When Gray looked from that terrace, over the same scene, and conceived his incomparable Ode, he said all that one ought to say, and I will attempt no more. One question, however, which he could only ask, it is reserved for us to answer.
Who foremost now delight to cleave,
With pliant arm thy glassy wave, &c.?
Among the boys whom he then saw running and swimming, and driving hoop and playing cricket, in the old familiar scene, was he who afterwards conquered Napoleon. I saw the name of Wellesley, with those of Fox and others as celebrated, carved in the college oak. There, too, were the busts of Hammond and Pearson, and of Gray himself. The famous men of Eton seemed to be around me in legions. Who could not catch manliness and might amid such associations? All day I loitered about those meads, and towards evening went upon the Thames with a merry party, to see a juvenile boat race, in the Oxford fashion. Oh, the sport of those happy boys! One boat swamped, but the little fellows swam lustily to shore, and ran home laughing. It was the fragrant hay-time. Every prospect—every breeze was pleasing. As the boats hurried by, and those patrician lads pulled away at their oars, like day-labourers, I saw how the mind and muscles are alike developed at Eton. How can the body be feeble, that is reared with such lusty exercise: how can the mind but conceive high thoughts, that pursues its very sports with “those antique towers” on one hand, and that stupendous castle, lifting its gigantic bulk, and stretching its majestic walls, upon the other? The boys look upon the right, and there sages, patriots, heroes, priests and princes have been bred: they turn to the left, and there their Sovereign lives in august retirement; her imperial banner waves above the keep; and beneath that solemn chapel sleeps the Royal Martyr, and the dust of mighty kings, whose names are the material of history.
I made the usual circuit of the castle; but with the details which every guide-book furnishes, I would not fatigue my readers. For the mere show of royal furniture, my mind could find little room; and mere State-apartments, as such, were even a distasteful sight. But the noble architecture, and unrivalled site of the castle; its histories, and the charm which association gives to every tower and window, and to the whole scene with which it fills the eye—these are the sublime elements with which Windsor inspires the soul, and impregns the imagination. Hoc fecit Wykeham—is the inscription one catches, deep cut in the wall of one of the towers: an equivoque which the ambitious architect is said to have interpreted, as implying that the work was the making of him, when asked by his royal patron how he dared to claim the castle as a creation, and turn it into a memorial of himself. But who can appropriate Windsor? The humble poet, by a single song, has taken its terrace to himself; and every stone, and every timber, might bear some appropriate and speaking legend. I thought chiefly of Charles the First. How he loved this castle! How he would have adorned it, and what a home of worth and genius he would have made it, had he not fallen on evil times! That truly English heart beat warmly here, a few weeks before it ceased to beat forever; and along this esplanade was borne his bleeding body, (on which fell the symbolic snow of a passing cloud,) to its last sublime repose. “So went the white king to his rest,” says a quaint historian: and when, at Evening Prayer in St. George’s chapel, I reflected that his solemn relics were underneath, I felt a reviving affection for his memory, almost like that of personal love. The dying sunbeams gilded the carvings of the sanctuary and the banners of the knights; I sat in one of the stalls near the altar, and observed near me the motto—cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. When at length the anthem swelled through the gorgeous chapel—Awake up my glory—I could not but respond, inwardly, that it was meet that the glory of God should be thus perpetually uplifted in the palace of a Sovereign, whom he has so magnified in the earth. And to which of her Sovereigns does England owe it, that she is not now either a cracked Commonwealth, without God and without government, or else an iron despotism, in the grasp of successful usurper? He who sleeps under that chapel said that he died “a martyr for the people:” and so he did. On the principle by which Macaulay attributes the liberties of England to her Cromwells, we might attribute salvation to Judas and Pontius Pilate.
In the twilight I returned to Eton, and went and mused in the chapel, after searching out the slab that covers Sir Henry Wotton. Then to one of the Dames’ houses, (a tasteful abode,) where several oppidans were domiciled, with whom I attended family prayers. These oppidans are the day-scholars of Eton: having no rooms in the college, and sharing none of its funds. They are the greater part of the Etonians, the sons of gentlemen and of the nobility, who, of course, do not require the scholarships. After a sweet sleep, interrupted by hearing the clock strike and the chimes playing at Windsor, I rose to another delightful day, and soon after breakfast attended the service in the chapel. Five hundred and fifty boys were here gathered as worshippers. The service was an hour long, it being the Anniversary of the Queen’s Accession. Yet, for the whole time, did those youths maintain the decorum of gentlemen, and worship with the fervor of Christians. This reverence in worship is said to have greatly increased during late years among the Eton boys, many of whom are communicants. It speaks well for their homes, as well as for their college. What promise for the future of the Empire!
In short, the boys of Eton seem to study well, to play well, to fare well, to sleep well, to pray well. It was a holiday, and I went into the grounds to see the cricket match: I visited the library, the boys’ rooms, and the halls. It is a literal fact, that they still revere their “Henry’s holy shade;” for pictures of “the meek usurper,” are to be found in almost every chamber. Last of all, I went to the river with an Etonian friend, stripped, and plunged in. I could not leave that spot without a swim; and accordingly, after a struggle with father Thames, I emerged, and soon after left Eton in a glow of genial warmth and lively enthusiasm. If “manners maketh man,” Eton cannot fail to be the nursery of great men, so long as it is true to itself and to the Church of God.
My next visit was to Hampton Court, for which I found a day quite insufficient, when reduced to the actual hours which one is permitted to devote to the survey of such a wilderness of natural and artificial charms, and to the enjoyment of their historical interest. In the grounds of the palace, and in Bushy Park, I found a formal grandeur, so entirely becoming a past age, and so unusual in this, that it impressed me with feelings of melancholy the most profound. Those avenues of chestnuts and thorns, those massive colonnades and dreamy vistas, wear a desolate and dreary aspect of by-gone glory, in view of which my spirits could not rise. They seemed only a fit haunt for airy echoes, repeating an eternal Where? Nothing later than the days of Queen Anne seems to belong to the spot. You pass from scenes in which you cannot but imagine Pope conceiving, for the first time, his “Rape of the Lock,” into a more trim and formal spot, where William of Orange seems likely to appear before you, with Bishop Burnet buzzing about him, and a Dutch guard following in the rear. Then again, James the Second, with the Pope’s nuncio at his elbow, and a coarse mistress flaunting at his side, might seem to promise an immediate apparition; when once more the scene changes, and the brutal Cromwell is the only character who can be imagined in the forlorn area, with a file of musketeers in the back-ground, descried through a shadowy archway. Here is a lordly chamber where the meditative Charles may be conceived as startled by the echo of their tread; and here another, where he embraces, for the last time, his beloved children. There, at last, is Wolsey’s Hall, and here one seems to behold old Blue-beard leading forth Anne Boleyn to a dance. It still retains its ancient appearance, and is hung with mouldering tapestry and faded banners, although its gilding and colors have been lately renewed. The ancient devices of the Tudors are seen here and there, in windows and tracery, and the cardinal’s hat of the proud churchman, who projected the splendors of the place, still survives, in glass, whose brittle beauty has thus proved less perishable than his worldly glory.
Yet let no one suppose the magnificence of Hampton Court to consist in its architecture. One half is the mere copy of St. James’s, and the other is the stupid novelty of Dutch William. The whole together, with its parks, and with its history, is what one feels and admires. I am not sure but Royal Jamie, with his Bishops and his Puritans on either side was as often before me, when traversing the pile, as anything else: and for him and his Conference the place seems fit enough, having something of Holyrood about it, and something Scholastic, or collegiate, also. Queen Victoria should give it to the Church, as a college for the poor, and so add dignity to her benevolence, which has already turned it into a show for the darling “lower classes.” I honour the Queen for this condescension to the people; and yet, as I followed troops of John Gilpins through the old apartments, and observed their inanimate stare, and booby admiration, it did strike me that a nobler and a larger benefit might be conferred upon them, in a less incongruous way. Perhaps the happiest thought would be to make it for the clergy just what Chelsea is to the army, and Greenwich to the naval service.
Among the interminable pictures of these apartments, some most precious, and some execrable, the original Cartoons of Rafaelle of course arrest the most serious and reverent attention. There hang those bits of paper, slightly colored, but distinctly crayoned and chalked, on which his immortal genius exhausted its finest inspiration! Who knows not, by heart, the Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate, St. Paul Preaching at Athens, the Sacrifice at Lystra, and Elymas struck blind? These are the autographs of those sublime works; and the Vatican itself may envy their possession to Hampton Court. But, beyond their antiquarian interest, I must own they have not for me the attractiveness of a beautiful copy: it would be a fine thing to own Shakspeare’s autograph of Hamlet, but who would not rather read and study the play in the clear type and paper of a modern edition? Next to the Cartoons, I found most interesting the old historic canvas of Holbein, with its paste-board figures; and after that, the intensely significant series, which may be picked out, from room to room, as displaying the spirit of English reigns. Look at that glorious Van Dyck! How the rich romance of the Cavaliers invests its mellow lights and melancholy shades! There the voluptuous age of the Restoration swims before the eye in the dreamy coloring of Lely. See how old Kneller hardens every tint, and stiffens every line, as he essays to paint for William of Orange! Then comes Reynolds, throwing a hectic brilliancy over the starched figures and unyielding features of the Georgian age; and last of all West, with his brick-dust Hanoverians, surrendering art itself a prisoner to the intolerable prose and incurable beer-drinking of his times! Here and there I found a Lawrence, instinct with the spirit of a happy revival, and giving promise of better things to come. The collections are also rich in specimens of Flemish and Italian art; and warmed me with a desire hardly felt before in England, to be off on a contemplated tour of the Continent.