motion from place to place; we came out of the coach in much the same moral or mental state as we went in; but a railway carriage is a study, a school, a place of learning, where we acquire thoughts, views, and principles, where books exercise their mighty influence, where minds act on minds, where we are under teachers, whether they teach by fiction or by truth, whether they teach falsely or truly, where the brain makes its meal and comes out the heavier; and in contemplating the marvellous multitude of books that are yearly devoured in railway carriages, we see that railway journeys fulfil other ends than merely taking us and putting us down in this place or in that, that they play an important part on men's tastes, feelings, principles, knowledge, that we do not see all, no, not a tenthousandth part of their influence, when we confine ourselves to the "Stokers' and Pokers"" view, to the wonderful machinery, to the capital embarked, to the science called into play, to the whole apparatus, the mass of animate or inanimate material. employed. Railways are modes of teaching as well as modes. of travelling, and the general nature of the Literature which they put into so many thousand hands has become a matter of no slight concern.

Happily we are able so far to regard the aspect of the case with hopeful eyes. If the more dangerous works have found the worst, and higher-toned books the best market, we have not yet reached "the deluge." England is not lost. Publishers, after such a fact as this, are encouraged to keep up a good supply of good provisions to appease the literary hunger of railway travellers. If the ennuyed wayfarers fall back into the arms of Eugene Sue, it will be out of sheer impossibility of getting better fare. Rather than perish from ennui they may be forced to look into worthless publications, if good ones are not to be found. And the worst of it is, a bad book, like a cat, has many lives; cast-off books like cast-off clothes descend. Something of Eugene Sue's for instance has been bought in the train, and instead of being actually flung by the locomotive squire into the pond when he gets home, it is thrown down as rubbish on the hall table to be swept away; but the footmen or the maids you may be sure, clutch up the poisonous novel, which bounds on through the household from nurse to nursery-maid, from cook to scullery-maid, from footman to page, on a second and a third "course of mischief," and is then lent as a favour to some neighbouring household,

the unconscious clergyman's perhaps, and while its leaves get dirty and well thumbed its principles effect a lodgment somewhere or other to some extent.

We are not of course advocating the exclusive supply of ponderous, or heavy, or learned books at railway stations. Let lighter literature even form the chief stock as it naturally will; but let this lighter literature have veins of good feeling and good principles running throughout; let not the muslin robe of light writing hide in its many folds the cloven foot. The public and the publishers are having large dealings together amid trains and tickets, trunks and stations, and we can only hope that the good of the one may be the profit of the other. Having felt the pulse of Railway Literature up to the present time, it is something to be able to report good progress, to speak of a decided stride in our friend's health and tone. Though it was a sickly infant, it promises to be a hale and vigorous man.

THE OLD ROYAL PALACES AT OXFORD.

Or the sight-seers or sojourners who are annually poured by coach or railway into picturesque and classic Oxford, we will suppose that some few, after a survey of colleges and halls, chapels and quadrangles, walks and gardens, begin to scent out with antiquarian instinct the remains of other structures of the olden time, less attractive to the common eye. We will suppose that some few even through the steamy, hazy panes of the crowded omnibus that jolts and jumbles them from the Railway Station into the ancient city, catch. the dim outline of the ancient castle, and after a safe lodg ment of their luggage hurry with eager steps to make a personal acquaintance with the old grey walls. A few particulars concerning the castle may therefore add to the interest of the survey should any of our readers, like ourselves, have an antiquarian turn and be led in their wanderings to the spot.

Few probably are aware that the old tower is the actual keep of the Norman castle in which the empress Matilda took refuge from the usurper Stephen, where she was closely besieged for several months, and from which she eventually escaped in so remarkable a manner. Such, however, is the fact, as is evident from a careful examination of the building itself, and the fragments of history recorded of it. This tower is sometimes called St. George's tower, from its having been supposed to be the belfry tower of the chapel, church, or monastery of St. George, founded in Oxford castle by Robert D'Oiley in the time of William Rufus. The crypt of this church had so long been buried that its existence had been forgotten until it was discovered by Mr. Harris in 1800 in making excavations for building the new prison: he was obliged to pull it down but rebuilt it within a few feet of its original site, and carefully preserved the pillars and arches, the capitals of which prove it to have been built in the time of William Rufus. The parish of St. George was of the same extent as the precincts of the castle with its gardens and park, and had a population of some hundred persons. During the siege, by King Stephen, a new church dedicated to St. Thomas was built in another part of the precincts for the use of the parishioners,

and St. George's was afterwards suffered to fall into decay. It is more commonly and more correctly called D'Oiley's tower, and is without doubt the identical keep of the castle built by him, notwithstanding the Saxon fancies of Wood, King and Ingram. It agrees in all respects with other Norman keeps of the same period, though smaller than many of them. The masonry is rude and has an early look, but is not really earlier in its character and construction than other buildings of the same period. The entrance was on the first floor and approached by an external stone staircase, part of which remains; the tower story was vaulted with a plain barrel vault, and had no internal communication with the upper chambers. The Norman castles usually consisted of a keep of this description, with a wall of enclosure round a courtyard, called in the north a barmekin, a place for securing cattle; these courts or baileys were generally larger in the border countries than in the more settled districts, being more often wanted for securing the cattle of the neighbourhood in case of an incursion. The mound or mote, for the French word originally signified the mound and not the ditch, is generally, as at Oxford, of a later date than the keep, and was probably formed when the boundaries of the castle were enlarged, about a century after its erection, and surrounded by a ditch, the earth dug out of which was thrown into a heap and formed a mound, which served as a look-out place, and probably had a stockade round the top for defence in case the enemy obtained an entrance within the walls. It was not however the Norman fashion to build a keep upon an artificial mound. Dover, Rochester, Porchester, and a host of others, testify to the contrary.

In the centre of the mound of Oxford castle is a curious vaulted stone chamber of small dimensions over a deep well, and called the well-room. The architectural character of this room is of the time of Henry the Second. It was probably intended to enable men in security to raise water to a sufficient height to supply the whole castle by means of pipes, just as a donkey is employed at Carisbrook to this day walking round in a circle and so working the windlass which raises the water to the top. Here there is hardly room for a donkey, and it was probably worked by two men. That our ancestors in the twelfth century were well acquainted with hydraulics, and had excellent systems of pipes for conveying

water over every part of their castles or monasteries, is not generally known, but admits of proof. There is extant a plan of the monastery of Canterbury, drawn by a monk about the middle of the twelfth century, in which all the water-courses and pipes are clearly laid down and coloured; the water was there brought from the neighbouring hills. The sewers of the same period were so good and large and well built that they are continually mistaken for subterranean passages.

To return to Oxford castle: from this keep then it was that the empress Matilda made her escape by night, accompanied by four trusty followers; it was in the depth of winter, near the end of December, about 1140, (the exact year is doubtful, as the historians differ on this point,) taking advantage of the severe season by which the river was frozen over, and the ground covered with snow, that this courageous princess eluded the vigilance of the besieging army, covering herself and her followers in white sheets, and creeping along at first on hands and knees until beyond the reach of the sentries, then walking through Bagley Wood, which covered much more ground at that period than at present, she reached Abingdon in safety, (a distance of six miles.) Here she obtained horses for herself and her trusty knights, and they rode on with all speed to the castle of Wallingford, about eight miles further, which they reached before daylight. This castle was strongly fortified and was in possession of her friends, the garrison belonging to her party, and here she was shortly afterwards joined by her brother Robert earl of Gloucester, the main stay of her fortunes. Of Wallingford castle the remains are very small, but the whole of the fortifications may be traced, and there are some ruins with moulded masonry of this period.

During the siege King Stephen is said to have resided in the palace of Beaumont just outside the walls of the tower and castle, and almost within bowshot, but protected by mounds hastily thrown up between the castle and the palace, and doubtless surmounted by stockades. These mounds have never been entirely levelled even to this day, and the broken ground so caused is still known by the name of Broken-Hayes; it is situated between George lane and the New Road and is traversed

a

They also differ as to the mode in which

she got out of the castle itself; some say she was let down by ropes from the castle walls to the frozen surface of the river beneath;

others, with more probability, that by the connivance of some of the townspeople she was suffered to escape from one of the postern gates of the town.