Thus, it will be readily understood that a day at Warwick supplies a rare treat; not only to the antiquary, and the historian, but to the lover of nature. The best views of the Castle are obtained from the opposite side of the Avon, near a narrow stream crossed by a bridge, which is part of the main road;[36] of the old bridge there are some remains, rendered highly picturesque by ivy and lichens that grow in profusion there, and near the old mill, the date of which is coeval with that of the Castle. Superb trees grow in the immediate grounds, huge chestnuts and gigantic cedars, that have sheltered the stout earls time out of mind: the walls are grey with age; but it is a sober livery that well suits the stronghold of the bold barons, and suggests the tranquillity of repose after the fever of battles, sieges, and deeds that cannot fail to be summoned from history as one looks from the filled-up moat to the towers and battlements that still smile or frown upon the environing town they controlled or protected. It demands but little imagination to carry the visitor of to-day back through long-past centuries, from the moment we enter the picturesque yet gloomy passage cut through the rock, covered with ivy, lichens, and wild flowers in rich abundance, and pass under the portcullis that yet frowns above the porter’s lodge: the whole seems so little changed by time, that one might wait for the king-maker and his mighty host to issue through the gateway, and watch the red rose or the white rose on the helmets of attendant knights; by no great stretch of fancy one might see the trembling Gaveston, the petted minion of a weak monarch, dragged forth to death: a hundred events or incidents are associated with these courts and towers, inseparably linked with British history; and it is impossible to resist a feeling of reverence approaching awe while pacing peacefully among them. The “frowning keep,” nearly hidden by the green foliage of surrounding trees, may be accepted as an emblem of the Castle; where tranquillity and peace are in the stead of fierceness and broil. Warwick, while it has lost little of its grandeur, has obtained much of grace from time; Time which “Moulders into beauty many a tower, That when it frowned with all its battlements Was only terrible.” HADDON HALL. [Illustration: _Dorothy Vernon’s Door._]