ditch, so narrow, in fact, that his Majesty cleared both ditch and palisades at a leap, and was the first thus gaily to enter the town. He afterwards caused a deep ditch to be dug round the town, and this ditch, when built, was encircled by a stone wall. Robert Bruce, on obtaining possession of Berwick, raised the wall ten feet round, and this wall was again strengthened by Edward III., after the battle of Halidon Hill. Parts of this wall still exist, as well as of the castle, which was a formidable structure founded at a remote date. It is stated to have been rebuilt by Henry II., and to have passed out of royal hands in 1303, being subsequently sold by the second Earl of Dunbar to the corporation of Berwick for £320. The corporation dismantled it, and used the stones for building the parish church, selling what they did not require for £109 to an alderman of Berwick, who afterwards sold it to the ancestor of Mr. Askew, of Pallinsburn. It was retained in that family until the construction of the North British Railway. A considerable portion of the keep which was then standing, was levelled to the ground, and the railway station built upon the site of the main building. The old fortifications which joined the castle measured in length 2 miles 282 yards, but in length the present walls only measure 1 mile 272 yards, and are constituted of a rampart of earth levelled and faced with stones. There are five bastions, which, with the ramparts, were kept garrisoned until 1819, when the guns were removed to Edinburgh Castle, in order to prevent them falling into the hands of the Radical rioters."

LETTER 78

THE SWORD OF MICHAEL1

VENICE, 9th May, 1877.

1. I SEND to-day, to our Museum, a photograph of another capital of the Ducal palace-the chief of all its capitals: 2 the corner-stone of it, on which rests the great angle seen in your photograph No. 3: looking carefully, you will easily trace some of the details of this sculpture, even in that larger general view; for this new photograph, No. 7, shows the same side of the capital.

Representing (this white figure nearest us) LUNA, the Moon, or more properly the Angel of the Moon, holding her symbol, the crescent, in one hand, and the zodiacal sign Cancer in the other, she herself in her crescent boat, floating on the tides,-that being her chief influence on Venice. And note here the difference between heraldic and pictorial symbolism: she holds her small crescent for heraldic bearing, to show you who she is; once that understood, her crescent boat is a picturesque symbol of the way her reflected light glides, and traverses, and trembles on

1 [See below, § 3. "The Ten Modern (or Houndsditch) Commands of Moses" and Houndsditch Moses" (see § 10) were rejected titles for this Letter. Ruskin also wrote "Ducal Palace-Leucothea,-and my books in general" on the wrapper of his copy of the Letter as a summary of its contents.]

[Plate III.; the eighteenth capital. For Ruskin's earlier and fuller description of it, see Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. viii. §§ 106-115 (Vol. X. pp. 412-416). See also No. 131 in the Reference Series at Oxford: Vol. XXI. p. 39 n.]

[Not to be confused with the "Lesson Photographs," which were separately numbered 1-4. The series 1-12 here referred to consisted of photographs sent to the Museum from Venice. Nos. 8-12 are described below, pp. 130-131. No. 3 has not been mentioned before, nor are Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 identified in Fors. The inscription of the church of St. James (see above, p. 99) was perhaps No. 1. Nos. 2, 3, and 4 were probably general views of the Ducal Palace and the Pillars of the Piazzetta (described above, pp. 61-62). Nos. 5 and 6 must have been the photographs of the two capitals described in the last Letter (p. 117). This corner of the Palace-the "Fig-tree Angle "-is shown in Ruskin's drawing of 1869; Plate H in Vol. X. (p. 358).]