Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/357

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332 WINDSOR CASTLE.

own great statesman, Webster, as the footstep of death drew nigh.

Beautiful, indeed, is Windsor Forest, and the noble park, which is said to be fourteen miles in circumfer ence. To St. George s Chapel, an elegant specimen of Gothic architecture, the steps of the traveller are invol untarily turned ; for there, amid the " majesty of buried England," is the celebrated monument to the Princess Charlotte, that young mother over whom a whole na tion wept.

The palace of Windsor stands upon an elevated site, and is the proudest residence of English royalty. The House of Brunswick have been especially partial to it, and George the Fourth lavished immense sums on its embellishment. Its terrace, nearly two thousand feet in length, with its formidable rampart of freestone, fur nishes a promenade unsurpassed in extent and beauty of prospect. From the Round Tower, so famed in history, one might almost fancy the burly form, and fierce brow of William the Conqueror looking forth. The interior of the Castle is in harmony with its sur roundings. The corridors, the galleries, the paintings, the state apartments, are wonderfully magnificent. Among the rich cabinets, is a curious old ebony one, formerly belonging to Cardinal Wolsey, perhaps the repository of some of the secrets of that ambition by which he fell.

Having express permission from Lord Uxbridge to see every part of the Castle, we proposed taking a glance at the rooms appropriated to her Royal High-

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