hands, the theatre has ceased to be a training school for the London boards, the streets are silent except when a little temporary bustle is produced by an influx of Birmingham attorneys, their clients, and witnesses, at the assizes, of stout agriculturists and holiday labourers on “fair days,” or the annual “mop,” when an ox is roasted whole, and lads and lasses of rosy rural breed range themselves along the pavement to be hired, or at the races twice a year, when, although the four horses with postilions and outriders are seldom seen, railroads from a distance, and Leamington from close at hand, pour a variegated stream of sightseers and gamblers on one of the prettiest pieces of ground in England.

Warwick has no manufactures, but, being a borough very evenly balanced between the two contending political parties, its inhabitants have enjoyed a fuller share of the favours of Government than has fallen to the lot of towns of more commercial importance.

Warwick stands on solid rock, in which the cellars are excavated; and this circumstance, added to its position on the top of a hill, renders it particularly dry and clean.

There are several excellent inns, supported by the surrounding’ farmers, which are much to be preferred to more fashionable hotels.  The roast geese to be found at the farmers’ ordinaries on market days about Michaelmas time, are worthy of commendation; and the farmers themselves, being of a jovial and hospitable turn of mind, render these dinners pleasanter to a stranger who can dine at an unfashionable hour, than the eternal “anything you please, sir; steak or chop, sir,” in a solitary box, which haunts us for our sins in the coffee-rooms of English hotels.

Warwick deserves a long journey, if it were only for the sake of the fine woodland scenery which surrounds it for ten miles, but the castle is the especial object of attraction,—­a castle which realizes almost more than any other those romantic ideas of a feudal abode which were first put into circulation by the “Castle of Otranto,” and became part of the education of our youth under the influence of the genius of Sir Walter Scott.

The castle rises upon the brink of the river, which foams past over the weir of an ancient mill, where once the inhabitants of the borough were bound by feudal service to grind all their corn.  The best approach is from the Leamington Lower Road, over a bridge of one arch, built by a late Earl of Warwick.  Caesar’s and Guy’s towers rise into sight from a surrounding grove.  The entrance is through an arched gateway, past a lodge, where the relics of Earl Guy, the dun cow slayer, are preserved; and a winding avenue cut in solid rock effects a sort of surprise, which, as the castle comes again suddenly into view, is very pleasing.  The exterior realizes a baronial abode of the fourteenth or fifteenth century; the interior has been modernized sufficiently to be made comfortable, still retaining many striking features of its ancient state.  A closely cropped green sward covers the quadrangle, which was formerly the tilting ground.