CHAPTER IV.

WINDSOR FOREST AND CASTLE.

INDSOR forest and castle are dear to all Englishmen. Few places have grouped around them so many associations, both legendary, historical, and poetical, from the time of Arthur and the knights of his round table to those of the royal house of Hanover. The castle has been the abode of royalty from the time of the Saxon kings. It was while King John lived at Windsor that the barons obtained from him Magna Charta. Cromwell has held his courts within its walls; and Charles I. lies buried in its chapel. A Scottish king has been a captive here; and here have been celebrated some of the most splendid pageants and courtly ceremonies recorded in history. The forest, though it can scarcely be said now to exist, has also some "legends of woe and dread," and other associations.

The forest was once of enormous extent, comprehending a circumference of one hundred and twenty miles. It comprised part of Bucks, a considerable part of Surrey, and the south-east side of Berks as far as Hungerford. On the Surrey side it included Cobham and Chertsey, and extended along the side of the Wey, which marked its limits as far as Guildford. In the lapse of time, however, it dwindled away; for we find that in the reign of James I. its circumference was estimated by Norden at only seventy-seven miles and a half, exclusive of the liberties extending into Bucks. At this period there were fifteen

walks within it, each under the charge of a head keeper, and the whole contained upwards of three thousand head of deer. This extent was somewhat diminished in later years; for in a subsequent map, by Roque, the circuit is given as fifty-six miles.

In the year 1813, an act of Parliament was passed for its enclosure. The portion which had been previously enclosed, known as Windsor Great Park, was of small extent compared with the whole range of the forest. The area of the park was less than 4000 acres, of which 2000 were under cultivation; while the open unenclosed forest amounted to 24,000 acres. Scarce a vestige of the forest is now left, except what has been apportioned to the crown, adjoining the Great Park.

The view from Windsor Castle is one of the finest in England. A vast panorama extending as far as the eye can reach. All flat-the faint blue horizontal line, scarcely discernible from the clouds, so distant is it, as straight as the boundary of a calm sea—and yet how infinitely varied! What would such an expanse of land be in any other country? A mere drugget compared to this Field of Cloth of Gold. A lovely river, to which the hackneyed illustration of molten gold might well be applied from the silent roll of its glittering waters, as if impeded by their own rich weight, now flashing like a strip of the sun's self, through broad meadows whose green is scarcely less dazzling-now lost in shady nooks of wondrous and refreshing coolness. Trees of every sort and growth, singly, in clumps, in rows, every where. Little bright-looking villages, with their white spires or grey towers dotted all over the scene. Every thing is in perfect harmony. The gentle murmur of human life, reaching us from the distance, is no more injurious to the effect than the rustling of the trees or the chirping of the birds. The quiet bit of bustle down at the bridge, the shouts of the bargemen―heard several seconds after their utterance—the plashing of the few boats, the cricketers over there in the playground, all these have their consistent charm. The sleepy chimneys of the old town immediately below us fill up their corner famously; even steamthat most implacable enemy to the picturesque-appears on the scene without injuring it. The little toy-house-looking railway-station facing us is a harmless, nay pleasing object; and to watch the liliputian train that has just left it, disappearing fussily among the old trees, is a perfect delight.

Our first homage is to Nature. The influence of the beautiful is predominant over all others. We think only of the scene before us, and must thoroughly enjoy it for its own sake, before we can bestow a thought on a single association connected with it. We forget all about

the walls we are standing on. We do not even reflect that the golden river is our old friend the Thames. It never strikes us, that that expanse of green out there to the right, so thickly planted with massive elms and chestnuts, is a very celebrated place called the Home Park of Windsor, or indeed that it is called any thing else—or any thing at all. We are (metaphorically speaking) rolling in that grass with a republican contempt for its patrician connections, and picking out the best of those trees, with an ungrateful heedlessness of what royal hand may have planted them there for our gratification. One little steeple may mark the shrine of a poet's inspiration, another that of a patriot's grave. That glorious old Gothic building to the left may be a college, or a monastery, or any thing it likes. To us it is a fine object in the landscape, filling its place like a serviceable cloud or an effective tree. Any respectable saint-king, who may have had the good nature to found it, is, for the time being, as uninteresting a personage to us as Master Tommy, possibly at this moment languishing a prisoner within its cloistered walls, and cursing the institution, for having given existence and a name to that Latin grammar with which he is so vainly endeavouring to grapple.

There! sense is gratified; we have gazed our fill, and draw a long mental breath. Now let us consider where we are, and what we have been looking at. This very fine terrace owes its existence to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory, and does her vast credit. The walks are of the good old sixteenth-century stuff, and the capital letters E. R., in the character of the period, over the large window, are in excellent preservation.

The

To the left across the river is the College of Eton, founded, in the year 1441, by Henry VI. for the education of twenty-five poor scholars. It is now devoted to the education of scholars who are not poor. young gentleman who has just disappeared so precipitately through the archway behind us is one of them. This sudden flight is supposed to be attributable to the unexpected arrival on the terrace of that elderly gentleman, in clerical costume, connected with the institution in a high official capacity. Discipline being strict, and the young gentlemen not allowed on this side of the water, they are sometimes driven to escape detection by similar undignified means. An eminent pastrycook in the High-street is said to have had as many as six at a time concealed under his counter while the Vice-provost has been passing. Mr. Gray the poet, the celebrated Sir Robert Walpole, Mr. Fielding, Lord Bolingbroke, the late Mr. Shelley, and other distinguished men were educated at Eton. Immediately facing is Slough,—a rising town-the ideas of