The chief features of interest in the castle are the old state apartments; St. George’s Chapel, where the Knights of the Garter are installed, and the vaults of which contain the remains of Henry VI., Edward IV., Henry VIII., Charles I., George III., George IV., and William IV.; the Round Tower or ancient keep; and the present state apartments.
Eton College is one-half mile from Windsor across the river. The stone chapel, one hundred and seventy-five feet long, is very handsome. There is also a bronze statue of Henry VI. The college was founded in 1440.
Stoke Pogis, the scene of Gray’s Elegy, and the burial-place of the poet, is near Windsor.
There is a fine monument to Gray in Stoke Park.
Cambridge, fifty-six miles from London, and on the Cam, a narrow stream that rambles all over the town. Tradition gives 630 as the date of the foundation of the University; but the oldest college, Peterhouse or St. Peter’s, can only be referred to 1257. The public buildings are the Shire Hall, Town Hall, University halls and library, and Fitzwilliam Museum.
There are seventeen colleges, inferior in architectural beauty to those of Oxford, though their associations are quite as interesting.
Trinity, was founded by Henry VIII. in 1546, and has three fine quadrangles; a splendid hall in the Tudor style; gardens; and an important library, with busts of Newton and Bacon, Thorwaldsen’s statue of Byron, Newton’s telescope and some of John Milton’s manuscripts.
Christ’s College, founded in 1442, was Milton’s college. In the gardens is Milton’s Mulberry-Tree. The quadrangle was rebuilt by Inigo Jones.
Jesus College (1496) and Chapel are very fine buildings, on the site of a Benedictine nunnery.