The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1876-02-13
AN EXQUISITE PCT URE
THE SCENERY OF THE RIVER THAMES As VIEWED
BY AN ENTHUSIAST.
From Blackwood's Magazine. !

| Time fails to tell US of the picturesque hooks
that you glide upon in every corner in our
dear familiar river-the Thames. Churches
not grand and stately like those upon the
Seine but quaint and old like natural growths
Of time, centers Of village life and death, the
living church and the gravestones alike all
moss grown and subdued tranquility, pas.
sionate grief or loss, or even devotion
being out of place in such peaceful corners:
ard the kind open houses all cheerful and
friendly, with green lawns gay with flowers,
and the quaint buildings of the little towns
crowdipg down to pile themselves roof upon
roof, by the stream, IS if they had no room
for the sole Of their foot, though miles OF
broad unoccupied country lie round them, and
no such need exist.
There are no picturesque and splendid ter
limitations to day . journey, such as Blois or
Amboise, Loches. Chenonceaux-no ruined
castles upon the hill-tops or on the groups Of
rivers that cluster about the Rhine, no
Schloss-Elz rugged and picturesque. Except
the villages with their devout old hereditary
churches, and the quaint little towns which
are not exciting, there is no grand object to
interrupt the calm of the Thames-but one.
That one, however, is more imposing than
Blois and Amboise put together, though we
are SO much used to it, and it is so easily &C.
cessible, that We scarcely realize Its grandeur.
It is Windsor, the noblest royal residence,
the most splendid feudal castle now existing
anywhere, go far as we are aware-lifting up
its noble old donjon over the picturesque de.
Tendencies that climb its hillsides, and look
ing far over park and forest, over the broad
and rich plain which extends that park to the
fair limits of tho horizon, with the calm dig
nifty Of monarch assured Of no possible rival.
Windsor is 80 far common that it is but
twenty miles from London, and consequently
place which anybody may "do" at an hours
notice. If it happened to be five hundred
miles of, it would be one of the great points
Of travel, attended by ell the miseries and
vanities that dog the steps of tourists. To
drop down from the higher river upon this
great epic in stone is worth days of river
journeying. As it stretches out frightening
upon the view the long spreading line Of
princely turrets. the fretted pinnscles Of st.
Georges, the gigantic antique mass Of the
Curfew Tower, all crowned with the great
donjon, massive yet light against the blue sky;
its feet clothed in luxurious clouds Of foliage,
and old red houses creeping down to their
protector, it is impossible to imagine Q more
splendid object
And we do not know any other place in any
ether country where q castle so noble COM
bines with its own attractions the splendor of
such chapel as St. Georges, great at once in
itself and in its associations. It il we'll worth
any fatigue or trouble-but the effort de-
mands more-to see the afternoon sunshine
pouring through those lovely arches, gliding
the dust of glory upon those old banners
which mark the knightly stall Of each Com
panion of the Garter while the white-robed
choristers sing below like angels, and the
noblest music that man has ever made goes
echoing through wide nave and dusky aisle,
bearing the praises of poetry more NOBLE than
man could make unAided, to the listening
heavens.
But Windsor is the one great climax of the
Thames. Above and below the beauty OF
woods and water is great, but there is nothing
else to rival the royal castle. Every one
knows the enchanting prospect from Rich
mond Hill, the dropping willows Of Twicken-
ham; the quaint red-brick glories OF Hampton
Court. But these are public and common in
mparison with the quiet reaches where the
traveller has the water and the sky, and all
those delicate reflections which unite them,
to himself; where the woods wave soft and
warm, and the water.lilies stop the way:
where there are trout leaping in the fragrant
rush Of the weir, and perch lurking under the
rushes, and everywhere the genial blessed air
Of summer, the glowing sunsets, and deep
hush Of MONDAY.