There is Warwick Castle,--a written history, no doubt, to scholars, a
mine of wealth to antiquaries and architects; but how incomplete would
my associations be with the spot, were you banished from the picture, my
sturdy friend, fit type of the female retainers of the household of the
King-Maker, who, stationed within the ivied approach to the castle,
presided at the brazen porridge-pot, once holding food enough to satisfy
ten score of men, now empty, save for the volume of sound which stuns
the ear when you strike it with your ponderous iron bar! Can I ever
forget the scene of laughter and riot, when you installed me within the
capacious vessel, dubbed me "Countess Guy, of the Porridge-Pot," and,
the rest of my party having been induced to accept the hospitalities of
the place, and mount my triumphal car, declared your intention to light
a fire beneath and have the finest stew in all England? The castle is a
stern place, perhaps; but how can I ever think it grim, with such a
jolly old flatterer as you stationed at its portal?
And here, in my blundering way, I have stumbled on the secret spring of
my whole subject; so I may as well make a merit of confession, and
acknowledge frankly that the trap in which these wary guides entangled
my affections was generally neither more nor less than a net of silken
flattery.
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