Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/237

 the dulness of very confined prospects. Had ill-humour indeed triumphed over gratitude, it would have been quickly removed by the sight of a town singularly pleasing, and a ruin at once picturesque and august. Consisting of good houses, standing for the most part separate and detached from each other, Kenilworth looks more like a long scattered groups of comfortable gentleman's mansions, than the regularly-ranged buildings of a town. Its spired church, and the nearly-adjoining ruined gate-way of its ancient monastery, add to the beauty of the picture; but the dilapidated castle, its former præesidium et dulce decus, its safe-guard, and its honour, is the greatest ornament of the place. These remains stand a quarter of a mile from the town, and present a most grand appearance even at a distance, lifting their ivied summits above the solemn woods which encircle them, and awakening immediately the poet's image:

But on approaching them from the south-east they me still more interest, grandeur, and solemnity. Here we catch from a foreground, finely broken with trees, a vast and extensive turretted building, proudly seated upon a rising ground, strong in