The walls facing
upon the enclosed quadrangle are pierced with many windows, and have been
ornamented with sculpture, rich traces of which still remain over the
arched entrance-ways; and in the grassy centre of the court there is the
ruin and broken fragments of a fountain, which once used to play for the
delight of the king and queen, and lords and ladies, who looked down upon
it from hall and chamber. Many old carvings that belonged to it are
heaped together there; but the water has disappeared, though, had it been
a natural spring, it would have outlasted all the heavy stone-work.
As far as we were able, and could find our way, we went through every
room of the palace, all round the four sides. From the first floor
upwards it is entirely roofless. In some of the chambers there is an
accumulation of soil, and a goodly crop of grass; in others there is
still a flooring of flags or brick tiles, though damp and moss-grown, and
with weeds sprouting between the crevices. Grass and weeds, indeed, have
found soil enough to flourish in, even on the highest ranges of the
walls, though at a dizzy height above the ground; and it was like an old
and trite touch of romance, to see how the weeds sprouted on the many
hearth-stones and aspired under the chimney-flues, as if in emulation of
the long-extinguished flame. It was very mournful, very beautiful, very
delightful, too, to see how Nature takes back the palace, now that kings
have done with it, and adopts it as a part of her great garden.
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