But as the years did wear away, another scene arose,

Peopled with other forms, and rich in choicer deeds than those;
Beneath the ancient Norman keep a cloister court was laid,

And Edward's chapel cast along its consecrating shade.

The painted windows shed their light upon the sculptured walls,
And tinged the marble pavement broad, and richly bannered stalls:
At sunrise and at eventide, by the holy altar there,

The priest and knight were often seen upon their knees in prayer;
While matin song and vesper hymn, with music full and deep,
Rolled through those aisles where now in dust contending monarchs sleep.

But all are gone, and other feet now tread those courts and groves,
And further through the sylvan shades the ancient spirit moves;
And there's a tone of wailing low, and feeble, when we hark,
Among the old and storied trees of the forest and the park;
As when an old man weepeth that he may hear no more,
The voices of his boyhood or the merrie sounds of yore.

And what will Windsor's royal towers, with all their proud array
Be, when some fleeting centuries have passed with yesterday?
The palaces of Babylon have left no wreck behind;

To find Palmyra's topmost towers the desert sand is mined.
The earth-curse has clung witheringly to many a lordly nation,
And Rome has had her day of might, and her day of desolation;
The crumbling heaps of Babylon, the ruined fanes of Greece,
In melancholy measure, too, the story might increase.
And though Rhine's ancient castles fling their still unbroken shade,
And Egypt's silent pyramids stay as they ever stayed,—

In Time's next hour of leisure, he will sport him with their stones,

As the wolf-dogs sport them witlessly among the weird white bones.

And then awhile, and Windsor's heights and memory-haunted glade,
Before his hand all desolate will certainly be laid.

Thus is it with earth's loveliest, her best and noblest things,
The peasant's happy cottage home-the palaces of kings;
The prince's glittering jewellery, in strongest coffers stored,
Will share the common careless fate of many a meaner hoard:
O'er all this world's most splendid toys, and all her treasure land,
Time, in a lordship undismayed, reigns with a ruthless hand.

But when the strongholds of the kings each one has passed away,
And crumbled with the desert sands the grandeurs of to-day;
When all the groves of ancient trees and stately temples fall,
And towers upon the rocks of Rhine are lost beneath them all;
When mountains from their majesty that scathing hand shall shake,
And even the deep world itself in its last doom shall quake;
When history's long tale shall cease, be-scattered all her pages,-
One castle-keep shall still remain, built on the Rock of Ages!

E. F. S. H.

Windsor in its Earliest Days.

CHAPTER I.

65ANY a year has rolled by since it was remarked of Windsor,-"Whether you regard the wholesomeness of the aire itselfe, the natural beautie and strengthe of the scituation of the place, the pleasante pastime ministred out of the forest, chaces, and parkes that are annexed unto it, the good neighbourhoode of that noble ryver which runneth by it, or the respective commoditie of that most flourishing citie that is not past halfe a day's journeye removed from it, you shall find it comparable with any prince's palace that is abroade, and farre surmounting any that we have at home." * Of the thousands who now visit this farfamed spot, who is there but must feel that this quaint description is still applicable, that the beauty of the surrounding scenery, and the magnificence of its truly royal castle, render it worthy of all the eulogiums it has won? The winning graces with which nature has

*

Lambard.-Quoted in " Pote's History of Windsor," p. 43.

clothed the neighbourhood of Windsor, its soft, green meadows, gentle slopes, and noble parks, skirted by the silvery Thames, must commend it to all who have any taste for the beauties of creation; while the princely pile of buildings, which for ages has adorned the spot, can never fail to interest those who delight in the achievements of art. Well may it attract admiring multitudes from "that most flourishing citie," which is now distant scarcely past" halfe an hour's journeye," and draw towards it not a few from the extremities of our island, and from far distant lands.

Yet, though the beauties of nature, and the grandeur of art, have given to Windsor a rare and universal interest; its antiquarian and historical associations increase that interest a hundred fold. Every cultivated mind must appreciate the power of such associations. They tinge with deeper beauty the scenes of creation, and breathe over the structures of other days a sort of intellectual spirit, which renders them symbolical and full of meaning. The places and objects with which those associations are united may be interesting in themselves, like the carved figures on an Egyptian temple, or the emblazoned letters in an illuminated MS.; but how much more interesting do these objects become, when connected with the associations which belong to them,-since they impart to fields and trees, walls and towers, a mystic sense; and, like the key of the hierophant and the skill of the interpreter, give a signification to what would be otherwise unmeaning. Historical associations have a yet greater power. They elicit our sympathies with the men of other times, and bind us by the strong tie of common feeling to our remote ancestors. "The races of men may perish, but the

remembrance of them still lives imperishable, and seems to claim kindred with us as often as we tread the same soil, or merely think of those who trod it." Mortals survive in the immortality of our common nature, “in that universal interest which gives us a sort of intellectual existence in scenes and times the most remote, and makes the thoughts and emotions of others, as it were, a part of our own being; uniting the past, the present, and the future, and blending man with man wheresoever he is found."* It is the design of this little volume to trace the associations which cluster so thickly around Windsor of the olden time, and to assist the reader, the next time he rambles through the park, or lingers about the venerable palace, to look on surrounding objects with a more intelligent eye and a more feeling heart.

The antiquities of Windsor carry us back to the time when the Romans were in possession of our island. Traces of their triumphant career are to be found in the neighbourhood. Roman bricks have been found at Old Windsor, and coins and urns at St. Leonard's. One of the great Roman roads certainly ran at no great distance from the former place. Some antiquarians have supposed that the station called "Pontes," mentioned in the ancient Roman itineraries, was at Old Windsor; but others, with greater probability, have fixed it at Staines, while the neighbouring station of Bibrax, mentioned in the same itineraries, has been supposed to be Egham, a place where several Roman remains have been discovered. About eight years ago, the neighbourhood of Virginia Water was examined, * Dr. Brown's "Lectures on the Philosophy of the Mind," p. 154.