journey, with her hospitable countrywoman, Mrs. Bickerton of the Seven Stars; and it was in the country beyond, down in the West Riding, that Gurth and Wamba held high colloquy together, among the glades of the old oak forest; and that Cedric the Saxon entertained, in his low-browed hall of Rotherwood, the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert and Prior Aymer of Jorvaulx.
I visited the old castle, now a prison, and the town museum, and found the geological department of the latter at once very extensive and exquisitely arranged; but the fact, announced in the catalogue, that it had been laid out under the eye of Phillips, while it left me much to admire in the order exhibited, removed at least all cause of wonder I concluded the day—the first very agreeable one I had spent in England—by a stroll along the banks of the Ouse, through a colonnade of magnificent beeches. The sun was hastening to its setting, and the red light fell, with picturesque effect, on the white sails of a handsome brig, that came speeding up the river, through double rows of tall trees, before a light wind from the east. On my return to my lodging-house, through one of the obscure lanes of the city, I picked up, at a book-stall, what I deemed no small curiosity,—the original "Trial of Eugene Aram," well known in English literature as the hero of one of Bulwer's most popular novels, and one of Hood's most finished poems, and for as wonderful a thing as either, his own remarkable defence. I had never before seen so full an account of the evidence on which he was condemned, nor of the closing scene in his singular history; nor was I aware there existed such competent data for forming an adequate estimate of his character, which, by the way, seems to have been not at all the character drawn by Bulwer. Knaresborough, the scene of Aram's crime, may be seen from the bar.
