church of Datchet is a monument to the memory of Katharine, wife of Sir Maurice Berkeley, daughter of Lord Mountjoy; and another commemora

tive of Christopher Barker, printer to Queen Elizabeth. The village of Datchet has nothing to detain us a moment from crossing the bridge, [where patient anglers are busy plying their contemplative trade,] and entering by a turnstile the Little or Home Park.

Though this park is not the usual, yet it is by no means the least delightful approach to Windsor Castle. We would earnestly recommend such as may do our book the honour to make it their companion, that after visiting Eton they should take this route, rather than that through the busy town; the train of associations, and that generous glow of admiration with which we should approach a place so haunted by the romance of history, poesy, and life, as Windsor Castle, are apt to be rudely broken in upon by passing through the streets of an ordinary country town.

THE LITTLE, OR HOME PARK,

lies in level expanse below the northern and eastern sides of the Castle. It is about four miles in circumference, comprising nearly five hundred acres, encompassed by a wall of red brick, and planted with formal avenues of noble elms. The ground to the north was laid out as a garden in the time

of Queen Anne, but has since been levelled, and formed into a spacious lawn.

In the reign of Charles the Second, a portion of the park, to the east, was converted into a bowling green, which does not now exist. A little to the right of the footpath leading from Datchet is a delightful retreat, embowered in evergreens, and laid out with surpassing taste, wherein is a romantic cottage, named after her Majesty Queen Adelaide. It is the very picture of peace, quiet and elegant repose,-a place where royalty may forget the tedious forms and dull magnificence of state, and enjoy for a time the happiness of seclusion and retirement.

In a cottage in Windsor Great Park, George the Fourth, notwithstanding his habitual love of splendour and magnificence, delighted to spend the evening of his days. It is worthy of remark that the most magnificent palaces are often deserted by their possessors, for some lowly cot in a corner of their far-spreading demesne: even kings, it would appear, must live in cottages, when they would live content.

The grand attraction of the Home Park to classical tourists is Herne's Oak, a pale, shattered, leafless

ruin, the embrace of whose sapless arms even the clinging ivy has deserted. A brass plate, with an inscription, has, by the good taste of Mr. Jesse, been provided as a distinctive mark of this classic and venerable tree. The same gentleman, whose solicitude for the preservation of whatever objects in nature, architecture, and art, connected with our royal residences, is well known and gratefully appreciated, has undertaken the de

fence of his favourite tree against

certain imputations thrown out

against its identity with the tree of the Hunter.

HERNE OAK.

"It would be out of the province of a work of this nature," says Mr.

Jesse, in his Summer's Day at Windsor, "to enter into all the arguments which have been brought forward against the existence of the tree in question. For the satisfaction, however, of those who may feel inclined to visit this interesting relic, it may be stated that many old inhabitants of Windsor look upon it as the real Herne's Oak, and bear this testimony to their fathers and grandfathers having done so before them-one of the best proofs, perhaps, of its identity. Not a leaf, not a particle of vitality appears upon it. The hunter must have blasted it.' Not any of the delightful associations connected with it have vanished; nor is it difficult to fancy it as the scene of Falstaff's distress, and the pranks of the "Merry Wives."

"There is an old tale goes, that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,

Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
And there he blasts the tree "

There is a pit hard by, where "Nan and her troop of fairies, and the Welsh devil Evans," might have couched, without being perceived by the "fat Windsor stag," when he spake like "Herne the hunter."

The hypotheses and conjectures of some who insist that the Herne's Oak identical with that made classic in the "Merrie Wives of Windsor" was cut down by order of George the Third, as we have no faith in them, we shall not be at the trouble to recapitulate. If George the Third did give orders for cutting down the tree, we are happy to believe implicitly, with Mr. Jesse, "that the tree was supposed to be Herne's Oak, but it was not:" while those who argue that the genuine "Simon Pure" has gone the way of all timber, are desirous only of showing their accuracy at the expense of our pleasurable associations. Mr. Jesse takes the popular side, and proves triumphantly at least we are willing to believe he has done so that the Herne's Oak of Shakspeare, notwithstanding the fiat of its royal master, is preserved to us still.

From the pathway, near to Herne's Oak, the visitor has a delightful view of that portion of the Castle comprising the private apartments of the Sovereign, and the visitors' apartments; the former looking towards the east, the latter to the south. This view of the Castle is less majestic than those from some other points; its elevation is less apparent, and its outline more uniform, but nothing can more effectually satisfy the mind with the

idea realised of a royal residence worthy the Sovereign of a great and powerful nation. This view has been noticed by a popular writer, who says that it is such a prospect as "every one who has the slightest taste for the picturesque should neither die nor go abroad without seeing."

Near the London road, on the opposite side, but hidden from our view by a high wall, is

FROGMORE, now the residence of H. R. H. the Duchess of Kent, which was from a very early period part of the royal demesne, and, as such, was disposed of by authority of the Parliament, together with other of the crown lands. The mansion was formerly in the occupation of George Fitzroy, Duke of Northumberland, one of the natural sons of King Charles the Second, whose widow, the Duchess Dowager, died there at a very advanced age. After his release from imprisonment in the Round Tower, Marshal Bellisle resided here, and was succeeded by Sir Edward Walpole. In the time of Queen Charlotte, the house and grounds were much improved, and Frogmore became a favourite retreat of Her Majesty.

The grounds contain about thirteen acres, laid out with the most refined taste.

WINDSOR CASTLE.

"ABOUT, ABOUT!

SEARCH WINDSOR CASTLE, ELVES, WITHIN, WITHOUT!"-Shakspeare.

WHEN We have dissipated a delightful day in hurrying through the halls of venerable Eton, pacing the terraces and wandering over the state apartments of Windsor Castle, feasting our eyes with the magnificent expanse of view from the summit of the Round Tower; when we have been whirled rapidly over the leading drives of the Great Park, and having fared sumptuously at one of the Inns, devote the evening to the artificial prettinesses of Virginia Water, we retire to rest, after a day of pleasurable fatigue, exulting in the activity that has enabled us to go over so much ground, and to behold so many objects of interest, in so little time.

In this excursive and time-economising spirit do thousands upon thousands of our countrymen visit a spot, historically, classically, by gifts of nature and treasures of art, the most interesting in England, and full to overflowing with materials for thinking; yet, fully to enjoy all that Windsor has to offer to the mind as well as to the eye, we must pay our visit leisurely, collecting, ere we set out upon our journey, as many as possible of the time-honoured associations of the unforgotten past.

We are thus prepared, not only to enjoy all that this delightful retreat affords of gratification to the sight, but to superadd that more exquisite pleasure derivable from reflections, of which our sight is merely suggestive.

The pleasures of sight-seeing are but pleasures of sense; the massive beauty of battlemented towers soon satisfies our eyes; there is a cold, courtly formality in the gilded halls of palaces; tiresome is the monotony of successive ball-rooms, presence chambers, ante-chambers, guard chambers, grand staircases, and the long array of empty rooms of state: if these only made the attractions of a place like Windsor, these attractions, to the intellectual, would be soon exhausted: wearied with the reiteration of

T T