BELVOIR CASTLE, LEICESTERSHIRE, SEAT OF THE DUKE OF RUTLAND. 66 Tis an old and stately castle, In an old and stately wood, Thoughts and shadows gather round it, WILLIAM the Norman was followed to England by a train of landless lords, whose fidelity he requited by extensive territorial grants in his newly acquired kingdom. One of these barons, Robert de Todenci, his standard-bearer, was rewarded by the munificent grant of forty manors, or lordships, all contiguous, although in the several counties of Leicester, Lincoln, and Northampton. The eagle-height of this wood-clad rock was a fitting feudal site, and there the military liege-lord erected his fortress-home, which he very significantly called Château de Belvedere. The position of the present castle, which is the precise spot on which Todenci's towers stood, very much resembles that of Windsor. From the tall tower, the whole vale of Bever is seen extending into the three shires already named, and from thence may be traced the boundaries of the many manors, that have descended to the present noble owner from his Norman ancestor. At the foot of the rock of Belvoir there stood a priory, when Todenci usurped the lordship of the valley, and, such institutions being then held sacred, even by the most despotic and unjust of mankind, he not only protected but endowed it, and there at last his remains were laid in the year of our Lord 1088. His immediate successor assumed the name of Albini, and the last of this line was amongst the resolute barons who wrested the charter from King John. By the marriage of Catherine, only child and heiress of William de Belvoir, with Robert de Ros of Hamlake, two great estates were incorporated; and to this a further addition was made, about the close of the fifteenth century, by the union of Robert de Manners, of Ethdale in Northumberland, with Eleanor, sole surviving sister of Edmund, last Lord de Ros. Thomas de Manners was created Earl of Rutland by Henry VIII.; and it is remarkable, that this dignity had previously been confined strictly to members of the blood-royal. It was in the year 1642-3, that the estate and manor and mansion of Haddon became an appendage to the Rutland property, by the marriage of the heiress, Dorothy Vernon, with John de Ros, the fifth earl of that line. John, the sixth earl, was created Marquis of Granby and Duke of Rutland at the commencement of the last century, and the present noble proprietor of Belvoir is the fifth in ducal descent from that eminent individual. E The representatives of this ancient and illustrious family have not looked tamely on while revolution shook the kingdom to the centre, or invasion threatened its peace from abroad. In the Third Henry's reign, Robert de Ros displayed so much zeal in public business, that the king granted him free-warren in the lordship at Belvoir, in 1257, and leave to hold a weekly market and annual fair there, in 1261; his principles, however, could not be purchased, and, in 1264, he was amongst the insurgent barons who vanquished the royal army in the battle of Lewes. An extent was afterwards issued against his estates, but he was permitted to compound, and on his return he raised the curtain-walls of his castle of Belvoir still higher than before. When King Charles summoned both houses of parliament to attend him at Oxford, the Earl of Rutland (husband of Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall) remained at Westminster, along with twenty-one recusant peers. This decisive conduct exposed his castle to the vengeance of the offended party, and Belvoir valley continued for some years to be the theatre of many a tragic scene. The village of Belvoir and church of Woolsthorpe were burned down by the parliamentary army, with the Earl's consent, in 1645, and the castle was surrendered by the royalists in the following year. In 1649, it was considered advisable to dismantle, in fact to obliterate, this strong-hold; and the compensation voted to the noble sufferer for the demolition of his castle, razing of his fair village, and destruction of his forests, was £1,500! From the ruins of the ancient pile, a stately structure once more arose in the year 1688, to which additions have been made by successive owners, until " Belvoir, art's masterpiece, and nature's pride," has become celebrated as one of the evidences of our unlimited wealth, perfect institutions, and refinement in taste. The present sumptuous building was almost raised from its foundation by the fifth Duke of Rutland, aided in the execution of his splendid conceptions by James Wyatt. The alterations, additions, and decorations were in progress during fifteen years, and, in 1816, the works suffered a calamitous interruption, from a destructive but accidental conflagration; the paintings lost on this melancholy occasion cost ten thousand pounds, and the restoration of the building one hundred thousand. ; Two sovereigns of the Brunswick line have honoured Belvoir Castle by their presence: George IV., when Prince Regent, on the 2nd of January, 1814; and her most gracious majesty Queen Victoria, on the 4th of December, 1843. The unpopularity of the former has left no public feeling of interest in the events of his private life but the loyalty and attachment manifested to her majesty, from the very day of her accession to the present moment, give an historic value to the movements of her court. Her majesty having honoured Chatsworth, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, by partaking of its hospitalities for several days, came by railroad across the country to this noble seat, accompanied by Prince Albert, Queen Adelaide, the Duke of Wellington, and Sir Robert Peel. The splendour of their reception was commensurate with the wealth and liberality of the princely inheritor of these vast possessions. An interesting circumstance marked the visits of the Prince Regent and of Queen Victoria to Belvoir. The Staunton tower is an out-work of defence, and the family of that name hold the manor of Staunton by tenure of castle-guard, the nature or condition of which is, that they shall appear with guards for the defence of that post, when called upon by the Lord of the Castle. Whenever a member of the royal family visits the castle, it is customary to present him or her with the key of the tower, and this ceremony was performed on the occasion of her majesty's visit, by the Rev. Dr. Staunton,who presented a golden key, on a velvet cushion, to our youthful queen, immediately after her arrival at Belvoir. During the Prince Regent's sojourn at the hospitable castle of the Rutland family, he condescended to stand sponsor for the eldest son of his noble host, the present Marquis of Granby, and, with his usual vanity, desired the tower over which the flag of England that day floated, to be called the Regent's Tower. The castle and grounds of Belvoir present endless opportunities for the exercise of the pencil; but there are three points of view in which they are beheld to peculiar advantage in the first, the castle crowns the lofty rock, which is clothed with foliage down to the level of the vale, along which the river winds, spanned in its broadest channel by a graceful bridge of stone. From the dairy, a cottage in the pleasure grounds, honoured by a visit from the Queen, the bold site of the castle is prominently displayed, its massive proportions more distinctly seen, as well as the luxuriance of the endless variety of trees that surround it. But the architectural embellishments, the grandeur and style of the costly edifice itself, are only to be fully witnessed or appreciated in the close view which the south court affords. L. E. L. LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON, better known in the world of literature by the initial letters of her name, under which she so modestly published her poems, was born at Chelsea, from which place she was removed, while yet an infant, to Trevor Park, near East Barnet, in Middlesex. There she first exhibited that gift of poesy, with which she afterwards so much delighted the world. Her first essays to please were made in the columns of the Literary Gazette, but her best writings will be found in the Drawing-Room Scrap Book. The beauty of her published poems soon drew the attention of the best society to herself, and it was then found that the charms of her conversation were unequalled. After a life (if some ten or twelve years can be so designated) passed amidst a multitude of admirers, yet certainly not happily passed, Miss Landon gave her hand to Mr. Maclean, Governor of Cape Coast Castle, and proceeded to that insalubrious climate with her husband. But, before the public regret for her voluntary exile had been fully told, intelligence of her death reached England; not the effect of a noxious atmosphere, |