It cannot fail to augment the enjoyment of those who visit this beautiful county—the fairest, the brightest, and the “greenest” of all our English shires—to recall the many “worthies” to whom Devonshire and Cornwall have given birth; men renowned in art, in science, and in letters: and the gallant men, the “adventurers,” who carried the flag of England into every country of the world, braving the battle and the breeze in all the seas that surround earth in the four quarters of the globe. It is a long list—the names of Drake, of Raleigh, and of Davy; of Reynolds, Northcote, Haydon, and Eastlake; of Carew, of Hawkins, and of Gilbert; of Kitto, of Bryant, and of Hawker, being not a tithe of the eminent men to which this district has given birth—of whom the western shires are rightly and justly proud. Shame be to those who seek in other lands the enjoyment they may find so abundantly at home—who talk freely of the graces and grandeurs of far-off countries, and do not blush to acknowledge entire ignorance of those that bless and beautify their own. England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, are, each and all, rich in “the picturesque;” to the artist and art-lover they present attractions second to none they will find in any country of the Continent: that is the truest “patriotism,” which inculcates, as a first duty, a full appreciation of “Our own, our native land!” ALNWICK CASTLE.[18] [Illustration] WITH the single exception of Royal Windsor, ALNWICK CASTLE is second to none of the mediæval British strongholds which, in our own times, combine the characteristics of the early fortress and the modern palace. With its magnificent architectural features, all of them deeply impressed with the attributes of a baronial castle of the olden time, and placed in the midst of that famous scene of long-continued strife, of daring deeds, and of summary retribution, the Northern Border, Alnwick may truly be said to be an historical monument, standing upon historic ground. The names of the great barons, in like manner, who have successively been lords of Alnwick, have been enrolled by English chroniclers among the foremost ranks of their countrymen, so that their own biographies, interwoven with the history of their renowned castle, are written in the annals of England. Then, on the other hand, while in an extraordinary degree rich as well in relics as in memories of the past, Alnwick still maintains the unclouded splendour of its ancient dignity in its present capacity as the residence of an existing ducal family. Thus, from whatever point of view it may be regarded, Alnwick Castle must be esteemed as one of the finest and most interesting of our national edifices, and it also always will establish its claim to a foremost place among “the stately homes of England.”