The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1892-09-10

founded and maintained by the Queen
for the education of the children of
the employees connected with the royal
domains, and Virginia Water, winding
amld charming scenery, and said TO be
the largest artificial body of water in the
world.
| Just west of Great Park, along the
high road to Reading, lies what remains
! or ancient Windsor forest. Its circum-
terence was originally 40 miles. In the
northern portion the forest is still prime
| val, and here are found oaks rivaling in
| glrth the most famous of Robin Hoods
| land in Nottinghamshire. The King Oak,
over 500 years ago the favorite tree of
! William the Conqueror, is still standing
! and is twenty-six feet in girth three feet
| from the ground. There are also four
other famous oaks here respectively
known as the oaks of Queens Anne, Char
lotte, Adelaide and Victoria.
! Besides these, and many other features
! OF immediate and present interest round
! ABOUT this royal residence, there is
genuine fascination, while high up here
! upon this huge round tower, in scanning
! the landscape and recalling objects and
places mellow with the traditions of long
| ago, or spots famous in the world of to-
day. Just over beyond Great Park are
Ascot heath and race course. The course
Is the finest in the kingdom. The grand
stand rivals in splendor and extent the
noted Epson betting stand, and the races
are always honored by the presence of
members OF the royal family, who are in
Varlably driven TO Ascot through the
royal parks from Windsor
Wlnkneld, near Ascot, aboundS with
nearly tWo-score gentlemen's seats in
parks OF the greatest scenic beauty. At
| Chertsey, but nine miles distant, once
famous for its abbey, lived and died the
poet CoWley, while Albert Smith, author
~ nrjSlnnhpr IaHnAlA ~ her
works OF fiction and many books OF
travel, whose genius barely fell snort
OF that OF Dickens, was born in the same
quaint ola village. Datchet, on the
Thames, about mile from Windsor, has
the remains OF very ancient monastery,
while Datchet Mead was rendered famous
by Shakespeare In his Merry Wives of
! Windsor"
But four miles distant is the quaint and
sequestered village of Horton. In this,
at Berkyn Manor House, lived Milton,
with MS father and mother when they
retired from business in 1852, and here
were written his ''Comus," 'Arcades."
"Lycidas," ''L'Allegro" and III Pen
serero." At old Windsor, two miles
down the river, is one of the most I'M
pressiVe old yeW and cypress shaded
churchyards in England. Its Moat Farm
was the hunting seat OF saxon Kings.
Mrs. Robinson, the authoress, and the
its Beaumont Lodge was the former home
OF Warren Hastings.
Bray is but five miles distant up the
| Thames. The Vicar of Bray" one
Symonds, was that spiritually vivaciouS
cleric who changed his religion four
times, IN successive reigns, that he might
| live and die in his living" At Bea-
consheld, to the north near Wilton Park,
was the home of Waller, the poet, and
! Burke, the statesman. here at Slough,
two miles to the north, is the house occu-
pied so long by Sir William Herschel,
and you will see here part of his great
torty-foot telescope, while two miles fur
| Their, beyond meadows green, nesting in
clumps OF yew and oak, is the olden home
of the Penns, near which is the messy old
parish church of Stoke Poges, where was
written the purest and sweetest elegy in
the English tongue.
But coming closer to royal Windsor is
Windsor town itself. Scarcely more than
village, it struggles up to the castle
walls like man of dependent relations
faWningly creeping close to the source o.
| favor and bounty. l may alone fancy it,
but the folk, the houses, the streets, all
sights and seemings, possess a cringing,
serVile air. 1t is drowsy and ancient
enough surely. You can find many old.
half-tim bored houses here-almost every
home, and they are chiefly humble ones,
has its little square grass-plat of the an
clent time IN front of 1t, and the very
names of its few and odd old inns, such
as Adam and Eve, Hand and Glove, and
Merry Wives of Windsor, are redolent of
the swords, rutfs and wigs of Elizabethan
days.
1t seems to me that after one has grown
a little familiar with this most famous Of
all royal residences, Windsor Castle itself,
its inmates and all its present spIendor
| take less and less hold upon the visitor,
and that the wraiths of historic associa-
tions and memories conjured up by what
one cannot but see and feel, grow more
and more imperative of recognition.
What wondrous host they are! King
Arthur beneath his dragon-crested he'll
met fits silently by. Launcelot, Guine-
we're, huge Tristram and pensive Perez
vale are following. Yes, and there is
Merlin grave and his fatal enchantress.
The Conqueror and his knights rise up
before you ghostily. Falstaff and his
ragged crew are just as real and quite as
near. Here are lords and bishops, re-
splendent in armor and mantles, coming
to shrive, to bless or to curse. One king
walls as he passes over the curse of in
gratitude. Another brutally smiles as a
living tomb is built for helpless woman
and her child. So, on and on the iniqui-
tous and the good who have ruled and
cursed, or ruled and blessed, until the
pig-faced head of a canting demon comes.
He praises God and orders slaughter in
the same unctuous breath, and his iron
hand, crashing to atoms the priceless gath
erings OF half a thousand years,
wakes you from your dreaming fancy
to thank the God there are no more Crom-
wells.
To many visitors most interest is found
in the State apartments, the Zuccarelli
room, the Vandyck room, the Rubens
room, the Guard room, the audience and
presence chambers, st. Georges Hall,
the crimson, green and white drawing
rooms over the east terrace, and the Wa
terloo chamber. The stern simplicity of
the Guard-room, the great hall emblaz-
oned with the armorial bearings of the
Garter knights and lined with portraits
OF British sovereigns from the time of
Charles IL. TO the present, and the his
toric Waterloo chamber where the heroes
of the battle assembled annually on its
anniversary, are, by far, the most strik-
ing and impressive.
More keenly attractive to me have al
ways been the two chapels of Albert and
st. George; and, as the former was the
place of chance meeting with a memora-
bic parsonage. it cannot but possess for
myself the strongest hold upon feelings
and remembrance. Both chapels are
doubtless, for their size, the most famous
treaSure-houseS of royal manSoleum and
memorial in the whole world. Their en-
richment by every known form of men,
oriai art is sumptuous and magnificent
beyond description.
In front of the chancel of the Albert
Chapel is the cenotaph to the late Prince
Consort. 1t is an altar tomb by the late
Baron Henry de Triqueti. Its base is of
black and gold Tuscan marble. AT each
angle OF the tomb is the figure of an
angel, those at the front bearing shields.
one with the arms of the Queen and the
other with those of the Prince Consort.
Around the tomb, in inches. are stain