ROM Windsor Castle the view is one of the finest in England. A vast panorama extending as far as the eye can reach. All flat—the faint, bare, 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 but England, which is, in itself, a huge landscape garden?
A lovely river, to which the hackneyed illustration of "a stream 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 various species and growth, singly, in clumps, and in rows, are everywhere. Little bright-looking villages, with their white spires, or grey towers, are dotted all over the scene. Beyond where I stand, on the ramparts of the Castle, I can see the Gothic turrets and spires of Eton College, founded by Henry of Lancaster, flanked by oak and birch trees, and above us, on this delightful day in autumn, the banner of St. George is floating right saucily, denoting that this Martial Keep is a royal fortress and a hereditary residence of the Sovereigns of England.
THE DEMON HUNTSMAN.
Everything seems in perfect harmony around us, as the sun falls in slanting and roseate beams on grass, tree, flower, castle, and river. There are not many hours, in one's life, such as I enjoyed that pleasant evening in September. The gentle hum of human life reaching me from the distance, is no more injurious to the effect than the rustling of the trees, or the chirping of the birds. The quiet bustle down at the stone bridge, the shouts of the bargemen—heard several seconds after their utterance,—the plashing of the oars of stray boats, the cricketers over there in their play-ground, where reposes some of the dust of Arthur's blood; all these have a charm for the drowsy senses.
The sleepy-looking chimneys of the old, royal town, immediately beneath me, fill up their place in the picture famously; even steam—that most implacable enemy of romance—appears on the scene without injuring it. The little toy-house-looking railway station, which I can see from where I stand, on the battlements, is a harmless, nay a pleasing object; and to watch the lilliputian train that has just left it, disappearing fussily among the old trees, is a perfect delight.
Windsor 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 republican courts in Windsor, and Charles I lies buried in its Chapel Royal.
James, the Royal poet and King of Scotland, has visited here, and David, another Scottish monarch, was a prisoner in its gloomy towers. Here was instituted the Order of the Garter by Edward, who was "every inch a King," and some of the most splendid pageantries and courtly ceremonies of history have been enacted within the walls of Windsor Castle. In its vast forests, Herne, the Diabolical Hunter, has chased the Phantom Deer to the tally-ho of unearthly horns. This forest, or, as it was called, "Windsor Great Forest," was of enormous extent, and comprehended a circumference of one hundred and twenty miles. In the time of James I, this great area had been reduced to seventy-seven and a half miles. There were then three thousand head of deer, and fifteen walks, in the forest, each about three miles long. The next reduction of its size left the Forest only fifty-six miles in circumference, and in 1814 an act of Parliament was passed to enclose its boundaries. Since then villages, and detached buildings, and private residences, have encroached upon this once magnificent demesne, until but 6,000 acres of wood and dell have been left of all the great medieval acreage.
Edward, the Confessor, held a court here, and assigned the Manor of Windsor to the Abbot and Monks of Westminster. William de Wykeham, the great philanthropist and scholar, who founded Winchester School and the New College at Oxford, was appointed Clerk of the Works at Windsor to superintend the reconstruction of the Castle, in 1356, and his fee from Edward III for the service was one shilling a day while he remained in the town, and two shillings a day when he went elsewhere upon business.