unparalleled reverses had scared from his pillow. If, under the ordinary circumstances of royalty, “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” his must indeed have been “unrest,” from whose head the crown was so surely but insensibly falling.--These, however, are sentimental conjectures, with which the topographer has little or nothing to do; we turn, therefore, to the subject in question, the water-works of Raglan, and the hero of the scene, the first Marquess, of whom local history reports the following