The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and
Instruction, No. 357, by Various

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Title: The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357
Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829

Author: Various

Release Date: July 12, 2004 [EBook #12897]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

VOL. XIII, No. 357.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1829. [PRICE 2d.

* * * * *

[Illustration: WARWICK CASTLE.]

WARWICK CASTLE.

The history of a fabric, so intimately connected with some of the most
important events recorded in the chronicles of our country, as that of
Warwick Castle, cannot fail to be alike interesting to the antiquary, the
historian, and the man of letters. This noble edifice is also rendered
the more attractive, as being one of the very few that have escaped the
ravages of war, or have defied the mouldering hand of time; it having
been inhabited from its first foundation up to the present time, a period
of nearly one thousand years. Before, however, noticing the castle, it
will be necessary to make a few remarks on the antiquity of the town of
which it is the chief ornament.

The town of Warwick is delightfully situated on the banks of the river
Avon, nearly in the centre of the county to which it has given its name,
and of which it is the principal town. Much diversity of opinion exists
among antiquaries, as to whether it be of Roman or Saxon origin; but it
is the opinion of Rous, as well as that of the learned Dugdale,[1] that
its foundation is as remote as the earliest period of the Christian era.
These authors attribute its erection to Gutheline, or Kimbeline, a
British king, who called it after his own name, Caer-Guthleon, a compound
of the British word Caer, (_civitas_,) and Gutieon, or Gutheline, which
afterwards, for the sake of brevity, was usually denominated _Caerleon_.
We are also informed that Guiderius, the son and successor of Kimbeline,
greatly extended it