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representing this fine specimen of military architecture precisely as it appeared in the reign of the last of these monarchs; while the accompanying view exhibits its rude aspect in 1836, with the exception of the drawbridge, which, however, is a faithful copy from an original elsewhere. The ancient gothic portal still survives, as well as the vast keep that towers above it: and even in the imaginative part of the illustration,-armour, costume, &c.—historic truth has been respected; the description of bill-axe with which the sheriff's band is armed, still continuing to be borne by the civil power, at executions, here and in the border districts.

The situation of Carlisle rendered it at an early period, and continued it to a late one, an object of contention between the neighbouring kingdoms. Its military history, therefore, presents events, greater in importance and number, than are recorded of any other fortress in Britain; and no city in the kingdom can reckon so many illustrious and eminent men amongst its visiters, benefactors, and masters.

DIRK HATTERAICK PURSUED BY THE SLOOP-OF-WAR.

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"On gaining that part of the ruins which commanded the most extensive look-out, they saw a lugger, with all her canvass crowded, standing across the bay, closely pursued by a sloop-of-war, that kept firing upon the chase from her bows, which the lugger returned with her stern-chasers. They're but at long bowls yet,' cried Kennedy, in great exultation, but they will be closer by and by,-he's starting his cargo! I see the good Nantz pitching overboard, keg after keg!—that's an ungenteel thing of Mr. Hatteraick, as I shall let him know by and by.-Now, now! they've got the wind of him! that's it, that's it!-Hark to him! hark to him!, now, my dogs! now, my dogs!-hark to Ranger, hark!" The chase is supposed to continue during this spirited apostrophe to the kegs of Nantz. "The lugger being piloted with great ability, and using every nautical shift to make her escape, had now reached, and was about to double, the headland which formed the extreme point of land on the left side of the bay, when a ball having hit the yard in the slings, the mainsail fell upon the deck. The sloop-of-war crowded all sail to pursue, but she had stood too close upon the cape, so that they were obliged to wear the vessel, for fear of going ashore, and to make a large tack back into the bay, in order to

recover sea-room enough to double the headland." The lugger being able to keep closer in-shore than the majestic object that pursued her, doubled the cape even after the accident,

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Already doubled is the cape,-our bay

Receives that prow which proudly spurns the spray,"

but, losing steerage, fell out of sight behind the promontory.

The chase here described with so much animation, is represented as having occurred in Solway Firth, a navigable estuary that indents the western coast of Great Britain, and separates the stewartry of Kircudbright and shires of Dumfries and Wigton (in Scotland) from the county of Cumberland (in England). It extends about fifty miles in length, and thirty in breadth at its embouchure, that is, between Burrow Head in Wigtonshire, and St. Bees' Head in Cumberland. Its waters are deeper on the Scotch than near the English border; and the counties of Galloway and Dumfries are indebted to its navigable qualities, for the commercial prosperity they have so long enjoyed. The Esk, the Sark, and many other streams, whose beauties and irregularities are celebrated in border ballad and legendary lore, throw themselves into the bosom of the Solway Firth. Spring-tides here rise twenty feet, while ordinary tides reach but twelve; a fact, however, less remarkable than the exceeding impetuosity of the waters at ebb and flow, especially during the prevalence of south-west winds

"I long woo'd your daughter,—my suit you denied ;
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide."

Lady Heron's Song.

The borderers are in the habit of crossing the sands of the Firth, from shore to shore, at low water; a perilous undertaking, and not unfrequently attended with fatal consequences. The most experienced have sometimes been overtaken by the "rushing of many waters," which always send a fearful sound before them, "as of waters falling down;" a warning voice, too late, alas! for the hapless being they are about to engulf. An active horseman and courageous traveller, who happened to be surprised by the tide in crossing from the Cumberland shore, owed the preservation of his life to his gallant steed, which carried him safely to their usual place of exit from the sands, swimming almost the whole breadth of the estuary. Above the cliffs that enclose the waters of the Firth, and on the northern shore, rises the headland here called the Point of Warroch, from whose summit the luckless Kennedy was hurled, and which has ever since been called the "Gauger's Loup." The littorale of the Solway, and the districts that retire a little from it, have often been described by the Author of Waverley, and adopted as originals for some of his best pictures. Annan, Caerlaverock Castle, Cannobie, and Strong Caerlisle, are not far removed from its wave-beaten shores: and "Solway Moss," situated within the "Debateable Land," lies only a few miles from its eastern extremity. This great morass, or collection of liquid turf, began to move from its absolute place on the 17th of November, 1771, and rolled in a dark deluge over lands and houses, polluting an area exceeding four hundred acres: nor did the black eruption cease to flow, charged with fragments and pieces of wreck, until its impetuosity was checked in the

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