the engine on which the marquis and Kaltoff had laboured for so many years; but they went incredulously, their eyes closed by the prejudice of an age, then but only beginning to appreciate the discoveries of science, and returned ridiculing the engine, which one of them called 'a pretty curiosity.'

The history of the invention itself is most obscure, and even those who laughed at it do not describe it.

Disappointment succeeded to sanguine expectation, till the marquis, his constitution weakened by that unhealthy part of London round Vauxhall, and harassed by anxieties, succumbed to the hand of death on the 3d of April 1667. He was buried at Raglan; and thus passed away the spirit of a great man and inventor.

As I said before, the history of his engine has not been preserved to us in its integrity; and the materials on which his admirers assert that his water-commanding engine was a positive fact, are scanty and slight.

I shall end this chapter by drawing from this hero's life one last lesson for us all. He was un

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appreciated; yet, feeling within his own grand mind the truth of his inventions, he offered up to his Maker, 'when first with his corporall eyes he did see finish'd a perfect tryall of his water-commanding engine,' as runs the quaint old manuscripts still preserved by his descendants, humble thanks for the insight in soe great a secret of nature, beneficial to all mankind, as this my water-commanding engine.' Thus, from Raglan and 'its Heroes,' we learn loyalty and honour from the history of the father ; and in the constancy and energy of the inventor, and the piety with which he ascribed the success of those qualities to his Creator, we see an example that all may profit by in the career of the son.

CHAPTER VII.

CARISBROOKE CASTLE.

THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH STUART.

OU know where the Isle of Wight is situated in the British Channel, and that it lies in that part which is named

the Solent.

It is south of Hampshire, and is included in that county. The Romans called it Victus Insula ;' but it does not appear to have been one of their stations.

Henry the Sixth first made it into a separate kingdom in the fourteenth century, and bestowed it on Henry Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, whom later you will hear more about.

Carisbrooke is situated on a small hill overlooking a village of that name.

The Britons are reputed to have built it A.D.

45, in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, and it was repaired later under Roman rule. In 519 a Saxon, named Whitegar, rebuilt it, and called it Whitgarisbourg; hence its name Carisbrooke, a corruption of the last word.

In Henry the First's reign, Richard de Rivers, Earl of Devonshire, again rebuilt the castle on a magnificent scale; and Queen Elizabeth also added to and repaired it, her initials, E. R., being still to be found on an outer gate, though, unfortunately, the date has been erased by time.

The ancient castle is built on a space covering about an acre and a half, its greatest length being from east to west; and you enter its ruined walls— 'A chiefless castle breathing stern farewells

From grey and ivied walls, where ruin greenly dwells,'

over a small bridge; then passing through the small gate on which are Elizabeth's initials, you find yourself in a passage leading between battlemented walls to a more imposing-looking gate, guarded by two round towers; thence through an old door which opens on to the castle yard.

To the right is a small walled-in chapel, which is also a parish church, that of St. Nicolas, the

castle being the parish; and it is a quiet, pretty little spot, suggesting sad remembrances of those who were imprisoned in Carisbrooke. Opposite the visitor, as he enters the old ruins, are the low buildings where Charles the First was confined, and from one of whose windows he attempted his escape.

At the north-east angle stands the keep, from which the sea is seen to the north, south, and east ; and where a well once existed three hundred feet deep, but which is now filled up with rubbish.

The remains of another tower are called Mountjoy's Tower, and in some places its walls are eighteen feet thick. The outer works and fortifications of this interesting old fortress were erected in the time of Elizabeth, who, at the earnest solicitation of its then constable and captain,' Sir George Carey, at the period of the Spanish Armada's threatened invasion, gave four thousand pounds to have it properly fortified—a sum much larger in those days than it would be in our own.

But I must first go back to an earlier period of English history, after the death of William Fitzosbert, on whom the Conqueror bestowed it after