lived in a place where the cathedral service was duly and beautifully performed. Many a frosty winter evening have I sat in the cold choir of St. George's Chapel, with no congregation but two or three gaping strangers, and an ancient female or so in the stalls, lifted up to heaven by the peals of the sweetest of organs, or entranced by the divine melody of the Nunc Dimittis, or of some solemn anthem of Handel or Boyce, breathed most exquisitely from the lips of Vaughan. If the object of devotion be to make us feel, and to carry away the soul from all low and earthly thoughts, assuredly the grand chants of our cathedral service are not without their use. I admire-none can admire more- -the abstract idea of an assembly of reasoning beings, offering up to the Author of all good their thanksgivings and their petitions in a pure and intelligible form of words; but the question will always intrude, does the heart go along with this lip-service?-and is the mind sufficiently excited by this reasonable worship to forget its accustomed associations with the business, and vanities, and passions of the world? The cathedral service does affect the imagination, and through that channel reaches the heart; and thus I can forgive the solemnities of Catholicism, (of which our cathedral service is a relic,) which act upon the mind precisely in the same way. The truth is, we Church of England people have made religion a cold thing by entirely appealing to the understanding; and then Calvinism comes in to supply the place of high mass, by offering an excitement of an entirely different character.-But where am I wandering?

St. George's Chapel is assuredly the most beautiful gem of the later Gothic architecture. It does not impress the mind by its vastness, or grandeur of proportions, as York— or by its remote antiquity, as parts of Ely; but by its perfect and symmetrical beauty. The exquisite form of the roof-elegant yet perfectly simple, as every rib of each column which supports it spreads out upon the ceiling into the most gorgeous fan-the painted windows-the rich carving of the stalls of the choir-the waving banners—and, in accordance with the whole character of the

place, its complete preservation and scrupulous neatness all these, and many more characteristics which I cannot describe, render it a gem of the architecture of the fifteenth century.

As a boy I thought the Order of the Garter was a glorious thing; and believed,—as what boy has not believed? -that

The goodly golden chain of chivalry,

as Spenser has it, was let down from heaven to earth. I did not then know that even Edward the Black Prince was a ferocious and cruel spoiler of other men's lands, and that all his boasted meekness and magnanimity was a portion of the make-believe of those ages when the people were equally trampled upon by the victor and the vanquished. When, too, in the daily service of St. George's Chapel I heard the words, "God bless our gracious sovereign, and all the knights companions of the most honourable and noble Order of the Garter,"-though I thought it was a little impious to parade the mere titles of miserable humanity before the footstool of the Most High, I still considered that the honourable and noble persons, so especially prayed for, were the choicest portion of humanity-the very "salt of the earth,"-and that heaven would forgive this pride of its creatures. I saw the Installation of 1805; and I hated these words ever after. The old king marched erect; and the Prince of Wales bore himself proudly (he did not look so magnificent as Kemble in Coriolanus); but my Lord of Salisbury, and my Lord of Chesterfield, and my Lord of Winchilsea, and half-a-dozen other lords-what a frightful spectacle of fat, limping, leaden supporters of chivalry did they exhibit to my astonished eyes! The vision of "throngs of knights and barons bold" fled for ever; and I never heard the words again without a shudder.

But I am forgetting my old Sunday at Windsor. Great was the crowd to see the king and his family return from chapel; for by this time London had poured forth its chaises and one, and the astonished inmates of Cheapside and St. Mary Axe were elbowing each other

to see how a monarch smiled. They saw him well, and often have I heard the disappointed exclamation, "Is that the king?" They saw a portly man, in a plain suit of regimentals, and no crown upon his head. What a fear

ful falling-off from the king of the story-books!

The terrace, however, was the great Sunday attraction; and though Bishop Porteus remonstrated with his Majesty for suffering people to crowd together, and bands to play on these occasions, I cannot think that the good-tempered monarch committed any mortal sin in walking amongst his people in their holiday attire. This terrace was a motley scene.

The peasant's toe did gall the courtier's gibe.

The barber from Eton and his seven daughters elbowed the dean, who rented his back parlour when he was in the sixth form,-and who now was crowding to the front rank for a smile of majesty, having heard that the Bishop of Chester was seriously indisposed. The prime minister waited quietly amidst the crush, till the royal party should descend from their dining-room,-smiling at, if not unheeding, the anxious inquiries of the stockbroker from Change Alley, who wondered if Mr. Pitt would carry a gold stick before the king. The only time I saw that minister was under these circumstances. It was the year before he died. He stood firmly and proudly amongst the crowd for some half-hour till the king should arrive. The monarch, of course, immediately recognised him the contrast in the demeanour of the two personages made a remarkable impression upon me--and that of the minister first showed me an example of the perfect self-possession of men of great abilities.

:

After a year or two of this sort of excitement the king became blind;-and painful was the exhibition of the ledhorse of the good old man, as he took his accustomed ride. In a few more years a still heavier calamity fell upon him--and from that time Windsor Castle became, comparatively, a mournful place. The terrace was shut up; the ancient pathway through the park, and under the castle walls, was diverted ;-and a somewhat Asiatic

state and stillness seemed to usurp the reign of the old free and familiar intercourse of the sovereign with the people.

I was proud of Windsor; and my great delight was to show the lions to strangers. There were always two staple commodities of this nature-the Round Tower and the State Apartments of the castle, which were not affected by any of the changes of the times. The Round Tower has an historical interest of a certain kind about it, from having been the prison of the captive Kings of France and Scotland in the reign of Edward III. As we grow older this sort of charm becomes very worthless;-for, after all, there is just as much philosophical interest in the wars of the Fantees and the Ashantees, as in those of the French and the English for the disputed succession to a crown, the owner or pretender to which never dreamt that the possession or the winning imposed the least obligation to provide for the good of the people from whom they claimed allegiance. However, I used to feel this sort of interest in the place ;-and when they showed me the armour of John of France and David of Scotland (as genuine, I dare say, as any of those which Dr. Meyrick has consigned to plebeian shoulders, and much later eras), I felt very proud of my country for having so gloriously carried fire and sword to the dwellings of peaceful and inoffensive lieges. The Round Tower was a miserably furnished, dreary sort of place, and only repaid a visit by the splendid view from its top. But it once had a charm which, like many other charms of our boyhood, has perished for ever. There was a young lady, a dweller within the proud Keep," to whom was intrusted the daily task of expounding to inquiring visitants the few wonders of the place. Amongst the choicest of them was some dingy tapestry, which for aught I know still adorns the walls, on which were delineated various passages of the piteous story of Hero and Leander. The fair guide thus discoursed thereon, with the volubility of an Abbé Barthelémi, though with a somewhat different measure of knowledge:-" Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the whole lamentable history of Hero and Leander. Hero was a nun. She lived in that

old ancient nunnery which you see. There you see the lady abbess chiding Hero for her love for Leander. And now, ladies and gentlemen, look at Leander swimming across St. George's channel, while Hero, from the nunnery window, holds out a large flambeau. There you see the affectionate meeting of the two lovers-and then the cruel parting. Ladies and gentlemen, Leander perished as he was swimming back. His body was picked up by Captain Vanslom, of his Majesty's ship Britannia, and carried into Gibraltar, where it was decently buried. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the true history of Hero and Leander, which you see on that tapestry." Alas! for the march of intellect, such guides are every day getting more and more scarce ;-and we shall have nothing for our pains in the propagation of knowledge, but to yawn over sober sense for the rest of our lives.

The pictures in the State Rooms at Windsor were always worth seeing; but the number exhibited had diminished from year to year. I remember the Cartoons there; and also remember that I did not know what to make of them. The large men in the little boat, in the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, were somewhat startling; -but then again, the Paul preaching at Athens, and the Ananias, filled me full of awe and wonder. I have a remembrance of a Murillo (a Boy and Puppies), which used to hang at the end of Queen Elizabeth's Gallery; and I was amazingly taken with those two ancient pictures, the Battle of Spurs (I think) and the Field of the Cloth of Gold, which afterwards went to the Society of Antiquaries, and are now gone back to their old position. I never could thoroughly admire King Charles's Beauties, -I dare say they were excellent likenesses;-for amongst them all, from Lady Denham to the Duchess of Cleveland, there was a bold meretricious air-anything but the retir ing loveliness which always finds a place in the dreams of youth. The Misers is a favourite picture with everybody, for its truth of delineation and force of character; and yet there is no great skill of the artist in this celebrated work of the Blacksmith of Antwerp. It certainly looks very like what it is represented to be-the work of a self-taught